(upbeat music)

- Good morning, Springhouse.

It's a chilly day, just a little bit,

but it's also Tennessee, so that shouldn't surprise you.

But it's a good day to be in the house of the Lord.

Are you glad you're here today?

I sure am glad you're here as well.

If you're joining us on live stream,

thank you for joining us too.

I got one announcement for us today

before we get kicking and rolling.

Next Sunday, next Sunday,

we are gonna have a newcomers luncheon here in the foyer,

or in the fellowship, is it in fellowship hall?

Fellowship hall.

And we would like to invite you to come

if you are one of the newer families to the church.

Our pastoral team will be there.

We'd like to meet you,

wanna tell you a little bit about our different ministries

here at the church and introduce ourselves

and just get to know you a little bit.

And also just explain to you how our communication processes

work and answer any questions you might have

about the church.

Now, if you're somebody and you've brought a new person

and maybe you've been coming with them or whatnot,

you can sign up as well and come with them

so they don't have to come alone.

That's totally fine.

But we do want you to register

so I don't have to share my sandwich with you, okay?

So if you'll register on the church app,

the way you do that out in the foyer,

there are placards with a QR code.

You can register there.

Sign up for the church center and sign up through that

and register, but that will be next week

immediately following this gathering, okay?

So I want you to be a part of that.

All right, we're actually now officially starting

the third part of a three-part series for the year.

We have unofficially started it for the last two weeks.

We're officially starting it now.

But we're going to go into the section

that talks about his church.

And I'm very excited about what the rest of this year holds,

mainly because he's in control of it.

The Holy Spirit wants to speak to our hearts

and speak to our lives.

And so, and any time the Holy Spirit gets involved,

we ought to be excited about what he's doing.

So if you'll stand with me,

we're gonna read from the book of Colossians this morning.

And I would like you to read this like you're yelling

for your favorite sports team this morning, okay?

All right, here we go.

He is the image of the invisible God,

the firstborn of all creation.

For by him all things were created,

both in the heavens and on earth,

visible and invisible,

whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things have been created through him and for him.

He is before all things and in him all things hold together.

He is also the head of the body, the church.

And he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,

so that he himself will come to have first place

in everything.

For it was the Father's good pleasure

for all the fullness to dwell in him

and through him to reconcile all things to himself,

whether things on earth or things in heaven,

having made peace through the blood of his cross.

Father, I thank you for such loud readers this morning.

I thank you for the gift of your salvation,

God, the gift of your son.

I pray, Lord, that you would help your word this morning

just transform our hearts, God.

I pray for any of my nonsense to fall to the ground,

but anything, Lord, that you have for us

to stick and remain and change us.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen, amen, amen.

Well, we started this year out talking about his word,

talking about his word.

Now, I pray and hope, it would be my hope,

that you are in the word of God every single day,

that you have an active relationship with the word of God.

Is anybody still following the five by five by five

Bible reading plan?

Raise your hand.

Okay, good, across the church.

Now, some of you may say, you know,

I'm not following that plan,

but I'm following my own plan.

Good, I'm glad that you are reading the word daily.

Some of you may say, well, I missed it,

and I'm not reading, and I guess I need to wait till 2025.

No, you can start today.

You haven't been promised 2025,

so start now, start today.

We unearthed and unpackaged about Jesus being the way,

the truth, and the life.

We find the truth in his word,

and so an active relationship with the word

is essential to the believer's walk.

And so I pray that you have an active relationship

with the word of God.

After we talked about his word, we talked about his life.

And who are we talking about when we say his?

We're talking about Jesus.

We're not talking about a random guy.

We're talking about Jesus.

So Jesus' word and Jesus' life,

and we examined how Jesus treated people.

We examined how Jesus listened and obeyed his Father.

We looked at Jesus' emotional state

whenever he was travailing in the garden

before having to go to the cross.

We looked at Jesus die on the cross,

and we celebrated a resurrected Savior,

and we celebrate that same resurrected Savior today.

