Connect with the World, Pt. 1 | Sunday, May 9, 2021
May 7, 2021 · Pastor Miles DeBenedictis
In this teaching
Pastor Miles teaches on the third part of the church's vision—connection with the world—arguing that the gospel is a far better story than the divisive cultural narratives of our day, and that sharing it (evangelism) is a natural overflow of joy and a form of worship that every believer is called to.
- The church's mission is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus; this teaching focuses on connection with the world.
- We are made for connection but born disconnected from God and one another because of sin, which now manifests as increasing cultural tribalism, division, and conflict.
- Cultures are built and broken by the stories we tell; the West's broken narrative is descending toward division, but Christians have a better story—the gospel of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19).
- God has committed the word of reconciliation to all believers, not just leaders; we are all called to be witnesses.
- Evangelism is a form of worship and praise; as C.S. Lewis observed, delight overflows into praise and is incomplete until expressed.
- Believers who have received joy in the gospel have the responsibility and privilege to share that good news with the broken world around them.
Readable is a lightly edited reading copy; Verbatim stays close to the spoken words. The audio and video are the record of what was said.
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. ()
When you truly delight in something, you can't help but tell others—and the gospel is the best story we have to tell.
A New Season of Ministry
As many of you know, Cross Connection Church has a great ministry team, and we are currently in a season of shifting responsibilities. With church effectively shut down for more than a year—not the way we wanted things to be—this period gives us a great opportunity to make a few adjustments as we bring things back online.
Beginning May 16th, our biggest change is that Pastor Jason Brower, who has pastored our youth for nearly two decades, will officially shift to be our Family Ministries Pastor, overseeing ministry from the littlest babies all the way through young adults. That means Pastor Garrett Hatch will begin leading our youth ministry. Garrett has been a blessing to our team for about five years and has proven himself faithful and capable in many areas. We're not moving anyone off the team or bringing anyone new on—we're simply moving pieces around as we sense the Lord's leading.
Reaching People Where They Are
I believe we are moving into a new and fruitful season of outreach—both here on campus and beyond the walls of our facility. That includes our online gatherings. Over the last 14 months we've recognized, as have churches across our nation and the world, that we need a solid online outreach, and Pastor Nick has helped us develop that.
When the apostle Paul first began to minister the gospel 2,000 years ago, he sought to reach people where they were. On his missionary journeys he often targeted the largest cities of a region—Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe in Galatia; Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea in Macedonia; Athens and Corinth in Greece; Ephesus in Asia Minor; and finally Rome. Wherever Paul went, he aimed for the places with the most people and went to the marketplaces where they gathered. That proved to be a very effective and, I believe, God-directed strategy.
Our world in 2021 gathers together online, so we want to be just as strategic as Paul would be if he were living today. That's why we produce our online content for this environment—the same message I deliver in the sanctuary, but produced for online viewers rather than simply live-streaming our campus service.
Streamlining Our Online Outreach
Beginning May 23rd, our online services will change a little. The services will be more streamlined and worship will be a bit shorter. We'll also focus our efforts by premiering our Sunday morning service only on YouTube. Google is the most-trafficked site on the internet and the number-one search engine, and YouTube, owned by the same company, is the number-two most-trafficked site and search engine. We want to target our efforts where people are, exactly as Paul did when he went to Ephesus, Athens, or Rome.
If you are an online-only viewer and you live here in North San Diego County, I want to invite you to prayerfully consider joining us for an on-campus gathering. We gather on Sunday mornings, and it has been a joy to worship and fellowship together again. We recognize that nearly 100 percent of people who check out Cross Connection Church do so online before they ever visit us in person, which is why online ministry matters so much. So subscribe to our YouTube channel and click the bell icon to get notified when we post new content. I'm also putting four or five videos a week on my own channel—you can find it at pastormiles.com/yt, including a series called Coffee Time.
Also beginning May 23rd, we will start a new ten-week summer study through the Old Testament book of Esther. As Pastor Jason, Pastor Mark, and I have looked at it, the events that happened thousands of years ago in Persia with the people of God and this woman named Esther have some real connections to our day. There are ten chapters, so over the next week or so, read through Esther and familiarize yourself with the story—there's some important stuff in that book for us "for such a time as this."
Our Vision: Life in Connection
For many years we have started the year with a series on our vision. The church—and I don't just mean Cross Connection Church, but the gathering of the followers of Jesus over the last 2,000 years—has a biblically informed, divinely inspired purpose. Our vision for fulfilling that purpose here is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus.
We didn't do this series at the beginning of 2021 because so much was up in the air, but now that we're entering a new season and have welcomed new people, it's helpful to share it again. I've already taught on connection with God and connection with one another. Today and next week I want to focus on what it looks like to share that mission with the world—locally here in North San Diego County and globally. I guarantee you that if Peter, John, or Paul lived today, they would use every tool possible to reach as many people as possible.
Made for Connection, Born Disconnected
We were born believers, created in the image and likeness of God for connection with Him and for connection with one another in perfect communion. We desire that at the deepest levels. Even people who don't yet believe are still trying to connect with transcendence and with one another. God made us in His image and then said, "It is not good for man to be alone" ().
Yet we are not born connected to God or to one another. There are problematic separations between us, and this is because of sin. Sin is the biblical word for thoughts, words, or actions inconsistent with everything true, good, beautiful, or right. First John says sin is lawlessness, and since God's law is a manifestation of His character, sin is always against God. Sin caused the separation between man and God and between people themselves.
