NEXT: Essentials

[00:00:02] Speaker A: All right, well, we are here with Essentials. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Essentials. [00:00:05] Speaker A: This is part two of our next track, correct? Yes, it is. [00:00:09] Speaker B: So hopefully they've already joined us for newcomers, had lunch. If they're wondering, are you in the right place? You are. [00:00:15] Speaker A: You are in the right place. So first of all, I want to say thank you so much for those of you who are jumping on, wanting to know more about us. And so that's our hope. Our hope is for you to know a little bit about what? About what we believe. And so E is for the essentials of our faith or essentials or what we think is essential. [00:00:36] Speaker B: Yes. [00:00:36] Speaker A: Right. Because we all grew up in different faiths. I grew up Muslim and you grew up. [00:00:41] Speaker B: I grew up Methodist. [00:00:42] Speaker A: Methodist, yes, yes. And there's so many different denominations, right? [00:00:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:00:46] Speaker B: I mean, even though I grown up in the church my entire life, I would say even Mosaic is very, very different from the church that I grew up in, you know, and there are lots of denominations that have lots of denominational beliefs and practices and standards and what they think is essential. And what they think is essential. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's why we're. We called it essential, because in terms of trying to get everybody on the same page. [00:01:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Knowing that everybody is coming from a different background and we have. We have so many ethnicities. We do, yeah. I think the last count was like 25. Yeah, 25. [00:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So obviously, we've got to get all of us on the same page kind of understanding what we believe as essential stuff and what is non essential. So give me an example. What would be a non essential. [00:01:34] Speaker B: So a non essential for us would be baptism, as in, okay, we believe in baptism. We think baptism is a great practice, but it's not necessarily super essential to us the way that baptism happens. Some denominations are like, if you don't go under the water and come back up, it didn't count. If you don't get sprinkled as a baby, it didn't count. We love baptizing people during the service, and we have baptism services where we do actually dunk people under. But we've also baptized people at the lake before. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Right, of course. [00:02:04] Speaker B: And that totally counts. [00:02:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And baptism is just one of many things. I mean, even like the end time theology, you know, like, what's going to happen in the end, you know, or that's a whole conversation. Then there's like Holy Spirit and how much is the Holy Spirit involved in our lives? Right, Yeah. [00:02:25] Speaker B: I mean, female pastors. Female pastors is a very big issue sometimes in some denominations. And so you might hear things like primary, secondary, tertiary issues pretty much. For us, we're trying to help you understand. If you're looking at Mosaic and you're trying to figure out, is this a place where I can belong? Is this a place that I can grow my faith, we want you to know what is essential here at Mosaic. It doesn't mean that we have to agree 100% on every single thing, for. [00:02:52] Speaker A: Sure, but we have kind of slimmed down this list. Basically, just three things. Right. And we, like, if we can all agree on these three things, we can move forward. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:03] Speaker A: Okay. And so it'll seem like, oh, we're missing so many other essential things, but I'm not quite sure if we really are. [00:03:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:10] Speaker A: So. So you know the three? [00:03:12] Speaker B: I do. [00:03:12] Speaker A: Okay. What's the first one? [00:03:13] Speaker B: Trinity. [00:03:14] Speaker A: The Trinity. Trinity. [00:03:16] Speaker B: Tell us about the Trinity. What does that mean? [00:03:17] Speaker A: Well, first of all, she was a character in the Matrix. [00:03:21] Speaker B: I don't. Was she a princess? [00:03:22] Speaker A: Was she a Disney? No, she wasn't. [00:03:23] Speaker B: Okay, then I'm not. [00:03:24] Speaker A: I just. And I said that just to throw you off. Just to throw you, like, what is he talking about? Let's get serious, though. Trinity. The reason why Trinity is important to us, because compared to different faiths out there, Trinity is a concept that only exists in Christianity. And it's very different from all the other world religions. This idea that God is one, but three forms and explaining. The Trinity is a whole. You know, a whole. I don't know, different conversation. But let me read you one verse here, John 14. It says here, this is Jesus talking, and he says, the helper is the Holy Spirit. The Father will send him in my place, and he will teach you everything and help you remember everything I have told you. Like, right there. There are three people involved. So you've got the Holy Spirit, you've got the Father, and then Jesus is talking about himself. And so this concept, for some of us is. I don't know, it's strange. But we have to remember that our life, our spiritual life is connected so much to the way we see God. And the Trinity is important because we were created in God's image. And if you've ever heard that passage before, and people will go, well, what does