This is 19 to 27, and this is a passage many of you guys are familiar with, or at least sections of it you guys are familiar with. It's Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19 to 27. Now therefore, or therefore brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promises faithful. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for just giving us a little bit of a, just a day and a half to focus, to just reflect on our own walk, to reflect on your kindness and goodness, the power of your word, and tonight, the power of the corporate body.

I ask, Lord, that you would speak, that you would help us and enable us to figure out how to apply all the things that we learn. Help us to draw strength from you and from one another, and would you, Lord, receive just a glory from the fruit that is born in our lives.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So, last night we talked about just the dangers of drifting, and like I said, that's not a comfortable topic to talk about, but like I said before, it is important for us to often kind of gauge, to see where our feet are. And then earlier this morning we talked about just the importance of really studying through the word of God and to clinging to the word of God to discern truth.

And that's important because more and more in today's day and age, truth is becoming subjective, right? I meet all kinds of people who are at churches who hold on to very strange values that are not coming from the Bible. And when you cite the Bible, you're immediately labeled as a hypocrite, a Pharisee, a religious bigot.

But nonetheless, you and I are called to anchor down and see everything through the lens of Scripture. Tonight is going to be a little bit lighter, easier, and more applicational so that we can learn how to do this effectively, long-term, and together with one another. And I wanted to end with this passage.

So as you guys now know, I worked in Korea for six years. And for the latter three years, we had kids. So you met them today. They're objectively cute, I think, objectively. And so it was very special when they were born. We were in our eighth year of marriage.

But because they were twins and because I traveled so much, I had to bring my wife in January of 2015, and she didn't come back to Korea until September. So for eight months, we were living on two different continents. And I did visit her a few times, and I was here.

I landed on the day they were born. So just the Lord timed it well, and I enjoyed that. But every summer since then, 2015, summer '16, '17, my heart was ripped apart every time I had to go to LAX. And it was just a very difficult, emotional, like, I am leaving my wife and my kids here, and I'm going back to Korea where I'm not going to see my kids two, three months.

But last summer, before we came here, oh, 2017 summer, the kids were about two and a half at that point. And I picked them up from the airport, and we brought them into the house. And they were familiar with the house because we had lived there before they left.

And as soon as my kids walked into the house, they were like, "Hee!" And then, you know, they were walking around. They're opening up all the cupboards. They were opening up the fridge. They were opening up everything, taking out all the toys. And I couldn't have been happier. Because for me that home was not complete until the kids came in, and they made a mess within that first hour and a half.

But having them make themselves at home made me so happy, and I did not care that they were causing a ruckus. I just enjoyed having them home, and I really enjoyed watching them open the fridge, close the fridge, open the fridge, close the fridge, open the fridge, close the fridge, open the fridge, close the fridge.

So they just did that at two and a half. And it really, for some reason, that just was so satisfying. Oh, they're here. They're home, and they know that this is their home. Now if I invited you guys to our house, and you were opening the fridge, closing the fridge, opening the cupboards, closing the cupboards, and you were just making yourself at home, I kind of would be uncomfortable.

Same thing is if I went to your house or apartment, and I just started looking through all your stuff, checking out what you got in the fridge, just looking in all the rooms, you would feel uncomfortable because I am not a resident there. I'm a guest. If you came to my house, I would expect you to ask before you started.

If you wanted something in the fridge, like, "Can I have a Coke?" Or like, "If we're having ice cream, can I get some for myself?" I'd be like, "Sure." I probably won't say no, but it's polite to ask. My kids, if they asked, I would think that's weird. So we live with my in-laws in a very big house.

I don't have to ask to see what we have to eat in the fridge. It's my home also. And my kids, they run around without any discomfort because it's their home also. So they have confidence in living in this house. And so for me, though my kids have to respect and honor me as their dad, they don't have to fear me in a terroristic way.

