All right. Good morning. How we doing? Feels like it's been a while since we've talked. It's good to be back. I had a wonderful trip in Zambia, so thanks for your prayers. I'm sure over time many stories from that trip will leak out into sermons and it was just a great bucket filling time. I brought you a couple pictures. I got a ton. But this is a group of pastors we trained in Zambia. We went through like three days of intense teaching and the pastoral epistles and then we went to Kibanta. This was the church that we were dedicating. That's Pastor Kalunga. Amazing, man. There. We're yet to get a floor and a roof on there and they're really excited to get a roof because they have this grassroots and they complain that sometimes snakes fall from the roof and it kind of ends the church service. So I don't think we have to deal with that today. But that's what they were really pumped about and to get out of the sun. So thanks for your prayers for that trip. It was a bucket filling time for me and I was really blessed to be able to go do that. And I'm sure over sermons to come, you'll get more stories from that. Next week we're going to jump in and start our new book study in two corinthians. And I'm really, really excited about that. I've been spending a lot of time this summer in that book and can't wait to share some of the amazing things in there with us as a church family. So that starts next week. Then the following week, like Danny said, we're not here. We're at Mays island worship and picnic outside. Don't think of the picture that you saw that was at the amphitheater. Like, we're just on the yard. So bring a blanket, bring a chair. When he says we're going to share a lunch, you're going to eat whatever you bring. Okay, so this is like really low key. You bring your own food and then maybe some to share if I'm walking around shaking hands. So you bring. And we're just going to circle up and we're going to sing to God in the middle of our city and exalt him. And we're just going to spend some time eating and enjoying some fellowship. And then we'll get back into our second corinthians. But today we're going to talk a little bit about us as a church. It's a little family talk. I'm not even going to call this a sermon. It's not a sermon. We're just. We're going to talk. I say we. I'm going to talk. Hopefully you're going to listen. But once a year, maybe twice a year, we just need to, like, okay, let's talk as a church family. Where are we at? Where are we going? What are the things we need to discuss? And that's where we're gonna go today. Cause I think that we all want a healthy church. I didn't say big church. I didn't say cool church. I think we want a healthy church, a church that God would be pleased with, that he would be honored by, and our experience of that church. I think if we were honest, we would say we don't want to just come and kind of go through the motions of church and feel better about ourselves, that we would actually like to see the power of God amongst us, that we would like to see God truly break the chains of addiction, to heal marriages, to give faith, to see people changed, to see ungodly people become godly people. Like, we would want to see things in our church that would just give us the awe of God, that he is alive and he is active. Amen. Okay, can we just, like, we want that type of church, right? Like, there's a sense where it's like, we don't want to just. I don't want to go through the motions, right. We want to see things happening that just like, oh, that's got to be God. Like, God is at work. Look what God has done. We want to experience that. In fact, on the sermon schedule today was titled Vision Sunday. And a lot of times when people hear vision, they're like, oh, they're going to ask for money. Well, we already did that, and some of you gave, so thank you. Some of you didn't. But usually you kind of connect a vision with, okay, we need this, so give to this. And we are, like Danny pointed out, you can tell there's some remodeling happened in our building. We're expanding to the basement. But I just want to be clear. Buildings are not visions, or buildings would make terrible visions. Buildings or facilities facilitate ministry, and we're thankful that ministry is pushing us to expand some facilities to continue to facilitate ministry. But buildings are not visions. Or on the other hand, you might think vision casting is going to be all about me talking about all we're going to accomplish in the next year and all these great things that we're going to do. And if you're thinking that you might be disappointed. There is a dangerous side to vision casting in an organization or especially a church, because vision can sometimes become a distraction from mission. Now, it shouldn't. Vision should be in line with mission. And it just be like, if we live out our mission, this should be what we see happen amongst us. But oftentimes, vision is kind of connected to mission, but it's a little bit different. It's a facility or it's a new endeavor, and all of a sudden, you become consumed with this new initiative, and you kind of neglect the basics, like the essentials that we're called to do. And just as a church, we really want to stay faithful and not lose sight of what we're called to do as a church, we want to preach the Bible. We want to make disciples. We want to lead people to worship God with their whole lives, and we want to continue to do that as best we possibly