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"Here as in Heaven."
For more information visit : garden.church
You're listening to the Garden Church podcast. We're in a series called church on fire, a journey through the book of acts. This is a story of ordinary people filled with the spirit, carrying the presence of Jesus into every corner of the world. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is alive and in us today. Join us as we step into the call to be people set on fire for his mission.
Darren Rouanzoin:Today, we we're gonna talk about a verse in the Bible that frames the entire book of Acts. So if you have your Bible, will you hold it up real quick? Pull it up. Show me. If you hold your phone, you're in the wrong house.
Darren Rouanzoin:1111. Keep on up. Keep on Let's go. Alright. Because I gotta tell you, yes.
Darren Rouanzoin:Look at eleven. You win again. Look around. Look around. Look at this.
Darren Rouanzoin:When we started doing this, it was like this section of five and then it was all phones. And now the phones go up and you all get shamed big time. I heard from a person in our church whose parents started coming that they bought a bible because of what I shared last week. Because they're like, yeah, I do go on my emails and check Instagram and look on Amazon Prime when I'm doing my devotion and I was, exactly. Here we go.
Darren Rouanzoin:So Acts chapter one verse eight. We're gonna talk about it the next two weeks. This week, we're gonna talk about what it means to be witnesses. Just hold on to it because I'm gonna reframe the definition because I think that word witness needs some new p r and that new p r is you. So we're gonna go for it.
Darren Rouanzoin:But also next week, we're gonna talk about how do you grow in the power of the holy spirit. Yeah. And I wanna give you some things I've learned over the years. And then we're gonna talk about the the next section of chapter one and then we'll get to Pentecostal. Spend We'll a couple of weeks on the Holy Spirit.
Darren Rouanzoin:I think I'm just gonna take my time, give us some theology of the Holy Spirit, talk through gifts, all those things, talk about tongues. Because it's We're just so unaware in the church today and there's so much controversy. I wanna give you biblical teaching on that. Is that alright? I'm glad you agree because I'll do it either way.
Darren Rouanzoin:So there's a famous rabbinic or a a scholar who is one of the most respected scholars of studying rabbinic teaching in Judaism And he says, the final words of a master or a rabbi are to be remembered above all others for they reveal the essence of his way. Now, if you were a rabbi, your disciples treasured every word you spoke when you were alive but your final words were the most unique. They were carried more weight. They weren't random. They weren't wasted.
Darren Rouanzoin:They were meant to sum up your whole life in teaching which was supposed to be carried on by your disciples. And so, when you get When you look at the Jewish tradition, Moses' last words to Israel is the book of Deuteronomy. And you can read his last kind of commands in the book of Deuteronomy. Joshua's farewell statements to Israel. He says, choose this day whom you will serve but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
Darren Rouanzoin:Last words of Joshua which by the way, if you study the old testament, he's the only leader that begins well and ends well. If you Anyone read the old testament here? It's so disappointing. Which I just wanna say is a great argument for the validity of the bible because it's the only ancient source that's self critical. It's historical and self critical.
Darren Rouanzoin:It says, we got it wrong. Solomon had 666 talents given to him as his his salary. $6.06 6 in the Jewish mindset is man and failure. It's just all this symbolism of how they got it wrong. But the anyways, getting that was a freebie.
Darren Rouanzoin:But getting back to the If you if you wanna learn more about that, listen to our Revelation series. Here we go. In the Jewish tradition, the last words of a leader or a rabbi were seen as as kind of a distillation of their mission. As a testimony. So we get to Acts chapter one verse eight and we have the rabbi of rabbis, the son of God, Jesus in his final moments with his disciples before he ascends into heaven.
Darren Rouanzoin:Which by the way, I have always read the ascension as, alright, he's gone. He's leaving us now. But the way it's framed in the gospel by by the author Luke in in Acts is he's not leaving us. He's taking the the the seat of authority. He's stepping into the cosmos, to the space where he now has dominion and reign.
Darren Rouanzoin:Where his authority is exercised. It's the control center if you will of creation. You with me? And then he says this line. And it's his last words.
Darren Rouanzoin:He doesn't give a timeline. He doesn't give a political program. He just says, verse eight, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So in this text, we have not only the last words of Jesus according to gospel or according to Luke but we have, kind of the framework and blueprint for the church. What we have is the rest of the book of Acts will be organized from this verse.
