Following Jesus #12 - In the Way of Distinction

Message Description

Dr. Kurt Bjorklund unpacks John 17:1-19 to share how Jesus' sacrifice allows his followers not only to be sanctified, but to then be moved into action for a purpose.

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Message Transcript

This fall, we have been working our way through a section of the Bible known as the Upper Room Discourse. It's found in John chapter 14 through 17. It's one of the accounts of how Jesus spent his last hours before his crucifixion. And so Jesus in this section tells us some important things. And here's been our hope. And that is that as we've worked through these chapters, that if you're a Christ follower, that you would have been pushed in some ways to some new ways of seeing things or to understand some things differently, to follow more fully.

And if you are here and you say, "I'm not really sure exactly what I believe or how much of this I believe," that you would hear Jesus' words rather than all the cultural ideas of what it means to be a Christ follower and be able to have a clear way of thinking about whether or not this is something that you want to be true for you.

And today we'd come to John 17 so now we're right at the end of this and next week we'll finish John 17 and the series that we've been in. And we'll come back to John after the first of the year. We'll take some weeks for Christmas and then a new series to start the new year. And then we'll look at the passages in John 18 and following coming up to Easter so that we have some of the passion narratives there. But as we come to this, the thing that Jesus does now is he talks about and really prays about his mission.

And so the first few verses of John 17 are Jesus praying for himself and he prays for his followers, his immediate disciples. And then in chapter 17 verses 20 through 26 he prays for his followers for all time. And so today we're going to look at verses 1 through 19 and in a way I would say that that he's, he's praying about distinction here. That the people who are his followers would live and follow him in a way of distinction.

And I say this because there's a word that appears in this text that we don't use a lot in our modern English vocabularies. And that's the word sanctify. And sanctify literally means to be set apart, to be made distinct. In other words, Jesus says, "Father, I pray that my followers would be distinct, and your word is truth." That's how they'll become distinct. So that that's what Jesus prays for his followers.

But there's another word that's used in this passage that's significant. And the word that's used over and over is the word world. And when you hear the passage read, it even jumps at you, the juxtaposition of the world and the followers of Jesus. And when the word world is used in the Bible, it usually means a system that's contrary to the things of God. And it doesn't always mean antagonistically so although in this passage, there's some of that because it talks about being hated by the world. But it means just a way of thinking, a way of doing life that is contrary to the way that God does things or wants to see them done.

And so the passage talks about being set apart, being distinct and the tension with the world. And so I want to use a word that's often used in Christian circles. It's not in this passage, but it's often used. And it's the word disciple. Maybe you've heard it. It means to follow and to become like somebody. And you've probably heard this word in some context in recent days. It's sometimes used of a coach who's hired from one team to another team. And if the coach was under somebody, they would say, he's a disciple of such and such a coach because he runs this person's system. He learned how to think about the game from this person. He's a disciple of this person.

And here's why I want to use this word because the word world used in this passage and the idea of sanctification points something out and that is that our world, the system that is opposed to the way God wants to do things is constantly trying to disciple people. Meaning you meaning me. We live in a world that's constantly trying to disciple us, to get us to think and to mold our lives after it's way of doing things.

In fact, I would put it this way, I would say that we are being discipled by this world in that it's constantly teaching us to find our identity, our meaning and our purpose and our worth in things other than God. And here's how this works. Sometimes we'll do it with our acquisitions or our possessions. In other words, we'll say, "If I can buy something that makes me feel good about myself, then I feel good about myself." You know how this works. You go out, you look for some new clothes, you buy some new clothes, you put them on and you're like, "Hey, I feel good because I have new clothes." And then you go and look in your closet a week later and say, "I have nothing to wear." But for a moment there's a little buzz that says, you know what, I feel good because I have something.

Or you buy a new car and you say, this is awesome. This car makes me feel good. Or you get a new house and you think this will finally be the house that makes me feel happy and good. And if it isn't possessions, a lot of times it's positions, it's achievements. It's reaching a certain level in a company or an organization or being well thought of because of what we've achieved or, or maybe it's just being well thought of in the praises of people in general that we think give us a sense of standing and status. And so it'll be people saying, well, "He is such a good guy. She's such a wonderful lady. He's a great dad, she's a great mom, or he's really going to achieve something." And we take our standing, our status. And what we're doing in that moment is we're being discipled in a sense by the world.

