Well, good morning again, and welcome to Big Valley Grace Community Church. If it’s your first time at Big Valley, you picked a great weekend to come; we’re celebrating this weekend. And I want you to know, one of the things that really helped me have perspective about the new building was going and standing in it. And I just want to encourage you to do that after the gathering: go and stand in the building — as a family, my family sitting up here, a family who has participated to help with you to have this project go — it really brought me a lot of joy to stand in the building and to stand in the middle of what we’ve all sacrificed and prayed and made commitments and worked hard to get to. And I want you to experience that joy also. So go stand in the building, and you won’t regret that you did it, and I believe that you’ll have the same experience as me and it will bring a lot of joy into your life.

Four Generations of Invites

This month we have been looking at our God-sized goal. The God-sized goal at Big Valley Grace Community Church is to glorify God through exponential discipleship — disciples making disciples making disciples making disciples. It takes the purpose of our church, which is to give glory to God, and the mission of our church — to love God, love people, and make disciples — and it puts them together and says: God, how can we have a goal that’s so big only you can do it, and we’re going to bring you as much glory as we can by accomplishing our mission as much as we can.

Well, two years ago I got a phone call, and a businessman who’s in commercial insurance gave me a call, and he had some questions, and so I said, all right — hey, how about we meet up and let’s have lunch together? He said yes. That was his first mistake. And so we got together and we had lunch right down the street here from the church. And as we had lunch, he shared with me that he had not had any church experience since he was 10 — it was at a Catholic church — and since then he had not had any church experience. So I just asked him a simple question: would you be willing to walk together and learn about Jesus together? And he said yes. And I thought, okay. And I had a similar conversation with another man who’s in business, who’s in corporate communications, and he also said yes. So I now had these two guys; I thought, hey — three guys, that’s a group. So we started a group two years ago, and because they’re business guys, we just put it as an appointment in their calendar; it ended up being Thursdays at 2 p.m.

And this last Thursday at 2 p.m., I got to see four generations of invites that started from that lunch two years ago. Because the guy who’s in commercial insurance coached alongside a business owner who builds motors, and invited him to come. And the businessman who builds motors — he had a customer who is a contractor come into his shop to get one of his vehicles rebuilt, and he invited him. And in my office Thursday at 2, I saw four generations of invites that all started with a phone call. And what I want to challenge you to do is to pick up the phone. When the phone rings, pick it up. When the opportunity for lunch happens, go to lunch. When the opportunity to have coffee with someone happens, go to coffee with them. When the opportunity to spend time with someone presents itself, take advantage of it — because you don’t know what it will lead to two years down the road. And one of the things that’s really fun for me with this particular group is this is the second time in two years that four generations of invites have occurred with this same group. And I think God has cool opportunities for you. I didn’t know this would be the outcome of simply picking up the phone. You don’t know what the outcome will be about something that will be a small decision that you make, but I want to encourage you to take advantage of it. We have a lot of joy as a church getting to go after this God-sized goal together — to glorify God with exponential discipleship: disciples making disciples making disciples making disciples.

This month, in the month of February, we’ve been in a series called “Pass It On.” And when I say “pass it on,” what I mean simply is that we would help another person follow Jesus as a fellow learner. The word “disciple” means learner, and so we are disciples of Jesus; we’re learners of Jesus; we just want to help another person follow Jesus as a fellow learner. So this entire month we’ve been looking at opportunities to do that — disciple-making relationships. We looked at Paul, Timothy, faithful men, and others; that’s out of 2 Timothy 2:2; that’s how we started it off. If you missed that week, I would encourage you to watch it; I think it would be very helpful for you to understand the goal for us as a church, who we are as a church, how we’re going after this together as a church. The second week we looked at Ephesians chapter 5; we looked at the relationship between Christ and the church, husbands and wives. Week three we looked at love your neighbor as yourself; we looked at the parable of the Good Samaritan, and how the opportunity to show mercy is an opportunity to enter into a disciple-making relationship. And today we’re going to be in Ephesians chapter 4, and we’re going to be looking at the next generation. We’re also celebrating what’s happened so far with Built to Last, and I would say the connection here is this: a building does no good empty. The building is useless empty. The building only matters when it’s full of disciples making disciples making disciples making disciples — Christian men who are going to pour into young boys, Christian women who are going to pour into young girls — so kids and students have the opportunity to become a disciple of Jesus Christ.