that look like? Well, one of the things it means is that there is a trinitarian, you know, concept that exists within us. Right? [00:05:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:03] Speaker A: The Spirit, soul, and body. [00:05:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:05] Speaker A: We are three, but yet one. But yet one. And so we need to understand that where, if God is wanting to have A relationship with you. The Holy Spirit is part of that life that fills you and speaks to you. And Jesus Christ, the Christ is the reason why everything was created in him and through him. And they play different roles, but they're still one. [00:05:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:33] Speaker B: So, yeah, the way it made the most sense to me because, again, growing up in Methodist, we didn't actually talk about the Holy Spirit. It was like God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, which we did not ever talk about. So I really didn't have much understanding of this. So I kind of thought of the Trinity as like a triangle. Right. I was like, oh, there's God. And then he has Jesus and, like, his kind of sibling, the Holy Spirit. Right, but they're under God. [00:05:57] Speaker A: Right. [00:05:57] Speaker B: Was the way that I always kind of understood. [00:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah, the Father is always, you know, it's. He's in charge, and then he's got a son and then he's got a sidekick. [00:06:06] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:06:07] Speaker A: Like, that's how it works. But, I mean, even though it's easy to understand that way, Trinity is the wrong shape, really. It is the wrong shape. It's more a circle. It's like this divine dance, if you will. It's where they seem to be working in rhythm, in unison, and it's a beautiful mystery. So, again, this is not Trinity 101. This is Essentials. But I want you to know that we do believe in the full expression of the Holy Spirit, that he is supernatural. He does supernatural things. He moves in supernatural ways. In fact, we'll talk about spiritual gifts in the next session. Right, but then you also have the Jesus who showed us the character of God, who showed us how to live our lives. So if the Spirit empowers us to live a life, Jesus shows us the kind of life that we need to live. And the Father is the Father of all creation, not just, you know, dear dad, he's like the Father of all things, and he's rooting for us. And we were created in love and meant to be in a relationship that was filled with love. [00:07:21] Speaker B: So, yeah, they'll have their unique purpose. [00:07:23] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:23] Speaker B: I heard you say once, is one of my favorite things, talking about how Jesus is a reflection of God. Right. How, like, Jesus came to show us who God is. And you said something to the effect of, if you only read the Old Testament, like, what kind of God would you believe in? [00:07:36] Speaker A: Right. [00:07:36] Speaker B: Because we learned so much more about the character of God through Jesus in the New Testament. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Right. All right. Well, that's a great segue to the next thing. Okay. We've got non. Essential. I'm sorry, essential. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Another essential. It is essential. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So you got Trinity and then what else? We got Bible. Bible. The Bible. So you talked about this idea of Old Testament, New Testament. Okay, so. And you've done talks on the Bible. You passionate about it? We are passionate about the scriptures. I call them the Scriptures, but yeah. Why don't you go for it? [00:08:09] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think a lot of the reason we refer to them as the scriptures instead of the Bible is because then we can end up wanting to put our whole faith built on this book. [00:08:17] Speaker A: Yeah. On one book. Or think that the Bible, when we call it the Bible, we call it. We're assuming it's one book. [00:08:22] Speaker B: Right. But it's actually not. [00:08:23] Speaker A: What is it? [00:08:24] Speaker B: It's really more like a library. [00:08:25] Speaker A: A library. [00:08:25] Speaker B: It's a collection of all different kinds of texts. There's poetry, there's story, there's allegory, there's historical fiction, there's. I mean, so many different things. And so we have to know what part of the Bible we're actually reading so that we know how to interpret it and how to understand it when we're reading it. [00:08:42] Speaker A: Right. There's a popular passage that if you grew up in church, you probably read or someone told it to you. It's found in second Timothy and it says this. All scripture is inspired by God and it's useful to teach us what is true, what makes us realize what's wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong, it teaches us what to do, what is right. And God uses it to prepare us, equipment, his people to do every good work. This passage is used to talk about the importance of the Bible. Now if you were to stop and consider who's writing this, you'd realize that when he, Timothy, is saying all scripture, he's not talking about what he's writing. [00:09:31] Speaker B: Right. [00:09:32] Speaker A: So what we have to understand is when we read the Scriptures, there's a nuanced way of thinking of it where Timothy is not talking about the entire Bible, he's talking about the Old Testament. [00:09:44] Speaker B: Right. [00:09:45] Speaker A: And. But what we do know, we do know