The scripture today is in Mark, chapter eight, starting in verse 27, and we'll get there in just a minute. I love this story in the scripture, and I love the stuff that's going on behind the story, the stuff that we don't know just by reading it, kind of some of the background. So I'm going to walk you guys through that in a little bit about what was going on beyond the words that are on this page. And then we're going to talk about how that's even relevant to our world and our lives today. And we're going to apply that on a couple different levels.

One level is what does that look like for you individually, and what does that look like for this congregation corporately together? And there's actually going to be two sermons in one. There's two parts. The first is, who do you say Jesus is? Or what is Jesus to you?

That's the first part. We're going to talk about that a little bit. And the second is what does it look like for Christians and for the church to be raiders of hell? So. Sounds fun, right?

Let's get into it.

We're going to win. Yeah. So this story here, and I hate calling them a story, because a story makes it sound like somebody just wrote this down. You know, like some author decided to get out their pen and paper or their typewriter one day and just be like, hey, here's a cool story. It's not like that.

You see, this is history. In the Gospels, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, these were men that either had known Jesus personally or they were very close to somebody who had walked with Jesus throughout his ministry. And as they. As they had received these tellings of what was going on, as they received the truth of the life of Jesus, they took selections of it and put pen to paper and wrote it down and involved directly in that process. You have the Holy Spirit of God ministering to those people and saying here, this is what needs to be conveyed to the people of God throughout the generations until Christ returns.

So you've got this. What I think of when I think of that is my grandfather, he wrote a book before he died. It was in the last few years that he was alive. And my grandfather, he was really kind of blind in one eye. The other one, he couldn't see too well out of, like that old, you know, blind in one eye, you can't see out of the other.

He was missing two of his fingers from the knuckle down, you know, there. And his hands shook quite A bit. And so it would be fun to watch grandpa type because he's sitting here looking at the monitor, looking at the keyboard, peck, peck, peck, peck, peck, peck. And sometimes grandpa would send an email, he'd send a lot of emails and he'd try to look at it and be like, what in the world? This is a typo that I can't figure out.

And so you would use your keyboard as a decoder and look at that and say, oh, that's the letters around that one day he probably meant to hit this one and oh, now I know what he said. Okay, alright. So let's hope that the gospel authors weren't quite in the physical condition my grandpa was in late in his life, you know, but what they did do was they. Or what my grandpa did is similar to what they did. He wrote down some stories of his life.

Now, he didn't talk about everything in his childhood. He told a few stories from when he was young, talked about how he lost the fingers, which was quite revelatory to read as an adult because every little thing we would do that was potentially dangerous growing up, he'd say, hey, be careful. That's how this happened. He would always throw that in there, like, that's how this happened. And it's like, oh, come on, you know.

Turns out it was a blasting cap. He lived in a mining community and he found a blasting cap. He didn't know what it was, but it had two little wires. And his brother had a little lantern that had one of those square batteries with the prongs on the top. And he had seen his brother put lights to that.

And so he decided that he was going to hooked these wires to it. And then he woke up in the hospital minus a couple fingers, you know, and so he found that out. Well, anyway, he told that story, he told a few other things. Then he skipped to like young adulthood, you know, going off and fighting in World War II. He didn't tell all those stories, but he picked some that were relevant to convey to us, his generations that came after him to convey to us things that were very prominent in the story of his life.

And then as he met and married my grandmother, that were prominent in their marriage together. And specifically what he wanted to show us was the ways that God had interacted in their lives. One story comes to mind. They were traveling, they were snowbirds, they would actually come down to Zephyr Hills of all places. This was before I was ever here as a pastor.

In fact, it was totally random in my mind. In a human mind, that God would call us here because people are like, oh, well, your grandparents were here. I never even knew this congregation, this church existed when they were here. It was just like when somebody called me about it. We were living in Tennessee, and they called us and said, hey, we got this church.

We wanted to see about you talking to them. And I remember praying about that with Amy. And then I told the person that had called me, I said, hey, we prayed about that church. And anyway, or somebody else had told me about it, and another guy called and he says it was his church. And I said, well, yeah, we already prayed about that.

And he's like, wait, what? They were looking for a pastor that's already been praying about coming to this congregation. And I was like, I guess we start boxing up our stuff now, you know, I guess that's how that's working. So. But my grandparents would come back and forth to Zephyr Hills from Michigan, and one year, they were driving back, and they were towing some kind of little trailer behind their vehicle with some stuff in it, and they blew out a tire on it.

