Under the Influence of Experts | Sunday, April 19, 2020

Hello, Cross Connection Church at Home family! If you are visiting us for the very first time, welcome. This is probably new for you, and it is pretty new for us too. We really wish that we could gather in person, but for the moment, this is how the followers of God in many places around the world are gathering as the church. It is amazing what God is doing, and He is using this in huge ways. I'll have a lot more to say about that in a little bit.

But first, let me introduce myself to those of you who are joining us for the very first time. I'm Pastor Myles, and I am speaking to you from our church facility in North San Diego County, California. I point that out because we have people joining us from all around the world. In fact, one sister from India has been joining us weekly for the last three or four weeks. So, welcome to all of you, mostly in Southern California but also around the world. It is really amazing what is happening right now.

Just as we read in the Bible, we want to redeem the time and make the most of every opportunity. One of the ways that I would like you to help me do that right now is by taking out your cell phone and sending a text message to at least one person or maybe a group of people, inviting them to join us right now for church online. Odds are they will do it, and we've made it really easy for you to invite them and for them to join in. All you have to do is text them this shortened web address: liveccchurch.com. Do it right now; I'm going to do it too.

Listen, we have a great program planned today, and I believe that God desires to do great things through our time together. So, let's invite Him to meet us now in prayer as Pastor Anthony leads us.

Alright, let's pray. Oh, Heavenly Father, we thank You, Lord, for this day. We thank You for Your goodness, Lord, that never fails us. Today, we want to worship You, our good Father, our gracious King. So, Lord, we just ask that You would remove every hindrance and every distraction from us today as we are sitting in our living rooms and our homes. God, as we worship You today, would You just draw close to us as we draw close to You? God, we thank You in Jesus' name. Amen. You are good, You are good, good.

Oh yes, Lord, You are good. See how good You are! Your goodness is evident.

Silence is the end of all anxiety. In the dark, it changes everything. We are always to praise You.

They did a song called "Baby, the Stall." That's the raging store, man.

Watch the signs. We survive. God, we praise a Cygnus truth. This is what living looks like. This is what freedom feels like. This is what heaven sounds like. We praise You, we praise You.

This is what living looks like. This is what freedom feels like. This is what heaven sounds like. We praise You, we praise You. This is what we watch.

Good morning, and thanks for joining us for church at home this morning at Cross Connection Church. We're a church that is all about living life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus Christ. Being all about connection, we understand that there are not only people tuning in from Southern California, our hometown here in Escondido, but also from outside Southern California. So, welcome! If you're joining us from outside of our area, we're glad that you could be part of our church this morning, and we're bringing it to you in your own house.

One way that we would love to connect with you is through our pastors. We've been trying to reach out and encourage you by sending encouraging letters via mail or making simple phone calls. However, we don't have everyone's information on file. If you would like to give us your information, you can simply go to new-connection.com. Our pastors have really been wanting to reach out to you, and we would love to encourage you during this time, even if we can do it virtually through phone calls, emails, or letters. So, please visit new-connection.com to update your information.

There are also other ways to connect with Cross Connection during this time. Simply go to our homepage, lifeinconnection.com, and you'll see a list of all the different ways that you can connect with us.

This morning, we do have a mission we would like to share with you. It's about Luke Rider and the team with Cross Connection Outreach, who are in Mozambique, Africa.

We are praying for Luke, who is doing a lot of practical things. He is reaching out to locals, training them in business and various other skills, all with the idea of sharing the Gospel with them. He is doing an amazing job out there. Please pray not only for their health and safety but also that the furtherance of the Kingdom of God would be evident. We ask that the Spirit of God would be poured out for Luke and Kristen at Cross-Connection Outreach.

In just a moment, Pastor Anthony and the band will lead us in a special time of worship. During this time, we will be worshiping the Lord with our giving. If you came prepared today to give, there are a couple of ways you can do that. This is for those of you who call Cross Connection Church your home church. You can simply go to give.lifeandaction.com, or you can text 84321 on your phone, which will provide you with instructions. Alternatively, you can write a check or use cash and send it to Cross Connection Church at 1675 Sevenoaks Road. We do still receive mail.

As we enter into worship, let’s pray and worship the Lord with our giving. Father, we thank You so much for furthering and expanding the Kingdom of God through this pandemic. We are grateful that we can now worship You in our own homes. Lord, I pray that Your Spirit would be poured out to each and every one of us watching, whether from our living room, couch, or bed. Would You meet us where we are this morning?

