Character Matters - Acts 6:1-7

You guys ready to go?

Yes.

One quick little side trail and then we'll jump right in. Israel is coming up in May, last two weeks of May, and after that is Turkey. So if you want to go to Israel, you get signed up for that. If you want to go on a walk through the book of Acts, which we're in right now, come with us to Turkey and we'll do 11 days through the book of Acts. And what I would offer you is this, if you're like, I'd love to go to Israel but there's vaccine requirements and I don't want to be vaccinated. I totally understand that, and there are vaccine requirements for Israel, there are not for Turkey. So if you want to go to the biblical lands but you don't want to have to get a vaccination to do that, Turkey is your option. So we'd love to have you come and join us as we walk where Jesus walked, no big deal.

Hey, we're in number eight of the book of Acts. And I'm loving being back in a book of the Bible. The last two and a half years that we were in Idaho before we came here, we took the six most challenging books in the Bible and did sermon series through them all. So we did Genesis and Leviticus. This sermon series it was dope, through Leviticus. And then we did Romans, and we did Hebrews, and we did Revelation. Now, you know we're never doing that again.

Here's the thing about Revelation, Revelation, people fall into one of two camps with Revelation, either they really care about Revelation or they really don't care about Revelation. There's no middle ground, and it's really hard to preach a sermon series through because as soon as you ... people who really care, if you don't agree with all of their little parsings and divisions in it, they're like, I'm out. It's apocalyptic, we can't play with this stuff. I'm out, I really care. So we tackled all those, and I was ready for a break in just doing verse by verse expository stuff, so it's been fun to be back in a book. And we're only going to cover seven verses today, so we're going to get to dig a little deeper than we normally do, which is always fun for me. You guys ready to go to work?

Okay. "Now, in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists rose against the Hebrews." Now, the Hellenists are anybody who's Greek, anybody who has a Greek worldview. The Greek worldview is called Hellenism. So anybody that comes from a Greco-Roman influence is a Hellenist, okay. To be sure, this is not Jews and Gentiles in the sense of Jesus followers, these are Hellenists, these are Greeks who have become Jews and now who are following Jesus. And that's important because we're still in Jerusalem at this point, we haven't had the scattering yet that's going to come up here in a couple of weeks. So we haven't had the scattering yet, we haven't gone out and started to reach people who weren't Jews first.

So the Hellenistic Jews, probably from Alexandria, they're complaining against the Hebrew Jews. And here's why, because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. So the Greeks are saying, hey, because we're Greek you're picking on us, right. And that's not right. We have a problem with that. And they should have a problem with that. "And the 12 summon the full number of the disciples and said, 'It is not right that we should give up the preaching of the Word of God to serve tables.'" Here's the funny thing, you say that in a church today and there's a lot of people be like, who do you think you are? You're so special. Look at you. You're too important for this menial labor? No, its purpose, its calling, it's not getting lost for what God has called them to be a part of. And that's actually important. It's freeing to me, we'll talk more about that in a little bit.

"Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute", they have a good reputation, "full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word." And so That's what the apostles did, prayer and the ministry of the word. "And what they said pleased the whole gathering and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit." By the way, Stephen is the only one that gets a little additional bump on his character here in this whole list. We should probably wrestle with that, but we're going to do it next week. So who is this Stephen guy? When I grow up I want to be Stephen, I just don't want to experience his end. We'll talk about that next week.

And Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, not Puma, Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. Why do we need to know that? Well, that's important because when the scattering happens at the persecution of Stephen, there's a whole group of people that go to Antioch. Why? Because there's some of them that are from there. And they go and they plant a church, which becomes important. They sat before the apostles and they said before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them, and the Word of God continued to increase. And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Priests became obedient to the faith, that's a thing.

So we're going to take a look at this some lessons. I'm going to give us three lessons that we can learn out of this passage and we'll keep referencing back to Acts six as a launching pad for where we want to go. Lesson number one, problems are a part of growth, they just are. Problems are a part of growth. It's hard for people to experience growth without encountering problems. And we often think that, man, in the presence of God it's all peaceful and there's no problem. No, understand this, we wouldn't have a New Testament if it wasn't for the problems in the early church. The whole of the New Testament is written as a response to say, okay, we have this situation going on in our church, we don't know how to handle it, what should we do? And so there's a lot of back and forth, but it's all rooted in problems.