A Question for My Kids

As we walk through our time today, I’m going to share from my family with you. I have four and a half adult children — and what I mean by that is I have four children who are over 18 and they’ve moved out, and I have a 17-year-old about to be 18. So I got four and a half adult children. And I asked them all a question — and I told them I was preparing for this message, so I didn’t trick them. And I’m going to read to you their responses to the question that I asked. And the question is this: from your perspective, what are important subjects that we have discussed together as father and son or as father and daughter?

So I’ll start with my daughter Savannah. She’s 17 years old; she’s a junior in high school. And I asked her this question — from your perspective, what are important subjects we’ve discussed together as father and daughter? And this is what my daughter Savannah wrote: “From my perspective, we have talked about beauty school” — that’s what she would like to do after high school; she wants to go to beauty school. “We’ve talked about our new relationship and our past relationship” — and the context there is that my daughter and I have done significant work together to bring healing and wholeness and restoration to our relationship. “We’ve talked about expectations that we have for one another as family members. We’ve talked about the importance of accepting one another in our lives and accepting one another in our family. We’ve discussed going to church — a number of different aspects are in that discussion, but we’ve discussed going to church together. We have talked about positive and negative influences. We have talked about where we are headed as a family. And the thing that sticks out to me is our relationship and how far we’ve come.” I will continue to share with you my children’s responses as we walk through, in between all of these points.

The Question: A Healthy Church in the Next Generation

The question I’ll lead with to get us into this text — if you have a Bible, turn to Ephesians 4; we’re going to be in Ephesians 4:1–16; there are also notes, if those are helpful for you, that were handed [out] when you walked in — the question is: how will we be a healthy church in the next generation? How will we be a healthy church in the next generation? Well, this text, Ephesians 4:1–16, answers that question. Verse one — I’m going to read it through as a whole, then as we break it into pieces; I’m going to read it through in three chunks, and then I will read it through verse by verse, so when we get done here we will have read this passage three times together.

“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call — one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, ‘When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.’ In saying ‘he ascended,’ what does it mean but that he also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

The end of this passage describes the result, and the result comes when the body is working properly — that’s what brings the end result. And I would put it in this way: a whole body working properly makes a body grow healthy. A whole body working properly makes a body grow healthy. And what this passage does is it uses the analogy of a human body to help us understand how the church body, the church family, works together. So you could say: a whole church family, a whole church body, working properly, makes a whole church family, a whole church body, grow healthy.

So the next child up in age in my family — he’s 18 years old; he’s a freshman at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. He’s a man of few words. When I asked him the question — from your perspective, what are important subjects we have discussed together as father and son — this is what he responded with: “I would say that the subjects that have meant the most to me are making my faith my own, the responsibility of adulting, the responsibility of moving out, the consequences of disobedience to God, and the consequences of making stupid choices” — his words, not mine. I may have said that at some point.

Walking with Jesus in Spiritual Unity (Ephesians 4:1–6)

We’ll go back to the beginning of this passage, Ephesians 4:1: “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy…” The beginning of this passage helps us understand the starting point to get us to that end result. And these two words — “worthy” and “walk” — are super important. Worthy: worth, value. Walk: movement, steps in a direction. There is a way to walk; there’s a way to have movement; there’s a way to have steps in a direction that have value and have worth and are worthy. And what this passage points to is that when our body walks with Jesus, our body will lead to that end result; our body will work properly. When our church body walks with Jesus, our church body will work properly.

