Connect with the World, Pt. 1 | Sunday, May 9, 2021

Hey, Cross Connection Church! Welcome to our Sunday morning live online service. It's great to have you here.

Real quick, if I could ask you to take a minute and text or email someone to 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 this with all of our hearts 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.

You came along and put me back together. Every desire is now satisfied. Oh, there's nothing better than You. There's nothing better than You. Nothing is better than You.

I'm not afraid to show You my weakness, my failures, and flaws, because the God of the mountain is the God of the valley.

And there's not a place you turn morning to death. You give beauty for ashes. You turn graves into gardens. The only one you can trust is God. Oh, there's nothing better than You. There's nothing better. Nothing is better than You. You give beauty for ashes.

You're the only welcome, and 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, your family members, or whatever's going on. We would love, as your pastors and prayer team here, to be praying with and for you this week. We know that God answers our prayers; He hears every single one of our prayers, 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 and especially our 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 Church as we are relaunching and rebooting.

Getting things back together, there is such a need right now to be reaching these kids with the gospel message of Jesus Christ. With that, be praying for us. We're going to be jumping back to Pastor Anthony, and he's going to be leading us in a song of worship.

Now, this is going to be 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 cell phone.

If you're online right now, you can go to give.lifeinconnection.com, our website. It’s a super easy portal right there to give from your computer. Third, you can simply mail in your tithe to our church address: 1675 Seven Oaks Road, Escondido, California.

So 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 change, you have always been faithful to remind me of you. You are good. In the morning, I’ll see you. You are good to me. You have always been patient. You have always been kind. You're consistent, standing firm upon your truth, knowing you cannot be shaken.

Cause I've seen what You can do. You are good in the morning. You keep on getting better. You keep on getting better. You keep on getting better. You keep on getting better. You keep on getting better. You keep on getting better. You keep on getting better. You keep on getting better. You keep on getting better. You keep on getting better. You keep on getting better. To me, You are good in the morning. I'll sing, "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 in everything we say and do. 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 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. This really is a good thing and something that we have been thinking about, talking about, and praying about for a while. With the church effectively shut down for more...

It has been more than a year since things were shut down, and while this is not the way we wanted things to be, we are adjusting and responding to changes. This whole period of time gives us a great opportunity as we wind things back up and bring all the different aspects of Cross-Connection Church back online. Therefore, 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 everyone who serves in any capacity on our team, and he continues to handle those responsibilities exceptionally well.

As he continues to grow and develop in leading and teaching, we believe this shift will be beneficial for both him and our youth ministry. I truly 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. This is especially important to me since some of my kids are starting to move into that age and stage of life. I hope Garrett will hit the ground running and be able to manage all these responsibilities as he moves forward. At this point, we are not moving anyone off our team or bringing anyone new on board.

We are just 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 adjustments. I would 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—right here on campus and within our church, but also in our community beyond the walls of our facility. I believe that God wants to move us into a lot of fruitful ministry in the community, and I'm convinced He is already doing that. We are looking forward to Him doing it more fully, and we will 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 have 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 have 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, 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 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 Acts chapter 13, were Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe.

Macedonia and Paul's second missionary journey included Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. The largest cities in Greece were Athens and Corinth. On his third missionary journey, 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 plant churches, he often targeted places with 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 gathered. 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 this is a better approach to reach not just the people who call Cross Connection Church their home, but also to connect with those who are far away from this area in North San Diego County.

I think we have proven over the last 14 months that we can do things effectively when we approach 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. The message will remain the same as what you would hear if you were here on campus on a Sunday morning. However, worship online will 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 will be tightening that up and making some changes. If your primary way of interacting with Cross Connection Church is online right now, you might notice a change in a couple of weeks. Please understand that this is just because we are still trying to do our best in reaching people through the available channels we have.

Additionally, we will no longer be using our live service tools at live.lifeinconnection.com. As it has been for the last several months on Sunday mornings, we will continue to send out a text message to people and share information through our email and website, where people can watch at live.lifeinconnection.com and youtube.lifeinconnection.com. We have these two different areas where we premiere our messages and broadcast them, but it seems that they are competing a little bit.

Moving forward, beginning May 23rd, we will premiere our 9 a.m. service on Sunday morning only on YouTube. We will focus our efforts on YouTube as an outreach because that is where people are. I'm sure you have noticed that we all use Google and YouTube extensively in our society, perhaps even too much. I think those two properties, owned by the same company, may be inviting some further scrutiny by world governments, including our own.

For the moment, Google is the most trafficked site on the internet and the number one search engine. YouTube, also owned by the same company, is the second most trafficked site and the second largest search engine on the internet. Therefore, we want to target our efforts where people are and try to reach the most people possible, just as Paul did when he went to Ephesus, Athens, or Rome. He targeted his outreach for the greatest impact and effect.

