You can have a seat, you can turn in your Bibles to Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10 is where we're gonna get started. Over the last couple of weeks, we've been talking about how we can maintain red-hot hearts of love for Jesus. In an age where it's tempting to grow cold.
And Jesus, he said in the generation, in the times preceding his return, that there's gonna be an icy current that's gonna make it easy to get a cold heart. It's gonna be easy to react to the hatred and to the betrayal and to the deceptive thought leaders of our day. It's gonna be easy to get a cold heart because of all of the injustice and all of the lawlessness in wherever you live before Jesus' return. And Jesus led us as a community into talking about the unoffendable heart.
How many of you guys remember the fence? How a fence is like a fence, right? And that the Lord's inviting us into forgiving those that have wronged us and not having bitterness. And do you know what Jesus actually freed us from?
He freed us from even having the right to be offended. We actually died to even the right to be offended as followers of Jesus. And we follow in his footsteps to forgive and plead mercy for those that have wronged us. Then we talked about Jesus the judge.
Jesus the judge and that we need an advocate. We need a judge and that in our most painful experiences, we have someone that's actually gonna be our advocate and fight on our behalf and pour out vengeance for the injustices that have been done to us. And we, instead of getting revenge, we entrust Jesus with vengeance. And then we follow in the footsteps of Jesus and we plead mercy on those that are enemies, those that have wronged us.
And we say, Jesus, would you forgive them? They know not what they're doing, just like Jesus did on the cross, right? And we follow in his footsteps. And the result is that we're gonna have soft, tender hearts.
How many of you want to get to the rocking chair or get to the return of Jesus with a soft heart? With like love on my heart for people in Jesus? I wanna have love in my heart for even those that are persecuting, who are torturing, who are wrongdoing across the board. I wanna have love in my heart.
And so as a people, we wanna have soft hearts and I believe that God is calling us into this next remedy for a cold heart. And that is to not give up meeting together. To not give up, the title of my message today is Don't Give Up. Don't Give Up, Hebrews 10, we're gonna start in verse 19, 10 verse 19, it says this, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh.
And since we have a great priest over the house of God, what do we do now? We draw near with a true heart, fully confident in faith that our hearts have been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies have been washed with pure water so we can come into the presence of God, fully confident and I'm like, here I am into the holy of holies knowing that that's where we were destined to be and that he wants us in the room and that he's made a way for us to be in the room and we get to be clean in his presence. That's good news, Jesus did that. We didn't do it, it was all him.
So Jesus, we give you the credit for that one. Verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. What that's verse is talking about is a hope, an expectation of good. And the early church, this was like a common understanding that whenever most of the time in the epistles when you read about the word hope, it's having to do with the hope of the return of Jesus.
Okay, so we've got the hope of the gospel that he's made us right and we have this full assurance that we can enter into the holy of holies with purity and righteousness. That's not ours but Jesus. But for the most part, the majority of the epistles when hope is talked about, it's the hope of a day coming. And the day that is coming is the day of the Lord.
And the day that is coming that's called the day of the Lord is the day of Jesus' return. There's going to be a day where the sun will rise and it will be the day and the date that Jesus is gonna return. There's gonna be a morning where the sun's gonna rise in the east and Jesus is actually on that same day, gonna ride on the clouds from the east just like the sun rises every single day because he's a faithful promissor. And that's what this passage is talking about.
So our hope, let's hold fast the confession of his return. Why? Because he promised it. He said it, I believe it and he's faithful, right?
All right, let's look at verse 24. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day, dry near. So Jesus is Matthew 24, he's saying there's going to be a tendency for your heart to get bitter and cold.
And then he says, in Matthew 24, he says, there's a tendency for hearts to grow cold, but it's also gonna be the greatest moment in human history for the church. That there's gonna be the greatest gospel proclamation in all of human history. In the day when hearts are growing cold, there's gonna be a remnant of followers of Jesus where their hearts are gonna be burning with so much love for the Lamb, so much love for the King, so much love for the judge. That every single tribe, nation and people group is gonna hear the gospel and that Jesus is gonna return to a red hot bride that's fully in love.