And if I saw that my kids were extra careful around me, I would feel bothered by it. I'm like, "Is there a distance?" I want them to claim me as their dad. So you know one of the things I love about Karis? She's a princess. I don't know if you noticed, she actually put on the princess clothes and she told my wife, "I wanna go downstairs and to show everybody." So she was like...

And she was begging for... She was fishing for your compliments. And some of you guys did not oblige, I saw. But one of the favorite things I love about my daughter is when she comes up to me and she goes, "Daddy, hold you." I don't know why she says it that way.

I'm like, "You want me to hold you?" So I think "hold you" became a pick me up. So when she runs in front of me, stands in my way, say, "Hold you," right? That's a demand. I love it. And my son loves books. Every morning, if I'm home, he takes out four or five books and says, "Read.

Daddy read the book." And I try to read a couple. I love it. Now if you guys were to run in front of me, "Buster, Peter, hold you." I'd be like, "No, thank you very much." If you were to ask me, "Read me a book," I would say, "Read it your stinking self." Even if my kids, they're starting to kind of pick out words, but even if they could read, I would still want to read to them.

When I was working in Korea, I have had the opportunity to work with just a good number of celebrities. And because I was a pastor and I was a pastor at Compassion, they treated me very well and then treated me with a lot of respect as a pastor. If one of them owned a restaurant, they invited me to come.

And so he and his wife, we had a little double date. He fed me all kinds of stuff. So whenever I was with our celebrities, I would feel uncomfortable a little bit because I felt like it's not royalty, but I feel like I'm sitting here in the presence of someone who is someone.

And it was uncomfortable for me. I visited the home of one of them and everything I touched, everything I looked at, I was like, like I was very careful. I didn't take out my phone to take any pictures. And I felt very uneasy. If I were to visit one of your homes, I wouldn't feel that way.

Not to say that you're not special. But humanly speaking, when you are in the home of someone who is someone, a degree of composure comes into you. Would you guys agree with that? The one -- but that celebrity, his daughter, I saw her run out and jump into his arms and inadvertently knee him in the groin.

And he was like, oh! And I was like -- and he was just laughing. Although inside he was probably in pain. But that was a familiarity that I did not have clearly because I was a guest and not family. When you and I approach God, we are in the presence of the someone of someone's.

Does this make sense? So when you're coming into the house of God, in your heart, if you are an outsider, you need to handle everything with reverence and care. But with the arrival of Christ, with the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, this is your house. And though the God who is your Father is a someone and is the someone of someone's, you can approach Him with complete confidence.

And you could say, hold you! Read me a book! And you could make demands out of that person because there is a love relationship. Your daddy is a king of kings and a lord of lords. He is God, yet he's your daddy. And that's a very strange thought to have.

Is it not? Every now and then I wonder what it would be like to be like Kobe Bryant's daughter or LeBron James' son. I was about to say Donald Trump, but no, thank you very much. Like who's a cool person? I don't know. Like do you ever wonder what it would feel like to be a famous person's child or a Bill Gates' son?

You would enjoy a relationship with that person that no one else would. And to you, even though you know that that person is a person of significance, it's dad or mom. Here in Hebrews 10, the author of Hebrews is actually describing this new relationship that we have, and it's very unique.

It's very strange. 19 to 22, "Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God." So the writer of Hebrews has just written about how the Levitical sacrifices could never do away with sin.

Human priests could never take away their sin. And we just finished the study of Leviticus before Colossians. Chapter 4 and 5 is all about sin offerings. There's grain burnt, peace offering, guilt offering, sin offering, and they were constantly having to slay these animals. And in Hebrews 10, verse 4, it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

And then it goes on, "And every priest has to stand there daily offering again and again and again and again these sacrifices." But verse 14, "But by one offering, Jesus has perfected." What's the word perfected mean? Literally, made perfect, perfect, "for all time those who are sanctified." All of this is done.

Verse 18, "Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin." So there is no sin legally standing between you and God now. You are a child and you can come and demand to be held. You have confidence in a way that no outsider could.

