Alright, I'm going to ask everyone to pull out their bulletins again, just really quickly while we're taking up the offering. And you may notice, if you hadn't already, on the front of your bulletin is the graphic that we've been using for our summer message series. That's not what that verse means. It's even up on the screens right there. This is supposed to be week 10 of this message series. And if you open it up and you see the insert in there, it's even got a scripture reference for today as part of this series, James, chapter two, verse 17. And quite honestly, that's the message that I was planning on preaching you today, which is why it's listed in the bulletin, and why the bulletin cover looks the way it does. I wrote a sermon on Thursday, like I often do. Finished, I left the office getting ready to go into the weekend, and the Lord just would not leave me alone about the fact that that was not the message that he wanted me to preach to you this Sunday. So Lord, I don't want to preach another message because that means I gotta write another message this week. And I've already written a message this week, and he said, Sorry, that's what we're gonna do. And just like he always does, anytime that happens and you start to whine and complain about those things, it ends up being a good thing overall. But I do want to just say up front that I had highlighted this message and was going to do it there or that verse as part of this series, because it is a section of Scripture that a lot of people get confused about. It's the one where James says, Faith without works is dead. Now some of you may remember last summer, we went through the book of James, verse by verse, And we covered what it really says in context there. But I was going to kind of redo it in a little bit of a different way to just make sure again, that we really see that that's not what that verse means. That we often say that it really does. But as I just mentioned, the Lord had different plans for us, and so if you were not here last summer, you're really intrigued by what we talked about. You can find that passage or that sermon online through our YouTube channel or on our website and and see what we talked about in context there. The reason that the Lord kind of impressed upon me to do something different today was because of several different conversations that I've been involved in and things I've been reflecting on in my own life over the last few weeks. For example, I had someone come to me not real long ago and make me aware that at the beginning of the summer, several months ago, that them and their spouse were planning on getting a divorce. They didn't tell anyone. Summer had gone by. Thank goodness. They didn't follow through with that, but they didn't tell anyone. In the beginning, they didn't tell anyone because they feared that people would judge them. They thought it might affect their involvement in ministry. They honestly even quit coming to church because they said they didn't want to have to put on a fake smile and pretend everything was okay when things really weren't okay. And again, thank God he intervened and did something. And they ended up going to see a counselor eventually, and now they're bringing some things out into the open and talking about them. But I say all that because their initial reaction with it all, especially with regard to the church, was to hide. Was to hide. We can't let anyone know about that. That's just one conversation I had. I had another conversation not real long ago, about someone who was really struggling with their anger and dealing with that, and how one way it was something at home, and people got to see a different side of them out in public, and the one at home wasn't quite so pleasant all the time, and was destroying a lot of things within the home, and that's a really hard thing to think about, because, again, that's not something you really want to talk about and make people aware of. I had another conversation with someone who were struggling with thoughts of harming themselves, another one with struggling with the addiction of pornography, and then it just kept going and kept going and kept going. And so my point kind of this morning, and bringing all of that up is just that, as we really, honestly don't often know what is going on in other people's lives, we think that they're fine. They seem fine to us, especially when we see them at church, and they look good and maybe they have a smile on their face, but quite honestly, they aren't fine. And my guess is that many of you who are here today aren't fine either. Maybe you're struggling with some of the things, same things that I just mentioned and highlighted, that other people were making me aware of, were struggles. Maybe it's something different for you. Maybe it's the struggle with finances and how did. Occult things are kind of in our culture right now. Maybe you're struggling with debt and budgeting, or you need a job, or you need a better paying job, or you just need the Lord to come through in some way, and you haven't seen that yet. Some of you, I'm sure, are worried about our country and what's coming with the election, and depending on who gets elected, and what they're going to do or not do, and how's that going to impact you personally, and this whole kind of culture that we live in, I'm sure that many of you who are parents are struggling right now in one way or form with parenting, right? I mean, it's just one of those things that comes up. And many of you who are parents, or maybe even grandparents, are struggling in a way where you don't want other people to know about that you think. You want everybody to think you got it together as a mom or a dad, and that your relationship with you and your kids are just fine, but it's really anything but fine. It's not fine, as a matter of fact, it's really bad. But you haven't told anyone about how could you tell someone about that? What would they think about you? That's where some of you are. Some of you have already started school, and over the last three days, you're already feeling the stress. You're already feeling the anxiety, the worry about whether you're going to be able to match up and perform, or somebody said something to you, and you're worried about your image, or what other people are saying about you on social media, or it's stress at work, or any number of other things, whatever it is. No one really knows what's going on. You know what's going on. You feel it, but no one