She's gonna be so ablaze with affection for Jesus that she's just adorned herself with love and good works. She's just gonna be so lit up on the groom coming where she's just anticipating his return, right? And Apostle Paul, which I believe he's the author of the book of Hebrews, he's saying this is one of those keys for you to remain red hot, red hot in your love for Jesus. He says, consider how to stir up one another.
That word stir up, we talked about this. This is why we call awakening services, awakening services because the current makes us sleepy. The current of everyday life can oftentimes make us sleepy and we just need a shot in the arm. We literally need an alarm to go wake up, wake up, wake up to who he is, wake up to who you are, wake up to the need, but we're naturally going, but I like the cruise ship of the church.
I like going on cruises and it's entertainment and it's comfortable and I love all of the amenities of the Christian club of the church. I really like it. And the Lord's like, wake up, wake up to who I am. I'm out on the water.
Do you see me on the water? And then we look out, we see him on the water and then we look down and we see the billions drowning. And he's like, get off the boat. Let's start walking on all the chaos.
Let's start taking all the lifesavers, just like walk around with lifesavers on the water with me and let's just dive in to the harvest fields. But we're going, no, but I like being in the building and the Lord's like, get out of the building. I love you, but get out. I'm out there, right?
And so this is the greatest moment in gospel proclamation and all of history and the fields are ripe, but then there's also this tendency for us to get cold in our hearts, especially when we have to think about loving Christians. Oh no. You mean, I don't just get to love Jesus? I have to love the bride.
Oh, have you ever known someone? And you're like, love them, they're a good friend and then they marry someone. You're like, not a big fan. Have you ever had that?
Have you ever had that moment? You're like, man, that's disappointing. Listen, there's a disappointment for us. Oftentimes when we look at the church and we're going, man, I don't like her very much.
I've got some church hurt in my background and I'm kind of good. I love him, not as much her. And the Lord's going, that's not how it works. And Jesus is going, I give you a new commandment.
Do you know what his new commandment is? It's in John 13, oh no. John 13, 34 through 35, let's look at it. I give you a new commandment that you love one another, just as I loved you.
Oh no. You also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my followers and my disciples if you have love for each other. I believe that this is going to be a fulfillment that the church is going to walk into, that Jesus is actually prophetically declaring this over us as this is what we're going to step into as the bride.
And we're going to step into it against the backdrop of all of the reasons for us to be divided. You take a picture with me. Gen Z, young woman, person of color, grew up in poverty, grew up in the foster system, loves Jesus, is a Democrat and loves the Lord, loves worshiping, and is pro-choice. White man, 67, lives on a lake in Minnetonka, has lived a life of privilege, Republican, conservative, has grown up with a perfect atomic family, has 15 grandkids, all of the pictures are just perfect on their walls of their $2.5 million home, and they're in the same room.
And this old white guy and this young lady that's a person of color are loving each other, and they're singing worship songs and they're praying for each other's needs. And they're giving each other a hug after praying in their group. And they have literally nothing in common. In fact, they, according to the world, have every reason to be opposed to one another, to actually have hatred and disgust for one another.
And the world will look at these two and go, that doesn't make sense. Who are they both following? It must be a king of a different age. It must be a king of a different land.
His name is Jesus. He's the unifier of the nations, the unifier of all of those that have differences, different beliefs, different mindsets, different histories, different ethnic backgrounds, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different political stances, and Jesus is going, my bride's gonna love one another in the midst of an age of division. She's gonna love. This is a time, again, there's so many opportunities for offense and bitterness, for our hearts to grow cold, even towards each other in this time.
You just hop on social media and you just follow all the Christians. And the amount of division, even like Friday, another example, it's just like the last three years, it just keeps on snowballing. So many opportunities, so many pressures, so much lawlessness and pain that goes on dealt with, so much hatred and brokenness. And the church is gonna step into her identity being known for the way that she loves.
