Connect With One Another | Sunday, January 23, 2022

Welcome to Cross Connection Church Online. We're so happy that you're joining us today. Before we get started, we want to let you know that if you want more information about Cross Connection Church and some of the things that we do, make sure that you check out our website at LifeInConnection.com.

Since you are online, we would love to know more about you and see where you're joining us today. Please send us a video with whoever you're watching and let us know where you're watching from. You can send it to our text line at 760-814-1223.

Also, stick around to the very end of our broadcast this week to see some announcements about things that are currently going on here at our church. If you're prepared to give today, you can do so at Give.LifeInConnection.com.

Who breaks the power of sin and darkness? Whose love is mighty, so much stronger? King of Glory, King above all kings. Who shakes the whole earth with holy thunder and leaves us breathless in awe and wonder? King of Glory, King above all kings.

This is amazing grace. This is unfailing love. That you would take my place, that you would bear my cross, that you would lay down your life, that I would be set free. Jesus, I sing for all that you've done for me.

Who brings our chaos back into order? Who makes the orphan a son and daughter? King of Glory, the King of Glory. Who rules the nations with truth and justice? Shines like the sun in all of its brilliance. The King of Glory, the King above all kings. This is amazing grace. This is unfailing love. That you would take my place. That you would bear my cross. That you would lay down your life. That I would be set free. Jesus, I sing for all that you've done for me.

Well, very early on in this whole thing called COVID, we learned a new term: social distancing. We were told that social distancing was needed to slow the spread of COVID and to remember the whole idea of flattening the infection curve as we stepped into all of this chaos in early 2020. There was not a lot of consensus at the time on the benefits or the downsides of social distancing, but we were told that this was absolutely necessary to slow the spread and flatten the curve.

Very soon after we started hearing those words, social distancing, we began to see stickers on the ground in most public spaces and retail establishments. These stickers reminded us that we needed to maintain six feet of separation to adhere to social distancing and slow the spread. Now, two years into this whole COVID chaos, those stickers are still around. I was just at a store today and saw one of those stickers on the ground. They are all over the place, starting to peel up and fade. The stickers are beginning to show wear, but you still see people from time to time avoiding close contact.

What have we learned in all of this? We could go on and on about all the different things that we have learned from our experiences over the last couple of years. At the very least, I think that looking at this from a Christian perspective, as a pastor, and through the eyes of Scripture with the Spirit of God directing us, one of the things I have seen from social distancing and this whole experiment is that it has proven, or at least reminded me once again, of the fact that we were created for connection.

Because of social distancing and the push to slow the spread and flatten the curve, society effectively shut down in March of 2020. Like most organizations where people gather together, our church and pretty much every church in our area shut down. We transitioned to online services, just like we are doing right here right now. We started conducting online meetings with people, and we all learned how to use Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and various other platforms. Our staff here at Cross Connection Church went to remote work, and we were doing Zoom meetings like everybody else. In a matter of days, if not weeks, we were isolated by social distancing.

In the early days of the COVID shutdowns in March and April of 2020, I discovered something about myself that I hadn't really realized before. I realized that I wasn't as much of an introvert as I had assumed. Some of you who attend Cross Connection Church probably think, "Well, Miles, you're not an introvert. You get up in front of people and talk." I can tell you right now, it's a lot different just talking in front of people. I'm one of those people who doesn't mind being alone. Maybe you're like that as well. Most people would identify themselves as being more introverted than extroverted, although sometimes on the little tests that come out, I show up as being a little more extroverted. I thought I was more of an introvert and assumed that I could spend most of my time by myself, locked away in my office working without a lot of interaction with others.

However, very quickly, when we started this whole social distancing experiment in March and April of 2020, I found myself locked away in my home. I had moved my office from the church to my home almost entirely for work. In my home office, secluded and isolated, I realized that I was sick of social distancing and began to desire connection with people.

In fact, about every day by around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I would find myself feeling like I needed to call, text, or FaceTime with somebody or some group of people to have some kind of face-to-face human interaction. As nice as those interactions through technology were at that time, they just did not meet the need I have, the need we have, for genuine, authentic connection with another person.