is that the Old Testament and the New Testament come together in a library that we can walk into. Look at these certain books in the Bible, like Old Testament books that talk about laws. Leviticus is one that has, it's so many laws in it. You've got historical books, you got books that are based on prophets that God sent to the Old Testament in the people of the Old Testament. And then you've Got the Gospels, which is accounts. Yeah. The life of Jesus. Because I don't think people understand, like, you've got these books that are written in very intentional context. [00:10:31] Speaker B: Correct. [00:10:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:32] Speaker A: And the, the disciples putting down the. What happened to Jesus is very different from letters that Timothy wrote after a church has already been established hundreds of years later. [00:10:48] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:10:50] Speaker B: We love digging into the Scripture and understanding the context. That, for me, was one of the biggest things that made me not think of the Bible as either like a chore or something boring to read, but something that I genuinely love digging into. Because, like you mentioned with the context, once we understand what was happening in that time period and what they were actually doing, they would use certain phrases that we just kind of skim over. But it meant something specific to the people of that time. [00:11:15] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:16] Speaker B: You know, you've talked before about the Bible was not necessarily written to us, but it can still be applied for us for application. And so I think even that shift of remembering, you know, when somebody's writing a letter, when Paul's writing letters and he's like, to you. [00:11:30] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:30] Speaker B: He didn't actually mean like, you or me. [00:11:32] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. [00:11:33] Speaker B: But we can still apply and ask God, ask Holy Spirit, like, hey, what is it that you want me to learn in reading these words from so long ago? [00:11:41] Speaker A: Right. And I think it's so often people take the Bible and because they understand it in a surface level, they either, if they're, I don't know, maybe they're pretty young, they go, okay, I believe everything that that's in it. And, and then some people will do that for a little bit and then grow up. And then they go, you know what I just realized? I don't believe any of this stuff there. So they throw the whole Bible away. [00:12:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:06] Speaker A: And so they're throwing a whole library away. And so what? We don't want people to do that. We want people to understand that the Bible was never meant. The whole Bible, the whole library was never meant to be God's word, even though we say it. It's, it's. It. It sounds cool, but it's, it's not really true because in one of the books in the Bible, John talks about Jesus being the word Logos of God. So Jesus is the word of God. [00:12:35] Speaker B: Yes. [00:12:36] Speaker A: So the Bible has not. Is, but has the Word of God in it. And it's, it's important that we do not move our lives away from the Scriptures, but understand how to best read them. And you love using this phrase that Jewish rabbis used to use back in the day you want to talk about. [00:12:59] Speaker B: That, it's called turning the gem. So basically, if you picture a diamond, a big gem, and all of the different facets. So if you think about light coming in and hitting that gem in a certain way, it's going to shoot out in one direction. But all you have to do is shift it a tiny little bit. The light comes in different and it reflects differently. And so they use that phrase, the Jewish rabbis, because that's how they saw scripture. They would see it as like, if you look at it today, you read it tomorrow, you read it 20 years from now, because it is alive and active. There are so many different ways that you can understand and see what's happening in the same stories and in the same texts. [00:13:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. I love it. All right. And we've done series on the Bible, We've done podcasts on how to read the Bible. But we are. That is another. Our second essential. Okay, the third one. [00:13:47] Speaker B: The church. [00:13:49] Speaker A: The church. The church. All right, so let's clarify. Are we talking about church buildings? Are we talking about, you know, bands? [00:14:01] Speaker B: We are bands. [00:14:02] Speaker A: Church bands. We're talking about church banners. That's important. [00:14:07] Speaker B: We're talking about becoming church. [00:14:09] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:10] Speaker B: There's a good podcast called Becoming Church. Make a plug for that. Yes. When we talk about the church, obviously Mosaic is a church. We want you to be part of our community. But generally, when we're referring to church, we're talking about the church as a people. [00:14:22] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:22] Speaker B: A group of people that are. [00:14:23] Speaker A: Yes. [00:14:24] Speaker B: Coming together on Sunday for a little bit of time, but then going out into the world and living out what it means to be the church. [00:14:31] Speaker A: Right. And so to, I guess not clarify, because you said it so well, to emphasize it, I would say that when we say that church is essential, we're not talking about the fact that we want to take attendance and that we are requiring