Engaging All: Faith, Experience, and Community in Christ

In this sermon, I discussed the importance of understanding and reaching out to different categories of people in the church: the faithful followers of Jesus (the Saints), the skeptics, and the prodigals. I emphasized the need to shift our focus from primarily addressing the Saints to also engaging the skeptics and prodigals. This approach, I believe, helps to build common ground with those who may not believe in the Bible or are attending church as a favor to someone else. I also stressed the importance of creating an environment that encourages people to get on board with the message of Christ, even if it means accomplishing less in terms of content.

In the second part of the sermon, I highlighted the significance of personal experiences with Jesus in our discipleship journey. I discouraged the idea of coming to church like a battery to be charged once a week, but rather encouraged a continuous relationship with God. I urged the congregation to pray for a burden for the church, emphasizing that being the church means that people who are close to us and far from God are never an acceptable reality. I also discussed the dangers of placing status and stuff above God, using Solomon's life as an example of how these things can bring sorrow when God is not at the center of our lives.

Key Takeaways:
- We need to shift our focus from primarily addressing the faithful followers of Jesus to also engaging the skeptics and prodigals in our sermons. (#!!12:13 !!)
- Personal experiences with Jesus are a significant part of our discipleship journey. (#!!31:11 !!)
- Being the church means that people who are close to us and far from God are never an acceptable reality. (#!!31:41 !!)
- Status and stuff can bring sorrow when God is not at the center of our lives. (#!!32:50 !!)
- Faith is not a destination, it's a direction. We all have drift in our life and need to constantly realign our purpose with God. (#!!25:12 !!)

Bible Reading:
1. Passage 1: [Insert Bible Passage] [38:41 ]
2. Passage 2: [Insert Bible Passage] [39:08 ]
3. Passage 3: [Insert Bible Passage] [39:42 ]

Observation Questions:
1. What is the main theme of the first passage and how does it relate to the conversation in the sermon?
2. How does the second passage address the issue of anger and outrage mentioned in the sermon?
3. What does the third passage say about our identity and how does it relate to the sermon's discussion on status and stuff?

Interpretation Questions:
1. How does the first passage interpret the concept of 'dropping in' in the context of faith and church attendance?
2. How does the second passage interpret the concept of anger and outrage in our society today?
3. How does the third passage interpret the concept of identity in relation to status and stuff?

Application Questions:
1. How can you apply the concept of 'dropping in' to your own church attendance and faith journey?
2. In what ways can you address and manage your own anger and outrage in light of the second passage?
3. How can you redefine your identity in light of the third passage, moving away from the promises of status and stuff?

Day 1: The Burden of Comfortable Coziness

The comfort and coziness of our lives can often blind us to the needs of those around us. We must pray for a burden that will not allow us to be satisfied with just doing church, but pushes us to be the church, personally and relationally changing the reality of those who are far from God. [31:11]

Bible Passage: James 2:15-17 - "Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, 'Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

Reflection: How can you move from just doing church to being the church in your daily life?

Day 2: The Vanity of Worldly Achievements

The pursuit of status and material possessions often leads to disappointment and pain, as they never truly satisfy. Solomon's life teaches us that without God at the center of our lives, everything else is vanity, empty and void. [32:50]

Bible Passage: Ecclesiastes 2:11 - "When I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun."

Reflection: How can you shift your focus from worldly achievements to having God at the center of your life?

Day 3: The Discipline of Delayed Gratification

In a culture of instant gratification, delaying our desires can remind us that material possessions won't satisfy. This discipline can help us combat the lies that the world throws at us daily. [33:54]

Bible Passage: Hebrews 12:11 - "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

Reflection: What is one area in your life where you can practice the discipline of delayed gratification?

Day 4: The Importance of Fellowship and Community

Meaningful community and fellowship are just as important as the sermon. Giving space in our schedules to have conversations and build relationships can help us be a welcoming presence of God. [24:09]

Bible Passage: Acts 2:42 - "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

Reflection: How can you create more space in your schedule for fellowship and community?

Day 5: The Direction of Faith

Faith is not a destination, but a direction. Even as followers of Jesus, our purpose can drift and Jesus can go from being the core of our lives to an optional attachment. We must constantly realign our purpose with God. [25:12]

Bible Passage: Proverbs 4:26-27 - "Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil."

Reflection: How can you ensure that your faith is moving in the right direction and that Jesus remains the core of your life?

Hey everybody, Mark here. Thanks so much for tuning in. We have a really fun conversation with Phil and Jess today as we're kicking off week one of our Explore God series.

This series is meant to answer some of life's biggest and toughest questions, like: What is the purpose of life? Is there a God? And if there is a God, who is He? Or how could this God allow good or bad things to happen?

So our prayer and our hope and our encouragement for you as a community, as Menlo Church's community, is that you can use this series and leverage it to invite maybe some friends or family or neighbors that might not be in relationship with Jesus.

Now, we understand that this can be a very hard and challenging ask, and we are doing our best to be intentional with every song that we choose, every word that we say in the sermon, everything for the church service to make this ask as easy for you as possible. We will do our best not to make it weird, so we're praying for you and we're rooting you on as you do that.

A couple of things I want to remind you of before we jump in is that we have three services now at each location on Sundays at 8:30, 10 o'clock, and 11:30, and we'll be streaming the 10 o'clock service online.

If you'd like to get up into the Redwoods for our spiritual formation retreat, there are still a few spots left, so you can head over to Menlo Church's website for that.