else knows your pain, no one else knows your struggle, no one else knows your depression, no one else knows the dark thoughts that you are having. And quite honestly, maybe you don't know what to do. You feel like you're probably alone. And you look around and it seems like most people are okay. Why are other people not struggling? Am I the only one who's really struggling? They seem to have it all together in their worlds. Well, of course, the reality is is that they don't. We don't have it all together. We just get really good at hiding and covering it up most of the time. But what I want to say this morning is, guys, it does not have to be that way. It just doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to hide, we don't have to live in fear, we don't have to wear a mask, because the gospel frees us from those things. Jesus came to set us free from mask wearing. He came to set us free from hiding and comparing ourselves to others. He came to set us free from surface level relationships. He came to help us to find freedom in the fact that we can be truly known by others and experience no shame. Reality is is all of that, of course, starts with our relationship with Him. I mean, we all are in bondage to sin, and that sin, of course, separates us from God, and we stand guilty before him, and when we stand guilty before God, that leads to shame. And when we experience that shame and we feel it, that's when we hide, that's when we feel like we have to wear the masks and we have to live in fear, but the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, declares something different to you, and I'm going to show it to you this morning when I can pull it up on the screen. This is usually all set up, and something obviously happened. And that's not the one that I wanted to do, because that was last weeks technology.And of course, it would be at the very end of the slidestoo. Y'all just talk to your neighbor for a moment and don't look at anything on here. Okay, none of this applies to you yet. Don't pay attention. Look down, close your eyes. Just spend some time praying.Okay, that's where we are.Second Corinthians, chapter five, verse 21honestly, when you see where this is going and what we're talking about you already do with this. This is probably very appropriate, right? I mean, the thing that we want to perform, we want to be excellent. We want to make sure it's all perfect and everything's going well, and then you have to take, like, three minutes to rush through the slides. And you know, this isn't exactly the way things were going to go, but we can be authentic and we can be real because of the gospel, right? So second, Corinthians, chapter five, verse 21 the Apostle Paul says, God made Him who had no sin. Who are we talking about? Jesus to be sin for us? Why? So that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus came to be sin for us so that he could set us free from the bondage of sin in our lives, in this through His substitutionary death on the cross, His burial, his resurrection, His ascension and sending of the Holy Spirit, Jesus fought sin, death, guilt and shame, and he won. And as we place our faith in Him to be our Lord and Savior, the chains and the grave clothes fall off, and he pulls us out of hiding. He takes us all, takes off our masks, and he looks us in the eye and says, You are my child. And in that moment, we're brought close, we're brought near to him. Were fully known by him, and can experience no shame, and we have the honor and the privilege of being in an intimate, close relationship with the God of the universe. But the fact of the matter that that's only part of the gospel there through his finished work on the cross. He doesn't stop with reconciling us to himself. It goes further. Because not only does he bring us into that intimate relationship with him, but he adopts us into His family and gives us brothers and sisters in Christ, the apostle Paul, writing to the church at Ephesus, says, you're no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household. We're members of his household, we're family. We're brothers and sisters in Christ, and that means that these are not surface level relationships. We are deeply connected to each other. I think this captures it even better the way the apostle Paul writes about it here, giving us that image of a body. But he says this. He says, The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of you are Jew or some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same spirit. We all share the same spirit. That means we are deeply, deeply connected. You've seen me draw this diagram before, but I just want you to see it in this particular way, just really quickly. We've talked before about how scripture talks about an eternal realm and a temporal realm, right? And God exists as a Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And of course, in the temporal realm, He created us as a tripart being with a body and with a soul, which means we have a mind and emotions we experience and will we make choices, right? But we're also a spirit at the very core of our being. And of course, you aren't the only one that God created. There's other people that were there, and they also have a body, and they also have a soul, and they also have a spirit as well. And what we read about earlier is there is this separation between God and us because of the sin problem that we have and the sin nature that we are born with. But what we talked about was that God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, and He died on the cross for all of our sins, rose from the dead, defeating the power of sin and death forever in the moment, we say yes to Jesus, as Emily talked about earlier, we cry out, we need You, Lord, because we see that sin problem and recognize it, and we put our faith and trust in Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life. Then at that moment, we're completely forgiven. And through the Spirit, God comes to dwell in us, the capital S, spirit we are now in union with. And if that happens with someone else, then it happens in their life, and the spirit comes to dwell in them, and so then you see this close, intimate relationship that you and I get to experience as a son or a daughter of God. But what we're saying here is that the Lord doesn't stop there, because it continues to go here. The Apostle Paul says that we share the same spirit at the very core of our being, the Spirit dwells uniting us to God, the