It isn't just that we want connection with people; we actually do need connection. We do not do well in isolation. We cannot thrive alone. In fact, isolation can lead to all kinds of mental, emotional, and even physical dysfunctions and problems because, again, we were created for connection. The social distancing experiment has only confirmed, I think, what we already knew and what the Bible actually says in Genesis.

In the first book of the Bible, Genesis chapter 2, verse 18 says, "It is not good that man be alone." If you read the opening passages of the Bible, Genesis chapters 1 and 2, you will see that those words in Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, represent the first negative found in Scripture. In the creation account of Genesis chapter 1, as God is making the heavens and forming the earth and everything within this cosmos, seven times we read in the opening chapter of the Bible that "God saw that it was good."

The seventh time that God says it was good is found in Genesis chapter 1, verse 31. It says, "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good." So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. I love that it says, "Indeed it was very good." Everything that God had made was great. It was good. It was just as God had designed or intended it to be.

Then we get to Genesis chapter 2, which is basically like a restatement of the creation account from a slightly different perspective. Genesis chapter 1 goes through the six days of creation, while Genesis chapter 2 goes back and fills in some of the details of all the things that are there. Genesis 1 is like a quick sketch; Genesis 2 is like coloring in all the lines. In Genesis chapter 2, we read these words, beginning at verse 15.

Then the Lord God took the man, Adam, and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

The Lord God said, "It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him." Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what Adam would call them. Whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. Adam gave names to all the cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him.

The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. God took one of Adam's ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to man. Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man."

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. The opening revelation of God here in Genesis chapter 2 is that it is not good for man to be alone. God made us as individuals to be joined together in relationship.

Our understanding of the human psyche through the study of modern psychology has only proven what God's word revealed thousands of years ago. Modern psychology has confirmed that we not only desire connection, but that we actually need connection. Abraham Maslow's now-famous Hierarchy of Needs puts the need for love and belonging right in the middle of the five-layer pyramid. If you've ever seen Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs, you know that right in the middle of that pyramid is love and belonging.

We have a need for love and belonging. Humans will not thrive and may actually not survive without love and belonging. You need connection like you need food and like you need shelter. This has to do with our very nature. We were made to be joined together with one another in relationship.

The virtual connections that we are throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at here in Western culture today will not ultimately meet the need that you and I have for connection, this deep kind of connection.

At the end of last year, Facebook Inc. became Meta. I'm sure you saw this in the news. The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that Meta's aim is to carry us into the metaverse. Facebook is not the only company focused on this concept; many others are exploring the metaverse as well. But what on earth is the metaverse? It may not even be accurate to say it exists on earth, as it is a virtual phenomenon.

The metaverse is intended, eventually, to be another world, so to speak. It is a three-dimensional virtual world focused on social connection, where you can meet and connect with people regardless of their physical location. You would interact with others in this virtual environment, whether through virtual reality or other means, fostering social connections. In essence, in the metaverse, you can be physically distanced from one another while still being socially connected.

Companies like Meta, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and others are working on various versions of the metaverse. They hypothesize that it will be the next great thing. Recently, we had a huge convention in Las Vegas called CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, where many companies showcased their ideas for the metaverse. At this moment, it looks somewhat cheesy, reminiscent of the early formats of the internet.

When the internet first started to come online, you might remember using American Online, dialing up, and hearing, "Welcome, you've got mail." It wasn't great or perfect; there were many issues and problems. The metaverse currently appears goofy and chaotic, but who knows what it will look like in a few years? The goal is to create a three-dimensional virtual world where people can socially connect. You can be sure that there will be Meta church in no time, but it will be a physically distanced social connection.

The question is, will that physically distanced social connection meet the human need for relationships? I'm not convinced that it will. We've seen some of this in the social distancing experiments of the last 24 months, as we interacted with many people for extended periods through Zoom, FaceTime calls, and text messages.