And that veil, when it was torn, basically it was a visible, symbolic reminder now that this division between God and man has now been broken. You are a child of God and you have every legal right to enjoy life of a prince. And let me paint you like a little picture of this.

I went into Korea, the airport, a lot. And I had a resident visa. And as an ethnic Korean, I could actually stand in the Korean line. And Koreans, everything's "palli palli," which means everything's hurried up. Korean airport is super efficient. How many of you guys have ever been to Incheon?

Do you guys understand how efficient it is? Super efficient. One time, I got off the plane and into a taxi in 19 minutes. And customs. And because I have this special visa, I didn't have to stand in the foreigner's line. And that helped because I was at that airport 20 times a year.

So, I could just walk into the line. I'm gone. I'm in. Okay? That was all set up. When I came to America, I actually had a thing which is called global entry. Which basically, all of my records are in the US system. So, if I ever come through a US port, I just scan my face and I'm good.

It used to help in LAX before they updated everything. Now everything's fast. So actually, the global entry is useless in LAX. But in Uganda, where I was not a citizen, I got stuck at the port. Because the person who was looking at my passport said, "Are you from China or Korea?" I said, "I'm from America." He's like, "No, you're not." And I was like, "I don't know what to tell you.

I don't know how to explain to you that I'm not from Korea or China." He said, "What are you? Japanese?" I said, "No." I said, "Look at my passport. What does it say?" He goes, "You're not an American." So, it took a few minutes before his supervisor came and said, "He is an American.

Just let him go. Otherwise, you couldn't have gotten a passport." So, it was a hassle. And everything at that trip in Uganda was a hassle. Because it was not a place for me. When you are in a right standing before just a legal -- what do you call that?

Like not judge. The country, the immigration. When you are in fine, proper standing, everything moves easily. There are no obstacles. But when you're an outsider, you have to go through all kinds of hoops and inconveniences. Before, to get to God, every person had to go through all kinds of trouble to feel like there is some peace between God and man.

But with Jesus, all of that was done. So, I don't know -- you're going to have to take time to mull over this. But you are a child of God. You are a delight to the heavenly Father as a child of God. And Jesus, your high priest, intercedes now on your behalf.

And when Jesus prays, when the Holy Spirit prays, you cannot go against it. And this Jesus is interceding for your well-being. He is praying on your behalf for you to be sanctified into His likeness. And nothing is going to stop that from happening. The Holy Spirit of God is praying for you.

Is that a biblical teaching? Yeah, He's praying for you with groans that words cannot express. So you have absolute confidence before God. But when you are engaged or entangled in some sin, it's not that God moved away. You just feel super bad and sometimes laden with guilt. And you kind of get entangled and you have a hard time focusing and worshiping.

Here it says, "Brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is His flesh. And we have a great high priest over the house of God. So all of these things are now the benefits that you have.

So let us." And there are three "let us's" that he describes. There are three broad "let us" statements with participles connected to it. The first one is, verse 22, "Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." "Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." When you examine yourselves to see whether you are of the faith and you realize indeed that Christ Jesus is in you, you can approach God fully assured of your faith and He will start washing away anything of a tainted conscience and He will present you as a glorious bride.

This section, Hebrews 10.22, is very similarly worded to Ephesians 5.26, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church," right? And washing her with pure water through the word. And we looked at this week in Colossians chapter 1, verse 22, to present you holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

You are already clean if you are a child of God. So it's just a matter of growing to appreciate it, growing to be free in it, and growing to enjoy and delight in this confidence that we have in approaching God. The second, "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." Does our faith and our walk with God depend on our efforts, our goodness, our spiritual gifts or does it depend on Christ's faithfulness?

Our walk with God does not depend on our effort. It depends all on Christ's faithfulness and that is how a true saint of God really can, without wavering, hold fast, even in times of difficulty. And those are things that I encourage you guys to kind of think through. Hey, I am a child of God and I'm not perfect by any means, but I can approach God with absolute just freedom and delight and knowing that I'm accepted, that he loves me just as I am.

