JAN 13 2019 | Run with the Pack S1E2 | Massive Social Change

Sea Change Church · Run with the Pack · "Massive Social Change" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · January 13, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Chris, and we'll be reading through Acts 2, 42 through 47. Welcome to this second Sunday in this passage. Again, that's Acts 2, 42 through 47. You can also follow along with me on the screen behind me. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their people. And the Lord added to their number day by day, those who were being saved. The word of the Lord.

Great. Chris is one of our new elders. Excited to have him. He has got a keen mind. And we're excited to have him on board with us. And Michelle as well on staff. We brought somebody in because we care so much about just community groups, the importance of getting you to be connected and locking shields with people so that you can be deeply known. And so we brought somebody on to actually organize that. And she's done a phenomenal job on that.

And so please be looking. Next week, we begin our official signups. We're going to have all the tables out here and all of our group leaders. I think we've got like 25 or more groups. I don't know. We've got a lot of groups you can be a part of. Some very exciting and great stuff. So with that, let me pray. Lord, we want to look into your word. We love the word of God. Such a light. Thank God for your word. We love the word, how it encourages us. It has the power of life and death. It's living and active. And it encourages and spurs us on.

So God, use whatever words that I have today from your word to bless those that are here and to change the world. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Men, you do not want to go out to eat with my mom and I. And the reason being is because, like any of you in your specialty, like all of us have a specialty of some kind, right? Some of you are interior decorators. Other you are educators or whatever it is. Or you're in medicine field or whatever.

When you get into your field of expertise, you tend to be, let's not say critical is not the right word. You tend to be more on alert of what is being done correctly and what's not being done correctly. Now, my mom grew up, I see some of you smiling. My mom grew up in the food industry and it started multiple restaurants. We had restaurants. And I grew up in the kitchen. I grew up next to my mom showing me how to make eggs, telling me what, you know, temperature.

Everything has got to be right. And you all have that with the thing that you're about, right? But my kids hate going out to eat with us because if you're in the food industry, I'm just, we mention everything from the service. Like if you're a server, like I want to know you. I want to know your name. But like I don't want to really know you like a 20-minute conversation, you know what I mean? And only say my pleasure like seven times, you know what I mean?

Like is that the new server word? Like my pleasure, my pleasure. You're not that excited about giving me my Coke, are you? I want the hot food hot. I want the cold food cold. I want the lettuce crispy. I want the toast not burnt. It's just a thing. It's not my fault. It's her fault. And just the way it is. And so, you know, there's, we just, it's, I know what I want in a restaurant. And one of the reasons I love, you know, In-N-Out Burger, and I'm not going to have the argument, what's better?

A Shake Shack, In-N-Out Burger, all the different burger places. I know this. When I go to In-N-Out Burger, I can only remember twice ever where I got a burger I didn't like. I mean, once they gave me a thing of lettuce like this big and it was like way too big. But I mean, they're pretty good at being just spot on, you know? It's just, it's consistent. It's hot. It's fresh. I could almost burn my tongue on the burger.

You know, I just like it. So we all go there. And it's because when I go to In-N-Out, I know what I want. And it's simple. I was talking to the elders. We had an elder meeting this week and we were all sitting around. And I asked the elders a question, which if you go to In-N-Out, you should be able to answer this. And I said, how many of you, if I gave you 10 minutes, could write down 80% of the In-N-Out Burger menu by memory?

And Eden was like, 100%. Got it. You know, that's, yeah, it's simple, right? It's like, I think 7-Up. It's not Sprite. It's 7-Up, I believe. No, it's Sprite. I don't remember which one it is. But is it 7-Up? Because I don't drink that stuff. It's, no, just Coke. You know, you get a Coke, you get a burger. There's not chicken fries. You know what I'm saying? And there's not like breaded zucchini. It's pretty simple. And then the thing I asked next was this.

Could you tell us as a church, this church, what our values are? If I gave you 10 minutes to write down 80% of what we're trying to accomplish here, our values and what we're about, could you do it? These are elders. There was no 100% being yelled from the table. And one of the things I'm realizing with our leadership is we want to get better at being more practical. And somebody said to me recently, because I said, I want to be the most practical church in the world.