And so that's what we're going to be doing by focusing our attention on YouTube, which will for now be our primary source for online video content. With all of that said, 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—or very possibly, and we know that we've been seeing this quite a bit in recent months, you have connected with Cross Connection Church only online. Your only interaction with this church has been through YouTube or through our website, and we're 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. I mean, some people are watching this in places like India, the Philippines, or other places in the United States, and that's super great. But if you live in North San Diego County and you've never been to our campus here in Escondido, or you haven't been here for a long time, I would just like to put that out there as an invite. Come on out and join with us!

Right now, we are gathering on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m., and I'm 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've been gathering together here at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday mornings. It's been a real blessing to be able to fellowship with one another and to worship together.

Of course, one of the highlights for a lot of people when they come to Cross Connection Church on a Sunday morning is to get a donut together. So all of that has been a real blessing. But know for certain that our focus on campus here on Sunday mornings, online, and in homes through our connect groups is the focus that we are going to continue to have as we move forward. We will be continuing to produce content and to provide opportunities for people to connect online from now on, and we recognize that.

A hundred percent 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 that. Most people, probably 100 percent of those who are going to visit Cross Connection Church, will 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 make sure you 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, if you haven't done so yet, to check out the content that 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 that 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.

As we look at the book of Esther, it seems to me—and to Pastor Jason, who has been studying and teaching through it 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 some of 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 resonate with us today.

They have application 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 encouraged by in the Book of Esther. If you have some time and a Bible, maybe read through the Book of Esther over the next ten days. There are only ten chapters, and I encourage you to familiarize yourself a little bit with the story of Esther because I believe there are some really important lessons in that book for us, especially for such a time as this, which is a phrase that comes from that book.

Now that I've taken up a lot of time with that, I want to share with you some themes from the Scriptures that relate to the vision we have been putting forward for many years at our church. For 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 shared it with our church before over the years, that when I talk about the church, I am not just referring to Cross Connection Church. I am talking about the gathering of the followers of Jesus who have been following Him for the last 2,000 years. This church that 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 of how we are going to fulfill that mission. Our vision here 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 didn't do that at the beginning of 2021 because a lot of things were up in the air as we were trying to sort through how we would move forward. However, now that we are starting to enter a new season and have welcomed new people to our church in the last year, even under COVID lockdowns, shutdowns, and restrictions, I feel it is necessary and helpful to share this series again. In my previous talks, I have shared about connection with God and connection with one another, and today...

Hopefully, next week will be similar. Today is kind of an atypical day because it's Mother's Day, and we are doing special things. I am sharing some of the changes we are making, which will take this week and next week. I want to focus a little bit on what it looks like as we share that mission: life in connection with God and one another, and how we share that with the world. 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.

As I've shared, we were born believers because we are created in the image and likeness of God. We are created for connection with Him, and 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 desire that at the deepest levels. Although sometimes people who do not yet believe in God or the Scriptures may not express 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 is not good for man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18). 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...

The Bible explicitly says that sin is lawlessness, and since God's law is a manifestation of His character, sin is always thoughts, words, and actions that are essentially against God. That is why we are born disconnected from God. God made us for connection—to be connected to Him and to one another—but we are born disconnected.

Sin has caused not only the separation between man and God but also a separation between people. I think you would probably agree that 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. A lot of the things happening in the media, corporate news media, entertainment media, and even social media are aggravating or intensifying this tribalism, and this is not good.

Understand that culture is important, and culture is created by the stories we tell—the narratives we have within a group of people. That is what creates culture. 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 saw a divided nation, but things got better for a long period of time. However, 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 told.

As we find in Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, it is not good for man to be alone.

Man tends to divide into segregated and separated tribes. Every time we look through history, we see that when humans move towards separation, segregation, and division, it results in tribal conflict.

About ten years ago, actually a little more than ten years ago, we had a wonderful guest come to share 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 headhunting 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, where it explicitly says 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.

I'm 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 2,000 years. We wouldn't paint over those issues or problems, but overall, it has had a powerful and beautiful impact.

The story and impact of the West have led to some great advancements, such as increased equality, fairness, and freedom for people, along with a reduction in oppression. While it is important to acknowledge that there are problems, a study of cultural anthropology reveals that every culture has its issues. However, the trend emerging from the West has generally been positive.

Currently, we are witnessing the culture of the West being challenged by a new narrative. This narrative is likely to create more division, separation, and brokenness, leading to increased tribalism. Whenever there is a descent into tribalism, it often results in tribal conflict and hostility, similar to what Don Richardson observed among warring head-hunting tribes. While I hope we do not regress to that level, there is a real danger in what we are seeing today. Many people sense this danger; in fact, I have spoken with several individuals who have come to our church or connected with other churches in recent months. They recognize the real problems in our culture and the troubling direction it seems to be heading.

As I mentioned with Don Richardson and his ministry to the Sawi people, he was able to see tribal conflict diminish through the power of a better story. We, too, have a better story that we need to begin telling again. What is this better story? I believe Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, specifically 2 Corinthians 5:19, provides a brief and helpful summary. Paul writes, "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 we must share. It is the story of the Gospel, the story of redemption, forgiveness, mercy, and grace. It is truly the narrative we need to proclaim more boldly and clearly.