Darren Rouanzoin:It will reveal to you the progress of the gospel through ordinary men and women filled with the holy spirit, given power to now go and be witnesses to Jerusalem, the places you're familiar with. Judea and Samaria, the places you would never want the gospel to go because you don't like them. They not like us. Now, woke up. And to the ends of the earth, the mysterious places of the unknown.
Darren Rouanzoin:Because that's where you as a follower are destined. Now, this framework, I'm gonna get back to what it means to be a witness. But Matthew shares it this way. I just wanna read it so you can see the theme. Matthew 28.
Darren Rouanzoin:Go ahead and turn in your Bibles, Matthew 28. It says this, verse 18. It's called the great commission. Then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Now that Greek word for all means all.
Darren Rouanzoin:Just just want you to think about that for a moment. Not some authority. Not a little bit. Not a little of heaven, little of earth. No.
Darren Rouanzoin:No. No. All authority. All the ability to govern God's dream and desire and will has been given to me. The right to exercise my rule.
Darren Rouanzoin:Therefore, it's not, hey, you have the right practices. Hey, you figured it out on your own. Hey, you read the right book. You got the right podcast. No.
Darren Rouanzoin:The authority of heaven is mine. Therefore How we doing church? Yeah. Therefore, make Christianity comfortable. Yeah.
Darren Rouanzoin:Therefore, go and consume lattes and have bible studies with your friends. Yeah. Call a church. Therefore, take your own processed wounds, start a podcast, and make a deconstructed version of Jesus. That was all free.
Darren Rouanzoin:That was for you. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations. Not disciples of you, but of Jesus. Immersing them, baptizing them in the name of the father, son, holy spirit. Not in the name of a brand.
Darren Rouanzoin:Not in the name of our church website with our logo. In the name of the father and of the son of the spirit. We have through a trinitarian perspective from the beginning. Teaching them to obey some of my stuff. You see, I'm already correcting all of our bad theology.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right? Like, teaching them to obey the parts of the scripture that really align with my values. Teaching them to obey the sections of the of the scripture of Jesus' teaching that are inclusive, not the exclusive part. Just get quiet. Teaching them to obey what?
Darren Rouanzoin:Everything. That that I have commanded you and surely I'm with you always to the very ends of the age. So, is These are the last words of Jesus from two different texts. I just wanna say, it's the essence of the Jesus way. It's the heart of his teaching.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's the verse that frames the entire book of Acts. It's the blueprint for the church. It's the heartbeat of our identity as a disciple. It frames the mission of God. The mission of God.
Darren Rouanzoin:Say mission of God. Mission of God. So, witness has something to do with the mission of God. Now, I love what one of the scholars who's written extensively on the mission of God. His name's Wright.
Darren Rouanzoin:He has a book. It's about this thick. I'm not exaggerating with eight font. Eight point font. And he says this, I may wonder what kind of mission God has for me.
Darren Rouanzoin:When I ask When I should ask what kind of me God wants for his mission. I wanna just correct some theology. We're gonna talk about witness. Now, stay with me on witness. But I need to talk about the mission of God because the mission of God is the entirety of scripture.
Darren Rouanzoin:And the problem with the mission of God, the I idea of mission is consumer Christianity which if you grew up in the church you've been immersed in, ask this question. Where does God fit into my story? But the bible or a disciple of Jesus asked the question, where does my story fit into God's mission? See, the mission of God is the entirety of It's the entirety of scripture. It begins in Genesis one and two.
Darren Rouanzoin:God creates humanity. Now, there's a mission God gives humanity. He he commissions. He mandates. He imprints his image because we're made in his image.
Darren Rouanzoin:And his design and his rule on all humans. He designed humanity to live out of their image bear The the image bearing witness that they are to cultivate environments in partnership with him for the rest of creation to flourish. You were designed as a human. This isn't a Christian mandate. This is a humanity getting back to the origin story.
Darren Rouanzoin:You are not a product of randomness and chance when atoms collided millions of years ago or billions of years ago and you just happen to grow an eye from a freckle as Darwin wants to argue. It's in in it's in his book. The sunspot became the eye. That's evolutionary theory. You were made by a loving being, father, son, holy spirit and he destined you to to carry his essence into the world.