can. So sometimes we evaluate, how are we doing that? How are the disciples that we're making? What do they look like? Where do we need to grow? What are our weaknesses as church? How do we not get sidetracked from that? How do we not become all about a building? How do we stay focused on what God has called us to do? And that could be the challenge. And listen, I love this church. Hopefully, I've told you, like, I didn't work here, I'd go here. This is a wonderful place to be, and I look forward to Sundays with you. We were on vacation. We came back from Zambia, went on vacation, and my kids want. Some of my kids left vacation early so they could come back to church. I didn't. I stayed an extra day, but I was like, we love being here. Like, this is exciting. We love this church. And these last ten years have been exciting. They've been really exciting this past January. It's hard to believe that my family, we've been here for a decade. This is the longest that we've ever lived anywhere. Because usually I'm like, okay, what's the next adventure? Let's go. And, Marcus, you probably shoot me if we have another adventure, but I think that the next adventure is right here. And I think you'll connect those dots as we continue talking. But over the last decade, God has done some unimaginable things, like things I didn't like. I never would have guessed that. And you see how he's worked. Like, starting in the chrome horse and then moving to the double tree and outgrowing that room and outgrowing another room and outgrowing another room and then getting this building and coming in this building and remodeling different things. And how do we squeeze more people in? And the number of baptisms that we've seen over and over again approaching, like, 700 baptism as a church in this day, like, yes, amazing things that have happened. But if I could maybe temper excitement. Fast growth, as exciting as it is, isn't always a sign of health. Do you guys remember in Matthew 13 the parable of the sower where Jesus talked about a sower who cast seeds, and those seeds kind of represented the word of God and how different people respond to the word of God? And some falls on rocky soil or on the path or gets choked out by thorns or in good soil and bears through. Like, there's different ways that the word of God gets received. Well, there's one seed in that parable. It's in Matthew 13. You should read it later on today. But there's one seed in that parable that it speaks to the rate of its growth. It's the one that fell on rocky ground, and it didn't have much soil. What the text says that it immediately sprang up, like right away it had fast growth and it immediately sprang up, but there was no depth. And then the sun came out, and the heat of the sun just scorched it, and the plant withered and it couldn't take the heat. And I wonder, can we take the heat? Can you take the heat? Because it's getting hotter. It's getting hotter in our culture, and to be a Christian and to fight for godliness and to stand firm in faithfulness, it's getting harder. And can you take that heat? Because shallow Christianity is not going to survive the temperature of our culture. It's not going to do it. And a concern we've had as elders. As much as we love the new stories and the people coming to Christ and the growth, we ask, do we have depth? Could we stand the heat? Are we going to be okay? And how do we not be that plant that just immediately sprung up? And how exciting is that? But it didn't last. How do we deepen our roots as a church? So let me illustrate it to you this way, or let me play with the pointer again. I said I'd keep it in my pocket and tell this. Okay, if this is our church, this is so fun. Okay, if the outside square represents the size of our church and the inside square maybe represents the core of our church, now everything in between is kind of just other attenders within our church. So what I mean by this is the middle. The core is like grounded owners. Now, the reason I use those two words, grounded owners, when I say grounded, I mean they know their Bible. They know the truth from a lie, they can discern good from evil. They understand christian doctrine. They know the scriptures, and they're owners. They belong to this church. They're connected in this church. They're invested in this church. They help pay the bills of this church. They help staff the ministries of this church, like the core of our church. Like this is my church, I'm invested in it, and I know the scriptures. The gap in between and then out here is everybody outside of our church. The gap in here would be what I would call gullible attenders. Now, I don't mean gullible is like an insult. In ephesians four, Paul's talking about immature believers to be like children who are tossed to and fro by every wave and wind of doctrine and are susceptible to the cunning schemes and deceitful schemes. And outside there can be attenders who, I love to come to church, but I don't really know the Bible. I don't know right from wrong. I'm leaning into it, but I don't know the scriptures like I could. And I'm a tender, like, I come and I consume, but I don't really give and I don't really serve, and I don't really belong and I don't really own. And that's a makeup, a large part of our church. And this isn't to scale by any means, but this kind of represents a feeling that we have, that we have. We have grown fast and we've expanded the boundaries of our church, but maybe