On Friday, there is an overturning of Roe v. Wade, and Katie and I have carried this in our hearts for a long time. We spent many hours on the steps of the Supreme Court praying for the ending of abortion in America. And we believe that Friday was a huge victory in so many different ways, and we are celebrating it in our hearts, and we're going, man, this is so beautiful, the fruit of so many decades and decades of prayer.
And so we're celebrating it, and then we're also feeling the tension and mourning it all at the same time, and we're mourning the state of our culture and our world and where we're at. And the Lord is holding the tension that many of us just wanna whitewash everything in the church, and we don't wanna look at the gray. And we don't wanna look at how complicated things are. We don't wanna look at the pain, but the Father is fully connected to the injustice of the last 50, 60 years.
He's fully connected to it, and he is moved with a heart of compassion and desire and love. And he's the one that looks at all the injustice. He looks at the injustice of the mother, having to carry a baby and birth a baby against her will. He's in tune and moved with passion for the injustice of birthing a child and placing that child in a different home, for leaving the hospital alone after a child protective services has taken them away.
Jesus is tuned into the injustice of raising a child in poverty and mothers raising children in poverty without fathers and without a support system. Mothers and the injustice of mothers being disowned by families because of a pregnancy or because of an abortion. He's in tune with the injustice of millions of mothers needing to emotionally heal from terminating a pregnancy. He's in tune with the mothers that experience the injustice of never having a dad that told them that they had value.
He's in tune with the children and the injustice of those that never had the privilege of being born, those that were never wanted, those that were born into poverty and addiction, and unsafe, those that experience the injustice of the foster system and are in the foster system today without parents. He's in tune with the injustice of being raised by people and families that are not your bioparence. He's in tune with the injustice of parents and children looking different. The injustice of my parents are a different ethnicity than me and the injustice of that.
He's in tune with the injustice of men forcing women to have abortion and men forcing mothers to keep babies and then abandoning them. He's in tune with the injustice of the prison system and the broken judicial system of our country. He's in tune with the injustice of wanting single parents, single parents wanting to parent, and then their child being aborted. He's in tune with the injustice of women and mothers checking in to Planned Parenthood alone.
He's in tune with the injustice of feeling misunderstood. He's in tune with the injustice of one out of every four people in the millennial generation being aborted. I line up, every four people in the room, one of them in my generation are not here with us because of abortion. The injustice of one out of every four, never experiencing grass in between their toes, seeing a sunset, solving a problem, eating a street taco, laughing with friends, staying up too late, one in four, never being able to hear their first born, cry for the first time, never being able to have the opportunity to grow old.
The injustice of never having the opportunity to worship a God that they've never seen. And the greatest injustice is to the Father in heaven, the Father of great love and great compassion. I just wanna acknowledge that there's people literally in the room, there's many people in the room today that it took every ounce of dependence on the Holy Spirit's strength to even show up to church today because of the pain of this topic, because of how loaded it is in personal experience, revolving around this. And Katie and I just feel so much love and affection for all of you that you go, I don't wanna show up, but because of your love for him, because of your hunger for him, and because of your desire to lean into his heart and be leaning on him in love, the Lord's going, I'm with you even in your brokenness, even as there's so much communication, so many opinions getting thrown around.
And you feel like you're caught in the middle of it and the Lord's going, oh, I love you. Look at you shine, look at how you're shining, even in the midst of the pain surfacing, look at how you're leaning in even when you don't feel like it. And there's just a proud Father moment today that you're even in the room. Look at you and we just feel that pride for you.
There's so many opportunities to be divided. And the Lord's going, I want a bride that isn't one-dimensional, that doesn't have a whitewashed perspective, a plastic perspective on the brokenness of our world, but one that is in tune with the pain, that can actually go there, that isn't prescriptive, but present. The tendency when there's a lot of opportunities to get divided is that we isolate ourselves. And we kind of go, you're different than me.
You think different than me. You act different than me. You talk different than me. And I'm good to just not be hanging out with you.
I'm good to just do my own thing. And oftentimes what happens in our culture right now is if there's one thing that we disagree on, we can't be in relationship. It's literally like, I have a very narrow perspective of what's right and what's wrong and what's my truth. And if you don't line up with my truth, you're mistaken and you're wrong.