Now there's a couple of ways to deal with our problems, one way is to deal with it through the power of the Spirit. And we've been talking about this power of the flesh, the power of the Spirit, we've been talking about this over the last few weeks, what does that mean? So one way to deal with it is through the power of the Spirit. The other way to deal with it is through the works of the flesh. And for many of us, we've never spent the energy that we needed to figure out the difference between those two things. And so we wind up trying to fight like the devil for the things of God. And turns out, that doesn't work well. It's weird, but it doesn't go well for us.

Here's the thing, we're going to have problems. Anybody that's been married longer than two seconds knows you're going to have disagreement. You're going to have it. It's okay, it's not evil to have disagreement. And even if my internal being is completely whole and my wife's internal being is completely whole, I still only have limited knowledge of what she's saying, what does she mean? How is she feeling? What's influencing that? What did I do that she misunderstood? What did I do that was wrong, that I didn't know that it was wrong? There's all those factors that go into this even when we're whole.

Now, I don't know anybody that's completely whole. We all got scars and wounds somewhere. So now we're complicating that by a factor of 10 because we're trying to make whole decisions from a broken place. And that's really, really hard to do. That's really, really hard to do. And so what winds up happening is we wind up getting into arguments. When we try to tackle that through the power of the flesh, then the problem escalates. When we try to do it through the power of the Spirit, then we put the problem in its proper perspective and we can move forward together.

See, in conflict there's always a versus, something versus something, right? The goal would be you and me versus the problem. But what happens in conflict too many times it is becomes me versus you. And that means that whoever wins, their point was right, right? And so whoever has the most power, whoever's the most persuasive, whoever's the quickest on their feet, that's the one who's going to win. And then they win and they're right. Why are they right? Well, because they won. Not because they were actually right, they're right because they won.

Conflict doesn't work well that way. But when we move in the flesh, when we're trying to resolve it by the power of the flesh, that's what happens, those are the things that happen, and it escalates, and escalates, and escalates. It gets worse, not better. I don't know about you guys, but I don't love the idea of making problems worse. And yet, when we move in the power of the flesh, that's exactly what we do.

And so we've been talking about this fruit of the Spirit, right? How do we know that we're living in the Spirit? Well the fruit of the spirit becomes true of us, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. These are the things that become true of us when we're living life through the Spirit. Right before that, in Galatians five, Paul mentions the deeds of the flesh, the works of the flesh. And so I want to read these because some of them are obvious, and when we read this passage we're like, yes that, of course, yes that. And then there's a lot of them that are like, I don't know what that really means. So I want to dissect them a little bit and see what we can learn here.

Here's what it says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality." Okay, sure. Generally speaking, we can agree that sexual morality and Christianity are in opposition to one another, that's easy, that's easy. "Impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery." Okay, I can get on board with those. Like, don't cast magic spells, I won't do that. "Enmity." What in the world is that? Well, it's bad. "Strife, jealousy, fits of anger." Yes, I can generally say that raging on someone is not going to help, right? "Rivalries." What? Everybody loves a good rivalry. "Dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies." Yes, I can get on board with that. That's bad. That's bad. Drunkenness, orgies, those are bad. "And things like these." What he's saying is that's not an exhaustive list, but here's an idea of what it might look like.

"I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God." And this is actually really important, because some of those words hit a little closer to home than we might like. Some of the big ones, drunkenness, orgies, sexual morality, all that, yes, yes, yes, I don't do that. But I want to take a look at some of these words, the first one is impurity. And you're about to hear me butcher the Greek language. [foreign language 00:12:57] is the Greek word used for impurity. Here's what it means, uncleanness in a moral sense. If I do something that's immoral, anything that compromises my own moral code. The use of impure motives, so anytime that I make a decision for my own selfish gain.

The impurity of, listen to this, lustful, luxurious or profligate living. You're like, that's a really big word. Write it down, go look it up. In other words, when the haves do not properly steward their wealth, they are morally unclean. Put another way, when you choose not to be generous, you're living by the flesh.