He is sitting at the right hand of God, hallelujah, amen.

And we have access to this God.

And so now we're going to talk about Jesus' church,

the church of Jesus Christ.

And he has a lot to say about his church.

And one of the first things that we need to understand

about his church is that when we talk about his church,

we're not talking about this facility,

this building, this structure.

You're the church.

You are the church.

The church is not the building.

It's the people.

So when I went to the Lord, and I was like,

okay, Lord, we're gonna be doing this series.

You told me to do this series,

and we're here on this part about your church, God.

Where do you want me to start?

Where do you want us to begin?

'Cause there's a lot we could say about his church.

It could start with the history of the church.

We could talk about his encounter with Peter

and how he said he was gonna build his church

upon this rock.

We could talk a lot about how church functions.

We talk about Ephesians 4.

There's a lot we can talk about.

There's a lot we're going to talk about.

Do you know where you start is real important?

Where you begin is really important.

Anybody here like to cook?

Yeah, I'm not very good at it, but I like to cook.

I'll tell you what, when I cook macaroni and cheese,

I don't put non-boiled noodles on the plate

and then put the cheese in the pan.

There's an order to cooking a dish and making it right.

You start somewhere.

Anybody like building puzzles?

Any puzzle builders here?

Okay, when you build a puzzle,

I personally like to start with those outer pieces,

the pieces that kind of hug the edges

because they're easy for me to find.

So you start there and you build upon where you started.

It's hard for me to start with that thousand piece puzzle

with the puzzle piece that's completely one color,

one solid color.

It goes in the middle somewhere.

I need to start somewhere where it makes sense.

And so where I start is important.

One of the things that I have done in the past

that really bothers me is,

have you ever been driving somewhere

and you're at your starting point,

but you've got maybe a lot on your mind or whatever

and you end up driving in the wrong direction?

I used to work at Hickory Hollow Mall

when it was a mall at Chick-fil-A

and then I worked for four years

at Murfreesboro's Chick-fil-A.

And for a good six months,

when I would get on Sam Ridley and go to work,

I would go toward Nashville

as opposed to getting off the interstate

and going toward Murfreesboro

because I was in the habit of going toward Nashville.

I hated that because I had to go

all the way down to Walden Road,

get off the interstate and turn around.

You know that whenever you go the wrong direction,

what's interesting about that

is when you go the wrong direction and you turn around,

you gotta go back the direction from which you came.

All of that stuff, I get to see the same trees

and the same things I pass, I get to see them again.

And sometimes that's what the Lord does with us.

When we start going down the wrong direction,

when we turn around,

He'll have us kind of walk through that stuff going back

because He wants to train us

and teach us some things in that.

But the starting point is important.

Had I started getting on the interstate at the right place,

I would get to my destination a lot quicker, right?

And so where do we start?

When we're talking about His church,

it's the Lord, where should Springhouse Church,

we're talking about this, where should we start?

And He gave me something,

and I believe this is where we need to start this series

for the rest of this year.

We need to know it's not about you.

It's not about you.

It's not about me, and it's not about you.

This is my daughter, Nora.

Nora is my fourth daughter, and she,

we have four daughters,

and when we have birthday parties in our house,

we do a birthday dinner.

And at the birthday dinner,

the kids all bring a small gift

for the birthday girl at the time.

And then we speak over, we speak blessings over our children

when it's their birthday.

And so we have a whole routine,

and every single birthday that is not Nora's birthday,

Nora says, "Well, Daddy, I wish I had a cake.

"Daddy, I sure do wish I had a present today.

"Daddy, I sure do wish that you would speak nice words

"over me today," right?

It's because Nora has made that day about her.

And children, immature children especially,

tend to make things about themselves.

Immature Christians make the church about themselves.

Immature Christians will jump from church to church

to church to church until they find something

that suits them until it doesn't suit them anymore,

and then they will jump some more.

Immature Christians, immature believers,

will not lean in to anything more or less than themselves.