Because no one's going to hate on you for wanting to be the most practical church in the world. Like if you say, I want to be the biggest church in the world, they're going to hate on you, right? I don't want to be the biggest church in the world. But I want to be the most practical. And somebody said, that's boring. When you said practical, that's boring. And I was like, well, I don't mean it to be boring. What I mean is like, what I want to give you, if we're going to eat a meal together, I want to give you a fork.

Not an ethereal understanding of a three-pronged instrument that you can think about and not really understand. I want you to know what it means to be a Christian. What it means to follow Jesus. What it means to disciple somebody. And do it in a basic way. So we have three elders that are working on how to make our church more practical in regard to discipleship. And I said, I want you guys to go away. And I want you to come back with a menu.

I want a legitimate menu. I said, don't come back without a menu. And I sent them out and I said, I want like evangelism. And I want it like, you know, like the jalapeno cheese bacon burger. Okay, I need that. And it needs to say evangelism. And then three sentences on what we do with evangelism. And I want to be able to give our congregation a menu. That you can put on your fridge. And if I ask you a year from now, what does your church do?

What is it about? That you can write it down and you have an understanding. That is very practical. I think the early church had an understanding of what they were all about. And I think oftentimes when we think about what we want in church, I think our bar is way too low. Especially in the western church. I think we have a really low bar. Like, I don't know what percentage. I won't make up a percentage. But I think there's a large amount of people that if you give them music that they like most of it.

Like 80% of the music. It's clean. There's parking. The sermon gives you enough nuggets that you feel like your week was a little bit easier. Because you heard the sermon. And you feel a little bit closer to God. Like, I think that's enough in western culture. And I wonder if the early church had the same understanding as we have now. Now, I might be wrong. I do do this for a living. And I might be wrong. People might, you know, our pews around the world and around Christian churches might be filled with people.

That have a much larger understanding of Christ and what he wants to do in the world and the mission. But I think so many of us, myself included often, are just trying to survive. That we don't have much time to think about wanting more in a church than just enough nuggets to survive. Just enough to help me get through another week. And one of the terms we want to use in the church over this next year is we want you to thrive rather than just survive.

You'll see on the invite card, I wrote that. I put, you know, messages that help you thrive rather than just survive. And so, my question is, when you think about a church, or the church that you choose to go to, whether it's this one or some other church, what do you really want? In the first church, the church was filled with apostles. Apostleship is a spiritual gift which speaks about, and there is some discussion on whether we have modern day apostles or not.

We don't have capital A apostles like these guys. These guys were the ones that could write the word of God, that became the Bible. We no longer have that type of apostleship. But it were people in the church that were dedicated to saving the entire world. So an apostle has this, like, large understanding of seeing the entire world come to Christ. To see massive cultural shifting change. Not only in the neighborhood they lived in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

They had this. And I believe that today, churches need to have those apostolic leaders that can call people to something beyond a good 25-minute sermon, some music that you can tap your foot to, and hot coffee. Something beyond that. And that people tend to think, I want to be part of an organization that is more than just catering for what I have. I want to see incredible social change. Change in the world. And so we see these apostles.

And if you look into your scripture, you're going to see that the people were devoted to these apostles. It says they devoted themselves, in the first verse there, verse 42, to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship. And we're going to do a quick rewind from last week because I think it's important. It says that there was breaking of bread and there was prayers. Awe came on every soul. And there was many signs and wonders were being done.

And this was a season of very visible, radical miracles. Miracles. And I think a lot of people today feel, and I've seen radical miracles in my day. I've seen some pretty radical stuff in the 25 years I've been following Christ. A lot of it out of the country. Some of it in the country. It feels like the more modern and scientific cultures get, the less miracles I tend to see when I go to different places. That's just how I see it.

And we tend to think that a lot of people have said, if you're not seeing these radical-type miracles, then the church you're in really isn't doing the stuff. I tend to think that not all miracles are the same. And we tend to have sometimes too high a bar of what a miracle looks like. Like you're going to take the blind man and make him be able to see, but not value a marriage that was going to break down, but ends up staying together for 20 years where they die in love.

And we don't see that as a miracle. And so I believe that there is a lot of miracles that God is doing, especially in Western cultures, that don't look like perhaps what they were seeing here, but are miraculous nonetheless. In Wales, you know, less than 100 years ago in England, they had a massive revival where bars, there's actually statistical evidence where, you know, that basically the alcohol industry was shuttered in the entire area because bars had to close down.

