Hey, with one voice, right here in the center of this city, can we just give the Lord some praise? All of our campuses coming together, thousands of people in one shot. God, we praise you for this moment. We praise you for what you're going to do today. I want y'all to look around with me for just a minute, and I want you just to think about a moment like this and what it represents.
That being all people from different walks of life, man, people coming from all over the place in terms of their life stage, we got athletes from different colleges, and then we have what they call NARPs from other colleges, non-athletic, regular people. All right. We got, man, we got people from different age demographics, all different races, all this kind of stuff. And I want you to look around and just think to yourself: this is what the picture of heaven is.
Okay.
Now, I understand that it is hot as a place that is not heaven right now.
Okay.
That part I fully got. But the picture that we see right here is that idea of God building a people for himself. And that people is a family, right? And what we are doing today in downtown Greensboro, among all of you, and inviting people in. Honestly, it is to invite you into the family.
It's to say, hey, there is a God who builds a family so that he can dwell among that family. And you may not feel worthy, you may not feel like, man, you don't know what is going on in my life or what has gone on in my life, but the Lord has demonstrated his faithfulness and love to us to extend his hand to bring us into his family. If you're taking notes, I doubt it. We're at the ballpark. That's fine.
I still have some stuff on screen. But God is building a family to dwell in. That is what he is doing on earth. He is building a family that then he will dwell among. And you know the picture that comes to my mind?
Guys, some of you younger guys, I see a lot of our students kind of toughing it out down here. We wanted to have 500 seats down here in the infield, and then it rained like crazy last night.
So these students are down here toughing it out on the blankets. But you young guys, guys, in our younger guys that are in our church, I want you to think. the vision that you have for your family. Isn't that vision that you have for your family one day? I mean, informed by scripture, maybe you didn't come from a family like this, but isn't the vision that one day you would be, man, it's the holiday season, or man, the kids are all coming home, and it's not just your wife and your kids, but it's their kids, and it's their husbands and wives.
And you get a chance to just sort of sit by the fire, and there's kids running around, and you get to dwell among that family that, by God's grace, you created. My favorite television personality all time historically is Phil from Duck Dynasty. Can I get an amen?
Okay.
I mean, it was great. We had Jace.
Some of you guys remember this. We had Jace at Father's Day. That was incredible. But I think about Phil. I want, you know, when I look at my life, I really think, man, I want what Phil has.
And I'm talking the whole deal: the sunglasses, the beard, the hair, the whole thing, okay? But what I really think is, man, a guy that has, by God's grace, built a life where there are kids all around and there's spouses of your kids and there's grandkids and you get to dwell among them like a patriarch kind of idea. This is a good visual of what God is doing, building his family, building his church. And you and I have the opportunity to come into that family today. Let's start reading here in Ephesians chapter 2.
Guys, I know it's hot and we're going to get to some baptisms. I'm going to talk pretty quick and I'm going to get to the point today, all right? But I pray, man, for some of you, I pray that this word would penetrate your heart. God is going to call you to Himself, and you are going to have the opportunity to either accept Him or reject Him today. What family do you want to be in?
The family of this world or the family of God? Here's what it says.
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. I want to read that one more time.
So you then are no longer strangers and aliens. What he's saying is you used to be this, but now you're this.
Okay? And what you used to be was stranger, alien. Another way to think about that is foreigner in a land that is not your own, not a citizen, somewhere that you don't understand the culture. You don't understand all that's going on. You don't have the rights of a citizen, a stranger, an alien.
But now, because of what God has done, you are two things. You are a fellow citizen with the saints and a member of the household of God. Guys, I don't know if you've ever been anywhere in the world where you just felt like an absolute foreigner. I mean, you were just the epitome of otherly. I've been there.
I remember one time I was in a very, very far away small fishing village in a southeastern country, totally Muslim country. And man, it was a kind of a hard culture. And man, I was there. It was so funny to me. I was walking down the street, and this grizzled old fisherman, that's all he got, man, fisherman by trade.
He walks up to me. He's got a cigarette in his mouth, and he's like, he pulls it out and he says, You American? I said, yeah. And then he gets a huge smile on his face, puts two thumbs up and says, Justin Bieber. I was like, man, of all the things that we're known for around the world.
Okay, but I was in this village and we were sharing the gospel. The missionary said, Hey man, everything about life here is backwards to the way you think about it. It's just a different part of the world. I mean, whatever you think naturally, you walk up to somebody, you want to shake their hand, don't do that here. You want to walk, somebody sees you in the street, you kind of smile at them politely, don't do that here.
You know, he gave me all of these things like this. And basically, I remember thinking, I am a total foreigner here, like I feel out of place. And what the Bible is saying is, apart from Christ, that is how we will feel when it comes to the kingdom of God and the things of God. We will be strangers and foreigners. But what God wants to do is to, by the blood of His Son, bring us out of that stranger and alien status and into the status of the family of God.
Listen, no matter your background, no matter your social economic status, no matter male, female, race, no matter the sin in your past, like all of that is something that he takes care of at the cross if we would trust him and he brings us into a family. Ephesians 2.13 says this, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace.
Now think about what he's saying in Ephesians 2. He's given all these metaphors. First, he says, foreigner, someone that's an alien, now you're a citizen. Earlier he says, an orphan, now you are part of the family of God. Here he says, you were far off, but now you have been brought in by the blood of Christ.
And it really doesn't matter where you are, who you are. There is a place for all of us in the family of God. And here's what's cool. Whenever, because of the cross, we become reconciled to God, we end up being reconciled to each other. You could say it like this: peace with God produces peace with each other.