And church, the Lord has called us to move and graduate

from drinkers of milk to eaters of meat.

And so as mature believers,

there's an understanding that it is countercultural,

but the church is not about us.

It's not about us.

And so we have to start here

in order for us to build the foundation,

because if I put any ingredient of myself

in the foundation of the church,

then that lessens the focus on Christ.

And we don't want to,

I do not want to lessen the focus of Christ.

I don't wanna lessen the focus of Christ.

His church and the observations that we make

about his church around the world,

it is just staggering how many places we see

that program is elevated above presence.

Anytime program is elevated above presence,

God doesn't want anything to do with it.

He won't have anything to do with it.

But when you elevate his presence above all else,

he will infiltrate all things, all lives,

and you will start to see God move

in supernatural, extraordinary ways.

The world centers on self, the church centers on Christ.

The world centers on itself, the church centers on Christ.

You know, one of the things, and I've said this before,

and I hope that I'm able to give this back

to whomever's next in even a more abundant form,

though I don't know how much more I could do

than he has done,

but one of the greatest gifts Pastor Ronnie has given me

in the transition of me being lead pastor here

is the fact that he shows up and he supports me.

He's there, I see him.

He is very present,

and I appreciate his presence and his support.

And we were at lunch this past week,

and I don't think he reminds me of sharing this,

but we were at lunch this past week,

and he said, "You know, I'm in Springhouse.

"There'd virtually be two reasons

"why you probably wouldn't see me there anymore."

And the first reason would be

if the church became about money.

And the second reason is if the church

would elevate the pastor above Christ.

And thankfully, we are close to neither extreme,

but when I drove away from that lunch,

you know, I thought,

I wouldn't wanna pastor that church.

I would not wanna pastor a church

that was catering to money

or catering to elevating the pastor.

The church is about elevating Christ Jesus.

The church is about elevating Christ Jesus.

And so when we look over at Exodus chapter 33,

Moses has gone up the mountain,

and he's gone to get the 10 commandments.

He's gone to meet with God.

And the people are down below, the Israelites,

and they are worshiping Almighty God.

They're worshiping Almighty God,

and he's left Aaron in charge.

And they are doing all of the programs.

They're doing all of the things.

They've got the guitar instruments, the lights.

They got the music.

They've got everything that would make

an excellent worship service.

They got community.

They got a church.

And all of a sudden, the presence of God is not enough.

And so they began to collect their gold,

and they fashioned out of that gold a calf.

And they started to worship this idol, this calf.

In Exodus 33, we read, why?

Moses is meeting with God.

So Moses comes down the mountain,

and he says, what is going on here?

Here's the thing.

They had every indication,

and every single indicator of being a church,

but they were not worshiping the true God.

And when we put our vices, and we put our idols in front,

we can show up to church.

We can be in a building.

We can have a worship set.

We can have lyrics on a string.

We can have great lights.

We can have programming.

We have ministries.

We can have baptisms.

We have all those things.

But if God's not in the middle of it,

then it means nothing.

Then it means absolutely nothing.

It's like wearing a shirt that says,

I'm a believer, and I'm a follower,

but living a life that looks something completely different.

The church elevates Christ.

It's not about us.

So the scripture we read in Colossians says this.

All things, not some things,

but all things have been created through him and for him.

This includes his church.

Now, I said this a couple of weeks ago,

and I'm gonna say it again because you probably forgot.

The only celebrity here is and should be Jesus Christ.

The only celebrity here is and should be Jesus Christ,

and that should be the same for the church globally,

that Jesus Christ is the center,

the sufficiency of the blood of Jesus Christ

needs nothing added to it.

The sufficiency of Jesus Christ's blood

is sufficient for anyone who would believe

and say, Lord, save me, save my life.

The blood of Jesus is sufficient to cleanse sin,

and he is the center of his church.

The church doesn't elevate people.

We don't elevate people.

The church elevates Christ.