This isn't just my story to tell. As a pastor, God has committed to all of us, the people who are followers of Jesus—not just leaders in the church, not just pastors, not just ministers, not just evangelists. God has entrusted us, the people of God, with the word of reconciliation. You and I are called to tell the story as witnesses of God's grace. We are 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 may feel a little freaked out, and I totally understand your initial apprehensions or 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 recall 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 other techniques that we were taught and trained in 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 distinctly remember 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 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 chaos. My eyes were opened as a 15-year-old. We were sent out two by two, just as Jesus did. There were leaders and adults watching to ensure that we didn't get into trouble, but we would go and street witness to people.

There in Tijuana on a Friday night, I 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 invited them to an outreach on the Navajo Nation in Cayenta, Arizona. When I hear the word "evangelism," I have a little bit of street witnessing post-traumatic stress disorder from some of those experiences 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 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'm 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 from C.S. Lewis's book, "Reflections on the Psalms." But before I do, I should tell you, if you don't already know, that C.S. Lewis, 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, was an atheist. He was a profound intellect and academic at Oxford University, and ultimately, he came to faith in Christ. This background is a necessary pretext for this reading from "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 later wrote a book called "Reflections on the Psalms," in which he expressed his struggle. He had a problem with the Psalms because they contained all this praise of God, and even God’s calling people to praise Him. Reflecting on this many years later, he wrote, "The most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or anything, strangely escaped me."

When he was an atheist and did not 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 intervenes, the world rings with praise: lovers praising their mistress, readers praising their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game, and so on. There is praise for the weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical figures, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, or even sometimes politicians or scholars.

Lewis also observed that the humblest and most balanced minds tend to praise the most, while cranks, misfits, and malcontents praise the least. Good critics find something to praise in many imperfect works, while bad critics continually narrow the list of books we might be allowed to read. He had not noticed either that just as people spontaneously praise whatever they value, they also urge others to join in the praise. Phrases like "Isn't she lovely?" or "Wasn't it glorious?" or "Don't you think that’s magnificent?" reflect this tendency. The psalmists, in telling everyone to praise God, are doing what all people do when they speak of what they care about.

Lewis concluded that his more general difficulty with the praise of God depended on his absurdly denying to us, regarding the supremely valuable, what we delight to do and what we cannot help doing about everything else we value. He believed we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not only expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of mere 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. To come suddenly 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 a ditch is disheartening. To hear a good joke and find no one to share it with is equally disappointing. 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 and completely, to appreciate, 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 person we are praising is the culmination of the joy we feel. Our joy increases as we share the joy of our praise for the things we admire with others. Therefore, 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. However, sin devastated our relationships; it brought division and disconnection. But Jesus brings reconciliation. He reconciles us to God and to one another. Paul makes this clear in Ephesians chapter 2, which we have studied quite a bit and will continue to explore in the future.

If you have experienced joy through the love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and peace that God has given you in Christ, and the relationship that you have experienced, then you understand the depth of this connection.

With him and with one another through the gospel, you should tell other people about how good that joy is. It is similar to how you would tell them that the pizza you had at Killer Pizza from Mars is the best pizza you've ever had. It is the same way you would express that Apple computers are better than Microsoft monstrosities, or 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 into 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 your responsibility to share that good news with others. That may seem like a frightening thing to you, 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 shape cultures in ways that bring suffering and destruction. The story that is currently shaping our culture, filled with all kinds of ungodly ideas and unholy narratives, is ultimately going to bring about horrible consequences. This has happened in the past, and you don't have to look back very far in history to realize that it is true. This will continue to happen in our culture unless we, as a church and as the people of God, get our act together and begin taking responsibility.

We want to share the better story of the gospel with the broken world in which we live. That is our goal as a church in the coming weeks and months. There are many people in our culture—people you go to school with, people who live next door, people you work with, and people in your family. There are also those whose kids play soccer or softball with your kids. We are connected with all kinds of people who have bought into a story that brings 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 that 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 thing. It does not have to be scary, like 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 share your favorite products or restaurants all the time, 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 afterward, 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 that because it is part of our mission.

We love to gather together here to worship the Lord, go through His Word, sing songs, and serve one another. We also 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 so that we will begin to have 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, Lord, give all of those who are hearing this message—maybe it's on the day that we're delivering it, or maybe it's months from now—a passion to share the good news of the Gospel with those people we interact with. In the same way that we share about our favorite pair of shoes or our favorite restaurant, let us 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.

In my life, my hope is in You only. Your glory is so beautiful, and my hope is in You.

Made this your glory. It is so beautiful. I fall into my heart. Your glory is so beautiful.

Glory, glory! Jesus, you are so beautiful. Hallelujah! Your glory is so beautiful. Glory, hallelujah!

Jesus, you are in glory. Hallelujah! Jesus, you are God. We thank you for the opportunity that we've had today to go through your Word and to worship together.

We pray again, as it's Mother's Day, 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.

And 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.