And Jesus prays now and he prays for his, his followers and he says, "Here's what I want to be true." And what he does initially as he prays for himself the first few verses. Then he prays for his immediate followers and then eventually for all of his followers for all time. But the way we're going to look at this today is in verses 1 through 16 I think what we see as a gift to celebrate. We're coming up to Thanksgiving and there'll be a lot of things that you may have a chance to celebrate, but the gift that's to celebrate that we see Jesus praying about here is greater than any other gift you can have. And I say this because several times throughout this passage, he talks about being given something, being given these people and how they've been given to him. And if you go through and just mark these words in the text, you'll see the emphasis on this idea of being given something.

Verse 13 says it this way, it says, "I'm coming to you now, but I say these things while I'm with you, will I am still in the world so that you may have a full measure of joy with them." So Jesus says, "I want there to be joy because of this incredible gift." And in verse three he says what the gift is. He says "That they may have eternal life." And then he defines it because a lot of times when you hear the word eternal life, you think that's a future thing. It's something that I get someday somewhere. But he says that eternal life is knowing the father. It doesn't mean that it isn't somewhere in the future. It isn't something else. But what he's saying is that is that you can have this experience. Now you can know and understand and relate to God fully here and now, not just in the future.

But here's why I say this is a gift. A lot of times our tendency is to want to see spiritual life as still somehow being our attainment, our achievement, our knowledge that figured it out. But Jesus here is making a very clear point, even in his prayer of saying that the people who have come to him are a gift. And what that means is it isn't dependent on you or me or my ability, but it's completely about what Jesus Christ has done. And throughout all the pages of the scripture, what we see is that it's God who draws us. It's God who brings us salvation and it's God who keeps us. In other words, at no point do I bring something to the table that somehow endears me to God. There's another image that's used. This is in Romans chapter eight where Paul is writing, the apostle Paul, and he compares the idea of coming to faith in Jesus to adoption to sonship in the Roman empire.

And in some ways that that image might seem kind of flat to us. In fact, I had a friend texted me yesterday because he knew my life story and just said, "Hey, did you know that that today is national adoption day?" I did not know that, but I was adopted as a kid. I was born to a young unwed woman who had an unplanned pregnancy. And I was born just a short season before the Roe versus Wade decision in 1973 and the first time I talked to the lady who gave birth to me, she told me that if it had been legal to abort in the year that I was born, she would have aborted.

Which just kind of gave me a moment of like, wow, I've, I've thought about this issue, but, but here's what happened. I was placed in foster care as a lot of newborn babies are who are unwanted. And then I was adopted into a family, the Bjorklunds. But here's what's true. When I was adopted into this family, I didn't bring anything to the table. I was an infant. I was still a little kid.

I wasn't able to help with dishes. I wasn't able to help pay the rent. I wasn't able to do anything for anybody except receive. And the image that's used in the scripture of coming to faith in Jesus Christ is one of inability and benevolence from God. And here's the thing that's challenging. A lot of times we don't like that image. We like to think that I was somewhat moral and that's why God looked down through history and said, "Oh Hey, you know, this guy is going to be somewhat moral so he would be a good one to have." Or we like to think that somehow we figured it out. We decided and weighed all the evidence and came to a decision. But the biblically speaking that this picture of adoption in Jesus picture and use of gift language here is this is all God's work.

It isn't your work. It isn't my work. It's all God's work. And the reason this is something to celebrate is because this takes the onus off of us and puts it all on God. And this is a beautiful thing. And he doesn't just talk about this gift of eternal life, but there's also a picture of being kept here and we see this in verses 11 and 12. It says, "I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world and I am coming to you. Holy father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by the name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that the scripture would be fulfilled."

Now again, Jesus hears is praying specifically for his initial followers, disciples. And that's a reference to Judas. But what he's saying is that it is God's work not just to draw people, but to keep people. In other words from beginning to end this adoption process is all God. And here's why this matters. When I was a kid, when I did lousy, rotten things and I did at least on occasion, what was true is that my parents, my adoptive parents, didn't say, "Well, today I'm going to decide, are you my child or are you not my child?" It was a settled thing that God does for us. It was a subtle thing that my parents had done for me. It's a settled thing that God does for his children. Now that doesn't depend on what you do or don't do in any given set of circumstances. It's a gift and that is something that is important.