It doesn't meet that need for connection. Now, don't get me wrong; we at Cross Connection Church will use every tool we can to reach people with the gospel. You can bet that Cross Connection meta, if you will, will be a thing. Maybe you could even call what we do here when we broadcast our services on YouTube kind of like version 1.0 of that whole thing.

It is amazing that each week we have hundreds of people connecting with us virtually through our online services. Not just through our online services, but also through the videos I might put out on YouTube for the coffee time videos and stuff like that. We have hundreds of people every single week connecting with what we're doing in those virtual areas. However, our online services are not meant to be a replacement for genuine human connection because it is not good that man would be alone. We need connection. We don't just desire connection; we need connection.

A few years ago, I read a study on human connection from researchers at the University of Chicago's Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. They wrote in their study that humans were not designed to be solitary creatures. They evolved, they say, to survive in tribes. The need to interact is deeply ingrained in our genetic code, so much so that the absence of social connection triggers the same primal alarm bells as hunger, thirst, and physical pain.

Obviously, I don't think this is the result of random chance and mutation through millions of years of evolutionary processes. I believe that God made us in this way. The need for connection with one another is hardwired into our firmware, if you will. God created us to live life in connection.

Jesus said that the thief has come to steal, to kill, and to destroy, but I have come that you may have life and that you may have it more abundantly. Jesus came to make abundant life possible and available to you and to me, and that life involves connection. You cannot have the abundant life that God desires for you to have, intended for you to have, created you to have, without connection.

First, you need connection with God, that vertical direction, if you will. You have to be connected to God, as we talked about in last time's message. We cannot experience the abundant life until we have connection with God and then connection on the horizontal plane with one another. It is not good for man to be alone.

We were created for connection. You and I cannot and will not experience abundant life without connection. If you've been a part of Cross Connection Church for any length of time, this is not new to you. In fact, you might even get tired of hearing us say here at the church that we are all about life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. We say it over and over again because it is, I believe, very important. It is important because it is what all of us desperately need.

Here’s the thing that I continue to find amazing: the more I think about this vision, this mission that we have here at Cross Connection Church—to experience and express in our lives and to extend to others life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus—the more fascinated I am by the reality that life in connection is attractive. The concept of authentic connection with God and with others draws people in because we want what we need. In fact, just saying that, let me say it again: we want what we need. That’s not a revolutionary idea; you all know that it’s true intuitively. We don’t always need what we want. There are a ton of things that I want that I don’t need, but I do believe that we want what we need.

You need food, so you want food. You need air to breathe, so you want to breathe. You need sleep, and at a certain point, when you haven’t had it or you haven’t had good sleep, you want sleep. You want what you need. The people that you and I interact with every single day want connection. They want it because they need connection. God created them for that, and deep inside their hearts is a desire for connection. They may not realize or understand that they want a connection with God, but they genuinely want to connect with the transcendent God. They also genuinely want to have authentic, deep connection with one another.

Here’s another thing that I find fascinating and interesting—maybe you won’t, but I do. The things that we want because we need them, if given the option, we will want the best of those things that we can find. What do I mean by that? I need food to live, and if I can get it, then I really want a really good steak. We need air to breathe.

We want fresh, good air to breathe. That's why people get out into nature, so they can breathe fresh air. We want a good night's sleep on a very comfortable bed. We want what we need, and we want the best of whatever we can get for those things.

So, what does any of that have to do with connection? Well, consider social media. What you can find on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok—go down the list of all the social media tools or products that are out there. Social media, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and all these different things that will be coming to us in the metaverse in the coming years will provide a sense of connection, a sense of community, as we sometimes say. It might even be kind of an adequate connection. It's like good-ish or a sufficient sort of connection. If you had no other way to connect, then I guess Zoom is not too bad.

However, I don't think that those things provide authentic, abundant, life-giving connection. Even the connections you make or have with people through school, work, sports, or other forms of recreation are good—they're good-ish. They may even be important, but there is a level of connection that I believe is ultimately found in the abundant, life-giving connection that is found in Christ, with God and with one another.