Alcoholism was taken care of. This is one of the major reasons that women wanted to vote back in the day is because of alcoholism, and they wanted to vote alcohol out of society. It's one of the main reasons you had the suffragette movement, and it was a radical movement. You know, it's interesting. Back in, I think, in 1915 in England, the suffragette movement was so radical, they were actually considering, the women considering kidnapping Winston Churchill's children.

Did you know that? They were radical. They were blowing up people's houses, assassination attempts. You think, sometimes you look and you think, oh, you know, everything's, everyone's radical now. It was gnarly. Go back and read it. I'm reading Walking with Destiny. If you want that history, read it about Churchill. There was this massive movement, but the women wanted to be a part, and they wanted to have the vote because society was being ripped apart by alcoholism, by the breakdown of family, the whole bunch of ills that were going on at the time.

So one of the things that we see is they saw miracles that were radical, but we want to see miracles. I mean, I love seeing a great miracle, but I would rather see, if I had a few people getting healed from blindness, or I could see families healed, I'd probably choose the families being healed because it has longer, more radical, social, and perhaps eternal soul change because of that. But hey, if we can have both, let's have both.

But we look at this experience. I won't continue to read it. You've read it. And what I will say is when we're looking for a church and looking at Acts 2, sometimes it's so easy to turn this story into this utopian understanding of this picture of like all churches need to be this way. All churches need to be this dynamic, this radical. And let me just say that this was just one church in the entire New Testament. The New Testament, if you read it, is a book that is mostly dedicated to starting churches and works of God in society that the fabric of the society would be changed.

And the society was changed. As a matter of fact, you know, it took a few hundred years, but eventually, and for good or for bad, the entire Roman Empire, the entire empire, decided that we will be a Christian empire. I mean, that is something that the Christians who were being, whether it be burned at the stake or thrown in, you know, with the gladiators or the lions, they would have never have seen that coming. But as they died, they believed and hoped that it would come and it did happen.

And so once again, back to the original question, when you're in a church and your understanding of the church you're involved in, how much do you really want? And do you want less than is offered to you? Because I want to tell you where I think we want to go here. I know the elders, myself, the staff, many people I know in the congregation. We want to see radical change in your heart, the first corner, and we want to see radical social change in La Jolla, in all of San Diego, throughout California, throughout the United States, and to the ends of the earth.

Radical, radical change. It's funny how we tend to believe the headlines of how bad things are, not realizing historically how many times God has turned a society upside down, whether it be in the Welsh revival, the first or second great awakening, where God just touches somebody's heart. Or a group in Wales, you know, it was a group of women that began to pray, or when Young Life started back in the day, a group of women across the street, oftentimes God using women, and across the street from a high school that was praying that God would send somebody to that high school, and he sent Jim Rayburn to that high school that became Young Life, and so many people, if I ask you to raise your hand, might even raise your hand and say today that I was saved through Young Life.

This is the kind of thing that they wanted for, and as we run with the pack here at the church, which is the title of this sermon series, I want to encourage you to open up, expand your view. What do you want? Do you want all of San Diego? Like, I used to think San Diego was a big deal, and then I read there's a, you know, there's a church in Korea right now with a million people in it. Just one church. San Diego could be turned upside down on its head.

And I don't think for God it's that big of a deal, but it takes people that are willing to humble themselves and pray, and we'll look at that in a moment. We have a tendency, though, to turn these churches' experience in Acts 2 into a utopian understanding of how churches should be. Acts 2 was an amazing church. There was great stuff happening. Not every church was selling all their possessions. Not every church was seeing all these things.

There was church in Corinth. There was church in Philippi. There was churches in Macedonia. It was a work of church planting that was looking for something bigger than an experience. They were looking for the entire world to be changed. And so, when you came in here, when you live a faith, are you into this idea where your entire spiritual life has been cordoned off to wondering how you're going to survive? Or on occasion, are you able to look beyond yourself and say, I want to see the world saved.

I want to see the fabric. I want to see, actually, you know, empirical data that shows that there's less divorce in a city because of the church in that city. I want to see that there's less kids that are, you know, committing suicide. I want to look at the statistical data and see that there has been a shift and a change because of the work of God in a society. And so, just so you know, as a church, that's what we want to do.