Here's another one, enmity, enmity. The Greek word is [foreign language 00:14:09], it means hostility or a reason for opposition against you. Not that we have opposing viewpoints on a topic, but that I oppose you as a human. That's very different posture than I disagree with the point you're trying to make. Does that make sense? That's really significant, because as long as I'm just disagreeing with the point you're trying to make and not trying to make you wrong, then we can stand together and wrestle the points. But if I need to make you wrong, then I can't do that. If I need you to be wrong so that I can be right, then I'm living in the flesh, that's enmity. That's a flesh based decision, and it will never allow you to have the life that living in the Spirit promises us.

Next one is strife. The word is Eris. And here's what it means, of uncertain affinity. In other words, you don't know if I'm for you or not, that's creating strife. If when we're in a conversation you don't know that we're on the same team. We can disagree about stuff, but we're on same team, we want the same things. And so if I'm for you, I just think your point is ludicrous, right. Okay, let's talk about that. We can have that conversation all day. But as soon as it becomes personal, no, no, no, I'm not for you anymore. I'm going to take you down a notch. That's a different ballgame altogether.

Let's talk about rivalries. This is fun. [crosstalk 00:16:14] is the word. It's used of those who are electioneering for office, those who are trying to desire to put oneself ... This is the thing about rivalries, we love a good rivalry. I grew up in Montana, and the Montana State University of Montana rivalry was amazing. In fact, the entire Big Sky Conference when I was in high school was incredible. It was set up for you had University of Idaho at Boise State, you had University of Montana in Montana State. Now, those aren't so much rivalries anymore, but they were then, and it was awesome. And the way that we talk about it is, we beat you guys. You know how we talk about that? Here's the truth, we sat on the couch and ate nachos, that's what we did.

Yes.

The boys played a game in a field, that's what they did. But that wasn't we, but we own it, we own the rivalry, we own, we love. We love a rivalry, because we want to be right. It looks like this, let's say there was a group of people who had a problem with something that the church was doing. I know, we're reaching. And so what they did was they started meeting together, talking about it, and maybe even they read a book about it. And then somebody goes out of that group, like, hey, we agree and we're all together that the church is wrong. And somebody goes out of that group and goes and talks to somebody else about it for the purpose of getting agreement and alliances. That's a rivalry. And that's sin, because it's operating in the flesh. Because you know what they'll never do, they'll never just come and talk to the people who can actually make the decision.

And I hear this all the time, Aaron, you're just intimidating, you're really hard to talk to. Not my problem. Do the biblical thing. Do the biblical thing. It's hard talk to. Why? Because [inaudible 00:18:52]. That's a rivalry, and it's operating in the flesh.

Dissension, this is the last one we're going to look at. [foreign language 00:19:09] is the Greek word. And it means division or sedition. In other words, conduct or speech inciting people to rebel. So if we walk out of here and you guys are like, let's fight the man. Yes. I don't know who the man is, I don't know, whichever man you're fighting, I don't know, big tech, let's go to fight big tech. Yes. When we're inciting people to rebel, that's dissension. That's dissension. It's operating in the flesh. That's never going to lead to a Spirit filled life. It's just never going to lead there. This is where the problems in the church originate. And what happens is, if we stay in the flesh, those problems grow and they become bigger, and they become a real issue. If we can move towards dealing with them in the Spirit, then we can actually start to resolve things in a really healthy way. And that's really significant. That's really significant.

Second lesson that we want to talk about out of Acts chapter six is the role of spiritual leadership. So we talk about problems are part of growth, they just are. And the role of spiritual leadership in resolving problems, this is significant, because people ask, even they ask Jesus in the Bible, this guy comes up and he goes, "Hey, teacher, tell my brother to give me my share of the inheritance." And Jesus is like, "That's not even my conversation. Who made me judge? I'm not." People ask me to do this, it happens more than you would think. I have a problem with so and so, and you need to help me fix it. My only way to help them is, you sit in this chair, you sit in this chair, Spirit filled living. Don't get fleshy, that won't go good. My degree is in theology, not in relationship management.