I pray now for the offering, Lord, that You would use what is given to further Your Kingdom. Please supply enough funds for whatever we need to do, so that we can be a blessing not only to our local community but also around the world, even supporting Luke and Kristen Ryder. Lord, would You bless them in Mozambique, Africa? Bless the ministry and the mission that You have set them aside to do over there. We ask that You pour out Your Spirit this morning. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

It has been fun. If you have been feeling so-so about the good, I love your voice. I have known you as a source of goodness in my life. Your goodness has been a constant presence.

Don't my life if you have been so-so. Our whole lives, God, you have been faithful, and even now you are faithful. God, we just thank you for your goodness. Thank you that you never stop being good to us; your love never fails. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.

For the last six weeks, we have all been hunkered down and hiding out as a nation. Things are very similar in other parts of the world as well. The goal here in America over the last six weeks has been to flatten the curve. While I think we are all hopeful that we are accomplishing this goal, one thing is absolutely certain: while we're at home seeking to flatten the curve, the curves of Americans are not getting any flatter. We are making America curvy again.

I've come to the point over the last several weeks of just acting like the coronavirus shutdown is something like Christmas season 2.0. Interestingly enough, one of the radio stations here in San Diego must have thought the same thing because I got in my car the other day, and "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" was playing on the radio. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's one thing to have Christmas in July, but I'm not down with Christmas in April.

The other night, I had a long conversation with my wife about everything that we are...

Experiencing this situation truly is just as I had said six weeks ago; it is both surreal and bizarre. It certainly is bizarre, but the memes that are coming out of the coronavirus are epic. I think my favorite so far was one I saw the other day: "I'm not an expert on COVID-19, but this is the cure." The new national anthem for parents in America is DMX's "Up in Here."

In all seriousness, one of the ways that we deal with challenging and stressful circumstances is through laughter, and I hope that you've been able to find some laughter in the midst of everything we are facing. These are crazy times. In addition to looking at a portion of Scripture today to address some of that, I want to share several other things.

First, I want to extend special thanks to our team here at Cross Connection Church, who has made Church at Home possible, especially Pastor Anthony, our worship pastor. In addition to him, I have to give special thanks to those who have been leading with him this week: Cherie, Jonathan, Dom, Ethan, Melanie, our sound techs Alec and Steve, and the pastors Garrett, Jason, and Mark, who have been heading up announcements. A massive thanks also goes to Pastor Nick, who has been handling video recording and post-production, doing a truly spectacular job. He is not only producing our content here at Cross Connection Church, but he is also producing content for Pastor Gunnar Hansen and Valley Baptist Church in Valley Center. Nick has had a lot of long nights lately, and I really appreciate all that he has been doing in such a huge way. We have an absolutely amazing team at Cross Connection, and I am so grateful for them.

Second, I want to thank our church for your faithfulness during this time in prayer and your sacrificial giving. We do have a lot of financial commitments, as do all of you at home, and I am grateful for the way that God is providing through our church during this uncertain time.

Third, a number of people have been reaching out to me this last week with a simple question: When do you think that we will be gathering together at church again? I really don't know. As the priest in the great movie "Rudy" said, "In 35 years of religious studies, I've come up with only two hard incontrovertible facts: there is a God."

I'm not him. I wish that today I could say I know when we are going to be back together, but I don't. I know what I hope. I had hoped that we would be able to gather for Palm Sunday, and then I had hoped that we would be able to gather for Easter. I'm hoping and praying we'll be together the first week of May, or maybe for Mother's Day. Even if it's a hybrid online, pared-down service here at the church, whatever the case, you can be sure that we will be ready to go as soon as we can. We will have donuts—lots of donuts!

The fourth thing that I want to share with you before we get into our study this morning is related to a message I shared two weeks ago from Philippians chapter one. In that message, the author, the Apostle Paul, wrote that the difficult circumstances he was in—under lockdown, under house arrest—had turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. Can you relate to that? He wrote this in Philippians chapter 1, verses 12 through 14: "But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ. Most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear."

I want to take a moment and share with you that these things we are going through as a world are actually doing exactly what the Apostle Paul spoke about 2,000 years ago in Philippians. I want to encourage you, in the midst of all that you are going through right now, that God is doing a great work. That might not feel like a big encouragement if you have recently lost your job and are worried about finances and bills, but I do pray that I might be able to encourage you with this as well.

Some research being conducted with churches nationwide and worldwide, ours included, has shown that church growth just spiked by 300% in the last month. Forty-nine percent of churches studied are growing right now; that's up by a factor of five. In the midst of this, there is a huge spike in spiritual curiosity. Rather than turning people away from God, this situation appears to have caused people to turn toward Him.