everyone to show up and here at this church, or you have to be baptized, married, confirmed. I don't even know if we don't confirm, but, I mean, it's not like a reservation, but we don't do a lot of those things. But we do emphasize is that the church is, like you said, a people group. That's moving. In fact, our mission statement is that we want to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus. And the movement of Jesus is Jesus followers who are becoming the church, moving the kingdom of God forward. Like that's what we're trying to do. And so church is not about all these other things. It's about us growing up, understanding that, that we have a mission to fulfill, that God wants to not just be with us, he wants to work through us to impact this world around us. That's the thing. [00:15:57] Speaker B: And it's going back again to what is essential and non essential. I think this is where we have to move away from thinking of the church as a place because that's where we get back into the denomination again. And all of the specific, pretty narrow definitions of what a church is. Where we have a phrase here at Mosaic that we like to use about holding hands on both sides. Right. So these are our essential things. But we know there's a lot of stuff that comes up in conversation when it comes to what do you believe about this and what do you believe about that and what do you believe about this? And you're not super clear on that. And so we wanna hold hands with people on both sides of the aisle of the issue of whatever it is. Because as the church, as the body of Christ, we just want to hold hands and move forward with anybody that wants to walk toward Jesus with us together. [00:16:46] Speaker A: Right. And so the church is a group of people, they're moving together in time to impact the world around us. But the church also, also is a place where we understand that we have this, this opportunity to create a table. [00:17:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:11] Speaker A: Where when we gather together, when we come together, the church, at least the church that Jesus had in mind, was a table that was filled with people who were extremely diverse, that came from different backgrounds, I mean, diverse in all the way. And that was the beauty of it. And there are passages in scripture where Jesus talks about a wedding banquet and inviting all the people, the misfits, you know, inviting everybody that, that people seem to think that they don't belong or their lifestyle doesn't line up or their beliefs doesn't line up. And so there's all this removing this idea of having a elitist group. The church is supposed to be a table filled with people that would never sit together, are sitting together, sharing their lives together, sharing meals together, and being in community together, and then moving forward. [00:18:10] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:18:11] Speaker B: And part of the church, you know, becoming church, is that our job is not just to find our seat and go, we made it to the table and we're gonna sit here, but we actually need to bring in more chairs and then get up and go out and get the people that need to then have a seat at the table. [00:18:25] Speaker A: And that's why our vision. So we talked about our mission and our mission is to reclaim the message and movement of Jesus. But our vision is like, what we see is a group of people, a diverse group of people that live by faith, they're known by love, and who are a voice of hope. And that we believe is the church, that we're trying to create a community of people that are moving forward, doing those three things. But it starts with being a diverse group of people, and we have a mission. There's a passage in Matthew 16 where Jesus is talking to Peter and. And his. Some of his disciples. And he says this. He says, I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. And so when he talks to Peter about that, he says he wasn't talking to Peter himself, but he was also. He was talking to the fact that he, Peter, had confessed something. And that point Jesus changes his name to this is the rock. This is the cornerstone. This is the foundation. What you just said, because he just said out loud that Jesus was the son of God. He said, I'll build my church and then the gates of hell. That means we are moving forward towards places in which people are hurting and helping them. And so that's the vision. It's a vision of a diverse group of people who understand it's not about attending something. It's about engaging in some. A movement of Jesus moving towards people to heal them and hurt them and to reach after all kinds of people. Because that church, that group is also filled with all kinds of people. So that's a beautiful vision. And that's why these are three things that are super important to us now. These three things are important because they help us get on the same page, but they also help us become the church. Right. So what are we becoming? [00:20:30] Speaker B: We are becoming the church. Okay, what do you mean? [00:20:35] Speaker A: So let's break down. [00:20:37] Speaker B: Let's break down our vision. [00:20:38] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do that. Okay, let's talk about this idea of, okay, diverse group of people. We kind of got that right. And that's hard to do, by the way. It's extremely hard. Yeah, extremely hard. [00:20:49] Speaker B: Especially because we're not just talking diversity as far as what you can outwardly see. I mean, we do have, like, we mentioned diversity and race and culture and all kinds of things, but also age