Acts chapter six, verses two to four, it says this, "The 12 summoned the full number of the disciples and said, 'It's not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables.'" I love that they knew their purpose. "Therefore, brothers, pick from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word." And I will not do this passage justice, unfortunately, and I want to apologize in advance.

These are the two things ... this verse has been such a course setter for me over the last six months. What do I do? What's my job? Prayer and ministry of the Word, that's my job. There's so many great ideas in the Kingdom of God that are going on, and everybody has a thing that they're passionate about, and everybody wants me to be as passionate about it as they are. And I understand that, but here's what God's called me to, prayer, ministry of the Word. And anytime that you ask me to get outside of that lane, you're asking me to do something that God didn't ask me to do. Doesn't mean that the thing that you're asking about isn't important. And people get really mad about that, how can you not care? How can you not care about the children? [inaudible 00:23:19] they're my life.

I do care about kids, right, I do. And if we can help, we'll help, but bottom line is my role isn't to solve the mysteries of how to fund everybody else's good idea. My role is prayer and the ministry of the Word, that's it. And I think that, that being said, at this point in my ministry career, I believe that if I wasn't inviting you into more of a prayer culture, more of a time where we're intentional about prayer with God, I would personally be in sin for that. Because this is my call, this is who I am.

And it's important for us to keep it that simple because it's so easy to get off track and to get pulled into the flesh, to get pulled in. But if you did this podcast or if you wrote this book, you would have so such a platform. I'm going to be honest with you, vulnerability moment, that's appealing. It's appealing to want influence to me, but it's also gets me off base in a hurry, it gets me off base in a hurry. Prayer and ministry of the Word, and then whatever happens out of that, that's God's call, right. That's God's call, it's not my call.

The other thing that I would say about it is, for me, because it's so such, it's tricky to navigate that well as a leader, I have to have people in my life that I will allow to say, hey, knock it off. And here's what that means, I mean, you guys know this, you only have so many relational units in your being, right? You only have so many relational units in your being. I have a really large relational metric, a belief in the importance of relationship, I have a really small relational capacity. Listen, I've had more than a few conversations with the Lord about this. Really, you ask me to care about relationship and then I can handle three people or I just wear out.

My wife and I went shopping yesterday, and we were shopping for like a year, that's what it felt like. We got in the vehicle after we're getting ready to head home, I was like, man, I am worn out. That was an emotional experience. And my wife loves it, she's like, yes, let's go to Dutch Brothers. Just literally the worst idea, not because Dutch Brothers is bad, but because they talk to you. And I didn't have any words. And I literally I'm driving, and my wife is in the passenger side, and I wasn't getting anything. The guy kept talking, I literally turned and looked at [inaudible 00:27:05], I was like, I can't look over there at all. You're going to have to bail me out here. I'm relationally capped, right, I was just capped out. And it happens.

But here's the thing, people don't understand why I can't be everybody's friend. Here's why, because with my small amount of relational units, I have to be able to have relationships that are deep enough to know me to my guts, so that I don't do anything stupid. Because as we've already seen, way too many pastors that get caught up in feeling like they got to be everybody's friend, and they wind up being nobody's friend, and they wind up alone, and then they wind up making some really big mistakes. I don't know if that's right, but I know it protects me. And for me, that's important. It's hard because, let me just continue to be vulnerable for a minute, I can read a book one time and quote you chapters of that book, I can meet somebody 10 times and not remember their name. And I don't know why that is. I hate it. I've talked with the Lord about it so much, I'm like, God, these people are important, at least let me remember their name, right? At least remember their name? And He's like, no.

I'll tell you a funny story, I was at the gym the other night, it was like eight o'clock at night, and I'm starting at 4:30, I'm like, I got to go to the gym. And I'm like, okay, I'll go. I don't want to go. I'm having this battle with myself, right. Planet Fitness, on their app, they have a club meter where you tell how full it is, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's so busy. Right. So finally at eight o'clock I'm like, it's still busy. All right, I'm going. So I go out to my truck and I'm, I forgot something, so I go get it. We go back out to my truck, I forgot my keys, and so I go back in. I get in my truck, go to the gym.