the size of our core has not grown proportionally to the size of our church. Are you guys tracking with me? Okay, now we have a saying internally sometimes that members are maturity over attendance for maturity for attendance. What I'm saying is, like, we want to worry about depth before we worry about width. Like, let's control the quality of the product, the maturity of our disciples, and God will take care of the width. But if you put attendance over maturity, then you're just going to try to get, how do we reach more people? How do we get more people? But you're not really discipling the people that you have. And when that happens, here's what can happen. You get this and expansion. And this is hard to detect as a problem because everybody's excited. Look how much we've grown. Look at all the new people. We need more space. But internally, you're saying that sprung up immediately, and I don't know if it has roots. That's a really tall building with a small foundation. And as a leader, as elders, we're, like, exciting concerning. Right? Exciting concerning. Like, we don't have core to minister to all the people in here we want to minister. We don't have core to reach all the people we want to reach. So here is what we'd like to see. If in the next few years, this didn't get any bigger, but this got a lot bigger, we would be so excited. We'd be pumped. Like, how do we do that then? How do we strengthen the core? How do we grow the core? How do we deepen the roots? Well, I want to talk to you about three initiatives that we have in front of us coming up this year that we think will help us address five concerns that we have. And then I'm going to talk to you about a challenge or an insight from acts two that we're going to end with that. So is that confusing? Three, initiative, five concerns. Right. You with me? So we got five concerns as leaders. Like, we're concerned about this, and then we got three initiatives that we want to put out that we're hopeful that they address those five concerns. So let's start with the five concerns, and then we'll get into the three initiatives. And then I want to look at acts two and end with kind of a challenge for us. So the first concern is a lack of prayer. Now, that can be, like, a hard thing to say because nobody would or should say, I pray enough. Like, prayer is one of those always things where it's like, yeah, we can always grow in our prayer. And I'm pleased with a culture of prayer in our church, to a point. Hopefully prayer's happening in your connection groups. Hopefully prayer is happening in your lives. I know prayer is happening in our elder meetings. I know it's happening in our staff meetings. I know prayer is happening there. But. But as a church, collectively or corporately, we're saying we so don't want to slip into this mindset of just kind of self dependence. Like, in order to accomplish our goals, that we just need more money or more staff or more initiatives. It's like, no, what we need to understand is we can't do nothing apart from Christ. Like, we have to have this posture of total dependence on goddess. Like, we don't want just new ministries. We want real heart change, and we can't do that. Like, we are powerless to change a human heart, but God does that. And we needed to have this posture of like, we're pleading for God to do that and we need to better express. Here's what we kind of concluded. We need to better express corporately a dependence on God through prayer. And we sometimes, you know, in church services, it's like prayer always seems to fall in the transitions. Like when I get up or go down, or it's like, listen, if there's a moment of silence in our service and a transition, you're going to be fine. We know you're going to weather through that. Nobody's going to be like, what's next? Right? You're going to get that. If our greatest prayer request is praying me up on stage, like, if I can make it from the front row to the stage, like, we got problems, right? And that's not our intent there. We're just always saying like, hey, how do we put prayer everywhere in the service? And that's not a transition, it's an actual prayer. Let's be praying. But more than that, we say, like, how do we give more time to prayer as a church in corporate dependence? So that was a concern. Another concern was quicker ways for people to connect. Often people come and they get in. Like, we have clear next steps. So there's a clear, if you're new, take starting point after starting point, take launch point after launch point. We'll get you into community, hopefully. And there could be like that kind of momentum that dies and people can live kind of in that moment unconnected for a while. And that's a tough place to be. So we said we need to establish some quicker ways to help people connect. Number three, we want more discipleship instruction. More discipleship instruction. We've often felt that the world is discipling our people faster than we are, that we have an hour on Sunday where we open up the scriptures, but then you may have 3 hours every night to Fox News or CNN or whatever podcast you listen to or whatever shows that you watch, whatever books that you read, and you're just kind of like, who's shaping you more? And we preach through books of the Bible, and we're going to continue to do that. And we love that. But there are so many issues that you're wrestling with as a follower of Jesus that we feel like as your shepherds, we need to speak