So we’re going to break this into three chunks. The first chunk is verses 1–6, and we see the first theme come out of these six verses: “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call — one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Let’s go back one slide. This word “unity” right here — this is the key word to understand these six verses; this is the theme of these six verses. And when we’re asking the question, how will we be a healthy church in the next generation — the first way is: a healthy church walks with Jesus in spiritual unity. That’s what it means to be a healthy church. A healthy church walks with Jesus in spiritual unity.

This passage has at least three ways that that is expressed. One is spiritual unity in our call. Ephesians 4:1 says, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” If we are in Christ, God called us; we didn’t call God. God’s the one who dials; we’re the one who picks up. And if God has initiated a call to you, and to you, and to you, and to you — that means we are able to have spiritual unity together in the fact we’ve all been called by God. God initiated a call with every one of us.

The next is spiritual unity in our bond — Ephesians 4:2–3: “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” This is a verse that you see a progression in. It starts with: you got to let go of your pride and be humble. That’s our first step to together — we got to let go of our pride and we’ve got to be humble. And when we’re humble and we have humility, then we’re able to express gentleness, then we’re able to express patience and bearing with one another in love. And when we do these things, it causes us to be eager; it causes us to want to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And if I have unity of the Spirit and experience the bond of peace, and you have unity of the Spirit and you experience the bond of peace, then we have spiritual unity in our bond.

One of the coolest illustrations I’ve heard about our connection of abiding in Jesus Christ is through the picture of welding. Welding takes two metal objects and makes them become one metal object, because the weld itself takes the two pieces and makes them one. It makes it a bond that is not meant to be broken; it makes it a bond that is powerful and held together. And our spiritual unity in our bond through the Spirit, our bond of peace — it’s a bond that’s not meant to be broken, and it’s a bond that’s held together by the power of God.

We have spiritual unity in our hope. Verses 4 through 6 explain what we confess together as a church family. We confess that there is one body and one Spirit — just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call — one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. And when we talk about having hope in Jesus Christ, we have hope because we know we all have one Lord, and we have hope together because we have one faith in that Lord together, and we have baptism into his death and his resurrection together. We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism; we have one God and Father of all together, who’s over all and through all and in all — and it gives us great hope. And we come together as a people who are hopeful, and we come together in spiritual unity because we have hope that God has given us because of who he is — what we come together and believe about him, what we confess together about Jesus Christ, about God.

So I would encourage you to take a walk — take a walk towards church health. How would you fill out this sentence: “I will be spiritually united in call, bond, and hope alongside…” — whose name would you put in? Take a walk towards church health. How would you fill out this sentence: “I will be spiritually united in call, bond, and hope alongside” — who’s the person’s name? I would challenge you to put a person’s name in.

My next son up in the ranks — his name is Eric. He is 20 years old; he is our college football player; he has a semester and a half left of college; he’s at a college called Tabor College in the middle of nowhere, Kansas. And I asked him the same question — from your perspective, what are the important subjects we have discussed together as father and son? And this is what he wrote: “The importance of training and guidance — we all need help in a lot of ways; ask for help from those who are better equipped. The importance of aiming to have every aspect of your life honor God. For example, in sports, I need to have an attitude and conduct myself in a way that represents Christ well — we always are representing him. The importance of a family dedicating themselves to God — how, as a head of a house, it’s a decision just as Joshua” — and he’s referring to Joshua in the Bible — “just as Joshua made, for him and his house, that they will serve the Lord. This is something that I know you would mention throughout my childhood, but it has really resonated with me as I prepare to begin a new family with me and Dakota” — Dakota is the young woman that he is engaged to be married to.

Walking with Jesus in Spiritual Diversity (Ephesians 4:7–12)

The next section, verses 7–12, we find another theme: “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, ‘When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.’ In saying ‘he ascended,’ what does it mean but that he also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” This word “measure” is very important to understand this section; it helps us understand the theme of this section. And when we’re answering the question, how do we be a healthy church in the next generation — the second way is: a healthy church walks with Jesus in spiritual diversity. Because Christ has measured out to each of us something that is diverse — it’s unified in him, but it is diverse to each one of us in the way that he has measured out.