I go sit at the bench where I'm going to work, and I get my weights all set up, and I look down, and I'm wearing slippers. True story, wearing moccasin slippers, and I'm like, I have a choice right now, I could turn around and go home or I can act like this was intentional and I can crush a shoulder workout. So I crushed a shoulder workout. In the middle of it, this lady comes up to me, and I swear I have never seen her before in my life, she's like, "Pastor Aaron, it's so nice to see you at the gym." And I'm like, "Yes and my slippers. Do you love them" These are the moments God creates for me. I don't even know how to, hi, I'm wearing slippers. Just inevitably those kind of things freak me out.

I say all that to say, God hasn't given me a role to do everything, prayer and ministry of the Word, prayer and ministry of the Word. Everything else is just getting off base. It's not flashy, but it's sufficient. And it's not for somebody else to decide what it looks like. Here's the thing, remember, because what we do is we want revival, so let's create a strategy for revival. The strategy for revival is prayer and ministry of the Word, that is sufficient. Because we all come up strategies, remember bus ministry?

Those of you that were in the late 70s and 80s, there was bus ministry, remember that? Churches don't even own buses anymore, because it's cheaper to rent a charter and pay a driver than it is to pay the insurance on a school bus that looks like a group of middle school kids painted it because that's what happened. And bus ministry was great, tons of kids came to Christ because of bus Minister. Nothing wrong with it, just strategies have a shelf life, prayer and ministry of the Word doesn't. And so we need to be focusing on those things. And what I love about Acts six is that the apostles were smart enough to stay that course.

All right, last lesson, third lesson, here we go. What is important in someone that gets chosen to serve? What are we looking for? What's going on? Why these seven men, why do they get chosen? Okay. And what I want to talk about is, what is it that God's looking for in somebody that's serving in his kingdom in some way? It's not what we might think. First Corinthians one says this, 26 to 29, "Consider your calling brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are. So that no human being might boast in the presence of God."

I have great news for you, because so many of us say, God, I'll serve the Lord when I get X, Y, Z figured out. Listen, God doesn't need you to have ... God can call sons of Abraham out of the rocks. He doesn't need you to be qualified, He needs you to be obedient. He doesn't need you to have it all figured out. So many people are like, I'll come to church, I just got to get some things cleaned up first. Why would you try to do what only Jesus can do for you outside of the power of Jesus working in your life? It doesn't work. You come to church and then let Jesus help you clean it up. It's not about being educated, although education is important, I'm not anti-education. It's not about being a certain level of being articulate or having a certain way to process it, it's not any of that, that's not what qualifies you.

There are two qualifications that they're looking for from Acts six, okay. Number one, is a good reputation. Let me say that another way, your reputation matters. And I know that for so many of us it's a very individualistic American idea, I don't care what people think. Look at me, I'm strong, I don't care what people think. You should care what people think. You should care. Here's why, because the Bible says that when you say yes to Jesus, it's not you who lives, it's Christ who lives in you. So it's not about them seeing you, it's about them seeing Jesus living in you. And that should matter, that should matter.

First Timothy three, we see the qualifications for an elder. And I want to read this because it comes up two different ways, twice in this passage. Here's what it says, it says, "This saying is trustworthy, if anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task, therefore an overseer must be above reproach." So that's the first time it shows up. Above reproach means those of us that are in the household of faith, we don't have grounds to critique that person's faith walk. They're above reproach. They're not somebody that acts juvenile in their faith. "The husband of one wife." Listen, I'm not going to pick these things apart today, that's another story for another day. But that's been misused in the church.

"Sober minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's Church?" Again, I'm not pulling these apart, it's another sermon series. "He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the combination of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders", there it is again, "so that he may not fall into disgrace into a snare of the devil."

So above reproach is good standing with people inside the body of Christ. But he's also needs to be well thought of by outsiders. Your reputation matters. And what the apostles taught from day one, are like, look, don't pick anybody to serve, pick people who have good reputation. If you're like, I don't have a good reputation, I have such good news for you, you can't go backwards, but you can start over today. You can do that.