And they were at some random middle of nowhere in Indiana or something like that. And as they got off the exit, they saw a little sign that said, like, use tires. And they just followed that sign and they went to this place, and the guy hooked them up, and they were good to go because it was like, later in the day, and they wouldn't have found a tire shop that was open anywhere. And they were on their way, and they just thanked God for providing for them. Now, that seems really small, like a small detail, but it got the better of him.

And a year later, Grandpa drove back to that exit looking for that tire shop. He's like, I know exactly where it was. And he says, we'd gone through that section every year for years, and he says, I couldn't find that tire shop anywhere. It was like it was gone. It's like God had just put it there for us for that one moment.

Now, I don't know what the truth in the matter is on that, but here's the thing. As people of faith, they looked at their need in that moment, and what they saw was that God was working on their behalf to provide even in the small things or what we might seem in the scope of our lives as a small thing. And God worked in a big way for them. Now, Grandpa wrote that in his book because he thought it was important for me and my family to have that memory, to have that understanding that God has worked in our family line in our family's life, and that that works all the way down through. And that'll be something that my daughter, who's down here in the service today, because she wanted to hear Daddy preach that, something that she'll be able to look back at, even though she never got to meet Grandpa, she'd be able to look at that and know that that is part of our family history.

The gospel authors wrote down these things that we might call a story. But folks, they're not. A story is a real live retelling of events that happened, that were touched by the people of God. And they said, this is important for you to know because this is where we come from. So the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they choose different sections, but we're looking at what Mark said.

It's actually one of the shorter tellings of this, this event, this story, this historical thing that happened. And it's in Mark. Chapter 8 is. Verses 27 through 30 is all we're going to read. Now we do have these sermon companion guides that I wrote that go along with this whole series.

We're about. For the. For a total of a year, 52 weeks. And we're showing that everything in the scripture is all pointing to Jesus. And so that is one.

If you don't have one, by the way, there's some underneath where there's like a basket in the back at that table, and you can grab one from there and it'll be yours to keep and to follow along in. And it shows the whole verses all the way through the end of the chapter. But we're only going to focus on just these four verses.

Then Jesus and his disciples went to the villages of Caesarea, Philippi. On the way, he asked his disciples, who do you say that I am? They said, john the Baptist. Others say, Elijah, and still others, one of the prophets. And he asked them, but who do you say that I am?

Peter answered him, you are the Christ. Then Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

So I think we could just look at that simply and just go on a couple quick things there. The first part, like I said, there would be like two sermons, like, like two different parts of this message, and they tie together. But the first one is that question, that is, who do you say that I am? Guys, I gotta tell you, that is the central question of the New Testament, that's the central question of the entirety of the Bible, is who do you say that Jesus is?

If you have no answer for that, my prayer is that you will Dig into the word of God and listen to the spirit of God ministering to you and speaking to you, that you would be convicted of an answer on that. And by convicted I mean like, if you have deep held convictions in your life, something that you can't let anybody talk you out of, you have those things like foundations of your life that you say, I rest my life on these things. I'm convicted. I have a conviction about these things. I'm convinced of them.

You can't convince me otherwise. Then if you have those convictions, I would pray that you would have that level of a conviction of. On your answer to this question. Who do you say that Jesus is? Because as Jesus is taking his disciples there, and we'll talk about some of the background of this in a little bit.

But he asked them, like, what do all these people say about me? Like, Jesus is asking what people's opinion of him is. Do any of you have the guts to do that? Hey, what do people say about me? If you ever ask somebody that, they're usually like, well, I mean, nobody wants to say it.

The stuff that everybody else knows about you that you don't know about yourself, you know what I'm talking about? You ever sit there and think about that? Sometimes when you're alone, when it finally gets quiet, like because your cell phone died and you didn't have it to entertain you anymore and it's just you and your thoughts and God and you stop and think like, what is my reputation? Funerals are wasted on the dead. I tell you.

We wait until somebody dies to say all of our memories and stories about them. What if we did that now? Honestly, I promise you, you would change the way you live. The things that people remember about you, that are the good things, the things that bring tears and that you cherish, you would do more of those. The things that people say, man.

But sometimes he did this. Sometimes I wondered if he even cared about me. Sometimes it seemed like X was more important than the family. You would do less of those, right? Jesus says, who do these people say I am?