Father, and to each other. And so you see that we're in this extremely deep relationship with each other at the very core of our being, this is no surface level thing. We're not talking about your golfing buddy. We're not talking about whoever you play bridge with or whoever you like to shop with. Those friends are fun and it's great to connect around hobbies, right? But that's surface level. We're talking about a depth that goes way beyond anything that you would get out of a golfing buddy or someone that you could play bridge with. We're talking about spirit level stuff at the very core of our being. Now, guess how long this connection lasts for all of eternity? There's nothing, no situation, no circumstance, no sin can interrupt and do anything about this closeness and this relationship that we. Have with the father, nor that we have here, because we're connected on a spirit, capital S, spirit level. And so my question for you is this, if our connection runs that deep, together as family, if our connection will last for all of eternity, regardless of whatever happens in our lives, then, why do we have to hide from each other? Why is it that we have to wear masks? Why would we have to not show up or show up and pretend that everything is okay whenever we come to church, if the gospel runs that deep, and the connection runs that deep, and nothing can separate us then that frees us from the shame in anything that goes on in this outer level, in the relationships that we have. I may experience choices that you made, that affect me or others, and emotions that feel some way, and I may think things sometimes, and whatever it is that happens, I may fight you or whatever, but right here, there is nothing that can break the connection that you and I have together. So why would we have to hide? We don't have to hide. We don't have to walk in shame. We don't have to pretend that everything is O K. The Gospel frees us from those things, we can be real. We can be authentic with each other. We can bring our struggles out into the light. I've said this a number of other times before, but guys, the church because of who we are and what God has done to unite us together as his church, the people of God, means that the church ought to be the safest place that we could show up and say, I'm not okay because of what he's done through his finished work on the cross. Means that we don't have to stay away because we don't feel like faking a smile this week at church, we can go because we're deeply connected to our brothers and sisters in Christ as part of the church. WhatI want you to see, and what I'm really trying to drive at today, is this discipleship happens best in the context of spirit level relationships, deep, connected relationships with others through people in the church, guys. God uses people in our lives to show us more about our identity in him. He uses people in our lives to show us more about who God is and the family connections we have each other, and how Jesus gets expressed through us in practical ways. It's through relationships that God takes the thing that we're going through and provides support for us, often encouragement, comfort and empathy. He does that through people in our lives. It's through relationship that God uses people further down the road in their relationship with God to show us how that relationship with God works. This is what your new identity is, and here's how that plays out in practical ways. It's through relationship that God uses people to teach us also about the struggles that we have. Maybe they understand more about it. Maybe they've been through it themselves, and the Lord speaks through them to give us practical advice that applies to the struggles that we're going through. We don't do that when we're in hiding. It doesn't happen when we don't have relationships with people and live within the relationship that he's already established between us. This played out in the life of Jesus, right? I mean, when, when we look at the Gospels, which tell us all about the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, what do we see? What we see is relational discipleship. The Lord gathered together 12 men and others who became his followers, and what do we see him doing with them, eating with them, traveling with them. You ever been on a trip with someone? Do you understand the conversation and what happens in a relationship whenever you're traveling with other people? I mean, it grows, and there's a lot of things that happen when you're traveling together. He spent time teaching them and modeling things for them and walking through the storms of life together with them. Jesus's model for discipleship was relational discipleship. Sure, he taught sermons in front of large crowds. We can read about that in the gospels, but guys the content of what it was taught in those larger groups were often fleshed out in smaller conversations as they were walking down the road together or sharing a meal together, and in a number of different ways, I think of times where, like we see in Luke chapter eight, where Jesus is teaching a large crowd the parable of. Of the sower. And he finishes teaching a large crowd about those things, and then we get to read about right after that, how the disciples came to him are like, um, Jesus, what are you talking about, right? I know you just delivered that whole content, but we didn't really get it. And so what did he do? Well, through smaller relationships, he now dove into it a little bit more deeply. You've had the same thing happen in your life. You've experienced the content. You've got questions about things. You don't really get it, but then the Lord provides someone, and you go, Well, what do we really mean by that? Or what did you mean by that? And then you get clarification, and that's how it plays out in those things. And this is what Jesus was doing with the disciples. Jesus discipled through relationship, but that did not change even after his death and resurrection, because he met with his disciples after that relational discipleship time, and we know in Matthew chapter 28 that he said this to the disciples, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them obey everything that I have commanded you. So after telling them this and that this was going to be the mission that they were on, Jesus ascends back to heaven. He sends the Holy Spirit. We see that in Acts chapter two, all of a sudden, Peter is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and