You know, if you are alone, if you are walking through life without relationships, I'm going to tell you, I know that you may have church hurt. I know that you may have preconceived notions about the church, but the church of God as a family of God is there to have relational impact in your life that goes both ways. Peace with God means peace with each other, and therefore we do life together. It's not the easiest thing at times, and sometimes it can be difficult, but it always produces more and more maturity in our faith whenever we do relationship together and we do this family thing that God is calling us to. Let me ask you something: what family are you a part of?
I mean, understand your family. But don't you see that there is a greater citizenship in the kingdom than any earthly citizenship? There is a greater nearness to God than when we were far away. And there is a greater family, even than the family that we have. Guys, in a crowd this size, I know there is family hurt.
Man, some of you ain't never seen nothing but your dad's back his whole life.
Some of you have had just incredible pain, maybe even from a child who grows up and walks away from the faith, or there could be such pain in family.
Well, I'm going to tell you something, man. The church is here to open its arms and to say, hey, but there is another family. There is a family of God that we are a part of. And it's one of these things where it doesn't matter where you are or who you are. If you will come through the blood of Christ, there is a place for you in that family.
I think about this. Man, I'm a. You know, as far away in the world as I can be at times in my life. Like, I remember going and sitting in the high jungle of Peru, and I'm gonna tell you, the people there. They could not be living a life that is more different than the life that I live in this village that we were in.
And yet we sat there and talked about the book of Galatians and talked about the grace of God. Why? Because we are brothers in Christ. You know, some of you guys come from, you know, it could be, you may come from. You may come from high rise.
high arts, high literature type of background. Or you may come from country music and Waffle House, okay? It might be one of those. And yet when we come through the blood of Christ, we are put into family that is all together. And I want to extend, share the gospel and extend an opportunity for you to join this family today.
All right. God is like that father who is building a family that he can dwell among. He can, you know, in heaven, it's that picture of kind of like, you know, getting by the fire and all the kids are running around and the whole family and there's so much love and abundance. And that's what God is building in his family and he offers it to you.
So here's the application for this weekend. All right. I'm going to call upon you to join the family of God. Join the family of God. Take your place in the global church, which is God's family.
You guys know we have a real language problem when it comes to church, right? Here's what we'll do: we'll say something like this.
Some of you have heard this. We'll say, hey, I'll meet you at church at 10 o'clock. How do you meet at a place that is actually a family and a people? We'll say, like, oh, Mercy Hill just built a church. How do you build a church?
Built that's a building. It's not the actual church. Actually, one of the great reasons we came out here and did church at the ballpark, it's one of the only open-air venues big enough to be able to do this, but also for us to have this point be made. The church is not a building or a collection of buildings. The church is a family with a mission and a purpose.
That family can get together in a church building just like it can get together in a ballpark. There is absolutely no difference because it is us.
So let me ask you this, all right? I'm gonna talk to two groups of people and I'm done. The first group of people is this. All right. If you are a believer, you are part of the family.
How enthusiastically are you participating as being a part of the family? All right. Hey, we're talking about giving and serving. We got regroup coming up next week. I mean, if you're a believer and you would say, man, I'm part of the family, how enthusiastic are you about serving in the family?
I had the opportunity this past summer to take my kids and my wife, and we had a chance to go to, we had a chance to go out west and go to some of the national parks and that kind of thing. We went to Yosemite. And I was so proud of my kids because they were enthusiastic about the trip. Man, they were enthusiastic, they were helping each other, they were excited to go. You know, some of us have experienced the teenage thing where it's like, man, you go on family vacation and they want to complain, they don't really want to be there, you know, they don't want to help with their siblings or whatever.
But here's what I'm saying: some of us right now, even in this crowd, it's like, man, I'm part of the household of God. But I'm kind of acting a little bit like an immature kind of teenager that's sort of complaining about all the things that the family wants me to do rather than enthusiastically embracing those things. Man, it's the grace of God that he brought you into his family producing things in your life that make you enthusiastic about wanting to jump in and join into the family activities and the family mission. I pray, I pray that it, I pray that maybe even today, something about seeing the family kind of all through the ballpark. I'm not really sure why, but most of you decided to sit over there.
I don't really know what that's about. I think I understand. All right. But I just think like looking around, maybe it intrigues you and pricks your heart and you say, hey, I want to invest more in the family. All right.
But the second group of people I want to talk to is those of you who the reality is, you understand that you are not a believer right now. And it's like, man, today is the day that you can join in to the family of God. And I pray that you'll do that. Hey, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to just take a moment and I'm going to dismiss our baptism counselors because many of you guys are sitting around, and you guys can go up to that lobby back there.
And some of them are in bright blue vests, some of them are in light blue vests. If you need a mental image in a minute, if you're looking for a baptism counselor, just look for someone who looks like an Amazon driver, okay? Then you'll know that they're there, but they're going to go ahead and go. And here's what I'm gonna do. Hey, I'm gonna go into a prayer.
And then I'm going to come out of that prayer and I'm going to go into an appeal for many of you, maybe, to make a decision today about your relationship with Christ. Would you guys pray with me? Father, we come before you open air. God, nothing between us and you. Thousands of people gathered in this city to proclaim.
Your glory to make much of your name. We're here for your fame and for your renown. And, Father, I pray that you would invade this ballpark. Right now with your spirit. God, I know there are probably hundreds and hundreds of people.
who have lives that have been ordered. to bring them to this moment. where they have an opportunity to make a decision for you. It may be a moment that never comes back to them in the rest of their life, but it's about to right now. God, I pray that you would open hearts.
And you would draw people to yourself. In Christ's name, amen.