The Rise of Tribalism
That separation between people and groups is more acutely clear now than perhaps any other time in our lifetimes. Throughout Western culture—the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia—we are seeing an increase in what should be called tribalism. This stems from our broken nature, and much of what's happening in corporate news media, entertainment media, and social media is aggravating and intensifying it.
Culture is created by the stories we tell, the narratives we hold within a group of people. The story being told in our society right now is creating a culture shifting toward more tribalism, more division, more segregation. It is not good for man to be alone, and it is not good for man to divide into segregated, separated tribes. Every time in history that humans move toward separation and division, it results in tribal conflict.
A Better Story: Don Richardson and the Sawi
About eleven years ago we had a wonderful guest, Don Richardson, who has since gone to be with the Lord. Decades ago, Don and his family were missionaries in Dutch New Guinea among a tribal group called the Sawi. The Sawi and the surrounding tribes were literal head-hunting cannibals who had been warring for generations. But God used the ministry of Don Richardson and his family to bring peace through the gospel. He tells that story in a wonderful book called Peace Child, and another great book of his is Eternity in Their Hearts—which draws on the truth from Ecclesiastes that God has placed eternity in our hearts.
I bring up this story to make an important point: we have a better story, and we need to begin telling it. Cultures are built and broken through stories. We are watching the culture of the West—which has undoubtedly had its issues over 2,000 years, yet on net has had a powerful and beautiful impact, bringing more equality, fairness, and freedom—be broken by a new narrative that only creates more division and descends toward increased tribalism. And tribalism brings tribal conflict, just like Don Richardson saw among those warring tribes. But he watched that conflict go away through a better story. We have a better story too, and we need to begin telling it again.
The Word of Reconciliation
What is our better story? Second Corinthians 5:19 gives a brief and helpful summary:
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
This is the story of the gospel—the story of redemption, forgiveness, mercy, and grace. And this isn't just my story to tell as a pastor. God has committed to all His people—not just leaders, pastors, ministers, or evangelists—the word of reconciliation. You and I are called to tell the story as witnesses of God's grace. This proclamation of the good news is called evangelism.
Overcoming Fear of "Evangelism"
When I say the word evangelism, some of you get a little freaked out, and I understand. I grew up in this very church's youth group going through "how to share your faith" classes—the four spiritual laws, apologetics, tracts, the Evangecube, the Way of the Master. Then they'd take us out. At 15 and 16 years old we were taken to Tijuana, Rosarito, Ensenada, and Tecate to be street witnesses, sent out two by two. I distinctly remember street witnessing to mostly semi-drunk American college students on Avenida Revolución on a Friday night. I have a little bit of street-witnessing post-traumatic stress from those experiences.
But that's not exactly what I mean by evangelism. Let me put it this way: Have you ever eaten at a really good restaurant, bought a great pair of shoes, driven a great car, or visited a great resort—and then couldn't keep yourself from telling people about it? People who know me know I'm an evangelist for things like Tesla, SpaceX, Apple computers, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Evangelism is actually a form of worship and praise, and it fulfills our joy when we do it.
C.S. Lewis on Praise
To illustrate this, I want to read from C.S. Lewis's Reflections on the Psalms. Lewis, who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, was an atheist and a profound intellect at Oxford before he came to faith in Christ. Before his conversion, he had a real problem with the concept of praise—especially God calling people to praise Him. Reflecting on it years later, he wrote:
The most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or giving honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless... shyness or fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game—praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars.
I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds praised most, while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least... I had not noticed either that, just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: "Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?" The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.
I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than a tin can in the ditch... The worthier the object, the more intense this delight would be.
What is all of that about? It reduces to this: when we delight in someone or something supremely, we cannot help but tell others about it, and that telling is the culmination of our joy. Our joy increases as we share our praise with others. So evangelism is a form of worship, and God deserves our evangelistic worship. As you worship Him by telling others about Him, your joy will increase.
Sharing the Best Story of All
Our mission as a church is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. We were created for that connection, but sin devastated it, bringing division and disconnection. Jesus brings reconciliation—He reconciles us to God and to one another, as Paul makes clear in .
If you have experienced joy through the love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and peace God has given you in Christ, then you should tell people about how good that joy is—in the same way you'd tell them the pizza at Killer Pizza from Mars is the best you've ever had, or that Apple computers are better than Microsoft monstrosities, or that Cross Connection is the best church you've ever attended. You should tell people the good story of what Jesus has done for you, how He brought wholeness to your life by restoring you into connection with God and with one another. That is evangelism: the expression of the joy you've received from God through the gospel. And it is far better than anything our culture is telling us.
A Calling and a Responsibility
If you have received the joy of God through the gospel, it is your calling and your responsibility to share that good news. That may seem frightening, but it really isn't—and it's my responsibility too. Our neighborhoods, families, friends, and community desperately need this story, because it is far better than the narrative we are being fed.
Ideas have consequences. Some stories shape cultures for the better; some bring suffering and destruction. The story shaping our culture right now—filled with ungodly ideas and unholy narratives—will ultimately bring about horrible consequences, as it has in the past. That will happen here too unless we, as the people of God, take responsibility to share the better story of the gospel.
We are connected to many people who have bought into a story that is bringing depression, anxiety, conflict, and division—people we go to school with, work with, live next door to, and whose kids play sports with ours. But we have a much better story: the story of how He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might receive the righteousness of God and be restored into connection with God and one another.