empowered by him, he stands up and preaches the gospel to 3000 people. And 3000 people say yes to Jesus, I need you. You're the Way, the Truth and the Life. And no one comes to the Father except through you. And all of a sudden, they were drawn near to God, and they were experiencing that intimate relationship with him. But guess what? They were also intimately connected now, on a deep spiritual level with each other. They were family, right? And the disciples were to make disciples of 3000 people. Guess what? They didn't do, put them all in a big, huge, giant auditorium and preach sermons to them, nothing but large group content. That's all we did, was shove content down their throat to disciple them. Why? Because that's not what Jesus did, and Jesus was now dwelling in them through the Spirit. How did he do discipleship? Relational discipleship. So guess what the expression of that was through their life to others, relational discipleship. Right after that is where we read this, that they being the disciples and all of those who you know, had just or they being those who had just come to know Christ, devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer, everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people and the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. When we read about this, what do you see relational discipleship, right? I mean, when we talk about them, we read some of these things, they were all together, and they had this big thing in common. Sometimes the image that might become what you picture is that all 3000 of them were together, right and they were doing those things. But then we read about this right here, it says that they broke bread in their homes. You think anybody had a home big enough for 3000 people? Probably not. That meant they were much smaller groups who were eating together and they were talking to each other and teaching and praising God and these smaller groups that they were doing, they were learning together and praying together and worshiping together and sharing their resources together. They were family. They were deeply connected to each other. And when you're deeply connected to each other, you do life to gather. And this isn't just what we see in the beginning of Acts. Luke is writing about things that happen right after Jesus's ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit, and the initial things that we see here. And it continues to play out. But then guess what else we see throughout the rest of our New Testament? Bibles, we have all of these letters. What are these letters? Well, they're written to specific churches. The churches got scattered. There were people who had said yes to Jesus. Now there's a church here in this area, and a church here in this area, in this area, and the apostles and the others were, we're still going to disciple them. So they wrote content, and they wrote letters to them to say, here's who you are in Christ. Here's how it plays out as a church family, and what it is that you're doing. And if you go look at much of what they've written, what you will see is that we discover all of these one anothers that the apostles were writing to them. They were giving them the content to say, here's what relational discipleship looks like now in your local setting, with smaller groups of people in. There. And so all throughout the scriptures, we see things like, here's what relational discipleship really looks like. They're saying this to the different churches that they were writing to relational discipleship. You want to picture it when you know what it looks like. What is it? What do I do? Well, it looks like people who are loving one another. It looks like people submitting to one another instead of trying to one up each other and always be in charge. It's gotta be my way or the highway. We see it looks like people caring for one another. It looks like people instructing one another through relationships. What else does it look like? Well, accepting one another, serving one another is what relational discipleship looks like. It looks like those who are offering hospitality to one another, those who are fellowshipping with one another, those who are actually confessing sins to one another. Notice that doesn't say to God, it says to one another. Put it out in the light. Tell other people about it, who Jesus is saying now I can use to comfort you, to instruct you around those areas, to walk through those things with you. It looks like people carrying one another's burdens when they're walking through tough times. Looks like those who are encouraging one another and those who are praying for one another. And we could go on, there's there's other one anothers, but they're all throughout there because the disciples were trying to teach them that this is what it looks like to do relational discipleship in a local church. But here's the thing about the one anothers in the way again, that that means it applies to us as well. Todayit's hard to do in a big group setting.I love what we do here on Sundays. This is my favorite day of the week. I love being here together with you and singing with you and diving into God's Word together. It's incredible to great experience every week. And listen, we do experience some kind of relational discipleship in this room when we gather together for corporate worship in this way, but not like we can in smaller groups of relationships with others. My point is this, I really, truly believe that God is calling us, and he has had these things on my mind and through these other conversations and things that have come up in other people's lives that I was made aware of, to not do the message that I had planned today, but to do this one today, because God is calling us as a church to a greater degree of relational discipleship. He wants to move us beyond surface level relationships and experience the deep level, spirit rooted relationships that we actually have with other people, where we can be real and not fake in front of them, and he can use others to point us to the hope that we have in him. So I want to encourage you to be praying for you specifically. What does that look like? What's the next step God's leading for you in regards to a greater degree of relational discipleship, if that's what he's calling us to as a church, if you're not in a Sunday school class, let's start there. That would be a great next step that I think the Lord would naturally maybe lead many of us into because it's built into