Toward God, Google searches for prayer, church, God, church online, and other related terms have spiked significantly. The free system that we use to put our church services online, Live in Connection, has seen a spike from 5,000 churches a week broadcasting to more than 20,000 churches a week. That's just one of many online services that churches are using.

Some of Jesus' last words to His disciples before He ascended into heaven are these: "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth." The mission of Jesus was a global mission from the very start. He had told His followers to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, and then He promised them the power to do just that.

However, as so often is the case, Jesus' followers didn't fully obey His command. By the time you get to Acts chapter 8, the church largely is still stuck in Jerusalem. It's only a few page turns in your Bible from that passage in Acts chapter 1 to Acts chapter 8, but a lot of Bible teachers believe that at least five years had passed from Jesus' commission in Acts 1 to what we find in Acts 8. Five years, and the church was stuck. Jesus' mission was a global mission, but the church was stuck back on the one-yard line.

What did it take to get them moving? From Acts 1:8, you move to Acts 8:1, and we read this: "Now Saul was consenting to the death of Stephen, and at that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem, and they were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles." Jesus said they were going to go through these regions, and they were stuck. Five years later, it took persecution to push them out.

Why am I bringing this up? Because I think that the church in America, and really all of the Western world, has been stuck. Jesus called us to a global mission. In the time of the early church, they used one of the great technological advances of their time to advance the gospel: the Roman system of roads. The Roman roads made it possible for the gospel mission of God to move forward. In our time, we have the greatest technological advance in all of history: worldwide communication on the Internet. It's been around for most of my life.

Remember when I was a teenager first seeing AOL CDs? Those came to us in the mail when I was about 14 years old, which was more than five years ago. Fast forward to last year, 2019, when a lot of churches were only doing church inside the four walls of their buildings. In much the same way that the persecution pushed the early church out into God's mission, this pandemic has pressed the church to move online, where we probably should have been all along.

This is a really good thing, and we are seeing great fruit from it. We are witnessing people who left the church many years ago and gave up on their faith return and recommit their lives to Jesus. We are seeing people who have never been to church or were skeptical about the Bible start to consider the things of Scripture. Additionally, we are seeing people in other countries follow the messages that we are putting out every single week. This is an awakening that is happening—something Christians have been praying for for years. Maybe, just maybe, it could become a Great Awakening.

Yes, there are challenges in these chaotic times we are in, but God challenges His church to engage during difficult periods. He is the God who brings order out of chaos, and He is doing exactly that. I hope that this is an encouragement to you. I have taken a lot of time sharing those four things, and I hope that you are blessed by it.

Let me shift gears a little bit. For those of you who were attending Cross-Connection Church before the coronavirus, you know that we had been studying through the book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible. Over the last four Sundays, I have taken a brief detour to address a few topics that I perceived would be appropriate and applicable during this time. However, I have been sensing that we need to get back to the book of Deuteronomy.

What is fascinating—and I am surprised that this escaped my mind amid all the chaos we have been experiencing over the last six weeks—is that the messages I preached from the book of Deuteronomy prior to the coronavirus are quite applicable to what is going on right now and what we are going through. I went back and read through my notes from those messages, and it is almost uncanny how relevant they are, almost as if some invisible power was helping to direct them. It’s kind of strange, if you will. I don't typically like to even mention political things at our church because...

Virtually every time I speak, I am completely misunderstood. What I'm going to point out from the book of Deuteronomy may seem political, even if it's not intended to be, given the current cultural moment we find ourselves in. In America, politics is more divisive than religion; it serves as a greater dividing line than race, creed, culture, gender, sexual orientation, or even sports team affiliation. Politics is followed in America with a religious fervor that sometimes appears even fundamentalist and radical. Americans are discipled by political pundits, opinion commentators, and anchors for hours every single night on cable news. I can't even compete with that; you only get me for 40 minutes a week, and I know that's probably more than enough. If you do want more, you should check out the Questions podcast.

Because of all this, if I make a reference to something that even seems political, you will hear it the way you've been conditioned to hear it by cable news. I can guarantee you will misunderstand my intent. For example, last week I said, "I'm not sure I fully agree with the path our leaders have chosen." If you watch one cable news channel, you'll be convinced that I'm speaking negatively of the president. Conversely, if you watch a different channel, you will think that I'm speaking for the president. Honestly, I can't win.