So as your pastor, I'm calling on you to take responsibility for this evangelistic call. It doesn't have to be scary—no knocking on doors or going to Revolución. It is as simple as telling people the good news of what has happened in your life, just as you'd evangelize your favorite product or restaurant, which are far less consequential. As we wrap up this series next week and prepare to go into the book of Esther, I'm hoping God will give us a greater passion for seeing people come to the knowledge of the truth through the much better story of the gospel.
Closing Prayer
Father God, I pray that You would do that work in us, Your church. Give all those who are hearing this message—whether on the day we deliver it or months from now—a passion to share the good news of the gospel with the people we interact with. In the same way that we share about our favorite pair of shoes or favorite restaurant, may we share the much more important news of what You have done in our lives through the gospel. Lord, pour out Your Spirit upon Your church and give us boldness. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Days may be darkest, but Your light is greater. You light our way, God. You light our way. When evil is rising, You're rising higher with power to save, with power to save. You keep hope alive.
Because Your life is stronger, Jesus, You are. Because You're breathing, there's hope in the breaking, hope in the sorrow, hope for this moment, and my hope for tomorrow. There's hope in the morning, there's hope in the evening, there's hope because You're living in.
Hope, cause you're breathing in this hope in the breaking. You keep hope alive. From Jesus, you are alive.
The head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now. The Savior knelt to wash our feet; now at His feet, we bow.
Hey, Cross Connection Church! Welcome to our Sunday morning live online service. It's great to have you here.
Real quick, if I can ask you to take a minute to text or email someone and let them know that we're having church this morning, you can send them over to live.ccchurch.com. That's live.ccchurch.com. There's no sense in hiding all this goodness for yourself. God bless you guys! Love you, and now I send you off to Anthony.
Dear God, thank you for this day you've given us. Thank you for the opportunity to worship You, Jesus. I pray that we do so with all of our hearts, God, and that it honors You. I pray that this upcoming week we just follow You and look to You. I also pray that we're kind to one another and strive to be like You. Amen.
There's nothing better than You. There's nothing, nothing better than You. I'm not afraid to show You my weakness, my failures, because the God of the mountain...
You turn shame into glory. You're the only one who can. You turn mourning into dancing. You're the only one.
Better than You, there's nothing better than You. There's nothing, nothing is better than You. You're the only one.
Can you believe it? You're the only one you can count on. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Connection Church! We're so glad that we get to bring you church at home today. I'm Pastor Garrett, and here at Cross Connection Church, we're all about living life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus Christ.
Part of the way I want to encourage you to step into life in connection is through prayer. We offer a prayer portal at prayer.lifeinconnection.com, where you can submit any of your prayer requests or needs for yourself or your family members. Whatever's going on, we would love, as your pastors and prayer team, to be praying with and for you this week. We know that God answers our prayers; He hears every single one of them, and He is faithful to us all of the time. He is also very gracious. So, whatever your prayer request is, whatever your needs are right now, we would love to hear from you and be praying with and for you this week. Again, that's prayer.lifeinconnection.com. We would love to hear from you.
Of course, today is a very special day—it is Mother's Day! To all of you moms and grandmas tuning in, thank you so much for what you do. Happy Mother's Day! I have a whole new appreciation for what it means to be a mom and a new understanding after having our first child, our seven-month-old. God bless you all! We really do love the moms here at Cross Connection Church, and I just wanted to say we're praying for you all. May you have a blessed and wonderful day, hopefully surrounded by family and friends.
Our mission this week is our family ministries here at Cross Connection Church. If you didn't know, our church has actually been around for over 30 years. We started in the 80s, and ever since then, we've been engaging in family ministries, reaching kids from infants in the toddler nursery room all the way up through 12th grade and beyond. We want to ask you to be praying for our family ministries department, as Jason is going to be heading that up. We are looking forward to relaunching our youth ministries, especially children's ministries, here at Cross Connection Church in the near future.
Reaching the next generation with Christ is so important here at Cross Connection Church, and we want your support and your prayer for that. If you wouldn't mind, please pray for our youth here at Cross Connection.
As we relaunch and reboot the church, there is such a need right now to reach these kids with the gospel message of Jesus Christ. With that in mind, please be praying for us. We're going to be jumping back to Pastor Anthony, who will be leading us in a song of worship.
This is a time that we set aside to worship the Lord with our giving. If you call Cross Connection Church your home church, there are a couple of different ways that you can give from home right now. First, you can text the number 84321 on your cell phone with any amount. It's super easy, and it will walk you through the steps to give right there on your phone.
If you're online right now, you can go to give.lifeinconnection.com, which is a super easy portal to give from your computer. Third, you can simply mail in your tithe to our church address: 1675 Seven Oaks Road, Escondido, California.
With that, let's go ahead and worship the Lord together. God bless you guys!
I will sing of your goodness; I will sing of your love. Though the seasons come quickly, you have always been good. Though the night may get darker and the waiting seems long, you have always been faithful to remind me of your love.
In the evening, I will sing to you. You have always been patient; you have always been kind. You're consistent through the ages, because I've seen what you can do.
You are good to me. You are good in the evening. I’ll sing to you. You are good to me.
Dear God, I thank you for this day and this time that we get to worship You. I thank You that You are such a wonderful God and that You are so good to us. Help us to have a good week and to worship You.
Everything we say and do is in Jesus' name. Amen.
Good morning and welcome to our Cross Connection online broadcast. Happy Mother's Day to all of our moms! Moms are a very special part of our lives and are very special to us at Cross Connection Church. We are grateful to God for them because, to be quite honest, we wouldn't be here without them. They have a really hard job, and some of us, as I've shared many times before, made it even a little bit more challenging for our moms.