But because of the spiritual DNA that's in me, he's changing me. So give me enough time, I'm going to look, feel, smell, and sound like Jesus. That's going to happen one day. It's absolutely going to happen one day because he is the one doing all this. And for me, it's not a matter of like, am I going to fall away or am I going to like become the next like spiritual giant?

What it is, is am I going to just really enjoy being a child of God? And I want to focus mostly on verse 25. Or verse 24 and 25. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to loving good deeds. Not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

And verse 24 and 25, you guys have probably heard before, right? Let us consider how to stimulate one another to loving good deeds. And there are participles attached to it. Okay, but I want to pause here. What does it mean to stimulate or stir up one another? How do I encourage you to love somebody?

How do I encourage you to do good works? First of all, it does not mean to compel or force. Stimulating someone to loving good deeds is not under compulsion or by force. So when you feel like you need to rebuke somebody in love, and some of you guys are more gifted than others in rebuking somebody in love.

Some of you guys are a lot more like, "Oh, I don't want to hurt that person." But regardless of your temperament, you were called to stimulate, incite people to loving good deeds. How do you do that? One way you don't do that is by forcing them to love, by forcing them, compelling them, or guilt tripping them to love.

You guys follow me? Let me say something about guilt. Have you ever been guilt tripped to do something? You may have. It may work. But how long does that last? It doesn't last long. And when that bitterness toward being guilt tripped over, when it kind of passes away, there's a cynicism that remains.

Guilt is never a way that we should, never a means by which we should compel some, or stimulate somebody toward loving good deeds. Guilt doesn't work. You cannot guilt trip them by saying, "Oh, look at all that Jesus did for you to cause them to be more gracious." You can't do that.

So it does not mean to compel or to force. The way you and I stimulate one another toward loving good deeds is that whenever we get together, we reflect on God's goodness in our lives, mull over the love of God, and strategize together how to respond appropriately. So don't ever guilt trip people into following Christ.

That's why I don't believe in the Turner Burn gospel message. Guilt is not something that God uses. He convicts. He points to sin, but he doesn't guilt trip and condemn people. That's a tool of the enemy. So here it says, "Let us consider how to stimulate one another to loving good deeds and not forsaking our own assembling together." Is the body of Christ important?

Yes it is. You know, last year, or two years ago, I was walking around my daughter's high chair, and I kicked with my pinky toe 25-pound weights that were sitting against the wall. So I was walking past my daughter, and bop, my pinky toe went straight into a 25-pound weight, and I heard like a crack.

So I just thought, you know, I've stubbed my toe many times, because along with chubby fingers, sausage hands, I also have chubby toes. So I was like, "Ow!" and then I couldn't walk for the next few days. And so I actually had to go to the hospital, get that checked out, and for a very painful week and a half, I was in a boot, and my little tiny pinky toe that was chubby was all I could think about.

Because all my attention and all my focus went there. When that little piece hurt, all of me hurt. And when God saves us into His family, He doesn't save us into individual islands or units. He saves us into one body. So when you are a child of God, the local church is absolutely important to your spiritual well-being.

And when you hurt, the body of Christ hurts. When you're happy, the body of Christ rejoices with you, and that is how God designed it. Have you guys ever heard of a pastor named Charles Spurgeon? So he, there's a story where he actually visited the home of his, one of his members who had stopped coming out to church for about a month and a half.

It was in the cold of winter. He knocks on the door and the man is shocked. He's like, "Oh, pastor, what are you doing here?" And so they sit by the fireplace and they're just kind of shooting the breeze, and at the very beginning of the conversation, Charles Spurgeon grabs one coal out of the fireplace and just puts it aside and just keeps engaging in a conversation with this guy.

And the guy thought, "Dude, this is a very weird thing that my pastor did, because, you know, people don't come into your house and take out the coal in the fire." So they were engaging in a conversation, and the man kept looking at the coal. And after about like 30 minutes, guess what happened to that piece of coal?