into with a biblical perspective to help you navigate that. So we said we need to have more discipleship instruction. The other one was we wanted stronger leadership development. A growing church doesn't just need more leaders, it needs more qualified, equipped leaders. We need more people who are equipped with the gospel, who know the scriptures, who walk in godliness to be able to provide more discipleship to more people. You can't continue to minister to a lot of people when you have a small core. And we need to develop our core and give more time to developing leaders. And then the last one was meaningful membership. Now, I know we're a larger church, and this can be hard to capture, but it's a fight. We want to fight, and we want to try to recapture and strengthen a sense of family. We're not a corporation or a church. And there's a reason that the Bible uses family language to talk about a church, that we're brothers and sisters in Christ. We're the household of God, and we're going to fight to keep a family feel. And as christians, we don't just belong to Christ, but we belong to one another. And there is a connection between believers that we are to care for one another, we're to encourage one another, we're to serve one another, we're to pray for one another, we're to confess our sins to one another. We're to like, there's so many, like, one another commands 27 or 28. I believe, like, given to us that are supposed to be part of our life as a church. And to belong to a church should mean something. It's not just any other organization where you're just like, I got a membership here. I kind of go somewhere I want to, or I get this benefit from it. We don't date the church. We don't have open relationship ideas with the church. I'm here, there, and I'm also part of this. And I'm also part of, like, we believe in marriage. Like, we want covenant commitments to a family. When you make a commitment to a church and we make a commitment to you, we want it to mean something and we want to act like family. We want investment and ownership as a church. So we said we need to have some meaningful membership. So those were our concerns. We wanted to see more prayer, we wanted quicker ways for people to connect. We wanted more discipleship instruction. We wanted stronger leadership development, and we wanted meaningful membership. So here's the three initiatives that we're putting in front of you as ways we think we can address some of these concerns. First one, Sunday classes. Sunday classes. This is connected to the remodel project. So once this is done, we're going to be able to do this. But we're taking all the kids. Ministry is going to the basement level and this lower level which frees up the connect room, the equipping room and two other classrooms that used to be kids classrooms over here. And we want to offer more frequent classes for our adults to take ongoing classes where people can get in. This is going to help provide more discipleship instruction where it's like, hey, we're not able to talk about that here, but we're having a class that's going to talk about that. Take the class. We're going to be able to address more topics and issues that you guys are dealing with. And it's also going to be a quicker way for people to connect where, hey, you want to take a class, just sign up for the class, meet people in the class, get to know people in our church, they're going to be ongoing, two weeks to six week classes that you can engage in and hopefully we can better equip you and you can more quickly connect with one another. So take a class. Lean into that when it comes to the fall. Now, don't stop serving, don't hear that and be like, oh, I want to take classes. Therefore I'm not going to sign up to serve. They're smaller class size or lengths, two weeks to six weeks. So continue to serve. And if you're going to take a class, Ian and his team, they'll work with you, they'll find subs. But don't bail on serving, especially in kids ministry. Everybody kind of give me an amen on that one. Okay, we want to do that. Now let me just rant for a little bit. I'll make it short, but you are also not going to catch a disease if you are at church for more than 1 hour. Okay? You can do it. It's safe. We've been doing it for a long time. My kids have made it. I'm doing fine. Like you can be at church for more than 1 hour. Your kids can be at church for more than 1 hour. They may tell you that they can't. They can. Okay. In Zambia and that church, there were toddlers that sat in the sun quietly for over 3 hours. It was a miracle. It can be done. Okay. Your kids can sit through church. Now here's what I would encourage you. First priority on a Sunday morning, come to church. Come to this meeting in here and come as a family. Like, it is important for your kids to see mom and dad worship Jesus, to take notes, to be in their bibles. So come to church as a family. After you go to church as family, have your kids go to Sunday school, you take a class, or you serve or sit and get coffee and talk to somebody, or if you go and serve together, if your kids are older or if they go to class and you serve, and then afterwards you want to take a class, they can go to another class again. And kids ministry doesn't turn into a sweatshop that next hour. It's still toys and people that care for your kids and have fun, and they're going to be okay. All right? And some of you take your toddlers, and they're all day at the ball field, and they're fine. But over an hour at church, it's like, oh, okay, that's my rant. I'm done. All right, so Sunday classes, one of those Sunday classes is called deeper. And there's deeper 101, deeper 201, and deeper. 