I think it is good and right that we thank them, that we thank God for them, and that we set aside some time to honor them at least once a year. Hopefully, we do that more than just once a year. So, if you are a mom watching this, thank you, and may God bless you for your faithfulness and for your commitment to your family. We pray that today is a blessing to you and that you feel honored and cherished because you are honored and cherished. God has given you a very high calling, and we pray that God would bless you in the midst of that and that He would further equip you to do it well, as unto the glory of God.
In addition to Mother's Day, I have a few other things that I'd like to share with you this morning before we spend a little bit of time in the Scriptures together. First, I want to share with you some changes that we are making here at the church—some changes that we are really looking forward to. As you may know, if you've been around Cross Connection Church or connected to our church for any length of time, we have a truly great ministry team here.
We are currently in a season of shifting responsibilities. We're kind of moving some pieces around in our ministry team, and this really is a good thing—something that we have been thinking about, talking about, and praying about for a while. With the church effectively shut down for more than a year—not the way that we wanted things to be—this period of time gives us a great opportunity to adjust and respond to changes.
As we're winding things back up and bringing all the different aspects of Cross-Connection Church back online, this is a perfect time for us to make a few adjustments. Beginning next week, May 16th, our biggest change is that Pastor Jason Brower, who has been pastoring our youth for nearly two decades, will officially shift to become our Family Ministries Pastor. He has actually held the title of Family Ministries Pastor for several years, but we are now making the actual move for him to begin overseeing family ministries from the littlest babies all the way through young adults. We hope to develop different ways for us as a ministry to minister to young families, parents, and children.
This change means we need to shift someone to take on pastoring our high school ministry. Beginning next Sunday, Pastor Garrett Hatch will be leading our youth ministry. Garrett has been a great blessing to our team for the last five years or so, and he has proven himself to be very faithful and capable in many different areas of ministry. We have thrown a lot of different challenges at Garrett, just as we do with all the people who serve in any capacity here on our team. He continues to handle these responsibilities exceptionally well.
As Garrett continues to grow and develop in leading and teaching, we felt that this shift would be a beneficial move for both him and our youth ministry. I really think this is a great move, and I am looking forward to seeing God work through Pastor Jason in his role as Family Ministries Pastor and through Pastor Garrett as he works more closely with the youth ministry, including high school and junior high. He will help oversee and develop some of the ministry there, especially since some of my kids are starting to move into that age and stage of life. Hopefully, he will hit the ground running and be able to manage all these responsibilities as he moves forward.
We are not moving anyone off our team, nor are we bringing anyone new on at this point. We are simply moving pieces around as we sense the Lord's leading in this. It seems good to us in the Holy Spirit that this is the right time to make a few of these adjustments.
I ask you to continue to pray with us and for Cross-Connection, as I believe we are moving into a new and fruitful season of outreach in our community. Our community right here on campus and within our church, as well as our community beyond the walls of our facility, is where I believe God wants to move us into a lot of fruitful ministry. I’m convinced He’s already doing that, and we’re looking forward to Him doing it more fully. We will actually talk a little bit more about that in a few minutes when we get into the bulk of the Scriptures and what I want to look at for today.
The second thing I want to share are some of the changes for our online gatherings. As we are in this new season of ministry, we have seen, as have all the other churches in our area and really throughout our nation and the world over the last year, that we need to have a solid online outreach. I feel like we’ve done a good job of developing that in a big way over the last 14 months. Pastor Nick, who runs all of our tech and media creation and development production, has been thrown into this full bore about 14 months ago.
You may remember, if you’ve been around here for a while, that he was our junior high pastor until about two years ago. We then moved him into media creation, and it just so happened, by coincidence of course, that he was in the right place at the right time to help us move into this period over the last year where we really needed the ability to create and produce online content.
We recognize, as do the other churches and ministries in our area, the need to have a really focused ministry online. When the Apostle Paul and the other early church leaders first began to minister the Gospel throughout the world 2,000 years ago, they sought to reach out to people where they were. For Paul, this often meant targeting large cities in various regions. The largest cities in Galatia on his first missionary journey, as noted in , were Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe. The largest cities in Macedonia during Paul’s second missionary journey were Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. Of course, the largest cities in Greece were Athens and Corinth.
The largest city in Asia Minor was the city of Ephesus. Ultimately, Paul made it to Rome. Wherever Paul went to spread the gospel and to plant churches, he often targeted places where there would be the most people. In cities like Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome, Paul worked to share the gospel in ways that would have the largest impact. This proved to be a very effective and, I believe, God-directed strategy.
What we are doing here at Cross Connection Church, 2,000 years after the Apostle Paul went to a place like Philippi, is still an ongoing product of Paul having that strategic and targeted approach. He aimed to reach as many people as he could. When Paul would go to those large cities, he would go to the marketplaces and minister where all the people would be gathered together. Paul was very strategic in his outreach.
We recognize that our world today, in 2021, gathers together online, so we want to be just as strategic as Paul would be if he were living today. This is why we produce our online content in the way that we do. The message online is the same message that I deliver here in the sanctuary on a Sunday morning on campus. However, our online message, while it shares the same basic and fundamental content, is produced for this environment. We are not going to just live stream what we do here on campus for our Sunday services because we believe that this is a better approach to reach not just the people who call Cross Connection Church their home, but also to reach those who are far away from this area in North San Diego County through online venues like this.