Don Carson, who wrote a commentary on John talking about Jesus' prayer, about, about the evil one here says this. He says, "The spiritual dimensions of this prayer of Jesus are consistent and overwhelming. By contrast, we spend much more time today praying about our health, about our projects, about our decisions, our finances, our family, even our games than we do praying about the danger of the evil one." In a sense it's settled.

But what he's driving at here is Jesus in his last moment said father, for those that have followed me, I pray that you would protect them, that you would let them continue on this path. And what we see at the very beginning is Jesus talking about glory. And if there's this beautiful gift to celebrate that God gives to people who come to have faith in Jesus Christ, then it would make sense that what would be on our hearts is to make much of God. But that leads to something else. And this I think we see in verses 17 and 18. And that is there's a privilege to embrace. Verse 17 says this, "Sanctify them by truth. Your word is truth."

So set them apart by truth and they'll get truth from your word. Verse 18 "As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." And so what we have here is we have Jesus saying, here's my prayer for my followers. I want them to be distinct. I want them to be set apart and I want them to have a sense of purpose. Now, if you've ever been around a kid or maybe you were a kid at some point you've seen this dynamic and that is when a kid first gets on a team or in a band or something and the first time they get teams swag, do you know how proud they are of that team swag? Do you know what I'm talking about? It's like the five-year-old's first practice for soccer and they put on the soccer jersey and they wear it for three days straight and won't take it off.

Because there's a joy in saying, I'm part of the team. This matters what I'm part of here has something significant. Okay, and here's what I think Jesus is doing. He's saying, "I have gifted you something amazing. There's to celebrate here and now I want you to be distinct and I want you to live with a sense of purpose around what has been given to you." Now when he says sanctify them in truth, your word is truth. As I said, that word means to be set apart, to be distinct. There's a lot of ways that this has been heard over the years. Some people see that as being a reason to withdraw from the world, but Jesus in this very passage counters that because he says you're in the world, not of the world. In other words, you don't get to just withdraw from the world entirely, your part of the world, but you don't want to be defined by it.

You don't want to be discipled by it. Be discipled by Jesus, live in the world. In other words, have different values, different things that define you. And often when we hear this, what we hear is we hear... And I'm just talking about kind of the evangelical church. We hear this being about sexual ethics. And it's not a part from sexual ethics, but it's so much bigger. To be set apart means that we are in a place where we say the values that define Jesus are the values that define me. So where Jesus cares for people that our world sets aside. Those will be people I'll care for that the world sets aside. What would Jesus prioritize are the things that I'll prioritize.

And I thought about different ways to, to explain or try to explain this idea of sanctification, this idea of being set apart. This idea of saying my life is for something more. And so I thought I would use something that is from a children's story because sometimes children's story capture things better than lengthy theological explanations. So this is a story and I think this has been turned into a children's book, but initially it was just a story. It was written by Robin Gunn and it's called Mrs. Rosie Posie and the Chocolate Cherry Tree.

Maybe you've seen this. And the story is Mrs. Rosie Posie is kind of like a neighborhood mom. All the kids come to her house and hang out and she teaches them wise lessons in one day. Little Natalie Olivia who Mrs. Rosie Posie always called kids by their two names, not like your mom when she's scolding, but in a fun way. And she came one day and she was all sad and she was sad because she said her parents wouldn't let her go to see a movie with her friends and she said, "It's just not fair. My parents won't let me go to see a movie," and this is the interaction that follows.

"Mercy me said, Mrs. Rosie Posie shaking her head. You're right. That's not fair to your friends at all. What cried, Natalie? What do you mean it's not fair to my friends? I don't think it's fair to me. Natalie looked at Mrs. Rosie Posie. She had a twinkle in her eyes. Natalie Olivia. She said, did you know that you have been set apart? Your parents are helping you make the right choice. Set apart? Said Natalie, what does that mean? Come with me said Mrs. Rosie Posie and she took Natalie by the hand. Natalie. Olivia, you are about to learn the secret of the fine China plate and off they marched to the kitchen this morning. I picked cherries. Then I dipped them in chocolate. Would you like some Oh yes. Said Natalie."

"Mrs. Rosie Posie pulled a dirty plate out of the trash. Would you like me to put your cherries on this plate? Mrs Rosie Posie asked with a smile. Well said, Natalie, if that's all you have. Goodness. No. Said Mrs. Rosa. Rosie pose. I have other plates, clean plates, special plates, plates which are kept set apart. Then she went into the dining room, had Natalie sit down and she put three plates in front of her. First the dirty plate, then a plain Brown dinner plate, and then a beautiful fine China plate with gold trim. Which plate would you like to use for your cherries? Said Mrs. Rosie Posie. This one said Natalie and she pointed to the fine China plate. Well, the paper plate is dirty, she said, and the dinner plate is boring, but this one feels special. Indeed. Said Mrs. Rosie Posie. She sat down next to Natalie. Now I'll tell you the story of the fine China plate. Natalie popped a cherry in her mouth and she nodded and listened with her heart."