And now, let's go ahead and jump into our conversation with Phil and Jess.

Well, welcome everybody to the Menlo Midweek Podcast. My name is Mark.

My name is Jessica.

Phil's with us today.

Hey everybody, good to be heard by you.

Sure, that works. I was going to say good to see you, but I don't really see them, and not all of them are looking at us on YouTube.

Yep, so it just didn't— that was the logical lead.

Yeah, that's great. That makes sense. Welcome back, Mark.

Thank you. Where were you?

I was out in the mountains playing around. It was fantastic. Maybe I'll put a picture up of Missy with a little fish that we caught.

Oh, we went out to the Yosemite area and we went to Tuolumne Meadows.

Okay.

Which usually we go into the valley and do that thing, but we went up to the meadow and we did like this hike to a lake, and then we did a hike to a dome that overlooked everything, and it was just surreal and beautiful.

Nice. A dome? Like, is it like a half dome?

It was like a little quarter dome.

Okay, yeah.

So not the dome, but we could see the dome from that one. I think we had some binoculars and people just looked like ants crawling.

Oh my gosh, that is the wildest thing, seeing people go up. It's so weird.

It's great. Good job. Way to go, people.

That sounds terrifying.

I know, fun. Have you been to Yosemite yet, Phil?

I'm not. I know the path from our house to the Menlo Park Central offices, to all of our campuses. We have done Santa Cruz, we've done San Francisco with friends a couple of times, I've been up to Napa, I've been to Half Moon Bay. That might be it.

You've got some good ones in there.

So, yeah. Mark, what would you say is the best time of year to go to Yosemite, fall or spring?

Yeah, okay, for sure. In like two weeks, the whole valley is going to be orange because of all the fall colors.

Yeah, that's great.

It's going to be a little bit less crowded than peak summer, so even if you can get out there for like a day.

I'm potentially planning a trip.

How long is that drive?

Um, if you leave early—yeah, which I don't know if you can do or not—but we left at 5:30ish and got to— we parked the car at the meadow at like 9:30.

Okay.

It was after like gas and coffee and stuff, so nice. If you were to go to the valley, it's probably about the same.

Okay.

But we did a day trip once with my family. We left super early. It was like snowy. It was beautiful.

All right.

We brought a picnic lunch and ate it in the car, and oh, that's just—we were there for the day and came back.

I recommend at least one night because it is a long drive, but it is still worth it just to go in a day.

That's good.

Yeah, speaking of exploring—

Exploring!

There he is! There's the Segway King!

Back!

We're back! It was really hard last week without you.

Just feels impossible for a lot of reasons, but specifically the Segways.

Well, when I was in Yosemite, I felt like I had a purpose because it was just like God was just like, "That's His playground," in my opinion. It's just like God just was like, "I'm just going to go off a little bit about what I can do. Watch this."

It made me feel like super reflective as I was there, but also like, "Man, how could there not be something else?" when you see something like that.

So, um, and they made me like, "What am I supposed to do now? Now that that's a thing, where's my part to play in that?"

And that's kind of what we talked about this weekend as we kicked off this Explore God series.

And I want to chat a little bit about the series as a whole.

Um, I think one of the coolest things that we're not giving enough attention to is that it's not just our church that's doing this, but it's like Bay Area-wide, if not hundreds of churches.

165 churches.

165 Bay Area churches.

So to my knowledge, it's all in the Bay Area.

Okay.

It was kind of organized by a couple key churches in a nonprofit organization.

Um, but yeah, we're one of 165, and then we count as one, even though we have multiple locations.

So there's a few of those as well.

So, well, it's 165. It really represents even a bigger reach than that.

Cool. That's amazing.

And is everyone going through the exact same questions in the same order?

Or like, I mean, like we're doing this series a little bit shorter on the weekends than the series prescribes because we have the Menlo 150 celebration and some of the things that we wanted to do strategically leading up to that.

So we've condensed it down.

Uh, the discussion groups, to my knowledge, will cover all of the questions that were prescribed, but we are—we'll sort of incorporate some of the questions into one.

So this upcoming weekend will be a question about God and then sort of a sub-question that we'll be answering within that from the series.

So, yeah, but I think churches—some of them are literally preaching the exact same sermon, like line for line.

Um, some of them are going to do every single week. For us, we condensed down the questions.

We're using the same questions.

Um, at least two of the passages that I used this weekend were from sort of the guiding material, but I don't preach other people's sermons, so I just wrote it for us, for Menlo.

So that's that.

I know people that do, and they—yeah, you would be like, "What's wrong, Phil?" if I tried to do it.

It just wouldn't make any sense.

It seemed weird.

Got it.

Stories just—when, yeah, and it just doesn't—you know, have like a weird dry sense of humor, and like there's just a—you know, when you've done it for a while, your style is so you that when you try to teach someone else's stuff, with their stuff comes their style, and it won't feel like you.

And I think this stock in particular, it just felt like the opportunity to talk to our community inside of Menlo and Silicon Valley specifically was so important that customizing it for that was a fun experience.

And if you're familiar with an environment called Alpha, it's kind of a para-church ministry that is built to do conversations like this.

I've done some speaking for Alpha, and so that's like a fun—this feels a lot like that.

And then there's another environment called Starting Point, which is a type of faith exploration environment at Menlo.

It's a kind of a newcomer experience, but it's from North Point originally, and it's sort of their version of Alpha.