Two aspects we’ll look at from this passage. The first is spiritual diversity in our gift. Christ has measured out something unique to each one of us in the way that he has given us a gift: “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” When we think about the starting point of Jesus Christ — to help us understand what this is saying — the starting point of our understanding with Jesus Christ is incredibly important. If we think about the starting point of Jesus Christ as the incarnation, or Christmas, when Jesus was born, then this verse gets very confusing, because we see the starting point of Jesus Christ as planet Earth. Well then, what does it mean that he descended into the lower parts — did he go into, like, the middle of the planet? Well, what does the Scripture teach about the starting point of Jesus? It says that God sent the Son. So the starting point of Jesus is actually the throne room of heaven. So when we see that the throne room of heaven is the starting place of Jesus, then we understand — when this passage talks about descending, he’s descending to what we call the incarnation, or the birth of Jesus, Christmas. And then when he ascends, he’s ascending from the earth back to where he came from: the throne room of heaven. And what this passage is describing — let’s go back one slide — this passage is describing that when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives. What does that mean? That means when Jesus died on the cross, he paid for our sin; when he was buried and he was resurrected, he conquered death; and when he ascends to heaven, he ascends as the conquering King who leads a host of captives — of those that he has conquered. He is the victorious King ascending into heaven, and he leads a host of captives: those he has won, those he has conquered over. And then it says “he gave gifts to men.” Well, we see that in the church, when the church is born at the day of Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit of God is given from Jesus to the church, from heaven to earth, to where the Holy Spirit of God now fills the life of the believer — it’s the seal of our redemption — and there are gifts by the Spirit of God, so that we have spiritual diversity in our gift.

The next two verses explain spiritual diversity in our ministry, which just makes sense. If we had all been measured out a different gift, then would it make sense we all have a different job to do? That just makes sense; it matches. We all have a different gift from God, and we all have a different job to play in the body of Christ — spiritual diversity in our ministry. And this passage explains, in example — not the only ways; this is just an example of that — “he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” A simple way to understand this is: God gave initial leadership to the church as it was birthed so that a chain reaction would occur, so that the equipping of the saints would happen. And when we talk about saints — that’s you and me. And I know you don’t think about yourself as a saint, though grandma called you that one time — but we are the saints. We are the saints, and we have a work of ministry to do. And when we, as the saints, are equipped and we do our work of ministry, what happens? The building up of the body of Christ. So I would encourage you to take a walk with Jesus towards church health. How would you finish this statement: “I will be spiritually united in gift and ministry alongside…” — who? Who’s the person that you are spiritually gifted different than? Who’s the person who has a ministry of God that’s different than you, and you can be spiritually united in gift and ministry alongside them? I would challenge you to put their name right in here. Take a walk with Jesus towards church health: “I will be spiritually united in gift and ministry alongside who?”

The next up in the ranks of the family is my second oldest son; his name is Angel. He’s 21 years old; he’ll finish up this summer in college; he’s also at Grand Canyon University. And when I asked him this question — from your perspective, what are the important subjects we’ve discussed together as father and son — he actually wrote quite a bit; I’m going to share with you a portion of what he wrote. He said: “I think one of the most important subjects you have taught me is the goal of parenting and becoming a man. You have honored God in the way you have raised me. You have taught me so much about what it means to be a man; you have done your part in that process. You have taught me the importance of sacrifice, service, discipline, godliness, and many other qualities of being a man. The goal of parenting is to raise your children to honor the Lord and set them up for adulthood. As I’ve grown older, the things I would get frustrated about regarding how you parented have turned into the things I’m grateful for. You have challenged me to become a man because you love me and desire me to be the man that God wants me to be, the man that my wife and children need me to be” — he’s not married or a parent yet, but he’s engaged to Maddie, and so he’s on his way towards marriage. “What I have learned is that your responsibility is to raise me to honor God and help me become an adult, not to be my friend and allow me to do whatever I wanted. You have provided me with a great example to follow, and I’m grateful that you have taught me much about the subject of parenting and becoming a man.” That’s Angel; he’s 21.