It went black, it went cold, but the rest of the fire was still burning. And then after about 30 minutes, the man looked at Charles Spurgeon, smiled, and said, "Pastor, I'll see you at church on Sunday." Your love and passion for God cannot be kindled outside of your involvement in the body of Christ.

And that is something that I want to just kind of reemphasize tonight. By yourself, you will drift. By yourself, you will drift. But the tricky thing about sin and kind of like straying and wandering from the faith is when you are in sin, you want to be by yourself.

So the more you sin, the more you start withdrawing. If you're doing something that everybody around you has told you is wrong, but you don't want to let that go, guess what's going to happen to you? You're going to start withdrawing from the people that actually care about you enough to tell you, "Look, I am speaking the truth in love here, brother.

I am speaking the truth in love here, sister." But you are going to withdraw. But when you unplug from the body of Christ, your love for Christ will grow cold and you are easy prey. And we talked about yesterday, or today and yesterday, the enemy is out for blood.

Right? He wants you dead. And the first step in doing that is to divide and conquer. He wants to split you away from the rest of the body so that you're left in isolation and that your passions grow cold. And that is something that you have to always be kind of mindful of.

The enemy wants me alone. The enemy wants me to be away from the body of Christ and he may plant thoughts in your head. "Oh, that church is unhealthy." Yeah when you go, you don't really need them. You're not going to be noticed if you don't go. And you're going to start nitpicking things about the church that is going to make you want to stray.

So you actually have to be resolved to love the Word of God, to study the Word of God passionately and to do it with brothers and sisters in Christ. Are you guys following me? By yourself, you will drift. If you feel like, "I need to withdraw because people are causing me to be stumbled." Or, "Yeah, I don't want people to know what I'm doing right now." If you have that impulse to withdraw, that may very well kill you.

And that's something you need to be aware of. Do your best to plug in to the local body, to meet as often as you can with your brothers and sisters in Christ. And I want to close going backward in Hebrews chapter 3. Hebrews chapter 3, verses 12 to 13 is what I'm going to read.

Hebrews chapter 3, verses 12 to 13. Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. Because apostasy is real and it's a real danger. Verse 13, "But encourage one another day after day as long as it is still called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." How often should you guys get together with your brothers and sisters in Christ?

As often as you can. And whenever you get together, one of the first things that is on your mind should be, how do we daily rekindle our passion for this living God? Our heavenly daddy with whom we have absolute confidence, the one who is on our side, the one whose love we can never be separated from if we indeed are children of God.

Verse 13 says, "But encourage one another day after day as long as it is called today," because the day is approaching, "so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." This isn't that complicated. I need you. You need me. We need each other. You need the people sitting around you.

I am committed to rejoice when you are rejoicing. I am committed to mourn with you when you go through times of mourning. I am committed to speak the truth in love, in rebuke, and encouragement. And you need to do the same for me and for the people around you because by ourselves we are weak.

So when you are tempted to withdraw from the body of Christ, be very careful. Drifting may already have started in your heart. The more you feel like you're wrestling with sin, the more you need to cling to the people around you. That will prevent you from sin. Unless you're clinging to people who are indulgence and then it's just chaos.

You and I always, we need to commit to growing in the Word of God and growing hand in hand with other people in the Word of God. And that is how God set it up. You know, recently this week, do you know our church is a part of a denomination?

Anybody know what that is? Our church is Southern Baptist. And recently there was an article, I forget who published it, but about 700 something pastors in the Southern Baptist denomination, it's one of the largest ones in the world, so about 700 local church pastors have been publicly accused, called out, even sued for sexual impropriety.

Did anybody see that article? Yeah, it's actually kind of a big thing. And then the Gospel Coalition started talking about it. And so it's actually on, it's kind of being passed around on the internet. Southern Baptist pastors, 700 something people, it's kind of like the Christian version of now the Me Too movement.