301, 101 deals with doctrine, 201 deals with devotion or godly living, and 301 deals with discipleship or disciple making of other people. This is another way to provide more discipleship instruction, but also stronger leader development. Now, hear me now, anyone can take those classes, and we would encourage you to take them. We want to deepen your doctrinal understanding. We want to deepen your godly living. We want to deepen your disciple making ability. Anyone can take those classes, but to be in leadership roles here, we want you to go through those classes. That's going to be an expectation because especially if you're leading other people, what you believe in, the counsel you give matters and how you live, and the gospel you reflect in your daily life matters. And we want to equip you to live and represent Christ well and to speak truth accurately. There are, like three sects, like I said, 101, 201, 301. And they're like eight weeks, around eight weeks each time. But we want to get more investment into the leadership development. Sound good? Okay, number three, first Sundays. Now, this might be awkward to talk about here because it doesn't apply to everybody here, but hopefully this will be helpful as well. The first Sunday of each month starting in October. So not September, because the first Sunday, we're doing that picnic thing, but starting in October from four to five. So I think that's right. 04:00 to 530. Yep, just came to me. 04:00 to 530. So it's like late afternoon, early evening. The first Sunday of every month, starting October, we're gonna have a members gathering. We're gonna meet in here as members of this church. So if you're a member here, I'm talking to you. Like, we're gonna ask you to lean in on this, and I'll tell you why and what's gonna happen there in a little bit if you're not a member here. Hear me now? We are glad that you're here. We love that you're coming here. You're trying to figure out maybe your walk with God. Keep coming. But we'll also want you to, like, commit at some time, like either here or somewhere, but find a church that you're like, I'm invested. This is my home. This is where I want to be. So we're glad that you're here. Don't see this as, hey, this is something that we're leaving you out of. We would love to invite you into it, but we also want you to make a commitment to a church, and we think the New Testament pushes people to that. So first Sundays, we're going to have a members meeting. And for those gatherings, as a church family, we're going to take communion. We're going to do that together. Slow down and do that. We're going to spend more time praying together. Like extended times of prayer. We're going to worship together. Nothing fancy. We're going to deal with any church business needs to happen. Maybe some testimonies, shared a. And there's going to be some teaching. So I guess some further discipleship instruction as well. In October, our first one, the topics are going to be christian and politics, because rumor has it there's an election coming up, so we're going to talk about it. So you're like, oh, I need to become a member fast. Well, maybe you do. Maybe you do. And we're going to be done by 530. So it's a Sunday evening done by 530. Here's why we're doing that. So you can hang out, you can go get some ice cream together down the street, or you can sit out here. You can go out to dinner together. Like, we want to fight for this family, feel. You don't have to rush out. Like, we want to create space to act like a family. So that's going to address prayer. We're going to be more devoted to prayer, extended times of prayer. It's going to address more discipleship instruction. We're going to take some time to talk about things we need to talk about as a church, and it's going to address meaningful membership that we want belonging to a church family to mean something, and we want to act like family. That's going to give us the context to do that. So, members, what I'm asking of you is like, would you make that a priority. Would you make that a priority? It's once a month for an hour and a half and I think it will be a blessing to you as well. So five concerns. Cautious of a lack of prayer, quicker ways for people to connect, more discipleship instruction, stronger leadership development and meaningful membership. Three initiatives that we're trying to address that are ongoing, frequent classes on Sundays for you to take. Specifically a class called deeper with three different sections to help strengthen leaders and give more discipleship instruction. And first Sundays, where we're going to gather once a month as members to pray, take communion, worship and get into the word a little bit more. Those aren't issues. Now let me leave you with a challenge or an insight from acts two. So if you've got your bibles, turn over to acts chapter two. Now if you've been around church world long enough, anytime somebody mentions acts chapter two, it's kind of the first church. This is when the birth of the church happened. If you remember, they're kind of up in the upper room. The Holy Spirit comes, Peter goes out, preaches this powerful message in a language that every other language could hear and understand. You have massive response