I think we have proven over the last 14 months that we can do things pretty well when we do it this way. However, we are going to adjust our online gatherings just a little bit in the coming weeks. Beginning on May 23rd, a couple of Sundays from now, you will see that our online services will still be produced for an online gathering, and it will still be the same message.
As you would hear if you were here on campus on a Sunday morning, worship online is going to be a little bit shorter, and the services will be more streamlined. Over the last 14 months, we have begun our online service with an introduction, followed by a time of worship, announcements, more worship, a message, and then more worship. We are going to tighten that up and change it a little bit. If your primary way of interacting with Cross Connection Church is online right now, then in a couple of weeks, you might see a little bit of a change. Understand that this is just because we are still trying to do our best in reaching people with the available channels that we have.
Additionally, we will no longer be using our live service tools at live.lifeinconnection.com. As it has been for the last many months on a Sunday morning, we send out a text message to people and put information out on our email and website, where people can watch at live.lifeinconnection.com and also at youtube.lifeinconnection.com. We have these two different areas where we premiere our messages and broadcast them, but it seems that, in some ways, those platforms are competing a little bit.
Beginning May 23rd, we will premiere our 9 a.m. service on Sunday morning only on YouTube. We are going to focus our efforts on YouTube as an outreach because that is really where people are. I’m sure you notice that we all use Google and YouTube a lot in our society, perhaps too much. I think those two properties, owned by the same company, may be inviting some further and perhaps well-needed scrutiny by world governments, including our own.
For the moment, Google is the most trafficked site on the internet; it is the number one search engine. YouTube, also owned by the same company, is the second most trafficked site on the internet and the second largest search engine. Therefore, we want to target our efforts where people are and try to reach the most people possible, exactly as Paul would have done when he went to Ephesus, Athens, or Rome. He targeted his outreach for the greatest impact, and that is what we will be doing by focusing our attention on YouTube, which will, for now, be our primary source for online video content.
I want to invite you, if you are an online-only viewer. Maybe you were attending Cross Connection Church before the COVID shutdowns, and you haven't been to church since that period of time. It is also possible, and we have been seeing this quite a bit in recent months, that you have connected with Cross Connection Church only online. Your only interaction with this church has been through YouTube or our website, and we are super grateful that you're here. God has used this period of time to extend the borders of Cross Connection Church to reach more people.
I want to invite you, if you are an online-only viewer, to prayerfully consider joining us here for an on-campus gathering at some point in the not-too-distant future, if, of course, you live in this area. Some people are watching this in places like India, the Philippines, or other locations in the United States, and that is wonderful. However, if you live in North San Diego County and you have never been to our campus here in Escondido, or you haven't been here for a long time, I would like to extend that invitation. Come on out and join us!
Right now, we are gathering on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m., and I am quite sure that we will be adding more service options and opportunities as we need them in the not-too-distant future. It has been a blessing and a joy to see our church gather together here for worship. We were doing that for quite a while on Sunday evenings and Sunday afternoons outside, but since Palm Sunday, we have been gathering together here at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday mornings. It has been a real blessing to be able to fellowship with one another and to worship together.
Of course, one of the highlights for many people when they come to Cross Connection Church on a Sunday morning is to enjoy a donut together. All of that has been a real blessing. Please know for certain that our focus on campus here on Sunday mornings, as well as online and in homes through our connect groups, is the focus that we will continue to have as we move forward. We will be continuing to produce content and provide opportunities for people to connect online from now on. We recognize that a significant percentage of people who check out Cross Connection Church do so online before they ever visit us here on campus. Now, I know it's hard to say a hundred percent of anything, but...
It's pretty close to the fact that most people, probably a hundred percent of the people, if they're going to visit Cross Connection Church, are going to come online first. This is why we want to provide our online services, and we will hopefully be providing more online content this year beyond what we do on Sunday mornings. I would encourage you to continue to check back and subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't subscribed already. Make sure you click that little bell icon so that you get notified when we put more content out there.
Our hope is that, as we have this strategy of reaching more people online, we are not only reaching people through our Sunday morning services but also providing other content. I should remind you that if you haven't done so yet, you should check out the content I have been putting on YouTube at my own channel. You can find my channel by going to pastormiles.com/yt. I'm putting up between four and five videos a week for devotions, discipleship, and just going through the Scriptures. One of the series I have put up is called "Coffee Time." If you haven't checked it out yet, just go to pastormiles.com/yt and check those out. I think you'll be blessed by them.
Beginning May 23rd, our online services will change just a little bit, and we will be starting a new series on that Sunday as well for our summer studies. You might want to note this down: beginning May 23rd, we will start a 10-week study through the Old Testament book of Esther. I am really looking forward to this. I sat down with Pastor Jason and Pastor Mark the other day, and we mapped out some of the things we will be doing through the 10 weeks from the end of May to the end of July.
Looking at the book of Esther, it seems to me—and it seems to Pastor Jason, who has been studying and teaching through that with the youth a little bit, and Mark has been looking at it as well—that there are some really great things in this Old Testament book of Esther that have real connections to our day and to the things happening in our time and culture. The events that happened thousands of years ago in Persia with the people of God and this woman named Esther have applications for us living in 2021 here in Southern California, in the United States of America. I really do think that God has some things for us to learn, to be challenged by, and to be encouraged by.
The Book of Esther is a great read, so if you have some time and a Bible, I encourage you to read through it this week or over the next ten days. There are only ten chapters, and familiarizing yourself with the story of Esther is important because I believe there are some significant lessons in that book for us, especially the phrase "for such a time as this," which comes from Esther.