All these people are coming out speaking against the pastors in their churches. So one brother who I meet up with regularly actually asked me, he said, "Pastor Peter, does Berean have some kind of protocol?" So let's say if one of our sisters at our church is harassed or mistreated or like sexually abused in some sense, like where they can turn to?

Is there some kind of protocol on your job description on how to handle the women at our church? And I actually kind of thought through that. I said, "You know, there isn't. There isn't anything on paper. I didn't receive any HR training on like just impropriety and stuff when I came to this church or when I came back to the church." But I said, "You know, brother, we don't have that.

But we have so many things set up just naturally that I don't think there necessarily might be a need for some kind of on paper standards to be written." Okay, so pay attention, especially for you sisters, on what I told this brother. First of all, the four of us pastors, we see our schedules together every week.

We pass out, we, everybody, all of our pastors know who's meeting with who, male or female, where they're preaching, everything we just share naturally. And we're pretty much committed to being at church, unless we're doing some kind of ministry, every day from at least nine to five. And because we do have a lot of sisters at our church, if we actually do have to counsel or talk to one, this has never been shared, but we always leave the door open so that people, if there's a sister in the room, someone understands that, "Oh, there's a conversation going on and it's not private." But if it really is a very private conversation and very, like, just painful details need to be shared, we close the door, but we open the blinds.

And if at all possible, every conversation that we have, we try to keep it at the cafe tables. We know what we're all doing together. And Pastor Peter, Pastor Mark, myself, and Pastor Nate, we pray together at some point almost every day. We talk about church almost every day.

We talk about you guys almost every day. We go after in prayer all the people that we need to shepherd together. And because we're always together, I feel like it's kind of tough to even be tempted to do anything to stray. My biggest prevention, the biggest preventer of any impropriety is my brothers in Christ who share that floor with me every day.

The source of the most humbling rebuke, challenge, and stimulation to love and good deeds comes from those men. And I tell people, like, they're like, "Oh, are you adjusting okay to America?" I'm like, "This is the happiest I've been in 10 years." And I'll say that to you. This is the happiest I've been in 10 years.

Do you know why? I come every day to work, to just spend time doing kingdom work with brothers that love the Lord, that love His Word, and that love me. There's nothing better. That prevents so much. And yeah, we play ping pong. And the funny thing is every time we play ping pong, church people come in, and they think that's all we're doing.

Just as a reference, we play ping pong Tuesday afternoons really only, okay, the four of us. And if like Ryan or whoever is there, then they challenge us, and then we have to, you know, like, we have to actually like step up, and we got to play. But that's for ministry, not for pleasure.

But when you have like-minded people who love God, love His Word, love each other, silly stuff like ping pong really becomes fellowship. Just goofing around, playing a board game becomes family time. The best way to keep from drifting is to stick yourself with people who are not drifting. To latch on to people who are spiritually heavy.

Spiritually light people, right? But a really spiritually fat person, you just cling on. That person's not going to move. But imagine a church like ours, a BAM group of 250 people, every member in this 250, with all our imperfections, with all our insecurities, with all our quirks and weird habits, if all of us commit to loving God, loving His Word, loving our neighbor, there aren't going to be many scandals in this place.

There aren't going to be people who are drifting out from this place. There aren't going to be random, silly things that divide the church in this place, if we're all committed to loving God by knowing His Word and applying His Word by loving each other and stimulating each other to love and good deeds.

You cannot nag someone to Christlikeness. Some of you guys have been nagged, I know. Because some of you guys complain that somebody, you know that person spiritually nagged me or something. And that really was done out of love, probably. But as we grow in Christlikeness, we move other people to grow in Christlikeness without even saying a word.

"Man, I want to be like that guy. Man, I want to love the Lord like that guy. Man, that sister really prays hard. Maybe I should just pray with her. Man, that family's going to overseas missions work. Maybe I should pray to do that. That guy every weekend goes to visit an orphanage or goes to visit a homeless shelter.