What I want to do with the time I have remaining today is to revisit a few points from some messages I've preached from Deuteronomy before any of us ever heard the words "social distancing" and "flattening the curve." This was a time when N95 masks and ventilators were not a concern, and hand sanitizer and toilet paper were well supplied. I mention this to point out that this is a repeat of things I've said before. It is not partisan or overtly political; it's what I've taught before here at the church. I want you to understand that you are going to hear me say some things, and because of the politics of this present situation, you may be tempted to assume that I'm speaking negatively of your team. Every one of us has a team that we tend to side with politically.

I am going to conclude that I am speaking against your team if you think that I am an ill-willed person. However, if you attended Cross-Connection Church before all of this started, you know that I am not an ill-willed person, and you know that I am not overtly political. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't have stayed at Cross-Connection Church, and you probably wouldn't call me pastor.

We, as a whole, are going to be challenged in the next several weeks and months. This challenge will not be directly because of the coronavirus; rather, we are going to be challenged by another virus, which is more virulent. It is an ideological virus, a thought virus that has been planted in your mind and your heart by our culture.

The challenge is going to come as we have this massive magnetic pull pulling in two different directions. There will be a magnetic pull that says we need to be cautious and careful because the coronavirus is dangerous and deadly, and from everything that we can tell, that is absolutely true. However, there will be another pull that says we can't stay inside forever, and we need to go back to work. The economy and society can't function like this forever, and that is true too.

There will be experts who will say it is dangerous and deadly, and you will be putting people's lives at risk, and that may be true. But then you will also have others who will say that we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, and we have a responsibility to go back to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

It is good to know that I know those words, unlike some prominent politicians in our culture. As a former president of ours used to say, let me be clear: there are experts on both sides of these conversations. I want to talk for just a few more minutes about experts from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter one.

Remember, before I say anything, what I am about to say I mentioned seven or eight weeks ago, well before all of this that we are currently experiencing started happening. So, don't email and text me to tell me that I am speaking opportunistically against your team. I am not.

I think that it says more about you and your worldview than it does about me and mine. I don't have a lot of points today; my message is almost pointless, but not entirely.

Deuteronomy chapter one, which we have been spending a whole bunch of time going through, teaches us that we are in desperate need of wise understanding and knowledgeable leaders. Deuteronomy 1:13 says, "Choose wise understanding and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you." Three thousand four hundred years ago, the people of Israel were preparing to take possession of the promised land and establish a nation. They needed wise understanding and knowledgeable leaders to lead them, and just like with them, it is our job to choose leaders because they are going to lead us.

I don't care what side of the ideological or political aisle you sit on; the leaders we have at the local, state, and national levels are leaders we have chosen for ourselves. Most of the time, when things are stable and not chaotic, we can get away with leaders who are average when it comes to knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. It is only in unstable and chaotic times that the ineptitude of leaders comes to the surface in areas of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. That's when it becomes clear.

Now, right there, some of you just got tweaked. You are being tempted at this very moment to think that I am talking about your team. But that feeling you have is only coming to the surface because you are already consciously concerned that your team is being inept in all of this, and that's coming out as a result of this crisis. Again, let me be clear: everyone’s ineptitude is evident right now. No one saw this coming, and leaders responded quickly according to the information that they had.

Available to them in that moment and at that time, that's how things are in a crisis. We saw this after 9/11. I witnessed it when I worked with the Red Cross during the San Diego fires in 2003 and again in 2007. Things are chaotic at the beginning of a crisis, but then they begin to level out, and we can see a little bit more clearly.

Anyone pointing at the other team right now and saying that it's all their fault is looking at this opportunistically. I'm always a little suspicious, and I think you probably are too, of opportunism in the midst of a crisis. We need leaders who have knowledge, the ability to interpret that knowledge—this is called understanding—and wisdom to know how to respond and act in light of the interpretation of the data. We need those leaders because we need someone to guide us, and we're going to need that more than ever in the coming weeks and months.

Of course, we have additional challenges facing us, just as Israel did 3,400 years ago. We need leaders. Do they have the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom needed to face the things that we're going through right now? We pray that they do.

In addition to needing and having leaders, we also have some other groups right now. We have and need leaders, but we also have commentators, critics, and experts on the sidelines. Now, don't misunderstand; a society such as ours requires these things. However, recognize what it means: the leaders have a responsibility to lead, the experts are speaking to provide knowledge to them, and commentators and critics are commenting and critiquing the process and decisions. That's all well and good if the objectives and agendas of the cohorts are aligned, but we are so politically divided, as I shared previously, that we are in a challenging situation—one which requires a lot of wisdom and prayer.