Now that I've taken up a lot of time with that, I want to share some themes from the Scriptures this morning that relate to the vision we have been putting forward for many years at our church. Over the last four weeks, we have been discussing our mission and vision as a church. I shared with you many weeks ago, and I have mentioned it to our church before, that when I talk about the church, I am not just referring to Cross Connection Church. I am talking about the gathering of followers of Jesus who have been following Him for the last 2,000 years. This church, which Jesus instituted and called together, has a purpose.
It is a biblically informed, divinely inspired purpose, and this is the purpose to which we are all called. We have a mission as a gathering here in North San Diego County to fulfill that purpose, and we have a vision for how we are going to accomplish that mission. Our vision at Cross Connection Church is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. We have shared that many times over the years, and for many years, we have started the year with a series discussing our vision. I typically take at least three weeks at the beginning of the year to talk about life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus.
We did not do that at the beginning of 2021 because a lot was up in the air as we tried to sort through how we would move forward. However, now that we are entering a new season and have welcomed new people to our church over the last year, even during COVID lockdowns and restrictions, I feel it is necessary and helpful to share this series again. In my previous talks, I have discussed connection with God and connection with one another.
Today, and hopefully next week as well, I want to focus on connection with the world. Today is somewhat atypical because it is Mother's Day, and we are doing special things. I will be sharing some of the changes we are making, which will take this week and next week to cover.
We need to focus a little bit on what it looks like as we share that mission: life in connection with God and one another. We share that with the world, and when I say "the world," I mean locally in our community here in North San Diego County, but also globally. Hopefully, we have a way of reaching people around the world, whether it's through missions and outreach or through technology. We have been given the ability and the opportunity to reach further and faster with the gospel through technology than at any other time in history. I guarantee you, if the Apostle Peter, the Apostle John, or the Apostle Paul lived today, they would be using every tool possible to try to reach as many people as possible.
We want to reach people locally and globally. As I've shared, we were born believers because we are created in the image and likeness of God, and we are created for connection with Him. Not only are we created for connection with God, but we are also made for connection with one another in perfect communion. That is what God has made us for, and we actually desire that at the deepest levels. Although sometimes people who don't yet believe in God or believe in the Scriptures may not say it in those words, they are still trying to connect with transcendence and with one another.
God made us in His image, and then He said, "It’s not good for man to be alone" (). He made you and me to connect with Him and to connect with one another, so that we would not live solitary, autonomous lives. He made us to be united together as one in perfect communion.
Of course, we recognize that we are not born connected to God or to one another. In fact, there are very problematic separations between us and God, and between us and one another. This is because of sin. Sin is the biblical word for thoughts, words, or actions that are inconsistent with everything that is true, good, beautiful, or right. Sin is disobedience to God's law. In the book of First John, the Bible explicitly says that sin is lawlessness. Since God's law is a manifestation of His character, sin is always thoughts, words, and actions that deviate from that standard.
We are essentially born disconnected from God. God made us for connection—to be connected to Him and to one another. However, sin has caused not only the separation between man and God but also a separation between people. You would probably agree that the separation or segregation between people and groups is more acutely clear now than at any other time in our lifetimes.
What we are witnessing right now in our culture, here in the United States and throughout Western culture—including Canada, Western Europe, and Australia—is an increase in what could be called tribalism. This increase in tribalism is a result of our broken nature. Many of the things happening in the media, corporate news, entertainment media, and social media are aggravating or intensifying this tribalism, and this is not good.
Culture is important, and it is created by the stories we tell and the narratives we have within a group of people. The story we are telling, or the story that is being told to us right now in our society, is creating a culture that is shifting toward more tribalism, more division, more segregation, and more separation. This is not good.
For those of you who are a little older than I am, perhaps born in the 1950s or 1960s, you witnessed a divided nation. However, things improved for a long period of time. In the last ten to twelve years, or maybe a little longer, we have seen an increase in tribalism. A lot of that has to do with the stories we tell and the narratives we are being fed.
As we find in , it is not good for man to be alone. It is also not good for man to divide into segregated and separated tribes. Throughout history, every time we have seen this division, the consequences have been significant.
That humans tend to move towards separation, segregation, and division results in tribal conflict. About ten years ago, actually a little more than ten years ago, we had a wonderful guest come to share here at our church. His name was Don Richardson. Don went to be with the Lord in the last few years, so he is no longer with us.
Decades ago, many years before Don came and shared here, he and his family were missionaries in Dutch New Guinea among a tribal group of people called the Sawi. The Sawi people and the other tribes around them were literal head-hunting cannibals, and these tribes had been warring for generations. However, God used the ministry of Don Richardson and his family, along with some other missionaries, to bring peace through the gospel.
Don tells the story of God's peace that came to these warring tribes in a wonderful book called "Peace Child." I highly recommend that you take a look at "Peace Child" if you have never seen it. Another great book that Don wrote is called "Eternity in Their Hearts." If you back up a few weeks to when I started this series on life and connection, I shared from Ecclesiastes, which explicitly states that God has placed eternity in our hearts. Don uses that concept in his book "Eternity in Their Hearts," so you should check out those books.