Like, what are they saying about me? I guess sometimes his disciples would hear more things than he heard. You know, like people would tell them stuff, hoping that it would trickle down to Jesus. Sometimes people do that in the church too. They're like, hey, you know, I don't like that such and such is going on.

And what they really want to do is tell the pastor that, but they don't like, want to just come straight to the pastor and say it. So they tell Somebody else and hope that the gossip wheel works till eventually it gets around to the pastor. That's not a healthy way to run things, by the way. But you can always come and talk to me. It's okay.

It's fine. But Jesus asked his disciples, what is it that these people are saying about me? Now they start speaking up. They're like, well, I've heard some people say that you're Elijah. I've heard some people say you're Moses or the prophet that was to come.

I've heard some people say you're just a really great man. Now, there was a good reason for them to say these things. The Jewish people believed that before the Messiah came, that you would see the return of Moses. Like, I don't know if they thought it would be somebody carrying on in the spirit of Moses, like, with the strength and power of Moses, or if they somehow thought that he would be brought back to life for a season. They believed that Elijah would return.

If you know your Bible stories, Elijah walked with God as a prophet, as one of the strongest of prophets ever. And then he got carried off into heaven in the chariot of fire. Some of you are like, yeah, that didn't happen. How do you know? Were you there?

I don't think so. Okay. I know a couple of you have some miles on you, but you ain't that old. You know what I'm saying? So anyway, you weren't there.

Don't say it didn't happen. You don't know.

I believe it happened. And they believed it happened. And they believed that Elijah would return. They're like, he's not dead. He's coming back.

He's going to come back, and he's going to prepare the way. And the people also had wondered if maybe John the Baptist was the return of Elijah because he dressed like him. He went geographically to the same place as Elijah ministered to. They're thinking maybe this was Elijah that came back. John said, I'm not Elijah.

Jesus says, well, he was, though he was just being modest. He wasn't the actual Elijah, but he came in the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare the way for the Messiah. But people are ignorant. They didn't know all that stuff yet at the time. Maybe they start saying, like, well, this is Moses or this is Elijah.

This is one of the great prophets. Like, God has sent us a prophet to minister to this generation of people. And so they're thinking, maybe that's who he is. Everybody has an opinion about. About who Jesus is at this time, at this Story.

Like everybody is looking at him and saying he's somebody, right? Like, I can't just ignore him. Like he's doing great things. I can't just say that it's nothing or that it's a sleight of hand, a magic trick, something weird going on. Like.

No, there's something about him. Even the religious leaders that were threatened by his very presence because he was doing more than they were. Like, he's showing them what God meant in his scriptures. They were looking at it as a list of rules and he's giving it to them as a way of life. Like that something that gives life.

And so they're like, you know, the people are listening to Jesus more than they're listening to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law and the Sadducees. Like anytime you hear teachers of the law think perfectly accurate and boring. You ever had a teacher like that, like a professor or something? I had this history professor. I'm not going to call the guy by name, but he was great.

My parents were friends with him, they went to church with him. Loved this guy personally. Fantastic dude. Knowledgeable about history as can be. Like he knows his stuff.

His delivery was this is dating my age a little bit. An overhead projector with the little slide transparencies on it. And he would take a sheet of paper and just kind of like move it down one row at a time and reveal one line of text and just kind of read it to us and talk this much about it. I'm like, brother, put that away and just start telling me what happened. Like you clearly know it.

Like if you could get him off of those bullet point notes, it was the best. And then he'd be like, okay, back to the notes. It's like, oh, we were enjoying it, you know. That class was like the 7:30 class, by the way. And the only thing that kept us awake during it, 7:30 in the morning was it was on the fourth floor of the science building at Trivecca on the campus there.

And they didn't have an elevator yet. Like the sissies that go to school there now, like we couldn't just push buttons and get to our floor. We had to walk to the top and that gets the blood moving. And now you're wide awake finally, you know. So anyway, it was a great class, but man, you know, like a dry presentation.

That's what the teachers of the law were, you know, the scribes, the teachers of the law is what they're called. They taught so perfectly accurate and boring. And so no wonder when Jesus is dynamic and he's talking to them about real life scenarios and situations, people are listening to him and they're loving what he has to say. And, like, they're engaging with him. And so of course, they all have an opinion about him.

And so Jesus, he asks his disciples, seriously, what's the situation report? What's the report on the ground here about who I am? And they start saying all this stuff. He's like, okay, that's great, but you guys know me the most. Who do you say that I am?