to the gospel. Over 3000 people were baptized that day. The church is formed. And then in acts chapter two at the end, you gotta get the description of this first church. And often now don't buy into this idealism that there was no problems in the first century church because pretty much every letter of Paul that we read, we read about problems the first century church was dealing with. But there's also this sense of excitement of like that seems like a church I would want to be a part of. Like there's some high activity happening that's exciting and I want to get in this. But here's the first description of this church. This is acts 242. And they, it's the Christians of Jerusalem at this time. And they, what does that word say? Devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Now there's kind of a ghost word there, or there's a word that doesn't get used, but it gets applied over and over again and that's that word, devoted. So they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, but what did they do with the fellowship and the breaking of the bread of prayers? It's the same. They devoted themselves to it. So a way it could read is they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, they devoted themselves to fellowship, they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread, they devoted themselves to the prayers, like basic foundational things that they were just like, I'm all in on that. And they were devoted to what they were being called to do. Now here's what the next verse says. And what's that word? Awe came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. Now, who wouldn't want to be a part of that church? Who wouldn't want to be a part of that church where there was a sense of awe? And the best way I can explain a sense of awe is when you see God do things among you and be like, aw. That's what it is. It's like, aw. Do you see that? Do you see what God has done? Like, they're just kind of taken back and they're seeing God do some amazing things. And you think, who wouldn't want to be a part of a church like that? But here's what we need to see. There is a connection between a church experiencing the all of goddess and the people of the church being devoted to the activity of the church. Do you get that? Let me say it again. There's a connection being made here that we have to see. There's a connection between a church experiencing the awe of God and the people of the church being devoted to the activity of the church. It doesn't say that they were generically or individually devoted to God in their own way. And they all kind of experience the awe of God. What it says is they were devoted together to the things God has called them to do together within the structure God had established. And in that they experienced the awe and power of God among them. Or let me put it this way, no devotion, no awe. No devotion, no awe. This isn't burger king, right? This isn't have it your way. This isn't like, this is my commitment level and this is what I want to do and not want to do. And I expect God to experience the awe of God. Like, I'm going to go half in, but I want you to show all out. This text is about people who went all in and they experienced the awe of God. They experienced God saving people and redeeming people and transforming people. It's like the promise in Jeremiah 20 913. Some of you may know this verse. It's the kind of one you might find on a coffee mug or something. But Jeremiah 20 913 says, you will seek me and find me when you seek me. What? With all your heart. What an amazing promise. You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart. That is a promise for God. To be found by those who seek him. But what it also says is half hearted seeking. Don't expect to find anything. There was a condition to this promise. You seek me with all your heart, you're going to find me. You half heartedly seek me. Don't expect to find me. Don't expect to find anything with half hearted looking. It's like me trying to find my keys. I didn't fall into my outstretched arms. I didn't take everything out of the drawer. Don't expect half hearted Christianity to give you a church where you experience the awe of God and you see the power of God amongst you, transforming people from the inside out. But if you're devoted, what might we expect to see? What might we expect to experience? Half hearted Christianity? It's not going to do it. It's not calling yourself a Christian, but I don't ever read my Bible or calling myself a Christian, but I have no prayer life or calling myself a Christian, but I don't engage in my church at all. I don't serve anywhere. I don't give anything. It's on my terms. I call myself a Christian, but I dress like a prostitute. I call myself a Christian, but I'm dabbling in pornography. I call myself a Christian, but I'm always running to the bottle. I call myself a Christian, but I get more excited for Saturday night, Sunday morning. I call myself a Christian Mount sing. I call myself a christian mom in love with money. Half hearted Christianity, but yet you expect, where's the awe of God? So it doesn't work that way. Don't be like the rich young ruler. Remember, we looked at him a few weeks ago in our series encounters with Jesus. You have this rich young ruler with an honorable question to Jesus, how do I obtain eternal life? Like, who doesn't want eternal life? And Jesus called him to all in devotion. He was already half hearted devoted. I