Darren Rouanzoin:To reflect. To take a mirror in right loving relationship with God, to bring that to the rest of creation. So wherever you go, as you create environments in your business, as you create environments as a student, as you steward your kids in the little years, you are reflecting the destiny for you to be an image bearer of Jesus. You're right. So your mission is to reflect God into the world.
Darren Rouanzoin:Now, that got distorted because of sin and rebellion. We chose to go our own way and the only way this works is if we're in relationship with the loving God. We're not in a relationship with this energy. Right? Or or the gods that are all the same.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's No. Our god has a name. His name is Jesus. And it's different from all the other gods. Those are all false gods.
Darren Rouanzoin:And somehow, we wanna loop them together. We wanna put them together and be like, oh, all roads lead to Jesus. No. One road leads us to the father and that is Jesus. I'll get back to that in a second when we talk about witchcraft again at 11:00.
Darren Rouanzoin:But then God chooses Abraham. So this part part of his loving mission to restore humanity to what was lost in Genesis three is he chooses a people and they are a missionary people from the beginning. Abraham, you will be blessed to be a blessing to the nations. And then through Israel, he calls them out of Egypt, frees them, and at Mount Sinai, he makes a covenant. He says, you will be a holy nation, a treasure possession, a kingdom of priests.
Darren Rouanzoin:Why? To reflect me wherever you go. So Israel was to live in a way where they become a light to the gentiles. A light to the nations. That was their vocation.
Darren Rouanzoin:It was something formed in Genesis one and two that was embodied vocationally in Israel. Right? But what happens? Do they do it? No.
Darren Rouanzoin:They fail. And so, comes and what does Jesus do? He fulfills the mission of God. Through his life, he casts out demons, heals the sick, he includes the gentiles, he includes the outsiders, he dies on the cross. Not just to atone for your sin, although he does, but to save you from slavery to Satan and defeat death once and for all.
Darren Rouanzoin:Come on church. And then he says, all authority Yeah. Yeah. After he does that has been given to me. Yes.
Darren Rouanzoin:And then he gives it to you. I mean, think about this. This is not okay. Say a prayer and sign up for a meeting. This is say a prayer and give your life away to the nations.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's the call of the church. Yes. And that's the vocation. Now, the church takes on the mission of God. Which if I were to summarize it, it's to continue that Jesus' mission by the power of the holy spirit proclaiming and embodying the kingdom of God.
Darren Rouanzoin:Making disciples of all nations, blessing the world, and pointing all creation towards its ultimate renewal in Christ. Why do I give you a theology of mission right now? Here's why. This isn't about sprinkling Jesus onto our goals. Yes.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's about surrendering our lives to the raging river of his purposes. The great commission acts one verse eight is not a side hustle. It's the defining vocation for every follower of Jesus. Can I get a witness? Yes.
Darren Rouanzoin:So what does it mean then? Amen. To witness. What does it mean to witness? Because here's what it means to me.
Darren Rouanzoin:Growing up, I left the church, came back, I went back to a Calvary Chapel. God bless Calvary Chapel. Many of us are here because of Calvary and SoCal. Praise the Lord. But I was taught witness meant buying from this one church, buying Ray Comfort tracks that had, you know, a million dollar bill that you put it in and you give it as a tip to your barista or waiter and say million dollar question.
Darren Rouanzoin:They don't get a tip. Here's the tip. Are you going to heaven or hell? I'm witnessing. I got my NASB bible down at Huntington Beach Pier and I would try to win people over to Lord.
Darren Rouanzoin:And this is what I thought it meant. This is what I thought witness meant. I studied and I love this. You'll You're like, this is so you, Darren. I get you now.
Darren Rouanzoin:You're such a nerd. I studied Christian apologetics resource ministries, karm.org. Alright? Back before YouTube and TikTok evangelist would teach you, back before chat j p t, I would go online and memorize and print out on paper the apologetics questions and arguments for Jehovah's Witnesses, for Mormons, for New Age spirituality, for all the cults out there trying to win people to Jesus. Right?