However, I am not going to do an in-depth study on Don's story today; you can explore those things on your own time in the future, and I hope that you will. I bring up this story to make a very important point: we have a better story, and we need to begin telling it. Cultures are built and broken through stories, and we are watching the culture of the West, which has undoubtedly had its issues over the last two thousand years. We wouldn't paint over those problems, but in net, it has had a powerful and beautiful story and impact in the world. We have seen some great things emerge from the West, such as more equality for people, more fairness, less oppression, and more freedom.
For people, that is a lot of what you see that comes out of the story of the West. Aside from the fact that there are problems, if you go study any other culture and do a little bit of anthropology, you will see there are problems in every culture. However, the trend in and through the West has been a fairly good thing.
At this moment, we are watching the culture of the West be broken by a new narrative. The story that is now being told is only going to create more division, more separation, and more brokenness. I would say it descends only towards increased tribalism. Anytime you have a descent towards increased tribalism, you have tribal conflict and tribal hostility, just like Don Richardson saw between these warring head-hunting tribes.
I don't think we will get back to that; I hope not. But there is a danger in what we are seeing, and I think a lot of people sense that. In fact, I have talked to a number of people who have come to our church or connected with other churches in the last several months because they see these things going on. They recognize there are real problems, and that is where our culture is right now. It seems to be headed in not the best direction.
As I brought up with Don Richardson and the way he ministered to the Sawi people, he saw tribal conflict go away through a better story. We have a better story, one that we need to begin telling again. What is our better story?
I think Paul's letter to the Corinthians, specifically , has a very brief and helpful summary of that better story. Paul says, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation."
This is the story that we have to tell. It is the story of the Gospel; it is the story of redemption, forgiveness, mercy, and grace. It truly is the story that we need to begin telling more boldly and more clearly. This isn't just my story to tell as a pastor. God has committed this to all people who are followers of Jesus, not just leaders in the church or pastors.
Not just ministers, not just evangelists, God has committed to us, the people of God, the word of reconciliation. You and I are called to tell the story as witnesses of God's grace. We're called to proclaim the good news, and this proclamation of the good news is called evangelism.
Now, when I say the word evangelism, some of you get a little freaked out, and I totally understand your initial apprehensions or maybe your fears. I remember being a part of a youth group right here at this church when I was in junior high school and high school. I remember going through evangelism classes—how to share your faith classes—whether it was using the Four Spiritual Laws, apologetics, tracts, or the Evangel Cube. Maybe you've heard of those. There were all these different methods and ways, like the Way of the Master, and a whole bunch of different stuff that we were taught and trained as kids in the youth group.
After we were taught and trained, we were taken out. I'm not at all kidding here; this is what they did when I was about 15 or 16 years old. We were taken to Tijuana, Rosarito, Ensenada, and Tecate, and we were sent out to be street witnesses. I remember, at 15 years old, street witnessing to mostly semi-drunk college students on Avenida Revolución in Tijuana on a Friday night. Some of you who are watching this have been to Avenida Revolución in Tijuana on a Friday night, but you weren't there street witnessing when I was 15. I distinctly remember going with our youth ministry here and going down there on a Friday night. We were at a missions training center just outside of Rosarito, and we went to Revolución. It was like chaos; my eyes were opened as a 15-year-old.
We were sent out two by two because that's exactly what Jesus did—He sent them out two by two. There were leaders, adults, kind of watching and making sure that we didn't get in trouble or anything, but we would go and street witness to people there in Tijuana on a Friday night. I also remember when I was 17 years old being sent out to go door to door, knocking on doors and sharing the gospel with people.
I invite them to an outreach on the Navajo Nation in Cañon, Arizona. When I hear the word "evangelism," I have a little bit of street witnessing post-traumatic stress disorder from some of those experiences when I was in high school. However, that's not exactly what I'm talking about when I say that we are called to evangelism.
Let me put it to you this way: Have you ever eaten at a really good restaurant? Have you ever bought a really great pair of shoes? Maybe you drove a really great car, probably a Tesla, or visited a really great resort or a really nice Airbnb. After you had been there, or after you had eaten at that restaurant, or after you had driven in that car or worn those shoes, you started telling other people about how good it was. You could not keep yourself from sharing your experience. You might say, "I had this great meal the other day at this wonderful restaurant," and then you would start to tell people.
People who know me know that I am an evangelist for things like Tesla, SpaceX, Apple computers, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Here’s something really important: evangelism is a form of worship and praise, and it fulfills our joy when we do it.
To illustrate this, I want to read an extended section of C.S. Lewis's book, "Reflections on the Psalms." But before I do, I should tell you, if you don't already know this, that C.S. Lewis is the author of the very well-known children's series, "The Chronicles of Narnia," which my daughter Evangeline is struggling to read right now in school. C.S. Lewis, who wrote "The Chronicles of Narnia," was an atheist and a profound intellect and academic at Oxford University. Ultimately, he came to faith in Christ, and that’s a necessary pretext for this reading of "Reflections on the Psalms."
Before C.S. Lewis came to faith, he had a real problem with the concept of praise and worship, especially with the Psalms. He writes this book later on called "Reflections on the Psalms," and he had a problem with the Psalms because there was all this praise of God.
Even God is calling people to praise Him. Reflecting on this problem many years later, He writes, "The most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or anything, strangely escaped me." When he was an atheist and didn't understand the Psalms, he thought of praise in terms of compliment, approval, or giving honor. He had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise, unless shyness or fear of boring others is deliberately brought into check.
The world rings with praise: lovers praising their mistress, readers praising their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game. There is praise for the weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, or even sometimes politicians or scholars. He had not noticed how the humblest and at the same time most balanced and capacious minds praised the most, while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised the least.