"Once there was a dinner plate, she was young and free and with all her heart, she wanted to be special. She wanted to serve the King. Her friends called her one day, come with us. We're going to get smeared with beans and hotdogs. The dinner plate wanted to go. She thought if I were a fine China plate, I would never get smeared with beans and hotdogs. I cannot go. She told her friends, I want to keep clean. The King may want to use me someday. Her friends left little miss set apart, thinks she's too good for us, and they went on without her. The dinner plate felt sad being set apart, sometimes as lonely. Then one day the King came and he was looking for a clean plate that he could use. All the plates lined up, pick me, pick me. They cried."

"The dinner plate looked at her friends. They were no longer dinner plates. They had turned into paper plates. Dark beans, stains covered their sagging edges. Suddenly the King reached for the lonely dinner plate and he smiled. I'm glad that you stayed clean. You made the right choice. I will now turn you into a fine China plate and use you to serve others. Mrs. Rosie Posie lean forward. Do you know what all the paper plates said? No said Natalie, what they shouted, it's not fair. Pick us. Turn us into China plates. Natalie laughed. They had a choice. They did not to get covered with beans and hotdogs. They could have said no the dinner plates said. Mercy me, said, Mrs. Rosie Posie. Perhaps they needed someone to help them make the right choice." And the story ends with the application of saying, keep yourself clean. Now I hesitate to use that and here's why.

Because you can hear that being very moralistic as in keep yourself clean or you'll turn into a dirty plate and hotdogs and beans are bad or something like that. But the overall point of that is this, and that is something that is set apart, is kept special. Many of you, for Thanksgiving, we'll choose some plates you don't use every day this week. They're set apart. The idea of being sanctified means that God has a purpose for you, not just to, to avoid hotdogs and beans, but to say I have a grander purpose and what is that purpose? Jesus says it right in the next verse, he says, "My purpose is that as I was sent into the world, I want you to go into the world."

That now notice he says, sanctify them by your word. Your word is truth. It's not just our ideas of what makes us set apart. It's tying our ideas to the actual word of God. Again, this is why it's so important that as you live and move in this world, if you engage in a Christian fellowship that you engage in one that teaches the Bible, not just talks about and over the Bible. Because it's the word of God that actually changes us. But he says, here what I want. I want you to go into the world and I want you to be basically my representatives in the world.

And what he's talking about here is the point of being people who live mission with a sense of mission. I went to a Pitt basketball game the other day and my wife came with me. She doesn't often go to sporting events with me. But before we went I had lost one of the key fobs for my car. You know what a key fob is? You have the instead of a key that goes in the ignition. Sometimes you have a key that is the electronic key where you push a button and it's just in your pocket. Well, I had one, but the other one was missing, which is always concerning because then if you lose the other one, you can't drive your car. And they're very expensive to replace or you know, several hundreds of dollars rather than just a key.

And so I've been missing a key fob. I had torn apart the house looking for it. I had looked where the keys are kept. I had looked through my study at home, I had looked in all my coats and pockets. I mean I had torn that thing apart. We're coming through the security gate at the game and my wife gets stopped. You know why she got stopped, right? She had a key fob in her purse. It was my key fob. She said, "I don't use this purse very often." So even though I had looked for weeks that this key fob had been missing and, and she had it. And here's my point. It was buried in her purse. It did nobody any good there.

And here's what sometimes happens with faith. You can say I have a gift to celebrate. Isn't God good? I am set apart. But if you keep your faith to yourself, it's like a buried key fob in my wife's purse. It doesn't do anybody any good.

Jesus said, "As I was sent into the world, so send I you, I want you to be set apart for something more than just being kept." Because China plates that just sit in the cabinet aren't any good. They need to be brought out and utilized. So here's what I simply want to encourage you to do and that is to see this next season here at Orchard Hill as being a season of being intentional about this idea of invitation. We're headed into Christmas season and every church does Christmas, but certainly here at Orchard Hill, this has been an important part of what we do because this is a time when people who are often not interested in spiritual things say "Maybe I'll go to church and check out church at Christmas." Last year in all three of our campuses, we had about 17,000 people come to Christmas. Many of you could trace your first experiences at Orchard Hill to Christmas and could even tell stories about how God has changed your life because you came on a Christmas Eve.