Darren Rouanzoin:That was my heart. I wanted them And I thought that's what witness was. Now, here here's the truth. It is part of witness. But when you understand what Jesus is getting off at, it's far more beautiful than just standing on the corner yelling at people.
Darren Rouanzoin:Witness the word in Greek is this word, martyrs and it's where we get the word martyr. So Jesus wants to give you power from the Holy Spirit so that you become the kind of person that lays down their life. That you become the kind of person that is a witness, that is testifies. Here's here's another translation. A witness testifies or it's someone who affirms truth.
Darren Rouanzoin:One who lives in such fidelity to Jesus that their very life and if necessary, their death point to Jesus. I would like to say a witness is someone whose life points to Jesus. If you were called as a witness in a courtroom and they show up, a witness is someone who's bringing evidence for a case And they're gonna be cross examined about the testimony they bring. And what Jesus wants you to become in the power of the holy spirit is someone whose everyday, ordinary life, not just standing on the street corners yelling, but your everyday ordinary life. You're coming and going.
Darren Rouanzoin:You're eating. You're sleeping. Your friendships. Your relationships. Your dating.
Darren Rouanzoin:Your marriage. Your parenting. Your work life. Your school life. All of that becomes a testimony.
Darren Rouanzoin:A case study for his resurrection. You become the kind of person that your just existence when it walks into the room. People are like, gosh, there must be a God. But it's not just witness as in you. When Jesus speaks, it's plural.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's the local church's witness. So let me just rephrase. I'm gonna give you a couple more definitions. Witness is not primarily about arguing someone into faith but embodying the reality of the risen Christ in public. Now, it is communication but it's also demonstration.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right? So it is proclamation and demonstration. A witness is a living demonstration. Sorry. Go back to the last one.
Darren Rouanzoin:My bad. I went too fast. That Jesus is alive. Witness is both verbal and visible. It's proclamation and practice.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's not just preaching sermons or testifying publicly. It's living lives that match the message. And we, us, are called to do this together. Therefore, the local church is witness. So, your behavior, your practice, your decisions, the way you talk reflect our corporate witness.
Darren Rouanzoin:Which is why I constantly have to apologize for y'all. I mean, right? Like we live in a world why aren't like Gandhi said I'd be a Christian if it weren't for Christians. Isn't that interesting the testimony that we're called to give is how we live. But what the world hears is how we judge.
Darren Rouanzoin:How we speak against. Not what we live for but what we come against. And the local church is designed to be witness. It's designed to be a trailer of what's coming. Back in the day, youth, some of our youth are here, they didn't have YouTube.
Darren Rouanzoin:And I can't imagine. And Apple used to have trailers on the Apple website. Do you guys remember that? Anyone? Like, previews of movies coming?
Darren Rouanzoin:Am I that old? I'm 41. Come on. Who did it? Okay.
Darren Rouanzoin:Does anybody like trailers? How about I'll start. Anyone like movies? Wait. Raise your hand.
Darren Rouanzoin:Who likes movies? Raise your hand. Who likes trailers to movies? Yeah. What time does this movie start?
Darren Rouanzoin:At the time or twenty minutes after? Just curious. On time. Correct? On time.
Darren Rouanzoin:This is not this is not a debate. It starts on time. Twenty minutes. That's part of the entertainment. The trailers are part of the experience.
Darren Rouanzoin:My wife is raising kids that think it starts late. I'm like, no babe, that counts. We get there early. We don't go to the restroom during the previews. We watch the previews.
Darren Rouanzoin:I don't know what's wrong with you. I don't know what kind of pagan household you grew up in. We we will serve the Lord. The local church is a preview of what's coming for God's kingdom. We're an outpost that announces and displays that Jesus is Lord and heaven is invading earth now.
Darren Rouanzoin:By what? By what we say? Yes. By how we live. By how we engage.
Darren Rouanzoin:By how we we share our resources. By our generosity. By our kindness. By our patience. By our gentleness.
Darren Rouanzoin:By our self control. By the way we use and engage technology. By how we post what we post. We're in the tone. We speak to one another.
Darren Rouanzoin:That is how Christ oozes out of you, which is a Greek word, oozia by the way. It's essence. It's in Philippians chapter two but that's a whole other theology that just came out, you're free. Thank you, Vanguard University. That's where I learned it.