God is not impressed with programs, with personalities,

with platforms.

God is seeking worshipers.

He's seeking people who will worship him

in spirit and in truth, spirit and truth.

This is what John chapter four says.

Jesus is speaking to a Samaritan woman.

I want you to understand context here.

Jews were not supposed to speak to Samaritans,

and he's speaking to the Samaritan woman.

Guys, I tell you what, the church tends to be the place

where some of the most gross division happens,

but can I tell you, people divide, but the gospel unites.

People divide, but the gospel unites.

Jesus came so that all may be saved, not some,

not the ones that look like you or sound like you

or you can get along with, but salvation is for everybody.

The salvation is for everybody.

This is what he says.

Yet a time is coming and has now come

when true worshipers will worship the Father

in spirit and in truth, for they are the kinds of worshiper

the Father seeks, the Father seeks.

So the Father is seeking worshipers

who worship him in spirit and truth.

Now, that word worship there in Greek is a big word

that I can't pronounce, and I'm not gonna try,

but defined, it is likened to a dog

licking a master's hand.

So the inference there when it comes to worshipers

is that worship, listen to this,

worship doesn't have anything to do with how you feel.

Worship has to do with obedience.

Worship is connected, it's directly connected to obedience,

and your Father in heaven is looking and seeking worshipers,

those who will obey in spirit and in truth.

Worship is connected to obedience.

Let's see what our brother Paul wrote

in Romans chapter four, he says this.

Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters,

there's an urgent plea here, in view of God's mercy,

offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,

holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true and proper worship.

So the context here is worship out of a life of obedience

is offering your body and your life as a living sacrifice.

In other words, I'm gonna bow down to what my flesh wants

and I'm going to do what the Spirit wants me to do.

That's worship.

Some of us have reduced worship to the 30 minute period

before Kevin speaks or Justin speaks or Ronnie speaks

or Barbie speaks.

Worship in that context, praise and worship,

is a time for us to enthrone the king on our praises.

It is a time for us to utilize gifts and talents

and instruments to enthrone him,

but our worship is a posture of obedience

and it is a daily choice.

It's a moment by moment choice.

Are you worshiping the Lord or are you worshiping yourself?

(congregation murmurs)

Are you worshiping the Lord or are you worshiping yourself?

A few weeks ago I talked about one of the hardest things

that we are asked to do is to just show up.

God wants us to just show up.

It's so easy to show up and I had given the story

about Joshua, I talked about Joshua going

into the Promised Land and God had said,

hey, you can have all of these cities

and I'm gonna give them into your hand

and Joshua is a commander of an army.

And he looked at his army and he would have had every,

it would have made so much sense to the people,

they were there ready to fight,

to go to Jericho and to bust down those walls.

But God said, no, I want you to shut your mouth

and I want you to walk around the walls seven times.

I'm talking like crazy, what?

And so the Lord convicted my heart a few weeks ago

after I left here because yes,

half of the battle is showing up

but the other half is doing what he tells you to do.

The other half is walking in obedience

to what he tells you to do.

You see, God could have told Joshua all day long,

I want you to walk around the walls

but he could have disobeyed.

Showing up was just part of the battle.

Doing what he tells you to do is the other half.

Are you worshiping God through your obedience to him?

So how you feel plays no significant role

in your decision to obey.

Ergo, your feelings are irrelevant when it comes to worship.

Do you know how many times I've asked my children

to go clean their room

and they did not feel like cleaning their room?

And do you know, had they acted upon how they felt,

I would have given them another feeling real fast?

Your feelings are not a prerequisite to your choice to obey.

They shouldn't be a prerequisite for your choice to obey.

Now I'll tell you, obedience sometimes doesn't feel good.