Walking with Jesus in Spiritual Maturity (Ephesians 4:13–16)

The last section here, Ephesians 4:13–16: “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” This word “mature” is very, very important to understand this last section. Remember, we’re asking the question: how can we be a healthy church in the next generation? A healthy church walks with Jesus in spiritual maturity. A healthy church walks with Jesus in spiritual maturity. That’s broken into three sections in this set of verses.

The first is spiritual maturity in our stature. Just recently I was at my mother-in-law’s 70th birthday party, and at the in-laws’ — the grandparents’ — house, they have one of those things where they measured all the kids’ heights, right? So all my kids, all these years — they got all the marks — and so we were looking at, we were comparing all the ages of the kids and how tall they were at the different ages. That’s a picture of my children growing in stature; their form and their frame developed over time as they grew up. Well, what this says here is that “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” — that’s describing that there is a frame, a growth, a build in the body of Christ, in the family of Christ. And as we grow up in Christ, we fill out the build, just like a human body fills out the build as we grow. And when we grow together, we continue to fill out the build — the stature, the frame of the fullness of Christ.

Spiritual maturity in our doctrine — verses 13 through 14: “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” The word “doctrine” — the simplest way to understand it is: what do we believe the Bible teaches about this? What do we believe the Bible teaches about that? What do we believe the Bible teaches about Jesus? What do we believe the Bible teaches about God? What do we believe the Bible teaches about the Spirit? What do we believe the Bible teaches about the church — that we would be mature in what we understand the Bible to teach. This is the section that I pulled the Built to Last theme from: equipping faith that is built to last in a decaying culture. What this section is describing — it’s describing how, when there is bad truth, faulty truth, bad doctrine, if there’s bad information that’s coming, it knocks people around who are immature in Jesus. Okay — the wind knocking people around, the waves knocking people around. And I want you to know, I think it is super clear in our culture to see the waves crashing right now on our kids. The things that my three middle schoolers — they’re sitting in the room right now — the things they’re having to deal with as middle schoolers, the discussions they’re having about what they’re hearing as middle schoolers, are completely and wildly different than what I faced as a middle schooler grown up. They know about things I didn’t even know existed. The culture is crashing on our children. And what we have the opportunity to do — which is why we themed the project for the building, because the empty building’s no good, but a building full of this theme is very good — is equipping faith that is built to last in a decaying culture, and equipping that kind of faith in kids and in students, to have spiritual maturity in our doctrine.

Spiritual maturity in our love. Really, as we get to the end of this passage, the result is absolutely: the fuel for the church is the love and the grace and the mercy of Jesus Christ. It saturates us; it saturates us towards one another; it saturates us towards God. And love becomes just this amazing fuel that we operate out of, and we grow in our love; we have maturity in our love. “Rather, speaking the truth in love” — and so that’s sharing the word of God in love — “we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” Spiritual maturity. So I would encourage you: take a walk with Jesus towards church health. How would you fill out this statement: “I will be spiritually mature in stature, doctrine, and love alongside…” — who? Whose name would you put in here? Take a walk with Jesus towards church health: “I will be spiritually mature in stature, doctrine, and love alongside” — whose name do you need to put in here?

My oldest son — it’s who we tried everything out on; he’s 23 now, okay. He met his wife in college; they’re both engineers; they now live in Livermore; he’s an engineer for Gallo; she’s an engineer for the Lawrence Livermore Lab; they got a little baby — she’s super cute, Lany Rose; she’s a month and 23 days old, not that anyone’s counting. And this is what he responded when I asked him the question — from your perspective, what are important subjects we have discussed together as father and son: “Important topics — we’ve talked about how to balance work [and] life. We’ve had this conversation at various stages of my life, from high school, to paying for college, now being a father and a husband. We’ve talked about how to handle finances; our conversations have heavily influenced how I go about my family’s finances. We’ve had conversations about how to make things right when I’ve made choices that got me in over my head” — can anybody relate to that one? — “and the last one” — he ends on a funny one — “girl advice. I don’t think this needs much explaining.”

