As A Believer// We Are Called to Gather and Go // Pastor Keenen

``The church is not an audience to be entertained, it is an army of believers to be mobilized. This is not a just a meeting place. This is a place where broken people come together to collectively encounter the presence of the living God. This is where people get restored. This is where faith is built. This is where lives are fundamentally changed. [00:16:47] (27 seconds)  #ChurchArmy

But your soul is what is being tended to when we come together. That is important. And we have to be reminded of the importance of the gathering. Now this is not about perfect attendance. Nobody here is taking attendance, but it is about the commitment as a believer to the family of God. We are not just a random group of people. We are the body of Christ. [00:09:18] (32 seconds)  #SoulCareTogether

This is why you can't afford to stay at home just because you feel like it. Just because you don't wanna be lazy and I'm just gonna lay in the bed today. No. Someone is depending and they need you to show up. They're depending on your worship. They need to see you with your hands lifted. They need to hear your testimony. They need to see that you're pressing through no matter what's going on in your life, and they can get that faith from you. It is important that you're here. That is what the gathering is for. [00:13:07] (29 seconds)  #ShowUpAndServe

I love Jesus, but I don't do church. Because Ephesians five describes the church as the bride of Christ. Now imagine somebody coming to you and telling you that they wanted have wanted to have a relationship with you, but they did not want to have a relationship with your spouse. You would say that that's impossible because when you see me, you see my spouse. [00:14:14] (28 seconds)  #BrideOfChrist

It matters that we show up because each one of us are a living epistle. Each one of us are a living testimony to the goodness and the faithfulness of God. Scripture says we are we are living epistles being read by all. Somebody needs to read you. They need to see you. They need to hear what God has done in your life. They need to see you pushing through. That's what this is for. [00:16:20] (25 seconds)  #LivingEpistles

He says go. And notice if you put that scripture back in verse 19 where he says go, there's nothing before that. It didn't say pastor, go. It didn't say if you've been saved fifteen years plus, go. It didn't say if you have a PhD in theology or you can correctly exegete or eisegete the scripture, go. He just said, go. [00:24:20] (28 seconds)  #JustGo

But hear me and hear me well. Jesus did not choose the perfect. Jesus did not choose the eloquent or did he choose the one that was fearless. He chose fishermen. Fishermen. He chose tax collectors. He chose ordinary people with ordinary lives and ordinary fears, and he told them to go. Because you see all throughout the scripture, they had the same fears that we have. [00:27:00] (39 seconds)  #OrdinaryCalled

Listen, we don't need a theological degree to share Jesus. We don't need to have all the answers. What we need is a heart that has been ignited by his love and a willingness to be obedient. That is it. Listen. We are not the savior. Jesus is. Our job is not to convert them. Our job is to share the good news. Our job is to plant the seed and to testify to what we know has changed our life. [00:28:27] (38 seconds)  #HeartNotDegree

Do not let fear steal the miracle of someone encountering Jesus through you. God equips those he calls. He will give you the words. He will give you the boldness. He will give you everything you need to communicate his word. Our calling is simple yet profound. We, as believers, are called to gather and to go. This is not about checking religious boxes or some comfortable Christianity. This is about being radically committed to what Christ has called us to do. [00:29:05] (48 seconds)  #GodEquips

Satan wants us isolated, discouraged, and silent, but God wants us unified, bold, and speaking his truth. At your job, in your neighborhood, at your school, wherever you are, we have the opportunity to let people encounter the love of God like never before. Your story, your testimony, and your willingness is enough. So when we gather, we gather with passion. And when we go, we go with purpose. [00:30:53] (46 seconds)  #UnityAndBoldness

But this is the very reason why the enemy tries to bombard us. This is the very reason why the enemy will do everything he can to get us to forsake the gathering. Because the goal is isolation. He doesn't want us to be encouraged. He wants to bombard us with discouragement. He doesn't want us to be unified. He wants us to take any opportunity to be divisive. He doesn't want us in community. He wants us to think that nobody sees us, that nobody cares, so that he could whisper lies to us in isolation [00:21:33] (33 seconds)  #GuardAgainstIsolation

Every single one of you here and watching online, you have already been equipped. You have already been empowered. Only thing left for you to do is go. You've already you already have everything you need to communicate the gospel. You're not waiting on anything else. You're not waiting on God. He's waiting on you. Share what God has done in your life. [00:29:54] (32 seconds)  #AlreadyEquipped

Now although our lives are surrounded around this book, the foundation of our lives is in this book called the bible. This is not a book club. Okay? This is not a book club. We don't read it and go home and come back and share our opinions about it and read it and come no. No. No. No. No. This is not a book club. We don't come together just for the sake of coming together. We come together to be equipped. We come together to worship. We come together to, be encouraged and then to go out and be the hands and feet of Jesus. [00:22:32] (37 seconds)  #BibleNotBookClub

And I know most of us would say, but what if I mess up? Now what if I say the wrong thing? What if I don't have the right words? What if somebody asks me something that I can't answer? And hear me. Those are valid fears that the enemy loves to whisper into our ears, to paralyze us with what ifs. Do not let the enemy deceive you. He wants us to stay silent. He wants us to stay hidden. [00:26:24] (36 seconds)  #DontLetFearWin

Share how he's been faithful. Share where he showed up. Share the tension in the moments that you have and when he begin to speak to you and walk you through, share it. Those are the things that get people to say, now that's a Jesus that I wanna know about. And then you begin to communicate the gospel to them. [00:30:26] (27 seconds)  #ShareYourStory

More than likely, the player will not play, and if they do play, they cannot be expected to perform at their best. Why? Because by not attending the pregame huddle or the pregame gathering, they have missed critical instruction. They lack awareness of the game. They lack awareness of the plan against the opponent. And because of that, they are open to potentially misunderstanding the team's position and the team's strategy all because they missed the huddle. [00:03:57] (36 seconds)  #DontSkipTheHuddle

We make sure we are there for those things that matter to us. If you buy a plane ticket, you're gonna be there two hours early. Some of y'all more than two hours early to make sure that you are there to make sure that you go through security, that you get to the place so that you can get on the plane. [00:08:38] (21 seconds)  #BeThereOnTime

Because we wanna come to church and not be seen. We wanna come to church, slip in, slip out. We don't want nobody to ask us nothing. We don't want nobody to ask us how we're doing, how's our marriage, how's our kids, how's our faith, how's our we don't want that because we wanna be in isolation. That is not what this is. [00:11:52] (16 seconds)  #DontStayInvisible

It is imperative that we change the way that we view this. That we change the way that we we don't just wake up, come, get some coffee, sit in the seat, sing, sit down, sing, sit down, hear, go back, and do it again next week. Heaven forbid. We have to change the way that we are seeing this thing. [00:10:42] (24 seconds)  #ChangeHowYouSeeChurch

When you look in the scripture, when we look in in the the the the Acts and we look at the the church being formed and we look at the story of what was going on, numbers were added, miracles were happened, all these things were happening, these people weren't showing up out of obligation. They had a desperate need for one another. And it is amazing how almost two thousand years later, it's it's just about two thousand years later, and the writer of Hebrews is addressing the same thing that we are dealing with here today. [00:06:36] (38 seconds)  #ActsModelCommunity