That's what we are aiming for here at Cross Connection Church. When we talk about our aim, it is that we would experience, express, and extend to others life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. That's what we're aiming at: a genuine, authentic, abundant, life-giving connection with God and with one another through Christ. We want to experience this abundant life of connection with God and one another through Jesus.

You see, back in Genesis 2, which we read just a moment ago, we saw that God's aim when He created humans was that they would be joined together as one. This deep connection is most clearly expressed and most clearly experienced by us in the marriage relationship, as we see in that passage of Scripture. However, that kind of deep connection is not only experienced in marriage; it's not only a marital reality. You don't have to be married to have deep, authentic connection.

With somebody else. Now, before I explain exactly what I mean, it needs to be stated that the deep connection that our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, experienced, as we see in Genesis 1 and 2, was lost in Genesis 3 when sin entered in.

In Genesis 2, verse 25, the very last verse, it says that they, Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman, were joined together. Therefore, let the two be joined together, and no one separate those things. It states in verse 25 that they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed. This may seem kind of weird if you've never read it before. The first time someone reads it, they might wonder what in the world is going on in this passage.

However, we have to look beyond the physical nakedness to understand what the Bible is saying when it mentions that both Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed. Fundamentally, what is being said here is not sensual or sexual. Our first ancestors were in a oneness relationship with one another. They were totally vulnerable, and they were not ashamed.

In reality, it is highly unlikely that you have this kind of oneness in your marriage today, even if you have a superbly great marriage. It is unlikely that you are completely vulnerable and exposed to your spouse without any shame. You may want that. I would go so far as to say that you probably do want that, but even the idea of vulnerability sounds scary to us.

Interestingly, if you use a thesaurus on your phone and look up synonyms for the word "vulnerable," the first synonyms that will show up are things like "in danger," "in peril," "jeopardy," "at risk," and "unsafe." So, vulnerability sounds totally scary.

But what if you were vulnerable with someone and had no fear? What if there was no risk in it? You could be completely vulnerable with that person, and there would be no fear that they would take advantage of your vulnerability or use it against you.

What if you had such safety with that person that you would be absolutely unashamed and unembarrassed if they knew anything and everything about you, even the absolute worst possible things? When we read about Adam and Eve in Genesis 2, before they had the knowledge of good and evil, they had total vulnerability with no shame. I want to suggest to you that this is exactly what you and I desire, what Adam and Eve, the first humans, had. They experienced total vulnerability, a nakedness of body, soul, and spirit, without any sort of shame before Genesis chapter 3. This desire for such vulnerability is inherent in us as well.

However, we do not have it, and we do not have it because of sin. As soon as sin entered in Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve lost that vulnerability. In fact, look at Genesis chapter 3, beginning at verse 6. It says, "So when the woman saw that the tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God commanded in Genesis chapter 2, that they not eat, was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise, she took the fruit and ate it, and she gave it to her husband, and he ate also."

In verse 7, it states, "The eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings." When sin entered in, the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened, and they saw their nakedness. They felt vulnerable, and they were ashamed. We know they were ashamed because of what they did with their nakedness and vulnerability—they covered it up. They were ashamed by what they saw because they now had the knowledge of good and evil. They understood their own failures, their own shortcomings, and their own wickedness, which made them feel vulnerable and ashamed.

They had total vulnerability without shame, and they lost it. Now, you and I do not have what they had prior to the fall. We experience the brokenness of sin in our lives, making it hard for us to be vulnerable, even with the person closest to us. As good as your marriage may be, or perhaps you do not have the oneness that Adam and Eve did before Genesis chapter 3, neither do I. They lost that oneness because sin destroys the unity that God intends. It did so at the very beginning in Genesis chapter 3, and it still does today.

It breaks apart the oneness relationship that you might have with someone today. When sin comes into that relationship, it breaks apart that connection, and it's gone. So, if you want to have oneness, what do we need to deal with? The one thing we have to deal with if we want to restore that oneness is sin. If it was sin that destroyed the oneness, then the one thing we need to deal with is sin.