It doesn't feel good and whoever made up this idea

that God never wants you to feel bad,

God never wants you to feel anything bad

or hurt or anything like that,

God is not trying to make you hurt

but we live in a fallen world

and we're contending with our broken flesh

and there are gonna be times because he sees something better

on the other side that he's gonna ask you to do something

that you do not wanna do, that you don't feel like doing

but if you will obey, if you will obey,

his promises are always yes and amen

and on the other side of that thing,

you will see exactly why he asked you to do it.

Do you trust him?

Do you have the faith to believe what he says?

Will you step out in obedience to him?

So church, we have to pay attention.

We have to pay attention because we can get in circles,

we can get in community with people

who look like everything the church is supposed to look like

but not serve and worship the God we say we believe in.

We've got to pay attention to what's going on.

We've got to pay attention

to what's going on inside of our heart.

Who are we listening to?

Who are we obeying?

Is what's coming out to me lining up with his truth?

Because anything God asks us to do

is not going to go against what he's written in his word.

This is why we started with his word.

His word, his life, his church.

Active relationship with his word

but when we focus in on ourselves,

which man, so many times,

I have the propensity to do this myself,

we focus in on ourselves,

we find ourselves in a place where we'd rather find fault

in others than forgive.

We want to be catered to rather than be consecrated.

We want to settle for the limited

when we've got access to being liberated.

We'll work so hard to be so big

instead of humble ourselves enough to bow down.

We would rather be honored than to be humbled.

It's more important for us to look right

than it is for us to be righteous.

We look to get before we give.

We want to be served rather than to serve

and we want to be happy rather than be holy.

And if we choose to live lives

where happiness is at the forefront,

what I get is at the forefront,

me being big, my platform being huge,

all those things are on the forefront,

Christ will not be a part of it

and it will be destroyed.

It will be destroyed.

This is why you want to attend a local church

that's preaching the truth of God's word.

Not an idea, not an opinion,

not something that caters to culture,

but you want to find a church,

you want to be under teaching that lines up with God's word.

Now how do you know that it lines up with God's word?

You gotta read it for yourself.

I've had so many times I've wanted to come up here

as an object lesson and say,

we're gonna read from 3rd Corinthians today, chapter nine,

and I was just gonna quote a bunch of stuff

and make it real close to truth

just to see how many amens I get.

You should be reading the word to know what it says

so that you can be thriving,

not just to test what you've been taught,

but so that you can find freedom for yourself.

How many of you, you're just in situations

and God has such answers in his word,

but you're looking everywhere else except for his word

for the answer that he has for you.

His word brings life.

His word brings life.

And so what's the culprit here?

Like, you know, what causes us to have the propensity

to lean into our flesh, lean into the cultural norms?

How does a church who on one Sunday

may be just thriving and going,

but the next week, man, it just seems like what's going on?

Is God even here?

What is the culprit here?

And you know, I don't really just wanna say,

you know, it really could be that some of these things

that are happening here, you know, is,

you know, the Bible says since then

you've been raised with Christ, you know,

set your hearts on things above and not below

and set your minds on things above, not on earthly things

for you died and he raised,

he's not, our life is not a human being, Christ.

Now, when Christ is in you, your life,

your life appears, you will also appear with him in glory.

It's a glorious thing, it's a glorious truth

and if you just change your life,

may God will have something for you

and it's so wonderful, it's so rich and so powerful,

you know, and God is so good and he's so big

and he's so wonderful and so grand.

And now I would like to invite you

to the altar space to change your life.

Those who administer will come and pray.

We are so distracted.

We are so distracted and distractions cause you

to miss what is meant to be seen.

And even at church with well-meaning people,

with Christians, with people who are saved by the blood,

you can be distracted.

You can be distracted because we all are human

and we all have flesh and let me tell you something,

we all like to have a good time.

Let me tell you something, the Lord,

I believe the Lord, I believe we are gonna have

the best time when we get there with him

and I believe that he wants us to have abundant life now

and I believe that coming to church on Sundays,

we should be having a good time but here's the thing,

I don't want to be at a party that he's not hosting.

I don't wanna be a part of a celebration

where he's not the focus and he's not the one

that we're celebrating and when we're at that type of party,

everything else is gonna be taken care of.