In Israel 3,400 years ago, there was a problem as well. This is something we talked about in Deuteronomy chapter one five weeks ago. There was a group of individuals in Israel, twelve of them in fact, and they were the only experts on the Promised Land in all of Israel. These twelve experts had spent 40 days spying out the Promised Land, and then they returned to...

The people of Israel were asked to share their expertise on the Promised Land. We read about these twelve experts, but really, it's just ten of them, in Deuteronomy chapter 1, verses 23 through 25. There's a more complete account found in Numbers 13, verses 26 through 33.

There we read that the experts departed and came back to Moses, Aaron, and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Paran. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, showing them the fruit of the land. They told him, "We went to the land where you sent us; it truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan. We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we."

They gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which

There’s a microscopic virus, and we need to flatten the curve. You’ve heard a lot of information and gained knowledge about masks, ventilators, and epidemiology, but you may be lacking wisdom, understanding, and faith. Perhaps it is all of the data and information that has been flying at you that has pushed you to seek wisdom, understanding, and faith.

Having studied the Scriptures for more than 20 years, I can tell you that wisdom and understanding are constantly connected to trust in God, the fear of God, and the Spirit of God throughout the Bible. Psalm 111, verse 10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and good understanding have all those who do His commandments; His praise endures forever."

I want to invite you this morning to put your faith and trust in God. Lean not on your own understanding, but trust in Him. Jesus promised that those who come to Him and learn from Him will find rest for their souls. It is quite possible that your soul, your mind, and your heart have been restless in the midst of all of this. I want to invite you to put your trust in Jesus and have Him come into your life.

If that’s you today, and you find yourself in that restless place wanting to put your faith in Jesus, I want to lead you in a very simple prayer of confession. Receiving the salvation of Jesus is as simple as A, B, C. A: Admit that you are a sinner. B: Believe that Jesus died on the cross in your place for your sins. C: Confess your sins to God and ask Him to come into your heart.

So, if you would like to do that, I want to lead you in a very simple prayer right where you are at home. You can just bow your head, your heart, and your mind, close your eyes, and talk right to God right now. Simply ask Him to come into your life. You can pray with me this very simple prayer:

"Dear Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I pray that you would come into my life, that you would forgive me of my sin, and help me to follow you by faith. In Jesus' name, Amen."

Listen, if you prayed that prayer this morning, we would so much like to know about it. You can simply go to the...

Please visit the website address that is on the screen and fill out the form there to let us know that you received Christ. We would love to send you a new believer's Bible and get that out to you as quickly as possible. I am so blessed if you prayed to receive the Lord today; I really want to know about it and pray along with you.

One final thing before we close today: I want to speak to those of you who are already believers and probably even members of Cross-Connection Church. As of Friday, it is now estimated that there are 22 million people who have lost their jobs as a result of the shutdown in our country. In the early church, those who had the ability helped to provide financially for those who did not. Some of you have been asking how you can help.

If you're interested in giving to our benevolence fund here at the church to assist those in need as a result of the coronavirus, I would ask you to do so at the web address heart.lifeinconnection.com. This is a different fund than our general fund here at Cross-Connection Church. We still very much appreciate the support of the ministry that you have been giving to the church's general fund, and I would ask you to continue to support the church as we have many obligations to our staff and to other missionaries around the world.

However, if you would like to give beyond your regular giving specifically to our benevolence fund to help those who might be in need due to losing their job, or if their savings is just not enough and government assistance will not cover everything they are facing right now, you can consider giving to our heart fund. Just go to heart.lifeinconnection.com, and you can give there.

As we finish up today, would you pray with me? Father God, I thank you for the work that you are doing. I realize that the message I have given here can probably feel a little bit abrasive, but I absolutely believe that this is the message you have for us at this point. This is exactly what we had been going through in the book of Deuteronomy before we ever even got to this crisis. I think that you have been setting us up for this, and so I pray, God, that you would help our hearts to be open and receptive to what you want to speak. Just as Jesus said in the book of Revelation, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." I believe that you are speaking to your church right now in this moment through this very text.

Deuteronomy. So, God, open our ears and open our hearts to hear from You, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Darkness tries to overwhelm, and sorrows come. Still, the joy remains when brokenness and pain are all around. I won't be shaken; my feet don't stand a chance when I stand firm.

It's a place to hide, but I am not afraid to be here now. I will stand my ground.

Operation power to stand a chance. Your love, the chain, the chance.

Father God, we thank you for the time that we've been able to spend together in worship today. I pray, God, that you would pour out a blessing upon your church, wherever they are right now at this moment and throughout this week. Would you give your church your peace?

May the Lord bless and keep you. May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.