The Tenth Anniversary Of Thrive

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. We are celebrating 10 years. I think, I can't believe it's 10 years. Feels more like five really compact years. It's been great. You've been great. God has been so good. And what we're going to celebrate today, as you can see, I love it. What James has said from the beginning, what we saw in this video, it's really not about us. It's about the faithfulness of our God and how good he has been. And whether you were part of that original group that was here, or whether you are here now, you are home. This is your family. This is who we're going to be, and who we are, and who we plan on being. But today, we're going to also celebrate after-service. We've got a 10th anniversary cake. We'd love for you to stay for a little bit. Let us know what we can do. And pray also, just this fall, both with the campus ministry, with our outreach as a church, with everything that God is doing, that we are really in the center of God's will. So today, we do celebrate 10 years. And I was thinking, what passage, where should we go in all of the Bible? Because this is kind of a standalone service. And the best passage I thought we should be looking at is from the book of Acts and the early church. Because we're trying to be like that, even in the 21st century. So today, we're going to be looking at Acts chapter 2. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were gathered together, or were together, and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings, and distributing the proceeds to all as many had need. And day by day, attending the temple together, and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God, and having favor with all people. And the Lord added to their number, day by day, those who were being saved. What a better passage. Now, there's a lot behind it, and a lot in front of it as well. But that's where we're at. So, you know, 10 years ago, we started public worship. Actually, 10 years ago yesterday, on August 24th, 2014, we started worship. And yes, Wyatt was in the audio tech, in the back, and we set up, and we celebrated that day. That really wasn't the start of Thrive. It started a year and a half before, when I received the call, and we started meeting, and I had those two-hour meetings with people, rather than 30 minutes. They kept talking though. I'm the talker, I know. But yeah, and so that all started, but that wasn't even the start of Thrive. Roy McTarnaghan, who was the founding president of FGCU, and his wife, moved down here and started the university on the bequest of the entire university system. He was the chancellor of the university system, and he thought it was a promotion, not a demotion, to become the first president. Come down here, took a helicopter to look over the land, designed the whole place, came up with the colors, the mascots, the whole idea of service learning, etc. And he turned and turned to our church body and said, buy acreage next to the university, because I want campus ministries connected to this university. Okay, that was 27 years ago, and that wasn't really the start of Thrive either. If you really want to talk about what we're celebrating today, is the fact that this has been in the heart of God for a long time, because his church has been in the heart of God, and even Acts chapter 2 is really not the start of Thrive. Okay, we might call Pentecost the birth of the church, and we celebrate that every year in the spring after Easter, 40 days afterwards. And yet, what's really going on, 50 days afterwards, but what really, you have to go all the way back to, yes, Genesis 1 in the beginning, and God set up what he intended for the entire world's experience and humanity, who he made in his image and said, I want an intimate, deep fellowship with you. And from day one, when he breathed into Adam, the breath of life, when he brought Adam and Eve together, and he started to walk with them in the garden, that shows God's intent for what he really wants, both here and throughout the world. Isn't that amazing? Because I think we should just be flabbergasted that the God who created the Andromeda galaxy, the billions of stars, the jillions of matter and space that keeps expanding, and we don't even have a comprehension over it, we cannot understand even the mystery of the atom, actually, or the subatomic particles. We can't get as deep as that, nor as expansive as the entire of all creation, and God is greater than that all. And we can't understand, do you realize, I think if you take all the blood vessels in your body down to the capillaries and put them end-to-end, it would, just y...