and political affiliations and lifestyle and thinking. Diversity of thought is also such a huge thing. And so. [00:21:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And so the only way we can kind of glue everybody together is if we all commit to these three things. And that is to live by faith, to be known by Love and to be a voice of hope. So I think we can all kind of move in that direction. Regardless where you start or where you are right now, we can start to move towards living by faith. [00:21:32] Speaker B: And that's really the question of living by faith is when you can kind of self reflect and ask yourself, am I growing? Not am I better than this person? Or have I reached, you know, the holy and righteous level of being a Jesus follower? But am I growing in my faith from where I was before? [00:21:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And what you just said is exactly what Galatians basically says. Galatians 2:20 says Paul, one of the writers in the New Testament says, I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. See, if you ever wonder, like, am I moving towards God in a way, have I given my life to him? What is God doing in my life? What does he want me to know, what he wants me to do? I think this verse pretty much says it. You know, where Paul says, hey, listen, I'm crucifying myself. Basically, he's saying, I'm putting to death. I'm no longer doing some things. I have changed. Yes, I have changed. I was not the guy. I was not the gal that I was before. I am becoming someone else. And here's how I'm doing it. I'm doing this by allowing Christ, allowing his spirit, allowing God to transform me from the inside out. And I'm doing this because I know that he loves me and he gave himself for me. And so we live a life of faith, and because it comes from a heart of gratitude. And that's the key. [00:23:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:07] Speaker B: And at Mosaic, there's kind of two different ways that we look at living out, living by faith, which is by growing, which you can do on your own. We actually think next, you're doing it right now by taking this class, by listening along, and also by serving. [00:23:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:23] Speaker B: So how do we serve people at Mosaic? What does that look like? [00:23:26] Speaker A: Well, that's. We're going to talk about that. [00:23:29] Speaker B: We are going to talk about that. [00:23:30] Speaker A: We're going to talk about that on our T Teams class. But that means we jump on and become part of the volunteer staff here. [00:23:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:41] Speaker A: You know what that means is that we just use our gifts or not. If you don't have gifts, you're like, okay, you use your time, whatever you got. And we just serve in different areas. Because if you've ever wondered, how does this, all this actual church services work and the work of this ministry, like, how do we do all this? [00:24:03] Speaker B: How does it happen? [00:24:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it happens because people volunteer their time. Yeah. And they just jump on. So that's how you live by faith. You grow. And you can join groups, you can join classes. You can do that. That's what we're. Every series that we do. That's what we're moving you towards. Towards this idea of living out your faith, knowing more about your faith, practicing your faith. What does that look like in a way that brings people and makes them curious to the life you are living. [00:24:36] Speaker B: Discipleship is not necessarily what maybe you thought it was. Growing up, you don't have to sit down and do one specific thing. I mean, listening to the podcast, digging deeper into your Bible, listening to us say something even on a Sunday morning, and going, I'm not sure about that. I'm going to research it myself. Like, these are all things that we want you to do. This is a way that you can grow. [00:24:57] Speaker A: Okay, so live by faith. And the second is to be known by love. Yes, to be known by love, Man. You want to read this passage of Scripture, because I think it's really great. [00:25:08] Speaker B: Sure. [00:25:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:09] Speaker B: From John 13, it says, I am giving you a new commandment. Love each other just as I have loved you. You should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. [00:25:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Does that hit? Yeah. [00:25:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I mean, that's it, right? It's all about love. And so I think even when we get into these conversations about essential, not essential, am I doing the right thing? Am I not doing the right thing? At Mosaic, we want to err on the side of love. [00:25:39] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:40] Speaker B: We're not necessarily going to err on the side of knowledge or knowing everything or getting it. All right? We will make mistakes, but we want to err on the side of love. That's what it means to be known by love. [00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think this is so important. I'm so glad you read that. Because it starts off by Jesus saying, I'm giving you something new. Because when you say love, or you even say, I won't be known by love, what does that even mean? And so Jesus starts off by saying, let me just tell you what I'm talking about. I'm. I'm saying, I want the church. I want group of you. I want you to do. I. I want you to love each other the way I have loved you. See, in the Old Testament, it