Who do you say that I am? Now, I think some of the disciples hadn't actually formed that opinion yet. Some of them didn't have an answer for that. I think they were following along, waiting to see what was going to come of this. Think about their calling.

When Jesus called them to be disciples, some of them had been fishing, literally. Like, they had just finished their third shift fishing job working for their dad, a couple of them, and he's like, you want to come work for me? And they're like, yeah, we're tired of fish. Like, that's a lot of the same thing over and over. And sometimes we don't catch anything.

He's like, I'll tell you what, if you follow me, I'll help you. I'll teach you how to catch people. Like, I'll teach you how to be a fisher of men. And they're like, okay, what are we going to do when we get them? That seems weird, you know?

He's like, no, it's not weird. Like, we're going to. Going to clean them up. You know, you catch fish and you clean them. He's not talking about gutting people.

Like, that's not okay. Although I did a talk with a guy earlier this week over at the park that said he had no problem doing that to someone. I was like, well, please don't come to the shelter tonight. You know, and then he showed up. And then he showed up.

I'm like, oh, no. Anyway, everything was cool. It worked out fine. I think he was just having a little moment there.

Jesus says, we're going to clean people now, by the way. That's the job of Jesus. See, some of us have fallen into the trap where we think that it's our job to catch people for Christ. And then we got to scrub them clean. It's not your job.

Quit trying. You'll get it wrong 100% of the time because you need to be cleaned up as well. And the only one that can do that is. Is Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, working in you. And so the moment you surrender your life to God and say, lord, clean me up, the Holy Spirit will start a work in you.

Let me explain this. He's going to take a hold of you and he's going to start showing you things that he wants to build into your life. Compassion, the love of Christ, patience, kindness, the fruit of the spirit, you know, gentleness, faithfulness, self control, all these different things. He's going to try to. He's going not try as much as you allow him to.

He's going to build those things into you. There's going to be some things that he pulls out of you. The scriptures say of itself that the word of God is living and active, sharper than a sword is sharpened on both sides. In other words, this is like a scalpel that's made to cut into you. Not to do you damage, but to do you well, to heal you, to bring wholeness to you.

And what it's going to do is the word of God is going to cut out and it's going to find the things that don't belong, and he's going to cut those out of you, remove them from you, and pat you back together so that you can heal up. This is how the Holy Spirit cleanses you and makes you holy.

Jesus called some of them as they were fishers. He called some of them as they were. One of them was a tax collector. Everybody hated this guy. He calls this guy.

He called some of them. One of them was just literally hanging out under a tree. And one of the fishermen goes and gets him and picks him up. He's like, hey, come on over here. We found the Messiah.

And Jesus just calls these people from all over the place from all kinds of different backgrounds and scenarios, and now they're with him at Caesarea Philippi. And he's like, who do you say that I am? Now, we don't expect everybody to have the same exact answer. They come from different backgrounds, but that some of them have been with him longer than others. Some of them have only just joined Team Jesus just a short little while ago.

And they're like, I don't know yet, but I'm here for the journey, right? Like, I know that this is where I need to be. Some of you guys are in that situation. You're like, I haven't followed Jesus long. I'm new to the church thing.

I'm new to the religion thing. I'm new to Christ. Whatever you want to Call it. You're like, I don't know, but I know there's something there that I need. God is reaching out to me and calling me and drawing me in or dragging me in.

Sometimes you gotta be dragged because you're fighting him a little bit, you know, just clawing in. But you're like, okay, I'm coming. But I'm gonna try to slow my, my journey down a little bit. Like, I'm not ready to give in yet. Don't worry, he'll break you eventually.

And what he'll do though is he'll begin to build you up into the person you were created to be. You were created in the image of God. You're not living fully that way right now. The purpose for which God created you, you're not there yet. And I gotta tell you, the journey getting there is enjoyable.

Whatever things you thought you enjoyed in life, I'll tell you, they're short lived. Last night we went to Commando's Pizza. Some friends invited us there because they were celebrating their 10 year anniversary. I didn't realize they'd been there that long already and they'd been there for 10 years. And I'll tell you, first of all, it was loud and I realized how old I am.