One of the things I love about Miles McPherson down at The Rock is that man's an apostle. You know, for all, you know, whether you like big church, you don't like big church, you like things you do, you don't like things that they do, whatever it is. I got to say, I know him. I've known him a long time. He spoke at my high school camps when I was running high school groups back in the day when he was still up at, I think it was Horizon.

And that guy wants nothing less than every single person he knows saved. And I want to say as a pastor how easy it is to just focus on your little congregation. It would be really easy just to get 150 to 300 people and just kind of rock it in La Jolla and everyone thinks it's a success. And then just kind of just keep doing that for 25 years. Never open up the pews for more people to come. Never try to do something beyond that because it feels good.

But do you want something more than just feeling good? Reclaiming devotion. You'll see in the notes the biblical understanding of ecclesiastical, that means church, that means devotion to a church. They were devoted to a local body. They were devoted to one another. They didn't just show up, they were committed to one another. The biblical understanding of ecclesiastical devotion supposes love, loyalty. Man, that is a word that is losing its meaning, in my opinion, in our society.

Just loyalty to someone. Loyalty to a spouse. Loyalty to a family. Loyalty to yourself. Loyalty to Christ. And a heart's offering of time, treasure, and talent for the betterment of a local community. Verse 42, we're going to show the things that they devoted themselves quickly before we look at the sociological change that they saw happen that is the exact thing that we want to see happen. It says, verse 42, they devoted themselves to what?

The first was a study and the truth of God's word. Now remember, these are still, these are Jews, most of them, there are some Gentiles being saved, but these are Jews who were still going to synagogue who if you said, hey, what kind of church do you go to? They would say, I don't know what you're talking about. Church. We don't have church. We go to synagogue. Yeah, but what's your church like? Like, is it a mega church?

Is it a small church? Is it home fellowship? At first, they would just be like, well, we get together with everybody who experienced Jesus because God's doing something, but they're still going to synagogue. You remember that it was a Peter and Paul who are walking, going to synagogue, and they heal a guy outside the doors. They're still a part of that, and there's a transition going on with these Jews. Also, they didn't have the Bible.

They had scrolls that people would get up and read, but they didn't have the Bible. As a matter of fact, these apostles were writing the Bible. So they weren't dedicated. Why does it not say that they were dedicated to God's Word? Because God's Word was being written. Actually, they were devoted to the apostles' teaching. Why? Because the apostles' teaching was actually, God was using it to become what would be the Bible.

It would be written down and eventually become the Bible. But they were putting this huge devotion, and I meant apostle with a huge A. These were the men that God sent that He said, I want you to listen to them. When they speak, they speak for me. Now, I don't believe it's that way anymore. I believe that it's a little A, and when we speak, we speak the truth of God's Word, and the Holy Spirit translates that word because now you have the Holy Spirit in your life, and we have to be very careful not to put your favorite Bible teacher up on a platform or on a pedestal.

A lot of us do that. I saw a thing on Facebook this week, and they said, how many of you go to church for the teaching, and who's your favorite teachers in San Diego? And I just, I wish I could have deleted his post, but I couldn't because it was his post. And I began to, you know, read and everyone writing it down, and there tends to be these cult of personalities, and look, I love a great Bible teacher, and I think that they are desperately needed in the church today to teach, it gives you practical stuff that you can change, and we can get into the Word of God and the Greek meaning and all these things to make it relevant to you, but ultimately, you have the Holy Spirit.

It is no longer based in one apostle's teaching. That's where you get Jim Jones. And one of the problems the Protestants and the Catholics had with letting the Bible get into the hands because the printing press messed everything up, right? All of a sudden, they were able to print Bibles and just give them to you. I mean, the Protestants, there was death threats for John Wesley for going out and preaching in the fields.

He would go out into the fields and preach. Catholics had the same issue. They didn't want to give it up either. Why? Because there's power. There's power when we say we know the truth and you don't. And the Scripture says we have a priesthood of all believers and so there's a little bit of a shift there with the apostles' teaching. With that said, though, we do need to have people who understand the Word of God. And I mentioned last week that there's a bit of a shift happening in God's Word.