And you're going to be canceled in my life or publicly. And the tendency is to go into self-protection mode and to kind of just wall off and go, I'm just going to do my own thing. It's too painful, too risky. And it's not as efficient.
How many of you know that running with people is very inefficient? You know? It just takes longer. And it's inconvenient.
It's not as easy. It's draining. I mean, do you know who has every right to just be go solo and just do his own thing? Jesus.
Jesus has every right. He's literally the goat, right? Greatest of all time. If you don't know what the goat is, greatest of all time.
He could literally go like one on five and one on a million. And he'd win every time. Jesus could have just chosen like, OK, I'm going to do my own thing. I'm going to levitate outside the city.
They're going to come to me. And then I'm going to preach. And then I won't talk to any of them. But I'll heal the sick.
I'll just touch them, just grace them with my fingers and just kind of move along. Hop on the plane, first class, and then go to the next town. Jesus could have just done his own thing. And it would have been so fruitful.
But what does Jesus choose to do? He literally chooses to surround himself. Oh my goodness. Surround himself with a zealot.
Do you know what a zealot is? A politically charged first century Jew that whenever he sees a Roman official, he's ready to take his switchblade out and just stab him from behind. Because he's wanted to tear down the Roman government. And then you've got a tax collector, Matthew, and the zealot Simon.
And they're now part of the inner circle of friends. And Matthew is pro-Rome. He's collecting money for Rome. And now they're sitting around the fire.
They have different political beliefs. That's a problem. And then you've got the fishermen. Oh my goodness, the fishermen.
So many of them. And they all have foul mouths, right? Just a bunch of kids and just like rough and tumble. And then you have John the Baptist former disciples that are very righteous.
And we're eating locust and honey just right alongside John the Baptist. And they were hardcore. And they're looking at the fishermen that can't even quote the Torah. And they're like, who are these kids?
What was he thinking? Bringing them on his team? They're not disciples. They don't have our perspective.
They don't know the law. Jesus, what are you doing? And then Jesus has the audacity. Do you know what?
This blows my mind. He's like, OK, we're going to go on a road trip to Capernaum. And he literally walks for three straight days with these guys. And then there's a bunch of other people that join along with him.
There's like 70 others, 60 others. Sometimes there's even more. Sometimes there's 100 or so others. Sometimes there's big crowds.
And he's surrounded. When is Jesus even going to the bathroom? I don't even know. Do you get away ever?
When are you taking a bath, Jesus? It's like Jesus, if he wanted to, he could go to the Bahamas, just transport whenever he wanted to. But he did it. He's like sitting around the fire with these guys, doing community.
He's meeting with all of these people, all of these people that have so many problems and wrong perspectives about who the Father is, who he is, who they are. They don't even get it. And there's so many reasons for Jesus to kind of go, I mean, these are the guys that are going to betray him. How dare they?
I'm literally going to get turned in for 30 pieces of soul. And he's just loving him. He's just with him. But we have so many reasons to not gather.
Jesus has a lot of reasons to not gather. A lot of reasons to just kind of isolate, do his own thing, and move on, ascend into heaven. And he did the job. And the Lord's going, but that's not what his destiny was.
And that's not what your destiny is. It's so good for you to be with people. And you're like, no, I don't like people. Some of you are like, I don't like people.
And you need help from Holy Spirit, because you got to stop that. You got to stop that perspective, because it's not God's perspective. And so you just kind of got to break agreement with that lie of like you're not a people person. No, you're destined to be a people person.
Like you're called to be a people person to love people. So you can just kind of like cut that off of you, all right? OK. It's way more efficient, way more easy, less complicated, more productive, and convenient, to just do your own thing.
Jesus chooses to roll the, he chooses to like have the crew. And there's this tendency for us. There's like different camps in the church, right? There's the camp of over here.
We got the camp of the zealous ones, right? I'm not saying you guys, but I love the zeal over here. I feel the zeal over here in the room. No, but the ones that are going, I'm like revival on feet.