mean, he listed like five or six of the commandments. He's like, I'm already in there. But he called him to like wholehearted devotion. But he walked away sad. Don't be that guy. Let's not be that church. I'm telling you, wholehearted devotion to God is worth it. And wholehearted devotion to the church is worth it. There is awe to experience. God is alive, he's active, and he still saves people. And even through the challenges, because no church is perfect and we're a bunch of messy, sinful people. But even through the challenges, a life fully devoted to Christ and his church will not be in vain. And what we see in this text, and I think what we see throughout history to be shown true, is that when the people of God get fully devoted to goddess and step out of half hearted, lukewarm Christianity and confess and repent their sins and get on their knees in prayer and dive into his word, they experience the power of God. They experience the power of God. So here's our vision. It's that maybe that outer box doesn't get any bigger in the next few years. But if that inner box grows, what glory to God? There's a group of people that treasure him. And how better equipped would we be then for that outer box to expand? That's our vision. We want a stronger core. So I'm talking to a lot of you this morning. We want a stronger core. We want greater devotion from people who claim the name of Christ. If you are a follower of Christ, pick up your cross and follow him type of Christianity. Stop going through the motions and be fully devoted to him. We want more people who know their bible. We want more people who pray. We want more people who confess sin. We want more people who repent. We want more people who treasure God. So practically what that might look like is if you don't attend church that often, you're kind of whenever I can make it. Make it a priority. Make being here a priority. If you're here, take a class. Like, be proactive in growing your knowledge of goddess. Sign up for a class. If you don't serve, serve. Sign up to serve somewhere in this church as an owner. If you don't give any money, start to worship God with your checkbook. Be an owner. If you're not connected, get connected. Be known whether it's in a group or not. Like, have biblical relationships with other christians. If you don't belong here, stop dating the church. Let's get married. We love you, right? Be committed. If you remember first Sundays, let's pray together. Let's worship. Let's tighten this circle up and let's lean into each other. Make that a commitment and deeper. If you don't read your bible, get into the Bible every day. If you don't have a prayer life, pray start five minutes a day. Grow it. If you don't confess sin to anyone, start. If you're dabbling with this world and kind of flirting around with things you shouldn't be, repent. Lean in. And I know life is busy. There's a lot of things pulling at you time. And I know the things of this world are tempting, but what if greater devotion to God led to greater experiences of God? You track with me. What if greater devotion to God led to greater experiences of God? And doesn't the curiosity of what might happen excite you? I mean, what might happen if the first Sunday of every month, this room was full of members on their knees praying for God to do what only he can do? What if more people in this church were passionate about learning the truths of scripture, taking classes, reading their bible? What if more people were confessing sin? What if more people were lifting their hearts and their voices and praise to God? What might he do? Is it worth finding out? Would we hear more stories of the chains of sin being broken in people's lives and seeing more transformation and stronger marriages and people coming to faith? And isn't that worth finding out? What else are you going to do? And we say this with confident expectation, because our God is alive and he is active. And acts two happens after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And when acts two says, I'm still working, I'm still pouring out my power, doing amazing things. And the cross of Christ beckons us to come and die and find out just how alive he is. The cross of Christ is not just the invitation. Excuse me, the cross of Christ is not just the sacrifice that atones for our sins, which it is, but it also is the invitation to full devotion to Christ to discover resurrection power. So listen, guys, if you want forgiveness without devotion, you are completely, completely missing the cross. Because the sign of where we find our forgiveness in speaks of sacrifice, speaks of dying. So as we come to celebrate through some elements Christ's sacrifice on our behalf, some bread that represents his body, some juice that represents blood that was shed. Hear me now, church. We come confessing not only that Christ died for us, but also that Christ is worth living for. Amen. Let's pray. Father just shared in the green room before coming out here a verse that hit me recently in ephesians 414 15 about, wake up, o sleeper. Arise from our stupor and our slumber, and Christ's face will shine upon you. Wake us up from our self centered, world loving, lukewarm living and set our hearts on passion, on fire for you, that we would be a church that echoes acts two and a group of people wholeheartedly devoted to you. And may in our devotion to you, we would experience greater power of you. And from you we pray this in your name. Amen.