We're talking about the finest, most wonderful things

happening when he's at the center.

Distractions cause you to miss what's meant to be seen.

We've got a few graphic designers in the church

but I was looking at some logos for different companies

this past week and do you know that graphic designers,

whenever they design things, most of the time,

they're not trying to like fool you or hide stuff for you.

In fact, they're trying to actually make it overt.

They want you to see whatever it is

they're trying to brand but I came across some logos

that I was like, I didn't ever see that before.

Let's look at a few of them, okay.

This is the Bronx Zoo and I put this up there

'cause I like giraffes but if you look at the legs

of the giraffes, you might see that there's some buildings

carved in there.

This is the Pittsburgh Zoo.

That's a great tree, some birds but if you look

at the trunk of the tree, you might see two animals

facing each other.

(audience member whoops)

Right, that's what I said.

Milwaukee.

Brewers.

There's an M and a B in that glove.

Wonder if that was intentional.

FedEx, anybody use FedEx for your packages?

They're going places.

Apparently to the right because if you look

between the E and the X, there's an arrow.

Ever see that?

Oh, yeah.

(audience laughs)

Tostitos, anybody eat Tostitos?

I thought that that was just a little like plop of color

but that's two people eating chips and salsa

in the middle of that Tostitos logo.

Did you ever see that?

Who never saw that before?

Come on, all right.

Yeah, crazy.

Goodwill.

Goodwill, well, look at that smile up there.

You think it's just to make you happy

because you dropped off all of your stuff

you didn't want at Goodwill?

That's actually an enlarged G from the bottom.

See that?

It's just the G.

Amazon.

Makes me smile because it looks like

they're trying to smile at me with that orange arrow

but no, that's there because Amazon has things

from A to Z, A to Z.

Oh, yeah.

When you are distracted,

you will not see the thing that was always there.

Some of you come into this place every week

carrying burdens, weight, problems, addictions, pain

and Jesus has been here every single time

but because of your distraction,

you don't see that healing is available for you right now.

If we would just take the time to remove the distractions

and open our eyes and our heart to see him,

I believe God would do supernatural,

extraordinary things among us

in his church where he is glorified.

Guys, when I come here, when I engage the church,

as much as I love you, I don't wanna see you.

I wanna see the Lord.

I wanna see the Lord.

Is anybody with me?

Do we wanna see the Lord?

Like do you wanna see the Lord move?

Like I'm gonna tell you something.

I love my wife so much.

She is my bride and it brings me great joy

to do things for my wife.

Can you imagine Jesus calling the church his bride?

I'm talking about the son of the God who breathes stars.

Like this is the bride of Christ.

Can you imagine what Jesus Christ wants to do for his bride?

Can you imagine the way he wants to love on his bride?

We just have to open our eyes to see him

and when it comes to distractions,

it renders us incapable and capable of seeing

everything he wants us to see.

So this morning, friends, are you distracted?

I'm talking about you individually

and your coming and your going

and your work life and your relationships,

your phone, your bank account,

your trials, your trip, are you distracted this morning?

Because while we come in here with the purpose

of not being distracted collectively,

it doesn't help when we come in here

distracted individually.

In fact, I would say it's somewhat impossible

for us to collectively not be distracted

if so many of us are distracted individually.

Are you distracted right now in life?

2024, April, this has been crazy year for Kevin O'Day.

Almost lost my life, crazy.

And you might be just soaring up there with eagles right now,

seasons for everything,

but I have every reason to be distracted right now

in my life.

But my Lord and Savior just says, keep looking at me.

Keep looking at me.

And it's so easy in the church to do.

I was talking, I don't think he'll mind me sharing this,

I was talking to Pastor Justin a few weeks ago

and he was telling me,

man, there's like, I don't remember the number,

thousands of comments on the group thread

and our men's ministry has so many more men

than ever before and it's just great.

We're just thriving all this stuff.