Sin is only dealt with in and through Jesus Christ. That's what the Gospel tells us. Jesus comes and deals with sin, and where did Jesus deal with sin? On the cross. That is the most basic story of the Gospel. When Paul the Apostle is boiling the Gospel down to its essentials, he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, "I declared the Gospel to you, and this was the Gospel: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures," as stated in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 3.

The most basic aspect of the Gospel is that Jesus deals with sin on the cross. The night before Jesus died on the cross for our sins, He was with His disciples. They partook of the Lord's Supper together, and then after that, we see this prayer, the prayer of Jesus recorded in John chapter 17. It is often referred to as the high priestly prayer of Jesus.

What does Jesus pray to the Father for us? What is His prayer as He is getting ready to go to the cross to deal with sin? In John chapter 17, verse 11, we read this: Jesus is praying, "Now I am no longer in the world, but these, my followers, my disciples, are in the world. I come to you, Holy Father; keep through your name those whom you have given to me." Here’s the key: not only for myself alone, my disciples that are right with me, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. That's us. He is praying 2,000 years ago for me and for you.

And what does He pray? "That they may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, and that the world may believe that you sent me. And the glory which you gave me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one. I in them and you in me, and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me."

The Scriptures are so very clear when we are reading the New Testament account, the Gospel account. Jesus destroyed sin on the cross to restore oneness—the oneness that was lost in Genesis chapter 3.

When sin entered because of rebellion, due to the fall described in that passage, humanity became vulnerable and ashamed. Before Genesis chapter 3, they were both vulnerable and not ashamed. However, when sin came in, they realized their nakedness and tried to cover it up. Ever since then, we have covered up our vulnerability.

Even in the closest relationship we can experience in this world, which is marriage, we still do not have the depths of oneness that God designed and intended for us to have. However, Jesus, when he prays on the night before he deals with sin on the cross, emphasizes the importance of relationship with one another within the body of Christ. In that high priestly prayer in John chapter 17, Jesus says twice that the world may believe and that the world may know. He prays that his disciples, his followers who have trusted in him, will have oneness. As a result of this oneness, the world will know and believe.

When Jesus restores, it serves as proof of who he is and where he came from. Paul speaks on this very similar issue of Christ restoring oneness with God and with one another in Ephesians chapter 2, a passage I refer to often. In Ephesians chapter 2, verse 14, we read, "For he himself," referring to Jesus, "is our peace, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two."

Thus, the two become one, united together, created in himself one new man from the two, making peace. He reconciles them both to God, establishing connection with God and one another in this passage, in one body through the cross. How does he bring this about? He deals with sin on the cross, reaching those who are far off and those who are near. For through him, we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.

In whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In whom you also, being built up together by reconciling us to oneness, are reconciled to God and to one another through the cross.

If you look at the vision section of our website, LifeInConnection.com, you can go to the "About" link at the top. When you go down on the menu that comes down, select "Vision." The vision will pop up; it's going to be right here on the screen. You'll notice it says, "LifeInConnection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus" in gray. That is on purpose; it's purposeful.

When I talk about life, I'm referring to that really abundant life. In John 10:10, Jesus said, "The thief has come to steal, to kill, and to destroy, but I have come that you may have life and that more abundantly." Abundant life is through Jesus. But what is it that makes life abundant? What is it that Jesus gives to us? It is the restoration of LifeInConnection with God and LifeInConnection with one another. It is a oneness relationship with God and a oneness relationship with one another. The very thing that we deeply desire ultimately is that connection, which is what we all deeply desire and need.

In the future, when we come into His kingdom, we will have LifeInConnection with God and with one another in fullness. We also have a connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. But right now, it is LifeInConnection with God and one another. It is our aim here at Cross Connection Church to take that good news to the world on mission, in outreach, bringing it to other people. We'll talk about that next week when we discuss LifeInConnection with the world.

We experience LifeInConnection with God and one another in Christ Jesus, where? Within His body, the church. I have said it like this for a long time: we experience LifeInConnection with God and one another within His church. We find authentic connection with God and one another within His church.