the rhythm of Sunday mornings and it's right before this one you usually don't have too many other things going on except hitting the snooze button. Alright, to sleep in a little more to get here at 11 o'clock. I think that's a great start. But let's also be honest, for those of you who are in Sunday school classes, a lot of times, those develop into bigger groups, who become mid sized group, and then really large groups, and once again, it becomes really difficult to talk about the level of relational discipleship that we're walking to even or we're walking towards in those kinds of settings. And so one of the things that we're going to do is we're going to start to build more relational discipleship opportunities into the rhythm of even our Wednesday night things that we're doing. That's one of the reasons we're offering a meal. It's one of the reasons we've been talking about it. It's not just to give you an opportunity to have a cheap meal. It's hard to get from work to here and feed the kids. Certainly, we want to be a blessing in that way. It goes way beyond just feeding you a cheap, easy meal. I mean, we're providing an opportunity. If the early church was eating around tables together and that was part of relational discipleship for them, then that's what it should start to look like with us as well. In some level, you have conversations with people as you eat. You've had a lot of great conversations that you can point to over a meal. And so maybe that's the next step. Okay, I'm going to start coming on Wednesday nights. I'm going to show up and try to be here as much as I can for the meal. I'm going to sit at my table and not just eat, but spirit. What do you have for me in the way of conversation around this table with this group of people to learn to get to know and how you're speaking to me through this. Them in the way that you're using me to speak to them, even in this moment. The next thing that we're going to do, at least for the first eight weeks, it won't look like this all the time, is we're just going to offer one Wednesday night class. We often do two or three, and give you choices to kind of go to different things. Well, we're going to do one group, and this is going to all be focused on a deeper dive into relational discipleship. What we're talking about today, we're going to talk more about our identity and what it looks like to take off masks, and how we can be authentic, how we can create rooms of grace, relationships that are described as rooms of grace, where real, authentic, relational discipleship can take place after we talk about the content in that group, we're going to break into smaller tables and sections and have conversations around it to give him again the opportunity to do what we're talking about today through the context of smaller groups and smaller relationships, and then we'll just see where It goes after that, I don't really know, right? We're working on putting together a more structured way for some of us to be able to provide some smaller groups and some relational discipleship opportunities for you to be a part of. But in the meantime, you honestly, really don't have to even wait for us to get that completely fleshed out. Here's an example why we have a group already within our church who have been meeting together for several years now, and I would describe it as exactly what we're talking about today, an authentic relational discipleship group through doing life together. And you know how it got started? It wasn't because we as a church had it all together, and we're providing this great way for them to be able to be able to start a group. We didn't have it, and because they didn't know what to do, and we weren't providing anything for him, you know what? One person finally just said, I'm showing up at your house on Tuesday and I'm bringing dinner and we're going to start to meet. That was it? They didn't ask them. They had been talking about it. They just said, Well, we're going to start, and I'm going to take it off a little easier for you. I'm going to make dinner, I'm going to bring it, and we're going to start meeting. And they started meeting, and they've been meeting every single week ever since. And through that meeting together and developing life, they've built relational trust. They've deeply connected with each other. They shared deeply with each other. They've wept with each other, laughed with each other, learned from each other, confessed sin to each other, pray, all of these things that we just read through are happening in their group.Maybe that's what he's calling you to.You've already been thinking about that. There's already people that are coming to mind that you could just go to and go I don't know what it's going to look like, but the Lord seems to be calling us as a church to a greater degree of relational discipleship. So what if we just started meeting together see what happens? What are our options? One of the reasons that I think the Lord has impressed this upon me is certainly not just because of the conversations that I had had with other people, but quite honestly, because I as your pastor and not really involved in relational discipleship, I love studying God's word, and I have relationships with so many of you on certain levels, and it's fantastic, but Not to the depth of what we're talking about here. I wonder if the Lord interrupted the series because he just wanted to talk to me, and you had to listen to it all. Probably not. There's probably a number of you that he's talking to just like he is me. My point is is, if we're going to be authentic, then we're going to be real. We're going to talk about where we're really at and what we're going through. Well, that's a struggle for me. It's really hard for me as your pastor, to show up and to be really I mean, I can't, on a certain level, be authentic and real about things that are going on. But that's pretty scary as a pastor, and one that you look to and you think certain things about and other things, and I'm bringing it up because, like, I'm really struggling or going through anything, but I'm human, and I certainly have flaws and struggles, just like you do as well. All that to say, I'm praying about what's my next step? What's the Lord leading me and my family into to a greater degree of relational discipleship, just like you, whatever that is, I'm going to hopefully trust him in it and ask him to empower me to follow through in that. And I certainly hope that you'll be doing the same.