I'm going for it. The kingdom of God is forcibly advancing. Why isn't the church doing anything? Forget these, these spectators forget these losers that aren't doing the kingdom.
Forget all these people. They don't actually love him. I'm going to do my own thing. I'm just so tired of the dead weight.
I don't need to gather, I don't need to gather with all these people that just don't even love him anyways. I'm just going to do my own thing. We just, there's, where is the fruit in the church? Come on, we got to do something.
Stop praying, stop, worship me. Let's just do something. There's so many people who don't know Jesus. What are you doing sitting there?
Come on guys. And they kind of just fade into the back. Stop showing up. Because they're just, nobody's doing anything.
Nobody's on fire the way that I am, right? Oh no. And then you've got the other group, the other group that's on the other spectrum of all of these people are hypocrites. All of these people are just plastic.
All of these people aren't actually real. They don't actually love him. It's just like a way to get their needs met. And do you not understand all of this junk that's happening and all the things that the church has done through history and all of the pain that people are experiencing?
Do you not understand what my friend has been going through and the church just throws them out, doesn't even care about them? And they're in deconstruction mode. They're listening to a lot of amazing podcasts that are led by people that are super bitter and offended, thinking that they've got the corner on knowledge, because they get it now. And they're just drinking from the stream going, I don't need the church.
Church screws people up. Church is a bunch of hypocrites. Maybe God, but God is kind of the one that's behind it all. Massage and Istik God, and then the Bible, the Bible, have you read the Bible and all of a sudden?
It's like I don't need to gather. And then we've got the other crew that's right in the middle. And they just got a cabin. And they just bought a house.
And they're doing a remodel. And their daughter is a prodigy. And they have an AAU season coming up. And all the tournaments are on the times where they used to meet with their community.
And they kind of had a sermon that they disagreed with a little bit. And it's kind of, it's inconvenient. Wow, what a beautiful day. Look at how beautiful it is.
We just got to enjoy it. There's only so many days like this in Minnesota. Let's just enjoy it. Come on.
Let's not go and let's just relax. Let's have some family time. It's like, oh man, we're running late. Is it even worth it to go?
And it's like, man, I feel like we just need to just rest. You know? Just need to rest. And there we are.
And it's just inconvenient to gather today. It's such a long way. It's like at least 25, 30 minutes. And I have to get my car.
Gas is getting expensive. It's like double, you know? And we have all of these reasons. Look at all of the gamut of reasons.
We all have a reason. We all have a reason not to obey him. We all have a reason to go, I know that you said, don't give up meeting together. Time out, time out, time out.
I'm not talking about just showing up to church services, OK? So you might think as I'm talking, he just wants people to come to church. I see what he's doing. And now listen, listen, I don't care if you come to the service.
I really don't. Like, I love you. I want you in the room. But I don't care at the same time, OK?
Listen, what I'm saying is, don't give up meeting together. If it's with the three, if it's with the 12, if it's with the 70, if it's the 120, if it's the crowd, it doesn't matter. Just don't give up meeting together, OK? So don't get tripped up on that.
I know that this could be like self-serving, and it's not, OK? I'm literally looking at the Bible going, Lord, I want a soft heart. I want a heart of blaze with love. And you're on to something.
But the individualistic mindset of the American church and the American culture is that I can just do it myself. I'm good. And then six months later, oh my goodness, six months later, after the cabin purchase, and after the vacation home, and after the AAU season, and after the remodel, and after the car breaking down, and all of the reasons of why, to not show up to gather, all of a sudden, your garage is filled with Amazon boxes, right? You wake up and you're just thinking about the next vice that's going to satisfy the longing of your heart.
You wake up and your Bible is collecting dust. You wake up and you're wondering, man, it doesn't feel right, but I'm like a good person. Like I'm a good person, and we've had such a good season as a family. We've had so much family time.
And all of a sudden, you're realizing, but you're not realizing it until somebody says it, that you've been allowing a closet idle into your life that's taken center stage. And the closet aisle is idle as family. And all of a sudden, you're going, but we just need more family time. We're just not going to go.