I've done some speaking for that, and so, um, yeah, it felt like getting to dust off sort of a way I love to be able to speak in an audience that I think I want to be able to talk directly to them.

And I want our church to be able to know that we assume those folks are in the room every time we gather, and that's a unique gift that we don't want to take for granted.

Yeah, wow.

So how did you come up with your message?

How much of it was, you know, kind of a skeleton from the one that was prescribed?

How much did you just—did you just backbone off of the couple, you know, passages that they wanted you to anchor the message with?

Or how much of that was just Phil?

Um, yeah, so the question at the top, "Does life have a purpose?" that came from the material and then two Bible passages, and then I just wrote it.

So, um, yeah, I think that there was sort of a path that I wanted to try and head down.

You know, there's—there's—um, maybe we've talked about this before—there's really two main types of preaching styles.

There's one called deductive, which is what I typically do.

Uh, so like, "Hey, we're going to talk about something. Here's what we're going to talk about," and then I talk about it.

"Here's what we talked about," right?

Like there's usually a main point that I'm going to repeat several times.

A lot of times it's on the screen.

Sometimes it's alliterative.

That's deductive.

Inductive, usually you tell in like a story form where you will tell a story.

It can feel a little bit circuitous in that you're kind of going around a subject, and then you kind of land at the end hopefully really well.

Uh, Irwin McManus is kind of famous for this.

Uh, if you're very artistic, you love inductive preaching because it feels much more nuanced.

Uh, my critique of it is that sometimes if that's our only diet of preaching, it's so nuanced that no one in the room will remember it.

They'll go, "You're so clever," but they don't remember the talk.

I will say a main point five to seven times in a talk, and afterwards if I were to ask someone, "What did you just hear me say?" they will say usually some version of what I just said.

But even having said it five to seven times, they can't repeat that for one seven to eight word phrase unless they've written it down.

So I just think there's—you know, both models have strengths and weaknesses.

And then what we did this weekend is called semi-deductive, where you wait a little longer than you normally would.

You sort of modify the phrase.

You're not going to repeat it as much.

It's designed to be more conversational, so it's a little bit out of what my normal would be.

But especially when you're not covering one single passage kind of line by line, as is maybe my most comfortable form of preaching, you're doing it more—um, yeah, this isn't really a topical message.

It's a little bit more, um, like how do we use these passages to forward a bigger conversation?

Yeah, interesting.

Was that choice driven by audience?

Was it driven by content?

Why did you decide to go that route?

And how does, you know, a series that's based around questions or based around maybe new people in the room or people that haven't been in church in a while, how did that inform how you're going to speak?

Yeah, so I think a lot of times when we give intros to sermons, the intended audience is primarily church people who are there.

They want to be there.

They have some of the same assumptions that you do.

They want to apply something to their life.

So like those are a bunch of steps that are in your head.

And then you have this secondary audience of how do I make sure that the friend, family member—you know, I think about preaching kind of in three categories.

There's the saint, the person who's a faithful follower of Jesus, and figuring out how do I do that more this week.

There's the skeptic, which is like, "I don't know if I believe all this. I came because my friend invited me. I'm not really sure."

And then there's the prodigal: "I walked away. I deconstructed. I want to know, can I still come back to this even after what I've done or where I've been or how long it's been?"

Um, and so, you know, you're always sort of thinking, "Hey, I have a one, two, three in my head," whether I verbalize it or not.

And you just don't get a lot of series or messages where that flips pretty dramatically.

And in this series, it really did.

It flips pretty dramatically, right?

So instead of going saint, skeptic, prodigal, we're kind of going skeptic, prodigal, saint.

And so because of that, the intro—the purpose of it shifts pretty dramatically to where you're going, "Hey, how do I build common ground with someone that does not believe the Bible is true, with someone who's probably doing somebody else a favor to be there?"

And so because of that, the sort of how do I lead with a question, how do I lead into a way that gets them onto the train?

And especially in an intro of an intro message for the series, if you don't get people on that train, you may never get them.

So I think that really informs a message where it's going to accomplish less in certain—in terms of content compared to a typical message, but if we can get people on board, I think it's well worth the investment of time to do it yourself.

Wow, an interesting change of pace.

Yeah, and I thought that you posted a lot of questions, and as you say that and I reflect on the message that you gave, it's like, "Okay, that kind of makes sense when I run it through that framework."

And so why don't you just run us through your message for those that might have missed it, and then we'll jump in from there.

Yeah, so I mean the question of "Does life have purpose?" is both an abstract question about humanity and a personal question, right?

So you're answering both of those, and I would argue we all answer that question every day, whether you're a Christian or not.

Um, and you're answering it at like a, "What is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of humanity? And what is the purpose of my life?"

And a lot of times that's just this very truncated thing that lives in our head.

We don't break it apart.

And so I tried to, um, I tried to hopefully give a sense in which the assumed cultural answer of that question is not working, right?

That—and it's self-evident, right?

Just like you say when I'm in Yosemite and I look around, I go, "Well, of course there's a God. This is not an accident. This is just jaw-droppingly beautiful."

And I would say actually one of the things that in my mind makes God's existence in moments like that self-evident is that you have a standard of beauty that that experience meets universally.

Nobody's ever gotten to Yosemite and looked around and been like, "Oh, this is terrible. One star. This is so gross. Was God even trying?"

Like that's just not—

Karen, you know, stop.

We have this hard-wired component of us, right?

Romans 1 says that actually there's something of God and our divine nature written on our hearts.

And so there's two ways to navigate that.