With the Bible, the Bible, I believe, is a static document. I don't think a thousand years ago God thought, man, the culture, you know, when the Bible is being written, the culture is going to change, and this isn't going to be relevant anymore. Like, what am I going to do? This is going to be such a bummer. And so we have people now that are actually changing the Scriptures. I mentioned, and I don't want to Bible bash, but the new NIV, not the NIV 1984, the one you have in your pew is called the 1984, but the new NIV, the new version of it, because they want to be more gender inclusive, which we want to as well as a church, but they've actually been changing the Word of God in order to make it more relevant.

And I don't think that that's something you want to do. I'm going to tell you, this is a little research for you guys. 1 Corinthians 16, 13. The Bible says, if you look at ESV, the King James Version, it will say, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong, let all that you do be done in love. Now, I urge you brothers, you know that the household and it goes on. Now, here's the thing. If the Bible's talking to men, I want to know that they were talking to men.

And if the Bible, as it is in places like Proverbs 31 and different places, is speaking to women, I want to know what's speaking to women. I want to know what the original meaning means. And we have to be very careful, and so we want to devote ourselves to understanding the Word, and I'm going to tell you to go research this, because if you look at the NIV, what they've done now is they've actually removed, you can just Google it, they've removed the part that says act like men.

They don't like it. They just removed it. And the part where it says brothers, they just either removed it or put people. But actually, it's not true to what God's Word is. Now, this isn't besmirching women, but they were devoted to knowing the Word of God. And so as a church, one thing we want to do, and this is just to highlight the fact, that we want to know God's Word. We have studies, Pastor Jim, Elliot, we want to go deep into God's Word.

We want you to have a Bible. We want you to figure out what it means with the Holy Spirit, resourcing all different types of translations and teachers so you can do that and to be dedicated to God's Word. And so, if anything, I want to ask you to be this. Don't be dedicated to my teaching or someone else's teaching. Be dedicated to the teaching of the Holy Spirit and know God's Word. And if you are not into God's Word recently, I would say, stake out some spiritual geography in your timeline, in your calendar, and get back into a regular reading plan of God's Word.

The next thing that we're going over is the fellowship. And that was interesting last week because we see in verse 42, this was, I think, one of the best things I found in this. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship. That word, the, is a direct article. That direct article is actually there in the Greek. And it's important because of this. And I said this last week. If you're devoted to fellowship, then you're devoted to an experience.

You're devoted to, hey, I like that church. People make me feel good there. No one ever steps on my toes. I got a place of honor. Whatever it is. Whatever you're looking for, you're devoted to the fellowship. It feels so good. If you're devoted to the fellowship, then you're devoted to something bigger than the idea of fellowship, you're devoted to a work of God in a certain place. Now, there have been people here for 90 years, and as you read through the history, that said, we are going to be devoted to having a church on this corner.

And there was times where this church almost failed. Where people said, no, God has told us there would be a church on this corner, and they've done everything they could to make it happen. When you're devoted to the fellowship, if your toes get stepped on, you stay. There's a longevity. There's a loyalty if God has called you to a fellowship. And I think this is really key as we tend to look at who has the best stuff going on, and we go from place to place.

One of the things I liked about the group of people who hired me before most of you got here, before I got here, is the majority of them have been here like 15 to 40 years. They had been through big seasons, low seasons, exciting new pastors, interim pastors, but they were devoted to something greater than themselves. And so do you want to be a part of an organization that changes the world that's bigger than yourself?

Next, we see the breaking of bread. I'll skip over that one. And then prayer, which I think is super important. We have a new prayer class coming out. Now this is so key when you're going to change the world. Because if you, the tendency with church is to make a program to change people. We all go out and we do something and people will be changed. But if you look at the scripture, the society has changed because Christians get it right in their own hearts, not because they go tell people how to get it right in their hearts.

It's a powerful verse. Look at this. It's really powerful. In 2 Chronicles 7, 14, it says, if my people, and I love if, you can circle if. There's a lot of ifs in your life. If you did this, if you did this, if you did this. If my people who are called by my name, and you can be guaranteed you're called by his name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then, if then, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land.

We can come up with all the programs in the world. If we don't get that right, it ain't gonna get healed. I have to say, matter of fact, if we don't have any programs to reach the world but we get that right, according to this verse, God's gonna do something to heal the land. You see, we have gotta get it right. We've gotta look at our sin and say, I don't wanna be in sin anymore. We have to humble ourselves before God.