The important pragmatic question when I say that is, what does that look like practically? What does it look like to live LifeInConnection with one another? How does that play out in a very practical, pragmatic way? How do we experience LifeInConnection with one another?

Through Jesus, we can have this abundant life. As we close our message today, let's consider the practicalities of Life in Connection with one another within the body of Christ. How does that happen? Where does it come about?

First, you must trust in Christ for salvation. It is through Jesus Christ and His completed work on the cross, as stated in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 14 and following, that we are reconciled to God and to one another. The sin that brought disconnection and division between God and humanity is restored through Jesus and what He did on the cross. Therefore, if you want to experience Life in Connection with God and one another, it is only found through what Jesus did on the cross, trusting in His finished work.

Second, if you are going to enter into and experience connection with one another, you must become an engaged participant within Christ's body, which is the church. A few weeks ago, an important question was posed to me after one of the services as we were leading up to Christmas. This individual had received the question from someone else, and it was a good question. The person asked, "Why doesn't this church, Cross Connection Church, have a Christmas Day service?"

As a side note, Christmas will be on Sunday this year in 2022, so we will have a Christmas Day service. However, traditionally speaking, our church does not have a Christmas Day service. The person who was asking the question pointed out that many people do not have family to gather with on Christmas and may feel lonely. They suggested that having a Christmas Day service could be a great opportunity for the church to minister to those individuals.

While I do not totally disagree with what that person was saying, I do have an answer. You can become an engaged participant within Christ's body, within the church, and get plugged into the community. The body of Christ offers a deep and authentic connection to a new family, which, in many ways, becomes stronger than the ties you have or had with your human family. If you want to experience that abundant life, it starts with connection.

You have to become an engaged participant within the church, within Christ's body. An engaged participant is someone who is involved in regular corporate worship. As good as it is to broadcast these messages and even some worship online to a larger group of people through YouTube, the essence of corporate worship is when we gather together.

I understand that many people are still concerned and fearful. Psychologists have been saying since 2020 that this would ultimately happen. It is my prayer, by God's grace, that this is what is happening with the latest Omicron variant. Our hope is that when this begins to change, you will gather with us here on a Sunday morning. If you have never come to this church, maybe you will check it out on a Sunday morning.

When we gather together here at Cross Connection Church, we worship in the Word. When we study the Scriptures together, that is worship. God is revealing Himself through nature; He is revealing His character to us through the pages of Scripture. He inspires our hearts to praise, adore, and worship Him. So, we worship through God's Word, but we also worship through singing together.

I understand that corporate singing may be something you engage with a little bit when you go to a concert, but for the most part, the only place you engage in corporate singing is within a church. You may even think that it is just weird or stupid and wonder why people do that. You might think the church should not do that anymore, especially since it can spread coronavirus so quickly.

However, the church has sung together for a long time, and it is actually exhorted in the Scriptures that Christians sing together, even if they don't have a great voice. That is why I think the psalmist says to make a joyful noise to the Lord. Why do we engage in corporate singing, worshiping God together? Recently, I read a fascinating research article about how corporate singing—this was not from a Christian group at all—was from Cal Berkeley.

So, not exactly your high seminary, but there is a diversity out there. From Cal Berkeley, I read this research about how corporate singing joins people together; it binds people together to the point where they even experience, according to the research, a synchronization of their body and their mind.

Now, what exactly does it mean to have a synchronization of your body and your mind? Well, in a sense, when you are harmonizing together in song, it is funny to me how scientific research validates what the Bible has prescribed for thousands of years. You go back to the Psalms, and the psalmist is saying 3,000 years ago that we are to sing to the Lord a new song. We are to make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the people of the earth. We are called to do that in the Scriptures, and now scientific research confirms that, superficially, this is a way that we worship the Lord together.

We are united as one as we give of ourselves in our tithes and our offerings. This is a form of worship. All of these things help us to connect with God and one another better. We live life in connection with one another when we engage as participants in the family of God within the church.