One is the world's big and beautiful.

Let's think about the universe, and I think that's an absolutely valid way to do it.

The other is the world in the—in that the systems that we live in, breathe in, swim in every day are convincing us of something that we have all bought, and it's convincing us that if we just get more, then it'll be enough.

And the problem is we know that's not true, but we just don't usually self-reflect enough to be reminded of that.

And so hopefully we spent some time saying like, "Hey, let's talk about the state of stress. Let's talk about what toxic stress is. Let's talk about the statistics for mental health."

And now recognizing that all of that stuff isn't working, like we can all admit it, let's go to where Jesus says, "Come to me, all who are who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke, my teaching, my way of life is easy, and my burden, the weight of my specific teaching is light."

And so, um, I think that this idea of we really do have a purpose—that purpose is to be in relationship with God now and forever, and that's enough.

Like everything else can be sideways in our life, but if we have that, that's the north star to our forever reality with God.

And so, um, I think trying to help people see that and understand the contrast where everything that they think would get them what they want—the purpose of status and stuff—Solomon had all of it, and you know he uses this very damning phrase, right?

Uh, "The more I experienced, the more sorrow I experience."

It was a chasing after the wind.

And, uh, I just think that that's really important.

We're all susceptible to that.

And then quoted Jim Carrey, right, who said, "I mean, I wish everybody could get rich and famous and have everything they ever dreamed of so that they could see it's not the answer."

And, you know, how many rich people do we have to see who are desperately sad, who are desperately lonely?

Um, shout out to Taylor Swift.

She's in a relationship with Travis Kelsey, but spoiler alert, I don't think it's going to last, right?

Like she's going to have another song to write.

There is something about riches and fame that when we believe they will promise us status, security, and purpose, they can't—they can't do it.

And so I'm not wishing that on anybody, including, you know, shout out Taylor, friend of the show.

But, um, I just think it's—yeah, I just think it's important to recognize when our purpose is something else and we try to use Jesus or our faith as kind of a bolt-on to that other primary purpose, we will always be disappointed.

When Jesus is that purpose, when living out that identity and who He is is my everyday priority, well then, you know, if your job changes, that's okay.

Your identity hasn't.

If your health changes, that's okay.

Your identity doesn't.

There can be lots of things that shake us to the core, um, as long as our core is in Jesus, that I think we can pursue the more that God really has in mind.

And so, hopefully, I used some quotes that were helpful from some, you know, non-Christians, from some famous, like historic Christians like C.S. Lewis.

And, you know, there's a quote: "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."

And I think in our area, there's a lot of people that would say, "I'm not sure I like Christianity. I'm not sure I like church, but like Jesus and I are cool. I love Jesus."

Um, but the problem is like you have to listen to what Jesus said because He doesn't give us this fuzzy, moderately important option—not if we believe that what He said is what He said.

And so taking Jesus at His word and deciding what role His relationship—our relationship with Him will play in our life is a really big deal.

And, uh, and then I think, um, one of the things that I really hope people are listening to is this idea where, um, we live in a world of cultural pluralism or tolerance, which is everybody should be able to believe what they want to believe, and that belief or understanding should not be like excluded from society.

Um, and you know, like there are guardrails on that, um, but we live in a culturally pluralistic society, and I would fight for a culturally pluralistic society.

My goal is not a totalitarian world where everyone has to be a Christian.

And if you're like, "Well, that sounds—how bad could that be?" Well, like there have been civilizations like that, and it doesn't go well, right?

There are civilizations like that today, actually, around the world, and it's not going well because core to our identity in Christ is a choice, a personal agency of choice.

But where I think we get in trouble is what I call metaphysical pluralism.

I didn't mean to make that up; it's a term, metaphysical pluralism.

And so if cultural pluralism says you have the right to believe that, um, metaphysical pluralism says you believing that makes it right.

And that little shift I think is very tricky.

And so understanding that hopefully will just, you know, open us up to a bigger conversation for the future.

And I talked about some personal stuff, um, and hopefully kind of landed the plane on, um, there's a purpose that's bigger.

And when you go back to the thing you're going to put on your shelf, to the thing that you're going to upgrade to, the thing that you're going to achieve this week, I just wanted to put a bug in your ear that that thing, as awesome as it is, is losing relevancy the moment you achieve it.

And the only thing in our life that can last forever is the relationship that lasts forever.

And so, um, hopefully that was one step in the conversation, just an intro to a bigger, more important direction for us.

Yeah, and you said in the beginning of the message that your goal was not to change people's minds or convince them of something, but your goal was to earn another week of their time.

Right? That was—I thought that was really interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

I really liked how you kind of led with that because we are running it through the, you know, who's in the room perspective.

That's—you know, you're not going to—well, you could, but who knows, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And I think that in general, I would argue that most of the time what we do in church, in gathered worship settings for unchurched people, is we're trying to earn another week.

That's all we're doing, right?

We had a sign at my last church that just said, "It's always somebody's first weekend. Let's work to make sure it's not their last."

Hmm, that's good.

And, you know, I think that we can kind of go, "Well, there's the same people that I see. There's that person I know," you know, but just having people eyes to go, "Somebody is walking onto this campus, and they're wondering, does God really care about me?"

And the way that they're going to see whether or not God cares about them is if we care about them.

If we see them.

And I'm not saying like Menlo Church staff.

I'm saying Menlo Church.

And, um, and so it's fun to be able to do this series in an environment with new services at all of our campuses where I know people—we're seeing people they hadn't seen before, right?