was like, love people the way you love yourself. Yeah, but here it's different. He says, no, no, because truth is the some of us don't love each ourselves. Well, Right. And so Jesus says, you know, how I've loved you? Like, obviously he's talking in context to his disciples. And he says, you've seen how I loved you. I've healed humanity. I've fed you guys. I've been there. I've cried with you, I've laughed with you. I've done all these things. I've lived life with you the way I have loved you, accepted you, brought you in, you know, commended your faith, tore down walls of racism and prejudice the way I have loved you love each other. And I'm telling you, if you do that, everybody will know the difference. Everybody will know. You don't have to make a campaign to sell me or to defend me or my movement. This movement will only move forward if it's done on the wheels of love. [00:27:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:33] Speaker B: You know, it takes our private and personal faith into the public where it's. It's corporate and it's connected and it's relational. And this is where we have to actually rely on the idea of loving people as God love loved us because it doesn't make sense. Like, we have to rely on the Holy Spirit. It's a supernatural kind of love that we can't humanly do on our own, you know, but when we come together as the church body, this is a way to kind of live out our personal faith and grow it bigger. [00:28:03] Speaker A: Correct. [00:28:04] Speaker B: By connecting it to other people. [00:28:05] Speaker A: Correct. And practically the way you do that is, I would say, is that this idea of understanding presence and the importance of connecting. What does I mean by that? Like, being known by love is being present in people's lives. And so when it comes to when we gather together or we do events, a mosaic, your presence matters. We don't count your attendance, but your presence matters because your presence is felt. And when. I mean presence, I mean, you're fully engaged now. We've been places and you're not there. You know what I'm saying? You're physically there, but you're not present. [00:28:41] Speaker B: You're not really there. [00:28:42] Speaker A: Right. Most of my schooling was like, there. You know, when they say, okay, when you take attendance, you're like, present. Yeah, present, but not really, because I don't care. [00:28:49] Speaker B: My body is here, but not so much my body. [00:28:52] Speaker A: But I think being known by love is being present in people's lives. And we gather together, we're present. In their pain, in their joy, in their suffering, in their confusion, we are an actual presence in people's lives. And so I tell people, you know, when people choose to not gather together, I go, man, your presence was missed. Because you bring a part of God to a group. Because God's spirit lives inside of you. And when you're not there, guess what? We're missing a part of God, which I know is mind blowing for some people, but it's actually true. And so your presence matters. And then the other is the idea of being connected. The importance of being connected, we've got to stay connected to. And that means you gotta be in relationships. Right? [00:29:44] Speaker B: Right. And that's why we provide all of the things that we provide at Mosaic. She community and men's night and newcomers and block parties and so many different things. Because this is great and you can watch this class, you can even tune in to Livestream on a Sunday. But if you're only ever doing that, if you're only ever taking in content in isolation, you really become a consumer of the church. And honestly, you can get content anywhere. [00:30:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:10] Speaker B: You can get worship, you can get teaching, you can get content on demand anywhere, but you can't get relationship on demand. You have to be present and you have to be connected to people in order for that to happen. [00:30:21] Speaker A: And I think it's important to say here this idea of what does it mean to be connected? Because you brought up a great point with online community. See, we have an online community, but there are people who have purposely stayed connected to us. [00:30:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:35] Speaker A: And they're still in relationship. Now we've got hosts in Malaysia and Chicago and Colorado or other parts of the North Carolina. They're still connected because they choose to be connected, because they're having more relationships, not just attending an event. They're part of a team. They're figuring out ways to come visit. I mean, they're. You know, connection takes effort. [00:31:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:04] Speaker B: And intentionality. [00:31:05] Speaker A: Right. Not just clicking a button. Connection is a little bit different. [00:31:09] Speaker B: Right? [00:31:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:10] Speaker B: Right? [00:31:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:10] Speaker B: You got to invest a little bit. [00:31:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Lastly, being a Voice of Hope, 2 Corinthians says this. We are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his plea through us. [00:31:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:24] Speaker B: I mean, we get to take the hope of the future, we get to take the hope of Christ into the heaviness of the world. Kind of like you mentioned earlier, you know, and that happens in big ways, but it also can happen in small ways in our own families and