I'm like, golly, can we turn it down? You know? And then like I had good pizza, had good time with our friends as we were yelling. That's probably why my voice is a little messed up today because I was trying to have a conversation over, you know, the dj and then there was a band that was just starting to. And all I know, I think they were probably called Feedback because that's what I kept hearing as they were doing their sound check was the mics just kept.

I'm like, can we get a sound guy on that please? You know. Anyway, I was watching all these people and the weirdest sound hit when I heard the girls that were working there dump an entire thing of bottles into the dumpster. And I was like, that was just from today. That was a lot of bottles.

And whatever you're finding yourself in. It just occurred to me as I'm watching these people here enjoying this as a good time tonight, they're going to wake up literally in pain from it. They're going to pay for it with pain. They're going to have hangovers, they're going to have who knows what else going on. And I thought this thing that is going on here is momentary and short lived.

And yet the life that Christ has called you to is full of the joy of fulfillment, of living how you were created to live. And Christ calls us out of our life, whatever it might be, and, and he says, this is what I want for you. This is what you were created for. And as he cleans you up, he places you into the role for which you were made to live.

The central question of who do you say that I am? Is the most important one. You will answer who you say Jesus is.

I heard a man talking about an interview he had done with an old timer Christian. And to be honest, I can't even remember who it was.

I think I know who it was, but I've never been able to find it for sure. So it doesn't matter. This guy was talking to this guy that had been a Christian for a long time and he had done all these great things in Christian ministry. And then the man said, what does Jesus mean to you? And he said he just sat there and the man just started crying, just tears in his eyes.

He didn't have any words for it, but Jesus was everything to him.

The question of who you say Jesus is is the most important one. And if you're not at a place yet in your life where it just brings tears to your eyes because you treasure your relationship with Christ so much that it brings you to that point, don't give up. He loves you so much. He's going to keep drawing you closer to him until you reach that point. It's beautiful when you start getting there.

Amen.

If you can't answer that question in a truthful way today, you don't need to hear anything else that I say. Okay? For anyone else, I want to give you a little background on this. Caesarea Philippi wasn't a good area. It just wasn't the place to go if you were somebody that followed God.

If you were one of the Jewish young boys and by the way, Jesus disciples, they wasn't like old bearded guys like most of the pictures show us. They were quite young, probably under 20 years old. Most of them is what we believe. And there's a whole bunch of reasons that I won't get into today on that one. You feel free to ask me sometime about it.

But they're young guys and Jesus has them come with him to Caesarea Philippi, which, if you had a Bible map in the back of your Bible and is way up north of the people of the nation of Israel, where the people lived, and along the way there, they're going to pass some pretty crazy stuff. It mentions it in your sermon guide, like There's a temple built to the Roman Caesar, to Caesar Augustus. There are shrines along the way that are dedicated to pagan gods. And then there's this cliff that they're going to stand over and they're going to look out over it and see the city down below. And down on the face of this cliff, there's a crevice in the rock.

And they called that the gateway to hell or the entrance to hell. They believed that every spring that demons would come in and out of there and that they would live amongst mortals, that they would come out of the underworld, that they would come out of there and they would dwell amongst the people. There was a goat God named Pan. They would worship there. They would have these celebrations there.

There were these grottos of little things carved into the walls and they would have shrines in there and candles and all this stuff. And it's not polite to even describe the ways that they would worship Pan, but it was absolutely despicably disgusting by any standards of any human segment of the population at any time in history. And they would do all these things. Then there was the goddess Nemesis, had a shrine down there. Now, she was supposed to be the goddess they believed that evened things out.

Like, if life was going too good for you, she would knock you down a little bit. If you were a little bit too happy or you would receive too much that you hadn't deserved, then she would take it away from you. It was basically like, we get the word arch nemesis from this chick, you know, like not a good goddess, but they would somehow serve her there because otherwise she might take more from you. I guess this was the religious, like, world around Caesarea, Philippi. Bad place.

I believe we have a lot of spiritual darkness that hovers over our city. Lawrence and I have spent a lot of time talking about this over the last couple weeks as we've seen some of it firsthand. Sitting at shelter overnight, by the way. Like 19 out of 20 people are great, by the way, that come to this thing. Like, I don't want to paint a picture.

I talked about the guy that talked about gutting somebody like one every now and then is rough. We get to know some of the best people today every day. This is Lawrence, by the way. I'm talking about Lawrence. Known Lawrence for the better part of a decade now.