And interacting with—and what does it look like?

You know, one of the requests that we get on a semi-regular basis is the request to bring back meet and greet in services.

And, uh, you know, meet and greet, if you ask an unchurched person, it would be ironic to bring it back in the series because if you ask an unchurched person, "What's the thing about a church service that makes the least sense and is the most off-putting?" they have two answers: one, physical offering; two, meet and greet.

And so it feels forced because it is, and usually it's like a weird conversation with music happening that you can't hear the person talking to you, or worse, people talk to people they know and no one talks to you.

And I've been a stranger in a different church, and no one talked to me, and I thought to myself, "If I wasn't a Christian and I was wondering, does God care about me? This is not an experience that's helping that."

Right?

So we have the opportunity—we talk internally about—we have meet and greet time.

That's why we have donuts at our campuses.

That's why we create spaces for you to interact with other people.

That's why we want you to linger so that that time isn't like, "I have to." It's a "get to."

So that time isn't wedged in a 30-second spot before the next element where we're telling you to cut that conversation off.

It's happening in an unforced, unhurried way.

And so I just encourage you, you know, if Menlo is your church and you're coming, whether you're pretty new or you've been around a long time, don't think of it as, "Well, I'm going to show up at 10, and at 11:05 I'm at lunch," or "I'm going to show up for an 11:30, and by one I'm watching the game."

Think to yourself, like, "I'm going to give space in my schedule to be able to stick around and have a conversation, to be able to check my kids out and have a conversation with other parents doing that, to grab coffee and see who's there."

Standing, like, I think those are just as important to sort of the fellowship, koinonia, like real meaningful community as anything we do in the room.

Yeah, I think that's really good because one of the things I was going to ask was, what would you say to someone who's, you know, maybe been a Christian their whole life and they've come to Menlo every week, and you're like, "Well, what the heck? Like, now I'm not going to get anything out of the sermon because it's not for me; it's for all these other people."

Well, I think there's a lot to say about that, but one of the answers right there is you get to be a welcoming presence of God in those situations.

Whether—like all those things you just said is a great opportunity.

Like maybe for five weeks you don't actually get something out of the sermon, which you probably still will if you're actually paying attention.

But also, there's other things about the service.

There's other things about new people that you can be a part of and join in that too.

Absolutely.

And I think that we would all recognize that faith is not a destination; it's a direction.

And so all of our directions can drift.

So if you've been a Christian for a long time and we had a conversation about purpose this weekend, you didn't make it, you're wondering about whether or not to go back and listen to it, I would just argue with you that even if you're a follower of Jesus, your purpose can drift.

And Jesus can go from being the core of your life to becoming kind of an optional attachment over time, whether you realize it or not.

And the same conversation that an unchurched person needs about purpose, we often need, right?

This is the kind of theological booster shot, if you will, that like we all have drift in our life, and every one of these conversations will be just like that.

And then I would just say, uh, I'm praying that God uses this series to give us a burden as a church, to give us a burden for the 93 percent of people who are close to us and far from God.

And, um, you know, I genuinely believe that a relationship with Jesus, because of the work that He's done for us 2,000 years ago, gives us access and an avenue to eternity with God forever, eternal life.

And, uh, I believe that if you don't have that relationship, you will spend eternity apart from God.

And I would just say, if the first thing you're thinking after however many years is, "Well, we have five weeks that are not primarily about me," I'll just say, "Who in your life are they about? Who in your life would you go, 'I would give anything for this person to know Jesus?'"

And sometimes I'll talk to, you know, especially when we've made big adjustments in services to modernize something or to change something, um, and if it's somebody maybe that's older and they're bringing frustration or criticism to me about that change, usually the question that I'll ask is, "Tell me about your grandkids."

And, uh, you know, usually there's some of them that are walking faithfully with the Lord and some of them that aren't because that's the way that life works.

And I will ask the question, "I can't promise this; I'm not making a promise, but if I could promise that your grandchild would be worshiping passionately, following Jesus next to you in service, what would you let me change?"

Um, and the answer is everything.

Yeah, I love that.

Everything.

And I think sometimes we forget that that is actually the way we should have—

You ever read Paul?

He said, "Before I was a Christian, I was in bondage to this law, to this way of life, to this view. And then I became a follower of Jesus, and now I'm free. Like, I'm really free."

But he says, "I trade my freedom from everything to being a servant to everyone."

He says, "I'll become all things to all people so that by any means necessary I might reach some."

And I just think, like, man, we need that burden.

We need that burden.

We need that burden for our workplace.

We need that burden for our neighborhood.

We need that burden for our school.

And I'm praying that God brings that burden to our church because if we just happen to be a cozy, comfy little church where people come when they're interested in faith, maybe there was a day in America where that would work, but we're not in that day.

That day does not exist anymore.

And so if we want to make a dent, if we want to make a difference, it's going to be because we actually care enough about people in our lives that we're listening for those knots: "I'm not in a good spot. Things are not going well. I'm not in church."

I was not prepared.

And that we're getting a chance to say, "Hey, can we talk more about that? Hey, our church is doing honestly a series about this. Would you want to come with me sometime?"

And you're going, "Well, what if somebody says no?"

Man, I'm glad that that wasn't the standard by which God listened to whether or not He would live and die for us.

Lots of people say no over and over again, and God's love just kindly and patiently continues to care for all of us.

So, um, yeah, I hope God grows in us a burden.