And it's something as simple as this. Yesterday I was, I was sitting there, I was doing a little beard care yesterday, okay, and I talked to Pastor Jim about this. Not that you wanna know about my beard care, but it's my first real beard. It's my first one. And I just haven't really been a beard guy. I couldn't connect for a long time, but that's another story. And I thought, who, you know, if I'm gonna talk to somebody about beards, I need to get some advice.

And so I thought, who's the guy? Pastor Jim. I mean, he has tutored me in so many ways. And you don't wanna go to a 20-something, even if they got the beard thing and they snip it and they got pictures on Instagram, you don't wanna go to them for your beard care. They don't have longevity in the game. Jim, he's like a 20-year beard guy, right? So, but, blowing off. I thought that was exciting. So I go to him and I start talking to him about, you know, how we're, I have no idea where this is going.

I'm just gonna finish the beard care story and move on. Nonetheless, I talked through, I'm staying in it, just stay in the story. So I went to Jim and I said, Jim, I need a little help here. Jim sat with me for about 20 minutes, told me about a little beard care, turn your next page over because I forgot what I was gonna say. And you know what's a bummer? Is, no, I listen to it every night. Every night I take, on Sunday night, I take a walk with my dog and I listen to the sermon and think, what could I have done better?

What was good? And I'm gonna remember because I'll remind myself. I'll be like, ah, now I can't do anything about it. But, but Jim uses no oils. Okay, nonetheless. These things that they were devoted to, that they did, set the stage for a massive social change. I mean, we have some places in La Jolla we really want to see change. We want to see the schools change. Maryland's, La Jolla High, Windancy. We pray for Windancy all the time for the people that surf there.

We pray for the restaurant industry, the different restaurants that we go to. We have a network of people that are very aware of La Jolla and we are working in those areas to make a difference. The people we see walking at La Jolla Shores all the time, people in our neighborhood. We want to see massive social change. And here's what it looks like. These devotions set the stage for a massive work of God in the community.

The first was relational reconciliation. The next was physical healing, then social restoration and favor in their community, and then more people beginning to follow Jesus. We're just going to power through these because this is where we want to go as a church. It says, what does massive social change look like? It says, awe came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done. And so, once again, I think that there's a lot of ways that we can see signs and wonders that don't always look like the blind person being healed.

the person who decides not to take their life, the person who decides to stay with their kids and in their marriage, the person who decides not to cheat on their taxes, the person who decides to make a difference and volunteer. These are miraculous things. Whenever the heart turns towards God, it's a miracle. And we want to see, I believe we're seeing a glacial revival here that doesn't look as quick, but it's beginning to swell into this area and San Diego.

Racial reconciliation was talked about in Malachi and it was repeated in the New Testament. Excuse me, relational reconciliation and racial. And it talks about families being reconciled. And this is a huge heart's cry for me. I want to see families be reconciled. And there's a scripture in Malachi that before we go into the 400 years of silence, it says, and he will go on, this is John the Baptist, before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of their parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous to make ready a people and prepare them for the Lord.

We're really serious about seeing, having a youth ministry, kids that understand the word of God and to help kids turn their hearts to their parents. But they've got to have a parent they can turn their heart to who will receive their heart, who thinks that a relationship is more important than their addiction and things like that. That actually changes the social fabric of a community. I mean, kids are breaking. I talked about it a few weeks ago that the number two reason for death between 18 and 35 year olds these days is suicide.

Number two, in the bloom of life, they're taking their life. The number three, drugs. So they're trying escapism. Number one is accidents. Two of the three, cancer is like number eight. Way down the list. What's happening in a society? Kids are getting broke and God wants to restore and we'll talk more about that, but relational reconciliation is one we want to see. I want to tell you something. In our church, in the five years that we've been here, there's not one couple, we've probably had 30 marriages, there's not one couple who both come to the church together where they have decided to come to the church together that have had a divorce in this church in five years.

Not one. Now we have hundreds, we have a couple hundred couples. I mean, that's pretty awesome. I've probably done 40 marriages and there's only one relationship I know of that's had a divorce in the 40 marriages that I have overseen. I don't think there's anything magical about it, but I think there's something about being in community for relationships and keeping them together and what it does for a family. Relational reconciliation.