The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works, while the bad ones continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read. He had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, they also spontaneously urge us to join in with praising it. "Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?" The psalmists, in telling everyone to praise God, are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.
His whole more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on his absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely valuable, what we delight to do and what indeed we cannot help doing about everything else we value. He thinks we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete until it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not be able to tell anyone how good he is, or to come suddenly at a turn of the road upon some mountain valley.
Of unexpected grandeur, and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than a tin can in a ditch. To hear a good joke and to find no one to share it with; the perfect hearer died a year ago. The worthier the object, the more intense this delight would be. If it were possible for a created soul, fully— I mean up to the full measure conceivable— to appreciate, that is, to love and delight in the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beatitude.
What is all of that about? I think it can be reduced to this: when we delight in someone or something supremely, we cannot help but tell others about it. The act of telling others about the thing or that person is the culmination of the joy of the person or the thing that we are praising. Our joy increases as we share the joy of our praise for the things that we praise with others. So, evangelism is a form of worship and praise, and God deserves our evangelistic worship. As you worship Him by telling others about Him, your joy will increase.
Our mission as a church is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. We were created to live life in connection with God and to live life in connection with one another. But sin devastated our relationship; sin brought division and disconnection. However, Jesus brings reconciliation. He reconciles us to God and to one another. Paul makes this clear in , which we have gone through quite a bit as we've been doing this study, and we will go through this quite a bit in the future as well.
If you have experienced joy through the love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and peace that God has given to you in Christ, and the relationship that you've experienced with Him and with one another through the Gospel, then you should tell other people about how good that joy is, in the same exact way that you would tell them about the pizza you had.
Killer Pizza from Mars is the best pizza you've ever had, just as you would tell someone that Apple computers are better than Microsoft monstrosities. Similarly, you would say that Cross Connection Church is the best church in San Diego that you've ever attended. You should share the good story about what Jesus has done for you through the Gospel—how He has brought wholeness to your life by reconnecting you with God and with one another.
That is what evangelism is: the joy of expressing or giving the expression of the joy that you've received from God through the Gospel. This story is far better than anything we are being told in our culture.
Next week, I will have more to say about our connection with the world, why we do it, and how we do it. But this week, I want to close by saying that if you have received the joy of God through the Gospel, it is your calling and responsibility to share that good news with others. This may seem frightening, but it really isn't. It is your responsibility to do it, and it is mine too. I am not saying that I am exempt from this responsibility; this is why I am doing this right here.
We need to share this good news. Our neighborhoods, our families, and the circle of friends we are connected to desperately need the story of the Gospel because it is a much better story than the narrative we are being fed in our culture.
Understand that ideas have consequences. Some stories shape cultures for the better, while others bring suffering and destruction. The story currently shaping our culture, filled with ungodly ideas and unholy narratives, will ultimately lead to horrible consequences. History shows us this truth, and it will happen in our culture unless we, as a church and as the people of God, take responsibility to share the better story of the Gospel with the broken world in which we live.
That is what we want to be doing here as a church in the coming weeks and months. There are many people who need to hear this message.
In our culture, many people are connected to one another. We have people we go to school with, people we live next door to, people we work with, and people who are in our families. Our children play soccer or softball with other kids, and we are surrounded by all kinds of people who have bought into a story that is bringing depression, anxiety, and all kinds of conflict and division. This situation is only increasing.
However, we have a much better story to tell, and it is the story of the gospel. It is the story of Jesus Christ, who knew no sin but became sin for us so that we might receive the righteousness of God and be restored back into connection with Him and with one another. We need to share this message with people.
As your pastor, I am calling upon you to take responsibility for this evangelistic call that God has given you. It does not have to be a frightening or scary thing, such as knocking on doors or going to a revolution. It is as simple as telling people the good news of what has happened in your life through the gospel. You can share how it came to be in your life in the same way that you would evangelize about your favorite products or your favorite restaurant. You do this all the time; you share with people the good news about those things, and those things are far less consequential than the good news of the gospel.
As we wrap up this series next week and prepare to go into the Book of Esther after that, we are calling you, as the pastors and leaders of this church, to plug in and get involved in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ through evangelism. We want you to step into this because it is a part of our mission.
We love to gather together here to worship the Lord, go through His Word, sing songs together, and serve one another. We enjoy connecting in home groups and our connect groups, praying for one another, and engaging in all those ways. However, I hope that God will work in us to develop a greater passion for seeing people come to the knowledge of the truth by sharing the much better story of the gospel.
Father God, I pray that You would do that work in us, Your church. Give all of those who are hearing this message—whether on the day we deliver it or months from now—a passion to share the good news of the gospel with those we interact with, just as we share about our favorite pair of shoes or our other interests.
Our favorite restaurant is where we would share the much more important news of what You have done in our lives through the Gospel. Lord, pour out Your Spirit upon Your Church. Give us boldness, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Your glory is so beautiful. I've fallen in love with it. My hope is in You, and my heart is Yours. Your glory is so beautiful.
It is so beautiful. Glory, glory! Hallelujah! Jesus, You are glorious. Glory, glory! Hallelujah! Glory, glory! Hallelujah! Jesus, You are good.
We thank You, God, for the opportunity.
We are grateful for the time we've had today to go through Your Word and to worship together. As it is Mother's Day, we pray for the moms in our church. We ask God that You would pour out a blessing upon them. May they sense Your blessing and feel loved, cherished, and honored by their families. Lord, just bless them, we pray. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. God bless you.
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