And I had that conversation and I walked away from it.

You know what the thought I had is, look what we've built.

Look what we've built.

And the Holy Spirit said, oh really?

So easy in an instant.

When I became youth pastor the first time,

I was in there the last service

before I became youth pastor.

65 kids walked in the next day, we have 15.

(soft music)

Where's your heart?

It's not about how many people come.

It's about Jesus Christ.

Do you wanna talk about your ministry?

Talk about the fruit of how the Holy Spirit

changed somebody's life.

Not I had this many show up, this,

all of these things, this grand theater,

I believe impacting so many thousands of people

in the community.

Why?

Look what we built.

No.

It's so that we can stand up here

and pray for Craig this morning.

So Libby could be baptized.

Are you distracted?

I wanna see the Lord.

And so this morning we're gonna do something

a little unusual.

Go figure, yeah?

I've asked Vonna and Garner to come

and Vonda's gonna minister to us through song.

But what I would ask you to do this morning,

we have those cushy chairs, everybody's bottom okay?

Got those cushy chairs?

Some churches don't have cushy chairs.

We got cushy chairs here, okay?

I would like you to make that cushy chair

your altar this morning.

(gentle music)

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna ask the Lord.

We're gonna go into months of this series.

We're gonna be talking about his church.

We are gonna talk about history.

We're gonna talk about the Lord in Ephesians four,

all these things.

We're gonna be talking about those things.

But as we start on this journey together

throughout the rest of 2024,

I wanna do so not distracted.

I want us to see the Lord.

But it starts individually.

So I'm gonna ask you to make your chair your altar space.

And the prayer this morning,

Lord, would you open the eyes of our hearts

so that we actually would see you.

We actually would see you.

And guys, I'm telling you,

if we individually can get a hold of that prayer,

the Lord will begin to answer it.

And you think we've been having church?

We will begin to have church.

Because he's gonna be right in the middle of it.

So make your chair your altar

and let's worship just for a few moments together.

If your distraction is worry, anxiety, pain,

work, finances, you fill in the blank,

whatever that distraction is,

I want you to know this morning

that Jesus holds all things together

and his way is better.

His way is always better.

So as we go into this series this year,

his church is about him,

holding it all together

so that he himself can be glorified.

I'd like to close this morning with a quote from C.S. Lewis

from "Mere Christianity."

He says this.

"It is easy to think that the church

"has a lot of different objects,

"education, building, missions, holding services,

"just as it is easy to think that the state

"has a lot of different objects,

"military, political, economical, and whatnot.

"But in a way, things are much simpler than that.

"The state exists simply to promote and protect

"the ordinary happiness of human beings in life.

"A husband and a wife chatting over a fire,

"a couple of friends having a game of darts,

"a man reading a book in his own room

"or digging his own garden.

"That's what the state is there for.

"And unless they are helping to increase and prolong

"and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments,

"armies, courts, police, economics, et cetera,

"are simply a waste of time in the same way.

"The church exists for nothing else

"but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs.

"And if the church is not doing that,

"all cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons,

"even the Bible itself is simply a waste of time."

It's not a waste of time because Jesus' bride is the church.

And the church is going to prevail

because it belongs to him, not to us.

You get the privilege of being a part of it.

How are you treating it?

So as we end today, we've got a few moments left.

Just like Joshua stood before the people and said,

you know, I don't know what you're gonna do,

but me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord.

I'd like to invite the head of the household,

married couples, you could come, that's fine.

But if you are a household represented at Springhouse,

you would say Springhouse is our church.

This is I'm representing my family.

I wanna invite you to come to the altar space

to make a declaration this morning

that you are going to make room for him,

that you're gonna ask him to tear down traditions,

ideologies, religion, and that you are gonna surrender

your heart posture for you and your family

to make room for him to be seen and him alone.

Would you stand with me?

And if that's you, come forward this morning

and let's make that declaration

as we sing this song together.

(gentle music)

You