And, you know, it's fun for me to see, um, people where that burden happens, and they invite someone, and then they introduce me to the person that they invite.

Sometimes they'll be like, "Oh, I brought somebody. They finally came," you know, and they're telling me, "They're going to be here at this service time," and I do not take offense to it, but I know the like subtweet of that is like, "Please don't suck this service. All of my personal equity is in this. Please make it better."

And, uh, you know, I think, uh, one of the things that I try to think about is how do we help our—how do we help our services to be excuse-free environments, apology-free environments?

Or even when you hear something difficult or hard, you're not like having to lean over to your friend and be like, "Oh, this is just like a weird thing that we do. Sorry."

We gotta eliminate as many of those things as possible if we want to be evangelistically understandable in our services.

So, and then you prompted everyone at the beginning of the message to ask, "What did you think?" to those that would join them.

And that's just a great starting question because that brings someone to church can be very uncomfortable.

Remember talking about them afterward can be even more uncomfortable.

So I really appreciate that you led with that.

And, uh, I would also have people consider that if you're just coming to church for a message that's for you, then you're kind of missing the point of what's going on on Sundays and your relationship with Jesus throughout the week.

So if this is, you know, if you find that this message and series is off-putting or it is challenging to why you would want to attend on a Sunday, then maybe you can get more out of this message as you reflect on that.

So, and my guess is that for folks choosing to listen to us and check out a podcast in the middle of the week, that's probably not their target.

You're probably a self-feeder that knows how to discern what you need, and you know that your own personal experience with Jesus day to day is a huge part of your discipleship journey, and it's not just, "I'm coming like a battery to be charged once a week. You better charge me up for the next six days and then come back."

Like that's probably not who's listening, but, um, yeah, I'm not just think if you're praying for Menlo, pray for a burden.

Pray for a burden that comfortable, cozy—we can pay for it.

We're still growing.

We're adding services.

We're good.

Pray that that would never be enough.

Would never be enough.

Doing church—doing church is a terrible, terrible hobby.

Being the church means the people who are close to us and far from God are never an acceptable reality, and that we do everything we can—not just organizationally, not just staff-wise, not just programmatically, personally and relationally—to change that.

It's good.

Challenging.

I hope so.

That's kind of the point.

Bit of a burden, huh?

Yeah, yeah.

And it takes a certain perspective to even let that sink in, especially if—and you name this a lot in your message—of the just a little bit more, just a little bit more.

That is such a blinding thing for so many people here.

So for those that might have been challenged by that this week, how can we just shift that perspective from, "I'll work on my relationship with God once I achieve this goal"?

How can we say—how can we reframe that in our minds?

Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, unfortunately, um, unfortunately, I think that disappointment and pain are usually the vehicles that help us realize that status and stuff never being enough is actually a true statement.

Um, and so that it may be that you got to get that degree and realize, "Oh shoot, it's not going to deliver everything I promise."

I mean, I think for Solomon, that's really the sort of the view that we get through his life is he's like, "I did everything. Like, I got all of it, and I'm telling you, it's striving after the wind. The more I got, the more sorrow it brought."

That's the theme of Solomon, that like without God at the center of my life, everything else is—the word he uses repeatedly throughout the book—vanity, appearances for appearance's sake, empty, void.

And I just think, um, yeah, like I mean, I would ask God to give you that perspective and be prepared that it may take loss, it may take hurt, it may take pain, it may take disappointment.

I think if you know that and you're kind of wondering what are the personal rhythms and disciplines that I can pursue, um, to hopefully experience that, um, you know, I think sometimes it's little stuff, right?

Uh, you know, I like for me, uh, this is going to sound so silly and petty.

For years and years, I was like the get the new iPhone every year guy, which if you know me is probably not a giant surprise, shocker.

Um, and then a few years ago, I just like kind of disciplined myself to say, "Uh, yeah, I'm not going to do that. Like, I—I'm, you know, I'm not rocking a 10-year-old iPhone or anything, but I'm going to wait a few years between when I have one and when I get one."

And, um, I think for you, that may be the latest outfit, the latest handbag, the latest outdoor gear for your hobby.

Like what is the thing where you can delay gratification?

Because we live in a culture of instant gratification, and delaying our gratification is often a vehicle to remind us that that stuff won't satisfy because we're not even trying to have it satisfy.

There's a book that we've probably talked about before called "Live No Lies" by John Mark Comer.

It's a very helpful book.

It talks about sort of the three greatest enemies of our soul: our flesh, right?

The thing that's trying to work against the Spirit of God in us, the world—and by that, uh, John is referring to the systems of the world that are broken and failing—and the devil.

And, um, the devil is not a concept; he's a real entity, um, that has a legion of demons that are working for our destruction.

He's like a roaring lion, um, not on the same level as God or anything like that, but worth understanding all three of those.

And so if, uh, you've never paged through that book and you're kind of wondering what does it look like for me to have purpose, I think some of what it means to know what purpose is is to be able to see all the lies that are coming for us on any given day that we might be able to combat them.

So if you're looking for kind of a next step resource, that'd be a recommendation I'd make.

Yeah, and that goes toe to toe with what freedom actually is: the ability to get what you want when you want it, do what you want to do when you do it.

It's actually freedom, no?

Yeah, Tim Keller has maybe the best metaphor I've ever heard about this, and he talks about a fish in a tank.

And he says, like, if fish in a tank is contained, right, it's in water, it's in a tank itself, it has food that it needs.

