Be The Church

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. It's time to stop going to church and it's time to be the church, and we're going to talk about that today. We're going to be reading from 1 Peter 2, verses 4-5 and then 9-10. As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who calls you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. So, a couple of years ago, I'm going to keep this extremely generic so you can never figure, you wouldn't figure out who I'm talking about anyways, okay? But, it's a real story, okay? It is. A couple of years ago, see? Generic time. I got a call from a Christian school here in Southwest Florida, generic area. And they called me up because they said, hey, we've got someone who's applying for a job here at our school, and he says that he's a member of Thrive Community Church. And I said, who? Who? Who are you saying? And they said the name again, and I said, who? Hmm, well, could have been a college student in our campus ministry. I don't know all the campus ministry students. So, I called up the guy before Hunter at the time, and asked Phil, and said, hey, Phil, so-and-so said he's a member of our church, and he goes, who? And I said, you know, and so I told the school, well, they may have come and visited us a few times. They have come to church, probably. We tend to know most people, it's not huge, you know? But a lot of people, but I'll tell you, the person may have attended church, the person may have identified as, this is my church, Thrive Community Church, but they weren't the church. But they weren't the church. Do you understand the difference? They went to church, but they weren't the church. And I think there's a lot of people that do that. For a lot of people, church is this institutional thing, and I understand I've been to the institutional church. I'm a product of the institutional church, and it feels like it sometimes. And it's okay. They think, yeah, you have to put up with it, and it's okay, but they almost feel like they would do better without it. And it's really about my personal relationship with God. Have you heard people talk about this? And if the church helps that, great. But when it doesn't, so be it. It's kind of like, I go to the movies, you know, once in a while, and I go to the movies when there's a good one to go and it's worth my time. Or I'm a football fan. I identify with the Florida Gators. The last time I've been to a game was about, oh, eight years ago. But I've been, and that's my team, and I'll watch them when they're winning. Lately, not so much. But that's kind of the way I look at it, and a lot of people, I think, kind of tend to go to church like they go to the movies or they go to a sporting event. You kind of get the drift of what I'm saying here. Don't go to church. Peter's letter that we just read is so counter to our American culture of individualism and independence and consumption and hyper, you know, self-improvement, it's all about me, that we sometimes read over these words and don't realize what he's all saying. So we're going to be looking at this in 1 Peter 2 under three points today of what the church really is and why be the church rather than go to church. And that is, first of all, it's personal and corporate. And we're going to look at that first. Then secondly, it's public, not private. And thirdly, it's divine and human. So those are our three points. You see, God's highest calling for you is not that you would attend a building or a destination point for an hour or so a week and then plug out. God's highest calling for you is to be incorporated into the family of God in such a way that you are being made into the image of his son, Jesus Christ, himself, as the church. That you don't go to church, but you become the church with others in such a way that we become a witness to the world of what real community, what real friendship, what real family is really like. Okay? So you have to understand it's personal and it's corporate. That's our first point, what we're talking about. Now, this is interesting. If you read this, and you can get these notes, by the way, on the You version of the app under events. You can find the notes for this whole sermon. You can look up. They're on today, right? Okay, good. I only messed up on Easter. Just one time. Okay. So you can look for these notes and they'll have this passage. If you look at 1 Peter 2, you might not real...