Now, the second way that we know that the criteria that they get chosen by is that they're full of the Spirit. So they want to be of good reputation and full of the Spirit. How do we know that they're full of the Spirit? By the fruit, fruit of the Spirit. I know you're full of the Spirit because love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. That's how I know. By the way, any of those not relational? The very evidence that the Spirit is working in our life is that we're able to step into relationship in a certain way. We're not combative, we're not ready to go to war all the time, we're not trying to measure people up. Listen, I'm for you, whatever the best version of you is, I want you to have it, and I want to help any way that I can.

Okay, here's what that means. If you're like, I don't have a good reputation and I don't even know if I have the Holy Spirit, now we know where to begin. Good news, don't get overwhelmed by that. Don't be like, forget it. Don't get overwhelmed by it, we have an opportunity to grow. The rabbis teach this, when God reveals something to you that is a shortfall in your life, and God is faithful to do that because we have those until the day we die, right, we're always growing. When God reveals something to you that's a shortfall in your life, you don't go, I'm overwhelmed by this, it will never be enough. Listen, perfection isn't the goal, relationship is the goal. And the journey reveals to us more of what God is like, who he is and what he's like.

So the rabbis teach this, don't get overwhelmed, when you find a place like that, you dance, because God is going to show up new in your life, and you ought to be excited about that. What could God show me? There's whole things about God that I don't even know yet, what could he show me? I don't know but I'm going to find out, right. So we dance. I danced with a white man over by because I have the dancing technique of a ground shrew. But we don't have to get overwhelmed by that, we don't have to get overwhelmed by that.

All right, some implications for this morning. Number one, problems become bigger when we try to solve them in our flesh. Problems become bigger when we try to solve them in our flesh. That's the key, we learn this throughout the New Testament. The only time that there's ongoing nagging problems is when they're trying to solve them under the flesh's power. We press in a life in the Spirit, those problems become less.

Number two, prayer and ministry of the Word are sufficient for the Kingdom of God to move forward. They're sufficient for the Kingdom of God to move forward. It's not flashy, but it's sufficient. Number three, our character matters and should reflect the fruit of the Spirit, like, how people view you, how people view your character. Here's the deal, there's going to be enough opportunities for people to misread you or just to straight up make up stories about you, right, even if you're trying to do the right thing. If we're going to try to do the right thing, we're going to give them lots of ammunition. Your reputation matters. Your character should reflect the fruit of the Spirit.

Number four, we all find places in ourselves that don't line up with the life and character that God desires, we all have them. And if you're like, no, I have it dialed. Pride is a sin, and we all have them, right. We all have them, and it's okay. We don't want to be like, it's okay to sin, but at the same time it's okay to be where we are. We got to acknowledge where we are so that we know how to grow. That should inspire us to grow, not quit. We all have places, but that shouldn't overwhelm us and get us to quit, it should inspire us to grow.

And so we're going to move into communion, which we take every week together. So if you're new with us, you better start working on those cellophane wrappers because they take a minute. But don't take them, we'll take it all together here in just a second. That being said, I want to just offer just for a brief meditation between you and the Lord, where have you gotten so caught up in being perfect that it's overwhelmed you to get you to want to quit? That you have to have it all solved? I'll tell you this, the most appealing testimony is one of deepest transparency and authenticity, it's not one that's all fixed and pretty. It's not.

I'm not drawn to, I have everything solved and I'm awesome, because I know sitting in my own space that I'm not there. The best story is, I was here and I'm growing up, I got a lot of work to do, and here's some of the struggles that I'm having, but I believe that God is faithful and we're going to be working those through. Where have you gotten so caught up in being perfect that you're trying to do it under the flesh's power? Because the Spirit don't put that pressure on you. Where is that space? Let's talk with the Lord about that as we get our hearts ready for communion.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it, and he said, "This is my body which is given free. So whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance of me." Let's remember Him this morning. And then after the dinner he took a cup and he said, "This cup, this is a new covenant of my blood which is shed for you. So whenever you drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me." Let's remember Him.

Let's pray. Lord, we love you. God, thank you for how you just continue to lead us and to reveal to us how we can be more like you. And God, I pray that as we wrestle through all the distractions that the world offers us and even that the Christian world offers us, Lord, that you would capture us by your Spirit with the things that you want us to focus on. God, thank you for your incredible mercy and grace. In Jesus' name, Amen.