Darren Rouanzoin:Professor Rebartek, love you. All rights reserved. There you go. I'm gonna I'm gonna skip some stuff. This is our destiny.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right? To live in a way that reflects Jesus. This is witness. And then Jesus says, hey, you're gonna be my witnesses. So your your life in the power of the holy spirit which we'll talk about next week is going to is going to point to the reality of my resurrection.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's what's gonna happen. And, you will be my witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So, Jerusalem would be your hometown, the familiar places, the places you always go. The shocking word that's included in his statement is the word not ends of the earth but Samaria. That's right.
Darren Rouanzoin:In context of first century Judaism, the Jews hated the Samaritans. They were religious heretics. They were ethnically half breeds. There was a racial tension, ethnic tension. They hated those people.
Darren Rouanzoin:And Jesus makes it clear, the gospel will go where you don't want it to go. The gospel will include to the people you don't want to include. So don't think twice about it. It's gonna push past the familiar and the safe and it will push push past your natural training because the gospel of Jesus is border breaking, barrier smashing, culture crossing. It doesn't stay in your little comfort zone.
Darren Rouanzoin:The gospel spreads and it does. It spread to every culture. It's the most powerful thing. Why? Because it's the creator of the universe.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's his story for humanity being redeemed. So, I can talk about first century context and how this spread and we will as we go about the book of Acts. But, I wanna speak to our culture. I just wanna give you a kind of ways of seeing our current culture right now. Southern California has a culture.
Darren Rouanzoin:Would you agree? Yes. A very strong culture. And I would say culture are not just our values, our habits, our longings, our our words, our vision, our dreams embodied in a people. It's also It's an ecosystem we live in.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right? So, there's It's a formation machine, you could say. We are formed in the space we live in Southern California. Now, it's hard to name this without including like the digital world that's forming us as well because we're all formed by algorithms and our streaming platforms and entertainment and and all that stuff. But I wanna name eight things that are unique to Southern California culture, primarily western culture.
Darren Rouanzoin:Number one. Here we go. You ready? Okay. Number one is we're we're influenced by radical individualism.
Darren Rouanzoin:Carl Truman in his book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, he said, he calls it expressive individualism. We live with a world view that's this, I am who I feel myself to be inside. So people define themselves by feelings and personal choice rather than tradition or faith or community. So self expression is the highest good and anything that challenges that feels oppressive. Number two is a therapeutic world view.
Darren Rouanzoin:We I love therapy. I think therapy is a good thing. But what's happened is we We've seen the purpose of life is seen as a psychological well-being and self fulfillment. So what God is reduced to He's reduced to being a life coach who validates my dreams and my desires. So if the church or scripture doesn't affirm someone's sense of self, it's just thrown away.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right? And I see it all the time. This is what we do. It's what Thomas Jefferson did with the bible. He had a humanistic world view so miracles didn't exist.
Darren Rouanzoin:So, he just literally cut out all the miracle stories in the bible and then taped it back together and had his Thomas Thomas Jefferson bible. You do the same thing. Oh, I love what God says about rest but I'm not gonna let him touch my money. Gen z, young millennials, like, love that we don't wanna burn out but we don't burn for Jesus at all. Jesus talks about money more than anything else other than the kingdom of God and he uses money as an illustration for the kingdom of God and yet we get offended when pastors talk about money.
Darren Rouanzoin:You don't realize what Jesus is after. Right? So we dissect And that has to do with your therapeutic world view. The third is we have just a general distrust of institutions. Right?
Darren Rouanzoin:So, we don't trust government no matter who's in office. We don't trust the media and we especially don't trust the church. And we don't trust any institution because they're all We're all looking at all institutions with suspicion. So, in Southern California, what we have are spiritual people who aren't religious and they want transcendent experiences but they resist any kind of commitment to organizational structures. Right?
Darren Rouanzoin:That's why we click maybe on everything. Are you coming? Yes? No? Maybe.
Darren Rouanzoin:Maybe. That's We've been shaped by this fomo character but this distrust and I see it all the time. What I see is we reduce Jesus to one verse. We reduce Jesus to one. He's rabbi only.
Darren Rouanzoin:Not Lord, not king. Not savior, not friend. Not Yahweh in the flesh. Not holy. He's just a rabbi that I followed to make my life better.