Walk with Jesus Alongside the Next Generation

As you think about how we’re going to be a healthy church in the next generation, I want to maybe propose a very, very simple answer, and that is: the way we will be a healthy church in the next generation is we will walk with Jesus alongside the next generation. Because the next generation — the generation that exists right now, the generation that I just read to you the things that have been important to them — they are desperately wanting someone to walk alongside them. This is a generation that wants someone to walk alongside them, show them a standard of truth, give them hope, give them a direction — because the culture they’re growing up in has no standard of truth, it has no direction, it is an extremely confused culture, and the waves don’t stop crashing on them. And they need somebody; they need you; they need me to walk with Jesus alongside the next generation. Maybe it’s with the kids in your home, like I’ve shared from my four and a half adult kids, who have written what I read to you. Maybe it’s like a group of business guys, Thursday at 2 p.m., like I shared with you at the beginning, sitting in an office, just walking with one another and walking with Jesus.

If you’re here and you’re saying, you know what, I’m ready for someone to walk alongside me; I need someone to walk alongside me — then I would say your first step is Discover BVG. That lunch is next weekend; it’s after the 11:00 service; it’s right over here in the Fireside Room; it’s at 12:30; it’ll be all taken care of; you can go online and sign up for it. But if you want somebody to walk with you, you need someone to walk alongside you — this is step one for you here: come to Discover BVG. Our team will be there; we’ll have lunch together; you’ll meet our team; you’ll hear a bunch of ways of how we can walk with you as you want to follow Jesus.

If you’re in the place where you’re saying, I’m ready to walk alongside the next generation — then I would say your starting point is the card you were handed when you came in. Because this card gives you a very simple way to take a first step to walk alongside the next generation. If you need help taking a first step, you can fill this card out, and maybe you’re going to work with BVG Kids — that’s our elementary ministry; maybe you’re going to work with MSM — that’s our middle school ministry; or HSM — that’s our high school ministry. And you can simply fill this card out and you can drop it in any one of the black boxes on your way out. And this is a very practical first step you can take if you’re saying, all right, I’m ready — I’m ready to be somebody who’s going to walk alongside the next generation; I just need a starting point. Here’s your starting point: fill out this card; place it in the black boxes on your way out.

How will we be a healthy church in the next generation? Well, this passage describes what a healthy church is, and if we’re going to be this in the next generation, then we need to be this passage alongside the next generation. And so how will we be a healthy church in the next generation? Well, we’re going to walk with Jesus alongside the next generation. And I want you to know: there might be a young boy, for you men here, and that young boy is just waiting for a guy like you to come into his life. And there might be a young girl, you women that are here, and that young girl is just waiting for a woman like you to come into her life.

Father God, Lord, thank you for your word. I’m super convicted by this passage. I’m super convicted in my walk with you; I’m super convicted in my parenting; I’m convicted in ministry. I just see tons of ways I need to grow when I look at this passage. And so, God, I pray that you’d help me grow; I pray that you’d help us grow. Lord, would you help us grow into the healthy church you want us to be? God, would you help us — as a healthy church that’s walking with you — would you help us walk alongside the next generation? And, God, all glory to you; you’re the one who’s doing all the work in our lives, and so we don’t get any of the credit for that. We just want to say thank you again. We want to say thank you — thank you for how you’re at work; thank you that you didn’t give up on us; thank you that you came and you walked alongside each of us. And, God, help us to be like you; help us to do the same. And I pray this in Jesus’ name. And all God’s family said, amen.

All right, all right now — hey, Pastor Joel! Pastor Joel, hey man, uh, you didn’t forget about cake, did you? Oh yeah. Hey, but, uh, I know you’re headed out there — it’s a construction zone. Oh yeah. All right, so what we’re going to do is we’re going to head out to the building site, all right, and we’re going to have some cake and we’re going to check it out. All right, I’ll see you guys over there. All right, love you guys; let’s head over there.