Primarily, when you are there at a deep level and you are going to participate and engage in the family of God, the church of God, you do that by connecting with one another in community. We connect in corporate worship, but we also connect in community. The primary way that we do that here at Cross Connection Church is with our connect groups. Pastor Garrett made an announcement about connect groups this morning. You can go to the website down below; that is the only way we have people who connect with one another.

In prayer groups, we have people who connect with one another while serving on teams here at the church or in community outreach. There are many different ways that we connect with the community, but it is in those groups—connect groups, prayer groups, service groups, outreach teams, mission teams—all of this sort of stuff where we express what we often call the "one another" of the Bible.

Put "one another" in the search bar, and you are going to find dozens of "one another" passages. There are more than 50 of them in the Scriptures, where the Scriptures tell us that we are to love one another, pray for one another, care for one another, comfort one another, bear one another's burdens, be devoted to one another, and honor one another. You are endeavoring to fulfill the "one another" commands of Scripture, and you are participating in the body of the church.

If you want to experience life in connection with one another and begin to experience the abundant life that Jesus came to give, first, you need to receive the salvation that Jesus offers. This makes it possible for us to be restored into connection, reconciled to God and one another. Then, you need to engage as an active participant, as a member at worship, and participate as a servant in mission and outreach, among other things. If you commit yourself to these actions, you will begin to experience authentic connection in Christ, with God and with one another. I promise you that you will not feel isolated or disconnected.

It is interesting that at the height of all the COVID chaos in 2020, we were still not meeting here at the church. It was in mid-May to early June of 2020 when we were still only doing services online. We encouraged our church, especially those who were part of our connect groups, to have Sunday morning watch parties together in their homes for our online service. We were putting our online service on YouTube, and the service would go live at 9 o'clock on Sunday morning. You would watch it together in your home and then have a meal together.

My wife and I hosted a connect group at our house, so we invited our connect group over on a Sunday morning and asked them to bring something to share for breakfast after we watched the service together. We would sit down in my living room in front of the big screen TV and watch the service, and it became one of the most meaningful experiences during that time.

The sweetest times of fellowship occurred during the crazy things that were going on with COVID. I found myself feeling like, and this won't come across right, I love when we gather together here on Sunday mornings. I absolutely love gathering with the church, the people of God; it is one of my highlights in life. However, I found that I almost enjoyed the sweetness of the fellowship and the connection even more than gathering together here.

That is my hope: that we can see you and our church as a whole experience that life and connection with one another. This connection is the source of truly beginning to experience, in this life, the body of Christ, the church. I have found that those who did the best through all the COVID challenges of the last 24 months—those who seemed to be the most spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally healthy—were those who were connected to community within the church.

That is a wonderful thing, and it is my hope that as we move into 2022 and beyond, we would more fully embrace life and connection with one another and share it with others as well. This is what the people we interact with daily, who are not part of a church, deeply want. They need connection. The people of God live as the people of God in community with one another because others see it and say, "I want that kind of relationship."

So, Father God, I pray that you would do a work in each of us, bringing us to a place where we desire to be connected to one another. Help us to become a little bit vulnerable, setting aside our fears, anxieties, and embarrassments. Help us this year to further increase and grow our connect groups.

That we would have more groups that people could join, that we would have more people joining those groups, and, Lord, that we would be living life in connection with You and one another in authentic, Christ-centered community and relationship. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Worthy is the King who conquered the grave. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Worthy is the King who conquered the grave. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Worthy is the King who conquered the grave. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Worthy!

Oh, this is amazing grace. This is unfailing love. That You would take my place, that You would bear my cross. You laid down Your life that I would be set free. Jesus, I sing for all that You've done for me.

Hey, Cross Connection, how's it going? We have an announcement for you guys. If you are looking for a good way to get connected at Cross Connection Church and really live life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus Christ,

The best way we can offer you to connect is through our Connect Groups. Our Connect Groups meet in homes where we share a meal together, hang out, play games, talk, and pray for each other. We have a great time, and it's truly the best way for you to get connected here at Cross Connection Church.

We encourage you to check out our Connect Group page online. The link will be provided below. We would love for you to get involved in a Connect Group and become plugged in this year at Cross Connection Church.