Darren Rouanzoin:So we reduce him to practices which I love practice. We do spiritual practice but it's it's a contained thing that we can do for ourselves like my coach at the gym. But Jesus, all of those things. Or we get hurt by the church and we think, all church is bad. And so, gonna find other people that are hurt, find a podcast that I love, and build my own little church.
Darren Rouanzoin:But brothers and sisters, you can't like, you can't love me and not love my wife, Alex. Like, imagine if you're like, I would love to hang out with you but if your wife's there, I'm not gonna come. I'd be like, what? And then, like, that's what we're doing to Jesus right now. Yeah.
Darren Rouanzoin:We're divorcing faith from the only way we live out our faith, the context of church. You with me on this? Okay. I'm gonna keep going. That's a freebie for someone.
Darren Rouanzoin:The fourth is consumer Christianity. The gospel is the American gospel. It's been shaped That shaped people to see church like a product. Something to sample or consume or rate or leave when it no longer meets our preferences. So, we mistake worship for entertainment and discipleship for self help and our mission becomes about our branding.
Darren Rouanzoin:Then there's pluralism and spiritual openness. This is the idea that we live in this pluralistic society. There's so many world views and ethnicities and religions. They all overlap over each other so we just bring everything in. I wanna speak to this for one moment.
Darren Rouanzoin:The experiment we have in Southern California is that we'll experiment with mindfulness and yoga, astrology, psychedelics, tarot cards and psychics. We're obsessed with the supernatural but we don't go to the source which is Jesus Christ. And I wanna say this, I said it here. I said it the 9AM last This this week because I I didn't say it there. I had a dream about witchcraft in our church.
Darren Rouanzoin:And I know many of you don't understand what witchcraft is because you think it's okay to follow Jesus and deal with tarot cards. To follow Jesus and play with crystals. To follow Jesus and do shroom and ayahuasca tripping and find a guide that leads you. That's satanic. I'm not gonna play around anymore.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's not as the spirit of the world. It's the spirit of Satan. It's the holy spirit or it's the unholy spirits that Satan is ruling. So it's the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of God. There's no neutral territory in Southern California.
Darren Rouanzoin:So, you're opening yourself up to spiritual realities which brings torment. That's right. Not like bad dreams, spirits. Yeah. Good.
Darren Rouanzoin:And you need to stop. Yeah. I'm like saying it. I'm like, I actually believe this. Some of you have part have been participating in witchcraft without knowing.
Darren Rouanzoin:Using spiritual powers to control your world. Using unforgiveness to manipulate and control. That's witchcraft. And you need to repent. You need to confess.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's Acts 19. They realized what happened. They confessed publicly what they had done and they burned the scrolls and the artifacts of Artemis. Church, we need to get rid of the crystals, the tarot cards, the astrology apps. All the things that you're playing around with.
Darren Rouanzoin:They're bringing, inviting, and harm. And we need to be a holy church set apart for this moment. Yes. And I just wanna say to all the witches in the room. I'm not kidding.
Darren Rouanzoin:There might be a handful in all the three services. No curse spoken over this place or the overflow will land. Yes. And I just I I I bind in the name of Jesus, your work from this day forward. I believe that the authority of Christ is more powerful than any other authority.
Darren Rouanzoin:And if you come to Jesus, you'll see what real power looks like. And you're not welcome here unless you repent. So I just encourage you to get up and leave if you're a witch. Okay. No one go to restroom right now.
Darren Rouanzoin:Just wait. Say, wait, what? What's going on? Alright. There's a couple more and I wanna get to some good.
Darren Rouanzoin:So sexual revolution, fallout, these are all eight things that we're dealing with. So this is a big one. Identity is tied to sexuality and gender. Right? Which is not big enough for who you are because you are spiritual and physical, relational, emotional and intellectual.
Darren Rouanzoin:And to reduce your identity to your gender preference or your gender or your sexual preference limits your capacity to hold the mystery of who God made you to be in his image. And what we do is when when to question someone's sexual self expression today is seen as denying their humanity. And this makes Christian teaching on the body, on marriage, on holiness feel radically counter cultural. Two more. There's We live in a digital and distracted era.