our own neighborhood and co worker relationships. [00:31:40] Speaker A: Yeah. I think this Is important because this idea of being a voice reminds us that we could be an echo if we're not careful. An echo is. Well, it's just a repeat of something else. And at times, what we can do is, as followers of Jesus, we can begin to echo what we grew up in, or we echo the. The past, our past pain, or echo something that was once said. But instead, what we need to do is we need to be a voice of hope. And I don't know about you, but have you ever realized that hope only exists in the future? Like hope doesn't exist in the past? People don't go, oh, I hope my past was better. No, you wish your past was better. [00:32:31] Speaker B: Oh, I see what you did there. [00:32:32] Speaker A: Yes, you wish it was. That's regret. That's like, I wish, I wish, I wish. But you can't be like, I hope for the. No, you only hope for the future, because hope exists in the future. And so when we become a voice of hope, we calling people into the future that God has for them, calling them out of their pain, out of their problems, out of all the things, into a better future, because that's where God wants us to call them to. And so if our voice, if our words were all about God's hope, then we would move people forward. And when he says that we are his ambassadors. Ambassadors speak not just their own words. They represent an entity. They represent ambassadors. Like, you know, in countries. They represent their entire country. And so we represent God. So our words, our voice matters. And God wants to use our all. All that we are to move people forward. [00:33:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:43] Speaker B: Like you said, it's that unique. That unique piece. So everybody has. You have a story, and your story matters. And it doesn't matter if it's not as big as you. Maybe you wished it was, or someone has told you, maybe even that your story, your voice, is not big enough, is not smart enough, is not grand enough. You have a unique voice of God that you get to give to other people and you get to use to then invite them in. [00:34:09] Speaker A: Right. I think that's part of those, like, how we break down being a voice of hope. And we broke down. Most of these, like, for example, live by faith. Is this idea of, like, growing and serving and being known by love is. It was. Was presence and. And being connected. Voice of hope is really about invitation and generosity. [00:34:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:30] Speaker A: So invitation is. This is actually inviting people to Mosaic, right? [00:34:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:37] Speaker A: And inviting them into a spiritual conversation. [00:34:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:40] Speaker A: Right. It's an invitation to say, hey, come be a part of my Life like, this is what I'm doing, you know? And I think sometimes you don't realize the importance of invitation. I think people want to belong to something bigger than themselves, and sometimes people just want an invitation from us to. For them to come into our lives, you know, and that means. Yeah, of course, what we do on the weekends, you know, that's important. What we do during the day, events. [00:35:12] Speaker B: Right? [00:35:12] Speaker A: Yeah. So invitation is huge. And then this idea of generosity, because I think, like, people don't realize that when people financially give to Mosaic, you're taking this message of hope and allowing us to be a louder voice of hope. And I know there are some of you who have a hard time giving towards that. And we. We talk about how you can be a percentage giver, and that's what you start with. You know, tithing is. [00:35:43] Speaker B: But it doesn't have to be 10%. [00:35:45] Speaker A: Correct. Because tithing means 10. Yes, but we can start anywhere. But the little counts. Why? Because it allows us to get louder and louder and louder. Practically allows us to put more resources to reach more people in hurting, hurting places. So it's so, so important. Now, why did we talk about faith, hope, and love? Right. Why is those three things, like, where do we get them from? Well, we've got them from a lot of places, but one in particular is 1st Thessalonians 1:3. You want to read that for us? Sure. [00:36:20] Speaker B: It says, we remember before our God and Father, your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:36:31] Speaker A: Yeah. So our vision, what we see, is based on what Paul said. Hey, he was talking to a church and said, I love you guys, and this is what you're doing. Keep doing it. And so we kind of stole that and say, okay, you know what? We're going to be that church that Paul was talking to, people who live by faith, who are known by love, and who are voice of hope. [00:36:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:56] Speaker A: Cool. [00:36:57] Speaker B: So we're saying to you, we love what you're doing and keep doing it. [00:37:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Nice. All right. How do we end this thing? [00:37:03] Speaker B: All right. We hope this has been really helpful for you. Thank you so much for being here. Listen, we're going to give you other resources, places that you can ask questions. If you do have questions, and you probably do, we are willing and ready to go into further conversation on any of these. [00:37:17] Speaker A: Awesome. [00:37:18] Speaker B: And then the next thing you'll do is you will watch X Factor and then team the next two steps in our discipleship class. [00:37:25] Speaker A: Awesome.