It's just such a long trip. And then the kids are so tired. And then Jesus walks onto the scene, and his mom and his brothers are outside of the house. And they're like, hey, we want to see.
I want to see my son. I want to see my brother, Jesus. Do you know what Jesus says? Jesus goes, the only family that I have are those that obey the will of my father.
And the American church goes, what did you just say? Family first means family first. Those that do the will of my father. The slip of definitions is so easy when you get isolated.
When you become individualistic and you don't have people sharpening you, it's so good to be with others. It's so good to get provoked. It's so good to get irritated into love and good works. So good.
And it's so life giving to go. Man, I'm provoked by your hunger. But half the time we show up, listen, listen, listen, listen. We show up and we hang out with our Christian friends.
And we're like, yeah, I had some good fellowship. And it's like, did you? You were in the same room with Christians. But did you leave going, man, I want to love him more.
Did you leave provoked and irritated to love God and love your neighbor more after you hung out with your Christian friends? Or did you leave a little bit more offended, a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more, man, I want to watch that docu-series. A little bit more. I want to watch that Netflix show that they talked about.
Or you're like, man, I want to read my Bible more. I want to share my faith more. I want to love people that seem unlovable. I want to love my children and my spouse more.
I want to love my enemies more. I'm lit up. And I feel like I'm just on the edge of something in God. Or are we just kind of like coasting on the cruise ship?
Lord is going, let's go. Let's jump out together. Let's not jump out as individuals. Let's jump on.
Let's roll on the waters together with him, with each other. It's good for us. But even as I look at the room, I know that there's people, like brothers and sisters in the room, that waited at two bus stops to even get here today, like multiple hours just to show up. Three bus rides, two bus stops.
And they're going to do it again after the service, after the awakening service. And there's people that drive every single week, an hour and a half. And sometimes more, some others are more than that. I know that there's some of you that drive over two hours every single week to come to prayer room and services.
There's people that had a 14-hour shift last night, went to bed around 8, 9 a.m., and then woke up and are here and have every reason to not show up. And then they went and served in everyday kids in the first service. And they're showing up to this one because they're hungry for Jesus. But it just doesn't feel convenient today.
And then we look at the underground church in China and in North Korea and Iran and Afghanistan. And you hear stories of believers hiking for five miles into the woods at 2 a.m., just to gather with a couple believers and have a whispering prayer meeting in the middle of the night. Then you have people that are going underground risking their lives. Why?
To get in the same room with some others that love him. To pray together. You have slaves in America, black heroes of the faith, after 14 hours of being in the cotton fields. And then they're waking up in the middle of the night with their kids praying into kettled pots.
So that they don't get caught, but pouring out their worship and love for Jesus. These are those that are provoking us into gather. Go together. Pray together.
Provoke together. Irritate one another into loving him and loving each other and encourage each other. Half of us are going, ah, I'm good. And it's like, no, you need some serious encouragement.
You're all up in your feelings and you're all lonely. And you need to get your eyes off of the navel gazing and looking at yourself. And you need to get beyond you. And you need to get caught up into a bigger story.
And that bigger story is found in a brother. It's found in a sister that tells a story. Then you're like, oh, man, I'm provoked. I have to see this is all headed somewhere.
And I never talk about this. It's headed somewhere. Your love for one another and your love for Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, it is going to provoke the nation of Israel to jealousy. And we have to ask ourselves the question, is there anything about my life that is going to make a Jewish person jealous of me?
Is there any, are my relationships and is my lifestyle so provoking that people just are going, I am jealous of what you have. I am jealous of what you're living. How do you know him like that? How do you love people like that that are so different than you?
Jesus, he's putting his finger on this button of community is going, hey, even if it's just two of you. I'm not talking about having like that the 20 people that are like you connect with perfectly. No, I'm talking about the 67 year old white guy and the 18 year old Hispanic girl loving each other because they love him. God's calling us to get off the bench and end the game of connection.