And if you have struggled with your marriage or family, we want to help you with that. Physical healing. We see physical healing happens when people get joy even. Even scientists will tell you today that if you have a joyful heart, it's good for you. The Proverbs says that a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs 17, 22. We're going to continue to pray for physical healing, radical physical healing.

We've lost one person in the congregation to cancer in the last five years. We've had numerous, whether it be Tyra, Kalina, Harry's wife, who had lymphoma, whether it be Keith who's still here, whether it be my mom. I mean, I could go on and on, multiple people in the congregation who have continued to survive. Bev with cancer through, you know, continue to survive. That God is doing radical things. I call that miraculous.

I call it glacial revival. You know, we've tried to declare, we always declare, God make this a cancer-free zone. Heal depression, heal anxiety, heal all loneliness. Little bit at a time, God. And I believe that the church has the ability to do that, not only amongst you, but in the entire society. Once again, ask the question, how much do you want and are you satisfied with what you have? I want all of it. I want, I want, I'm just starting with San Diego.

I want all of San Diego. This is my city. I was born here. I want it all. I want El Cajon, Alpine, Chula Vista, Oceanside, Hamul, Encanto. I want it all. I don't know. I want more and more and I just want to get desperate. I want to get a thirst for souls and to see a society radically change. Do you want to join me in that? And the final thing is more people began to follow Jesus and the Lord added to their numbers day by day those who were being saved.

I got to tell you, once again, it's God doing it. It's not you. You can invite, invite somebody, but God has to add them to the number. You can add them to the pew, but God's going to add them to the number. And I got to say, church, I'm just encouraging, I'm just asking you to buy into something greater than an experience for ourselves. Hey, I got to tell you, church is fun right now. I love coming on Sunday. It's so fun.

I love being here on campus. It's beautiful. It's fun on Sunday. I love eating and hanging out with you all, but I want more than that. And so as this run with the pack two week series comes to an end right now, the call to you is to dive in deeper, to commit, to become devoted to the fellowship that is probably going to be here long after you. You know, one of the things that, you know, you go to Europe and you see thousand year old churches.

This church has been here 90 years and I began to think, what if we're setting up for the next 250 years on this corner? I mean, we tend to think, come on, it's like 250 years, but like in European history, there's churches that have just been there for a thousand years. Some of them still thriving, not all of them. But what if we begin to look at that and begin to lay a foundation for what God is going to do and we just draw a line in the sand in La Jolla and in San Diego on this corner and we say, not on our watch, you will not pass this line, this is the kingdom of God and we want it to expand from this place.

Amen? Amen. Let's stand. I'm going to bless you. We have the band come forward. Our prayer team is going to come forward. If you need prayer after the service, do it. If you extend your hands, the music's going to play. I want to bless you. Lord Jesus, we just thank you, God, for your goodness and I pray that you would bless us with a vision bigger than ourselves. On this corner, people, 27 people came and they signed their names in a book and put a tent up for two years on this corner they met and they said, we want to make a difference in La Jolla and people tried to keep them out but they stayed and here we are today, God, and we ask God for San Diego, I ask for Wind and Sea, I ask for PB, I ask God for La Jolla Shores, God, UTC and Claremont, El Cajon, Julian, Alpine, God, Oceanside, we ask for this city, God, and we want to see a massive revival.

Jesus, would you bring a revival and in our pews and in our city, would you heal those that are struggling in their marriages, God, right now, just here, we turn our hearts back to you and I bless you with the ability to seek God to humble yourself and to say, I humble myself and I bless you, Jesus, in Jesus' name, amen. Real quick, I remembered what I was going to say with Jim, I'm going to say it. One second, it's really easy, I was saying practical tools.

I have a practical tool, I was just working, I was doing some beard care and I just thought to the Lord, I'm just going to humble myself and you know, you can humble yourself before the Lord at any point and that's just a practical tool. Walk down the street, humble yourself, just a little thing, say, God, I humble myself before you. I humble myself no matter what you're doing, putting gas in your car, humble yourself.

So, thank you, Holy Spirit, it must have been important. We love you, go get some porridge if you need prayer, sign up for a small group, we love you, bye, have a good week. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.