And every Sunday he has a ministry at the park called Food and Fellowship down at Shepherd Park. And we'll be down there with him today from 3 to 5, and you're invited to come as well. They Serve lunch to about 120 people every week. And, you know, we talk about the spiritual darkness that we see, that we feel, that we've lived in, that we've experienced as we've gotten to know people that we see that they're dragged into it and they want out of it. And yet I don't think it comes even close to how bad Caesarea Philippi must have been.

And so as Jesus is asking this question of his disciples, who do they say I am? He's talking about the people that they're looking at. Even he's like the people in Caesarea Philippi that live in literally the pits of hell. I mean, the gate of hell is right there. He says, well, what is it that these people think about me?

Even those people thought Jesus was someone great. You'll be hard pressed in this day to find anybody that has a whole lot bad to say about Jesus. The problem is most people aren't willing to actually put their life on the line and say, you know what? I'm going to entrust the entirety of my life to Jesus Christ to allow him to do within me whatever he wants to do to change me, to build me up, to. To fix me, to heal me, to make me whole.

Most people aren't willing to submit to him. They want to keep trying it on their own before submitting to Christ. And when you finally find yourself at the rock bottom, literally down at the bottom of a cliff at the gates of hell, that's when people are finally willing to turn to Jesus. So it's important that he asks that question and says, who do you say that I am?

So the disciples are probably a little bit nervous just for being there. They're in a place that their mom has told them never to go. They're in a place that their daddies would have given them whoopings for being there. They're in a place where, if the rabbi that taught them at school had gotten a report where they had gone over the weekend, that they would probably be severely disciplined for it. And their rabbi, Jesus brings them in the heart of the darkness in their region.

And he asked them that question that we keep talking about. But then he says this.

He says, I will build my church there on this rock, and the gates of hell won't prevail against it.

Now, we might not have read that in Mark's telling of it. The other gospels tell those details. Matthew, I think it's chapter 16, John, chapter 14, they tell those details. See, Jesus centers in on this thing that he says we're standing on this rock overlooking all this just absolute pagan evil. And we're looking at all of that.

And Peter is a great play on words because Peter's name means rock. Like, he's solid, he's unmovable, except he's not, because he's weak and he's a coward. And he denies Jesus. Ironic almost. It's like a big guy that they call tiny.

You know, Jesus, he looks at that place, he said, because Peter is the one that said, oh, you're the Christ, the Son of God. He says, peter, you're a rock. But I'm telling you, on this rock that we're standing on, this is the rock I'll build my church on.

There's people that write Bible commentaries that have said, oh, well, you know, the Catholic Church says that he meant that he would build his church on Peter. And he's the first pope. Help me. Okay, maybe. I don't know.

Don't think so. I don't think that's what Jesus meant.

Then they say maybe he meant on the confession of faith is the rock on which he'll build his church. Still feels weak. Look at the geography of it. Look at the history of it. He's saying right here, this rock of pagan shrines and beasts and all this nasty stuff that goes on here, I can even build my church on top of that.

And those gates of hell that they're so worried about, that they have all these shrines to and these dances and these things that they do to try to appease the spirits that come out of there. I can take my church and attack those gates. The thing about gates is gates don't move forward, right? Like, they are not something that you ever see an army carry into war and say, we're going to attack you with our gates. They've never done that.

Gates are defensive. Gates are supposed to keep the enemy out. And Jesus is the enemy of hell. He's the enemy of everything that hell stands for. And where hell tries to lock people up and keep them chained up inside, try to keep them guarded inside.

And Satan wants to keep them. Remember, he came to steal, kill and destroy. And all Satan wants is for you to die a miserable, lonely death apart from Christ. And Jesus says, I'll build my church on this rock. And I'll tell you what, my church is going to storm the gates of hell, and those gates won't be able to stop it.

Amen. And so he says, my church is going to be so solid that we'll just blast through there and we're going to go into hell and raid people out of it. If there's not a motorcycle ministry or a motorcycle club called Raiders of Hell, they're missing out. Okay? Like, seriously, like, I would probably ride with them.

That'd be cool. I would have to start with like a Yamaha or something because I can't afford a Harley. But you know, it'd still be pretty cool. I'd put loud pipes on it. You know, I'd try to fit in.

What does that look like for you? Like, for you as an individual Christian? Like, you're like, I'm not going into hell by myself. Like, no, you're not. That's the beautiful thing.

