What has changed in the church since the fall of 2019? Andy talks about how fear and polarization have changed the church in recent years, and how we as part of both the local and universal church can live together as the church that Jesus desires for us to be.
Sermon Quotes from This Week:
“{Church} is the one place where you should be able to come and be unified - around the life, the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ - no matter what else we disagree on, we can be unified there.”
“Whenever we take camp in our tribes, we find our identity in other places outside of the one thing that we should be able to be unified around.”
“Any time that fear makes it into a place of worship, we are going to struggle: to love, to be transparent {with others and with God}, to experience community, to experience the freedom that we have in Christ. If we allow fear into our places of worship, then our worship is going to be distracted.”
“It is in our weaknesses that He is made strong. When we are weary, Jesus says come to me. Cast all your cares upon Jesus because why? Because He cares for you.”
“More people are becoming convinced that church is just an add-on – that church is not necessary to be a Jesus follower. That’s true – going to church does not make you a Jesus follower. It is also true that church was always Jesus’ plan for all of his followers.”
“For the universal church to be what it was called to be, that means that LCC has to be who we were called to be, and for LCC to be who we were called to be, that means you must be who you’ve been called to be.”
“Instead of joining the church looking to receive, may we have the mindset to give and to serve. Instead of being angry about hypocrites, may we be encouraged that we are all sinners in desperate need of the hope and grace of Jesus Christ. Instead of being critical all the time, may we use that energy to be encouragers.”
“The Gospel has not changed. Jesus is still victorious. Who we are called to be has not changed either. It’s still our job to point people to the hope and life that is available in Jesus.”
“God is giving every single person, who is a follower of Jesus, a gift from the Holy Spirit. Not to make you better, but to make everybodybetter - for the common good. If you think ‘I don’t have a gift,’ I promise you – you’re wrong.”
“It is not your job to look at anybody else and say ‘Man, I wish I had their gift.’ It is not your job to envy the gift that somebody else has. Your job is to simply be faithful with the gift that you have been given and to make sure that that part of the body is as healthy as possible.”
“As a church, we are a group of people who will celebrate together, mourn together, who will take care of each other, who will work together, who will always, always assume the best about each other. We will not be divisive, but we will be unifiers. We will always be each other’s biggest fans. That we are inclusive – everybody is welcome because we are in this together. We are the body of Christ.”