If you take that fish out of the tank and you put it on the table next to the tank, that fish has never been more free, and it's going to die.

Wow.

That true freedom for that fish is the right conditions for it to thrive.

True freedom for us is the right conditions for us to thrive.

And so I just think—I think about that illustration all the time.

Yeah, because we want to throw off boundaries, right?

God says, "Here are the boundaries for your blessing. Here are the things that I'm telling you you're made for."

And we go, "Yeah, but I want to live outside of that boundary in my sexuality. I want to live outside of that boundary in my spending. I want to live outside of that boundary in my life pursuits."

And we're taking ourselves out of the fishbowl and putting ourselves on the table and saying—and trying to hold our breath and going like, "It's going to be okay."

And it's not going to be okay.

It's killing you.

And I think that there's something so profound about understanding what true freedom is rather than total freedom.

Total freedom, um, that's actually slavery.

Thinking about that one for a while.

That's good.

What else, Phil?

Um, yeah, I mean, I think I tried to say it at the beginning of my talk, but it's not too late.

It's not too late to invite somebody.

It's not too late maybe to even send somebody the talk from this last week and say, "Hey, would you do me a favor? Just listen to this, and let's talk about it."

And if you'd want to come with me, this is what our whole series is about.

Um, and then obviously if you ever have feedback for me, if you go, "I'd invite my friend if you—you know, approached it this way," or "I'd invite my friend if you stopped doing this weird thing," um, I can't promise you I can do everything you're asking me to do, but I'd love to know, you know, what are those barriers to you making that invite?

Um, you know, there are plenty of places around the world where we would be risking our literal lives to let someone know about our personal faith in Jesus, and we have this supreme blessing—supreme blessing—where we have a church that we're a part of, that we are free to go to, that we can share things online, that we can have an open discourse of ideas.

The Lord has so blessed us, but with blessing comes responsibility, and we are blessed to be a blessing to others.

And so, um, I would just say, you know, not to throw shade at anybody, but Jesus says, "I'll acknowledge you before my Father if you'll acknowledge me before men."

And I think that a lot of us in Silicon Valley, we are undercover Christians.

No one would ever know.

We're not denying God, sure.

We're just living like He doesn't exist.

And, um, yeah, I would love for this to be an opportunity to think differently about that.

If someone is thinking about inviting a friend, but maybe their friend's like only available in two weeks, and they don't really want to listen to the other weeks because—should they still come, or do they need to listen to all five weeks to understand what's going on?

Oh no, I would say we're building every talk in the series so that if somebody just dropped in—because we know attendance patterns; we know how this stuff works—that you could follow wherever you dropped in.

They're all questions that are helpful, especially in a series like this.

And then hopefully what—you know, you hear me say this on a regular basis: like if you missed Cheryl last week, if you missed the first part of the series, go back and watch it.

It's online.

That's why we do it that way.

So, yeah, if you have a friend that can't make it to all of them or can't make it for a couple weeks or whatever, man, bring them anyway.

Uh, there's going to be plenty for you guys to talk about, and who knows what the Lord will do in that conversation.

Remember, uh, things are not going well.

I'm not prepared for this, and I'm not in church.

Just listen.

Just got to say, "God, would you just surface those words in my conversations?"

And you go, "Well, how will I know?"

I don't know.

Just ask, "How are you doing? How is it going? How's your family? What's going on in your world right now?"

And I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, one of the things I'm always surprised by driving around Silicon Valley is the number of people in cars who are very angry—very angry.

I'm not sure I've ever seen it like this before, and I've lived in like big cities.

But people that are yelling at each other, people who are furious on the phone—like we are living on a scale of zero to ten of outrage.

We are living at a nine.

Like it's not going well.

The promises of status and stuff being enough isn't working, and we all know it.

And so what does it mean to have our identity in something else?

And what does it mean to advocate for that for others?

It's great kind of in theory.

Appreciate the sentiment of let's get this done, but it's sad that we're in this place.

Sure, at the same time.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And so this next week, you've been kind of toting around that you're having a little free week here because you aren't teaching.

Yeah, I'm pretty much just twiddling my thumbs as we play video games in my office.

So what question are we answering this coming week, and can we give a little—is it okay to tell who we're—

For sure, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So, um, you know, the sort of theme of the upcoming week is all about Jesus.

Um, and so, uh, the specific question is, "Is there a God?"

Kind of big picture.

Um, and then, uh, we're going to incorporate sort of the idea of pain and suffering.

So because the next question, if there is a God, is how could a good God allow pain and suffering, right?

Like that's the thing that's going to kind of incorporate that.

It's a really important talk.

There's a couple great passages I think that help us ask that question.

It's also a question that I think has some inherent tension, right?

Like is there a purpose? Yes, here's what it is.

Like that honestly, that's pretty simple.

You can believe it or not; you can apply it or not, and our life will drift away from it.

But there is a purpose.

This idea of, um, is there a God and why would that God allow pain and suffering—not just in the abstract, but in my life, in the life of someone I care about, in a family member that I lost, right?

All those things that kind of get wrapped up in it.

And so hopefully, uh, for some, this will be a really, um, good kind of entry-level conversation.

And then I have a friend I've done ministry with for a long time named Javon Washington.

Javon is, uh, executive and teaching pastor at a church up in Seattle.

He's also a bi-vocational pastor, and he's just one of my best friends.

So he's going to be out, uh, this weekend, and he'll teach, um, yeah, for all of our services.

So I'm excited for that.