And so this is a strategic time to live with purpose and to invite in. So today at all of our campuses, we'll have some cards in the back that are just simple invitation cards that when you leave you can get them. I think here in Wexford, they'll be at the connect desk. But we want to do something else this year that talks about the gift we've been given and communicates that in our community. Because those invite cards are a great way to give to people, you know, coworkers, friends, maybe what a lot of people have done is something you could think about doing, holding a party, one of the nights around the services and inviting some friends to come to the service and then to your home for a party. It's a great way just to get people a chance to be exposed to who Jesus is.

Well, we want to do something else and that is we want to do something called, you've been gifted this year and we blatantly ripped this idea off from a church in Ohio. So this is not new to us. But the idea is that through some random acts of generosity in the community that you would simply just do something kind for somebody and then leave a card that just simply says you've been gifted. So, for example, you're in line at Starbucks, pay for the next person and say, "Would you just give them this card on your way out?" You bake some cookies and you leave them for somebody with the card that says you've been gifted. Or maybe you want to be more creative than that, but the idea is that is that you just take a card, one of these cards, maybe two, and you say, I'm just somewhere in the next month or so, I'm going to do a random act of kindness and generosity for somebody and leave a card that says you've been gifted.

And it says that we want you to experience the generosity of Jesus. And then on the backside there are invitations to the Christmas Eve services as well. And this is a very tangible way that you can take the theory of saying, I should live with a sense of mission and say, here are some tangible ways that I can live this right here right now. And some of us may be here, and we may be saying, "Well look, I don't know if this is me right now." And that's understandable. Maybe for you, the response today isn't to say, I'll take a card and I'll do that, but it's instead to say, has this gift really been offered to me? Is this something that God has for me? And if you're open to that, then God is drawing you as we talked about earlier and he's working in your life and you can experience the gift by acknowledging your sin before God and your need for a savior even today.

But maybe for you, this season is about exploring that and saying, "I'll make it to Christmas services and all of the services in the next month. I'll get with somebody here in Wexford." We have people at our location and the gathering place who can talk to you. There are people in each of our venues who would be happy to just help you think that through. But for now, let's just take a look at a video about how this church did. Some of this. You've been gifted.

Just trying to find out, you know what you guys are looking for for Christmas. What's the gift you're given? You know, things like that.

You're going to buy their gifts?

We would love to do that. And we're getting, we're just trying to point you towards Christ and that's where a good way to...

Oh, no, I never had nobody to something like that before. I can't believe you guys are doing this. I've been going alone.

How about the big ones? Kids don't want something small like that, let's get them the big ones.

Are you sure?

Baby alive.

Okay. And who's that for?

My granddaughter.

Okay. And how old is she?

Three.

I'm touched. I'm very touched.

Awesome. That's really cool.

Thank you guys so much. Means a lot.

What's your name?

Jeff.

Jeff.

So that was obviously just somebody in a toy store saying, let me buy some of the gifts that you're going to give to somebody else as a way of being generous and we're just gifting you because we want to have you see the love of God. And then a simple invitation. On your way out today. You'll receive some of those cards and if everybody who came just did that, it would be a cool expression of love in our community in some way. Again, something simple and small. And if you have stories about how God works in that, we'd love to do that. There'll be another thing that we're going to give to you on the way out today and it's our year end giving commitment card. And you may say, "Okay, that's a hard turn." But here is the point of that.

If you've been around Orchard Hill, you know that we've just come through our Vision 2020 events and that is our unapologetic event. Each year we have an event where we just say, "Here's where we're headed, here's what God has done, here's where we're headed." And the way that this church is funded is through your weekly giving and through your year end giving. Meaning just what you give week in, week out. And then what we do at the end of the year with just having this year end campaign. So every year for the existence of this church, we've done this here.

And I know that sometimes you say, "Okay, this doesn't feel comfortable necessarily to me or whatever." But here's why this ties in today. When we talk about mission, part of being in mission is being in a community of people who share mission together and work together to bring the name and the glory of God, the gift of God to a community. That's what church is. And so our church is, is about that, about helping people find and follow Jesus Christ.