The Lord is raising up a bride that's red hot in love. They will be known by the way that they love one another. How are we going to love one another if we don't see each other? How are you going to love your brother and sister if you never really see him?
You know, some of us are kind of going like, I don't understand. Why doesn't just the Afghani church just like do a zoom meeting? You know, like what is it? Haven't they heard of podcast and YouTube and you can just tune into the message to get encouraged?
Do you know that what happens when you haven't seen? I don't know if you've experienced this when you haven't seen someone in a while and then you hear something about what they said or what they did and it's so easy to judge their motives. Have you noticed that? If I haven't been in the same room face to face with you, it's so much easier to get cynical, suspicious and judgmental because we weren't in the same room and the Lord is going, I want you to have red hot hearts of love and the current is icy cold.
So get in the same room, stir up yourselves in love, love me, love them, start walking in generosity, be like the ax church that started eating together a lot and they pray together a lot and they'd worship together a lot and there was a lot of people that got added to their number daily. Jesus is coming back for a bride in love. Let's all stand. I want to have us dialogue with one another about this before I commission us out.
My point isn't to come to more church services. My point is to not give up meeting together and start gathering and keep on gathering and building and basement and classrooms and homes around tables. The Apostle Paul is writing a letter, it's his final letter that he wrote, 2 Timothy and he's writing from house arrest in between these two Roman guards and he's writing this final letter and in this letter at the very end of the letter you just get like a window into Paul's relationships and his affection for the body. And I love one of the things that he says, because he says, I want you to bring me, he's writing to him and he's saying, I want you to bring me Mark, John Mark, bring me John Mark and it's because Paul is wanting to hand the baton of his ministry to Timothy and John Mark.
And if you know the story in the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul and John Mark had a beef and they separated their ministries because they were on different pages. But it's this window into the Apostle Paul is house arrest, he's lonely and there's love and affection in his heart for those that he's been divided between. And there's love and affection he has for fellow brothers and he's going, there's a disagreement, but it's never going to keep me from loving my brother. It's never going to keep me from being unified with my brother.
And I believe as a church, we get to step into this reality of having unafinable hearts, hearts that can trust Jesus, the judge and hearts that are going, I'm going to will, I'm willing to be in convenience just like Jesus to show up, to get together with the two, to get together with the three, to get together with the 20, 30, 50, the crowds, because it's what we need, right? You know, the plan of the enemy is to divide and conquer. Satan wants to divide and conquer and Jesus wants the people of God to find family. And Jesus has so much good for his people and he knows what's best for us and he wants us to experience connection.
He wants us to experience the value of together. That's what he wants for us. He doesn't want us to be isolated and he knows it's good for us and he loves us. And I just want to encourage all of you, maybe some of you are going, man, I want this and I just haven't experienced it yet.
But I'm just believing for you that God, it's enough to have one. It's enough to have two. It's enough to have three. We try to make it like I have to have this full tribe of people that I connect with and the Lord's like, what if it's just two?
What if it's just two that love him, that irritate you into love and good works? You know what I'm saying? And so I want to pray for you. Lord, I thank you for these Ginny and Johnny Appleseed.
Lord, I thank you that their destiny is not to live on the cruise ship of Christianity, that their destiny is to be out on the waters with others that are loving and full of vigor and passion for Jesus. Lord, it's our destiny to not get cold hearts that are offended and bitter, resentful. It's our destiny to actually have soft, tender hearts of love, ablaze with passion for you. Lord, that we would be the ones that on the day of your return have been prepared, making ourselves ready for the groom.
Lord, we want as a whole city. We want there to be so much love in our hearts for one another that our city gets jealous. Lord, we want jealousy to be a problem in the Twin Cities. We want everybody to be jealous of the love that we have for one another.
Help us strengthen us to love those that are different than us that have different opinions, different ideas, different backgrounds, different ethnicities. Lord, help us to love our brothers and sisters well and then help us to love our enemies. We need your help. It's only by your strength, not by white knuckling it.
So we just lean into our beloved. Here we go, your wild ones, revival on feet with our our woe carts in the kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen.