Living as God's Family: Faith, Trust, and Community

And so dear brothers and sisters so so already we got family language brothers and sisters I grew up in in a place in a church tradition where everybody called each other brother and sister and it always kind of took me back like what I'm not your brother and your sister um but as I began to understand what that meant is that hey we're a part of the family of God. [00:02:56]

And because we're brothers and sisters in Christ we now get to enter into the most holy place and we talked a little bit about this last week this is that idea of Jerusalem is has traditionally been for the Jewish people has been the holy city and the reason that it's the holy city is because it's the most high place in the city was where the temple was placed. [00:03:53]

So when you go to work tomorrow, that's that's a place of worship because God is resides inside of you and you're going to that place and so everywhere you go that's a place of worship and so the most holy place now is your heart because God has taken residence here and so now dear brothers and sisters we can boldly enter into the most holy Place. [00:05:57]

Individually you begin to understand that you have your own individual responsibility for your faith it's not Pastor Chris's Faith it's your faith and you need to grow in it and you need to enter into the holy of holies you need to have your own prayer life you need to have your own your own study life and that when we gather here together we encourage each other. [00:08:06]

Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere Hearts fully trusting him here's the interesting thing this sincere heart is a heart that's changed all of our behaviors come from our heart and the Antiquities mind and heart kind of meant the same thing and so when you think thoughts and do things that's coming from a heart because it's your heart is your will and your character that moves you and motivates you. [00:09:02]

So then therefore let's go into the presence of God with sincere Hearts because we can fully trust him because he's always been a promisee keeper and so what can we trust for that our guilty consciences have been washed away by the blood that our bodies have been made pure and right this is symbolic language that this is stuff that the high priest would have done to enter into the holy of holies. [00:11:19]

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works that one of the key things that we do together when we come together we share our stories of what God's doing in our heart in our heart and our life that that we're like excited to tell about but we also tell about the things where there's some pain and suffering and we're like God are you even there. [00:12:46]

Presence matters in church is that we share life we don't just share duts and coffee we share life and so as we get together and we expose scripture and how scripture exposes us we talk about how God's been changing us and transforming us and my my before Jesus and what Jesus is doing in now and what I hope that he's doing for the future that all of this motivates us. [00:15:12]

Confess your sins we're each priests now right so as priests we sit down together with our friends in Christ as priests and you confess your sins to each other because you have to have some people that you can trust that know you and love you that you can continually sit down and they've been promisekeepers with you and they can sit down with you and they can know you and still love you. [00:25:30]

So listen we're on Mission y'all know it we've talked about it for a while our Cross Point mission is what one more for Jesus right we're pointing people to Jesus so let's be known as followers of Jesus that love our neighbors well let us motivate one another to acts of kindness and of good works and of love let's nurture a growing Faith where we're confessing and we're growing and we're challenging. [00:27:32]

And so let's dance let's communicate to our neighbors and even to us let's motivate us those that are struggling with man I don't know if I know get your tap shoes on and dance and say listen I have seen the pollen it is worth it let's dance let's pray together father thank you thank you thank you that you're a promisee keeper that you're a hope Giver. [00:30:06]

May the aroma of each individual in this room and us as a church May the aroma of our faith and our life be pleasing to you and also attractive to our neighbors so they're drawn to Jesus it's in your son's name that we pray amen amen. [00:32:37]