Man, I couldn't do that, but maybe I should start trying." The more you thrive in your relationship with God, you will start seeing others around you thrive. It's not complicated. But if your get-togethers are always just about goofing around and having fun without Christ involved, there's nothing necessarily in and of itself wrong, but you may drift together.

And I've seen that in our group too, where people hang out and just do silly stuff all the time. Not necessarily sinful, but you kind of get cold together. But imagine if you are on fire for the Lord, and you're like, "Dude, let me share with you what the Lord is teaching me," and you grab onto a brother and sister, and you share with them all that's being done in your life.

You don't think that person's going to be challenged and encouraged and inspired? But what if we all did it together? I guarantee you no one's going to be drifted. No one's going to be straying away, because we're always being recharged and being sharpened together. So I don't know if necessarily our pastors, we need to have some kind of rules down on paper about any kind of impropriety.

A lot of our job description, it doesn't work, because all four pastors are doing more than the job description requires. You know, we are our worst enemy, because we keep creating more work. You know, you have four workaholic pastors who create more and more and more work. People are doing Bible studies and discipleships all the time.

We're already juggling full plates, but someone goes, "Can you meet with me?" "Okay," and we go there. We're not the best at administration, because we're all too busy doing ministry. That's why communication sometimes is slow. But when – you know why I do that? It's not just because I'm extra motivated, but because these brothers around me are doing it, and I want to carry my load to building this church with these men.

But see, the pastors don't necessarily make the church. Christ builds His church. And it can't just be the pastors who honor the Word of God. It has to be the entire body. I don't want you guys to think so much about drifting. Focus more on growing together, and drifting won't be an issue.

Amen? I'm going to read Hebrews 3, 12 to 13 again. Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Anchor deep and help others anchor deep. If you can remember that from this retreat, this was a good retreat, even though we didn't go to the mountains, even though we didn't see no snow or throw shaved ice at each other. Anchor deep into His Word and stimulate others to do the same.

As the BAM young adult pastor, I'm committing to do that. And doing my best to try not to go anywhere near sin, focusing all of my waking hours to His Word and to prayer, so that I can establish a strong anchor, so that you can anchor with me and not drift.

Because in Orange County, the worries of this life, riches, deceitfulness of wealth, pleasures are trying to kill you, kill all the fruit that you could potentially bear. And I see it and I hate it. And my commitment is to fight with and for you. But you need to do the same for each other.

And you need to do the same for the pastors and the church leaders. You know who gets shot at first in war? The people in the front. And as the Berean leadership stands in the front, trying to lead this charge of together building the kingdom of God and doing our role as this local body of Christ, we are the first ones to get attacked by all kinds of stuff.

Distraction, temptation, discouragement, fatigue. We've got your back and you've got to get ours. This cannot be a pastor-centric church. It has to be a God-centered, word-intensive church in order for us to bear fruit that will give God honor and glory. You guys understand the procession, like the progression of my thoughts here?

We fight for His glory together. And as the enemy is constantly wanting us to fall apart, we have to be resolved to anchor deep, hunker down, and fight for one another. To rejoice with one another, weep with one another, pray with one another, read with one another, memorize with one another, study with one another.

And fruit will be born. Our call is not to bear fruit. He does that. Our call is just to be faithful and to love. My hope is that we learn how to do that properly and we learn how to do that together. Amen? Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for teaching us tonight about the great freedom we have in Christ.

And I pray that you would help us to remember not to use our liberty as a license to sin, but to use our liberty and freedom to release other people from their bondage to sin in the name of Jesus Christ. Help us to cherish the body of Christ. Help us to build up your church and to passionately carry our load, do our part to building up your kingdom.

Help us to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Help us to encourage one another and really at all times to point one another to the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you, Father, for just this reminder this weekend that Christ is central and that Christ is enough. Help us to remember.

We pray all these things in Jesus' name.