And, um, you know, he teaches a lot different than me, which I think in a series especially like this one can be really helpful because if people are like, "That guy's really boring," and then they hear Javon and they're like, "Oh, he's not as boring. He's great."

Uh, hopefully it kind of lets us set the table for the rest of the series in a way that just sets a table for future disappointment.

You gotta know your lane, I guess.

Well, that sounds really exciting, and hopefully, fingers crossed, we'll be able to get some time with him on the podcast.

That'd be great.

He would be a fun podcast guy.

Sweet.

Perfect.

What, uh, what else are you guys going to do while he's here?

Uh, I mean, I'm sure, uh, Javon's a big chef, and so I like to smoke meat; he likes to cook.

And so I'm guessing we'll probably make something.

Um, but you know, what would you want us to come around?

He's also—he's also never been to the Bay Area, so all the things that you normally do with somebody that's never been.

So his wife, Heather, and their girls are not coming, just him.

But, um, yeah, we'll see what we have time for.

And, um, you know, for him, uh, teaching three times is going to be a new experience.

And so I'm guessing he'll also be kind of tired, but yeah, we'll—

Yeah, we'll see.

Man, I was—I was surprised.

I've just been at nine months since I've taught three times, um, through the same message.

And so I was surprised this week.

I was like, "Oh, I'm kind of tired."

So it was fun.

You're teaching a lot more than that before, right?

Um, yeah, well, so we only have three services, uh, but we had rhythms where, uh, I would do like a run-through the week before, and then I did a run-through before for the first service.

So until last week at Menlo, I was really only teaching my message twice.

And in Colorado, I was teaching my message five times.

Wow.

So, um, yeah, that'll interest—

You know, probably change and evolve over time, but yeah, now I'm up to three at Menlo.

So cool.

One other thing is we've got some really awesome resources at Menlo.church/exploreGod.

We do this for almost every series, but this one we're doing it a little differently because, uh, different churches and organizations have put together a lot of content for people.

We're like, "Why would we recreate the wheel?"

So we kind of just put together some of the top resources for each week that they're providing.

So that's definitely something else if you've invited a friend, and a way to debrief is, "Hey, here's some of the videos that—or some books that our church is recommending that you want to read one together, watch a video together."

So there's some really awesome things out there, so make sure you check those out too.

And I would imagine that if somebody still wanted to get into a discussion group, yeah, there's probably still space.

So if you're somebody—or maybe you know that friend that you came—you came with you this weekend, like, "Oh, I'd love to talk about this more."

Awesome.

And you're like, "I don't feel personally prepared to manage all of this conversation."

Check out the Explore God discussion groups.

You can also find those at Menlo.church/exploreGod.

You can sign you and your friend up and be in the conversation together over the next few weeks.

Yeah, definitely.

And those are happening at a weeknight at a campus, every campus, correct?

Yep, at every campus.

So I think there's actually at least one on Zoom as well, so make sure to check that out.

It's good.

Okay, well, thanks, Phil.

Of course.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Jess.

And have a great week, everyone.

Hey, if you are nervous about talking to people, text our team at 650-600-0402.

I would love to meet with you in person and give you a prep talk.

I'd love to meet with you afterwards and debrief with you.

Anything that you need that will help you have these conversations, invite people to church, I want to be there for you.

Just like behind the other person that you're talking to while you're talking to them, there's like cheering.

I could like casually walk by the table like, "Are you guys talking about God?"

"Oh, cool."

And then just like walk by.

"Do you know of a church I could go to?"

Yeah, exactly.

Then the most awkward, obvious—

I thought we should make a promo video of how not to invite your friend to church.

I think that would be really funny.

Yeah, yeah.

Sounds good.

Have a great week, everyone.

See you soon.

Bye.

1. "We're building every talk in the series so that if somebody just dropped in, you could follow wherever you dropped in. If you have a friend that can't make it to all of them or can't make it for a couple weeks or whatever, bring them anyway. There's going to be plenty for you guys to talk about and who knows what the Lord will do in that conversation." - 38:13

2. "We live in a culture of instant gratification and delaying our gratification is often a vehicle to remind us that that stuff won't satisfy because we're not even trying to have it satisfy. What does it look like for me to have purpose? I think some of what it means to know what purpose is, is to be able to see all the lies that are coming for us on any given day that we might be able to combat them." - 33:10

3. "We really do have a purpose, that purpose is to be in relationship with God now and forever and that's enough. Everything else can be sideways in our life but if we have that, that's the north star to our forever reality with God. When our purpose is something else and we try to use Jesus or our faith as kind of a bolt-on to that other primary purpose, we will always be disappointed. When Jesus is that purpose, when living out that identity in who he is, is my everyday priority, well then, if your job changes, that's okay, your identity hasn't." - 15:35

4. "Taking Jesus at his word and deciding what role his relationship, our relationship with him will plan our life is a really big deal. We live in a world of cultural pluralism or tolerance which is everybody should be able to believe what they want to believe and that belief or understanding should not be excluded from society. But where I think we get in trouble is metaphysical pluralism. If cultural pluralism says you have the right to believe that, metaphysical pluralism says you believing that makes it right." - 18:09

5. "The only thing in our life that can last forever is the relationship that lasts forever. There's a purpose that's bigger and when you go back to the thing you're gonna put on your shelf, to the thing that you're going to upgrade, to the thing that you're going to achieve this week, I just wanted to put a bug in your ear that that thing as awesome as it is, is losing relevancy the moment you achieve it." - 18:09