You're not really the one doing it. Okay. All you do is you go where Christ has called you. And sometimes you're going to do something on your own. Like maybe when you're talking with a friend that's hurting and you're just going to sit down with them and listen to him and talk with him.

But sometimes you're going to go on these hell raiding missions. You're going to find people that are at their lowest at their most imprisoned part moment of their life and you're going to be like, lord, we're rescuing people from here today. Amen. Now, as an individual, that might mean some different things. Like you've got to find out what it is that Christ has called you to do.

You see, you are uniquely called to something. Sandra, you've got that book, right? Do you have it with you? Do you have it? The Shape book?

No, it's at home. Okay. So we were talking about it earlier. Like there's this book called Shape and Pastor Kendall and I have led people through it and we were always wanting to do that. It's what is your unique kingdom purpose is what is designed to help you investigate and find that out.

In the purpose of the kingdom of Christ or in the kingdom of Christ, he's called you to unique purpose within that kingdom, to work for him, to be raiders of hell. And how is it that you do that? Depends on what your kingdom purpose is. And we want to help you find that. As a church, there's several things that we do, there's ministries that we team up with that are hell raiders.

Throughout our community, there's different people that are doing different things and we partner with them to do this. There's things that we do on our own as far as like, you know, just kind of on our own initiative that we're going to do and continue to do as it grows. We're going to try to look and see what it is that we uniquely can do in this congregation to raid people out of hell in our community. Amen. There's ways that you can participate in that.

We've got our membership class today, and honestly, we'll talk about. It'll be a little bit like the scribes and teachers of the law. A couple real boring line item things that I just have to cover because, like, if I don't, I feel like I didn't do my job on that stuff. And I want you to know who we are as Nazarenes, who we are as Zephyr, Hills, First Nazarene, all those things. But really the exciting part is saying, like, where do you fit in?

Like, as you join this church officially as a member and come into membership, you say, like, I want to do more, not less. I tell people when they join, I say, we expect to see more of you, not less of you. If you join this church, we expect to see your participation go up, not down. Amen. Like, that's what you're signing on to and many of you are already there.

And so it's literally just kind of like, done, you know, Like, I'm already. I'm already serving in those ways, and that's great, and I thank you for that. But we're looking at ways that we can move forward as a church. And I love membership class because it's like we go through as this cohort almost, where there's a group of you that take that. That class at the same time and you join at the same time.

And I don't remember who joined at the same time, but usually they do. And they're like, yeah, yeah, we joined at the church at the same time. And like, you kind of end up partnering together. It's this beautiful thing. So if you haven't joined this church officially, if you're like, I don't remember going to a membership class or standing up front, oh, yeah, that's the next thing.

Next week, we'll stand up front and it'll just be like, I swear I do, or something like that. And that's all you gotta do. Like, you don't even have to make eye contact with anybody. It'll be fine.

But you'll remember who you joined with and be like, yeah, we're shoulder to shoulder in this. We're raiding the gates of hell and they won't stand against us.

There's lots of things you can do. It starts with your commitment to Christ and answering that question or Getting an answer for the question of what do you say that Jesus Christ is? Who do you say he is in your life? And who do you say he is in this world? Joining a church is not anything that you ever have to do in order to fulfill that, to answer that question or fulfill your kingdom purpose.

It's just one of the things that we do that's more of a human tradition than anything that the scripture commands. I'll be honest with you about that. Like, I never really push it that hard. This is the hardest I've pushed church membership in five years. Like, seriously, it's not like I just don't.

But I do believe there's an importance to it, and I want to invite you into that. If you haven't ever joined this local church, like, just, you know, maybe talk for a couple minutes and then by about a quarter after, kind of be up here. We're just going to meet over on one side. Just gather up here, sit in the first few rows and sit through that class and we'll have a good time together. Another thing you can do is give financially to the measure with which God has blessed you.

Don't give more than what God has blessed you to do, by the way. Sometimes that means that you give more than you think you can afford. That's within the blessing of God. Like, there's some times where you might be like, okay, God, I really don't know how I'm going to make it this week, but if you're calling me to give this, I'm going to give this. I would be robbing you of the faithfulness of your blessing that God has given you.

If I tell you, ah, if you can't afford it, don't give, folks. I give when I can't afford to. God blesses me more than I ever have given and I can't afford not to give. Does that make sense? If you don't understand that, find somebody that said yes because they've lived it.

Learn from them. They can tell you their stories. I could tell you my stories, too, but I'm not going to right now, Sam.