And so what we do every year is we just simply ask those of you who this is your church home to pray about what you could be part of as we move into the new year. And there's some explanations for it that we gave at the Vision 2020 events. We'll send booklets out that have everything that, that are part of this that you can kind of see and understand. And what we do is we try to pre-fund some of our expenses and then have some projects that we're looking at in next year as a way to do that. And when you get the information, what you'll see is you'll see a really big number in there, which is the Wexford budget and you'll go, "Wow, that's a big number." But there's about 50 staff people that are part of our church and if you just take an average salary and benefits and multiply it, you'll come up with a big portion of that number and you'll say, "Okay, that's not so crazy."

And what happens with the rest of that money is it goes to things that that it takes to do ministry. Some of it goes to Haiti. In fact, just this last week, we were able to send some extra money to our church in Haiti because if you followed what's going on there, there's incredible challenges right now and the area that our church is located at, our church partner and the church that we helped plant are flooding right now and. We were able to send some money in and we got an email back from one of the pastors there just saying thank you. We feel like you are like one of the churches in the new Testament that just helped us to eat when we couldn't eat. We're able to do that because of generosity. Certainly the ministries that you see all around here, things that we just talk about all the time.

But in the video you saw earlier there was a number, there are a couple of numbers. The worship hours, the small group hours in the and the hours service. The worship hours are total worship hours spent. So like this would be one hour even though there's, you know, maybe a thousand people in the Wexford location today, right at this hour. So that's just one, next hour will be another hour. Small groups, same thing. It's an hour where a group meets. So 10, 12 people.

The 45,000 hours of service are when people say I'm going to serve in some capacity around here. And those are estimates, obviously you don't have it perfectly, but let me just tell you one story about how some of those hours made a difference. I was at the strip district's Vision 2020 event on Thursday evening. And one of the men who shared talked about being in a group that orchard Hill had done 13 years ago. It was a CLC group that went into Homewood and a group of men when and and shared a group with people and this guy was part of that group. And he told about at the time how he was using drugs at the time and how he was really on a path to nowhere and how the expression of love from a group of men from the Wexford campus 13 years ago literally changed the trajectory of his life.

He got clean, got a job, moved away, and then about two, three years ago, moved back to the city of Pittsburgh and reconnected with our strip district campus. He said, when I heard him on Thursday night, he said, "I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for orchard Hill church." I'm always a little hesitant when somebody says that because it's God, not orchard Hill. God was the thing that used it. But apart from that little way of stating it, I was like, "Oh my goodness." Those hours that we talk about, the investment that we talk about, God uses it in ways we never see. And here's the thing, if he had never moved back to Pittsburgh, we wouldn't even know.

God uses it all the time. And so, so, so our requests, if this is your church home, take the card, pray about it and say, "What could I do?" Some of you have already probably done your tithe, your 10% on the year. And you say, "You know what? We're good." We understand that. Put down a zero and say, "Hey, we've done all we're planning to do this year, but we're still with the church." Some of you may have done what you wanted to do, but it's been a good year. Maybe there's more that you can do. Some of you would look at what you've done and say, "You know, we didn't do what we intended to do." Maybe this is a chance to make that up. Maybe for some of you, you've never thought about giving, and maybe this is just the first step just to say, here's something that I can be part of.

We mentioned earlier that the world is always trying to disciple us. Money is actually a thing that reveals our heart. And so although it's uncomfortable to talk about money, here's why I have no problem talking about it because ultimately it isn't about orchard Hill. It's about you and God. It's about you and your own trajectory in life. And what I mean by that is at the end of the day, Orchard Hill's going to be fine, but the issue is what happens in your own heart. And even if you're a person who says, "Look, I don't want to give to Orchard Hill. I don't want to give to anything Christian." Take the resources that you've been given and contemplate how you can make a difference in other people's lives and give somewhere. Because this isn't ultimately about Orchard Hill. This is about who are you being discipled by, by the culture or by something bigger, ultimately by God.

And don't assume that that your little bit doesn't make a difference because again, it isn't ultimately about the amount. It's about the the heart of a congregation saying we are together in something. Don't assume I'm too young and therefore I don't need to play a part in this. Just say, "God, what would you have me do?" And then respond to God very simply by saying, "God, this is what I'll do." And it's a way that you share in the mission of God in this world at the end of the year and we do as a church. And so those cards will be handed out on the way out today as well. And here's how we want to just conclude our time today, and that is by partaking in communion together.