Darren Rouanzoin:So smartphones has shaped our attention, relationships and identity. Social media has become part of the air we breathe, so we curate images and it's trained people in outrage rather than discipled into Jesus and people are connected but lonely and they're surrounded by information and noise but starving for meaning. Lastly, we live with a culture that's burnt out. Because SoCal promises freedom, success and pleasure but people are exhausted, anxious and disillusioned. So we have a We've been fed a shallow form of consumer oriented Christianity and we need to feast on the real thing which is Jesus.
Darren Rouanzoin:And here's the thing, the question is how do we engage in culture? I wanna go through this fast. I don't think I need to teach much on this. We can either avoid it which leads us to becoming irrelevant. We could try to fit into culture which which leads us to losing our salty witness.
Darren Rouanzoin:We can take over culture and try to get our guy in the office which is not a bad thing. I'm not saying politics is bad. But I'm saying that's not the goal. The goal is to redeem culture. The goal is that we live in a way what we lovingly sacrifice, speak truthfully, but show people a better way.
Darren Rouanzoin:We stop avoiding it. We don't try to compromise through fitting in. We don't try to conquer it through winning people and challenge and domination. But instead, we show the world what Jesus looks like through how we live. And I just wanna make it clear when we talk about witness because I did a lot of things in the name of witness that didn't look like Jesus.
Darren Rouanzoin:And I think, you know what's happening in the church is we I'm just gonna say it. Say it. We excuse the lifestyle, the tone, the methods, the way, the means that church leaders that speak on platforms and podcasts and churches, we excuse it for the sake of the ends. But the means never justify the ends. Because you can't sell the Jesus truth without living the Jesus way.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's Eugene Peterson. I did things in the name of witness that were aggressive and offensive and just mean and not generous. And if it doesn't look like Jesus, then it's not Christian. If it doesn't look like Jesus, it's not Christian. If it doesn't sound like Jesus, it's not witness.
Darren Rouanzoin:Can we just have that in our hearts? Because I What I'm Here's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to extend the kingdom of God through you and I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm not sleeping on Saturday nights.
Darren Rouanzoin:You can pray for that. It's a lot of stuff going on. The enemy's out. And every time the kingdom of God moves, the enemy moves against it. Right?
Darren Rouanzoin:So it's okay. Just need your prayers. Thank you. My kids my kids need your prayers. My wife needs your prayers.
Darren Rouanzoin:But I'm tired of apologizing. I'm tired of saying, Yeah. That's not what Jesus would have wanted because of the church. And I I have a desperate plea. I got to show up to youth on Thursday to pick up my boy who's in sixth grade And, I listened to the end of Slav's talk which was powerful and fire.
Darren Rouanzoin:I was like outside praying for Slav as he was giving his last bit. I was like, I can't believe my boy gets to be in this youth group. Because I had to heal from my youth pastor. And there's a lot of us that have. And I, you know, I hired Slav saying years ago, you're gonna be my son's youth pastor.
Darren Rouanzoin:Don't screw this up. Just I did. I talked to I talked to you about that. And I'm I'm watching. I watched the response.
Darren Rouanzoin:Where like 90% of the kids of 70 kids there came forward and got their needs to repent, to be right with God this year. I'm like, that's the youth. I'm like, oh my gosh, Lord. I was just I was overwhelmed. I'm like, this is what's happening in our youth.
Darren Rouanzoin:They did a prayer room. It was the biggest prayer room we have. Yeah. Just calling you out. Where you at, prayer people?
Darren Rouanzoin:Yeah. We'll wait on the Lord conveniently. Oh I gotta sit down eleven. Oh no. I was talking about the youth.
Darren Rouanzoin:I and this is part of our staff culture, they get it. I'm trying so hard to build a church my kids don't have to heal from. Now, we're gonna make mistakes. We're gonna make errors. Our staff's gonna get it wrong.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm gonna get it wrong. Lord knows if you're on our staff, how many times have I apologized to you? A thousand times. I'm the first to apologize because I'm aware I get it wrong all the time. And all the staff can say amen, hallelujah, if you know that's true.
Darren Rouanzoin:Amen. Okay. I get it wrong. But I want you, Garden Church, to give Jesus better PR. So witness means we don't run from culture.
Darren Rouanzoin:We don't worship culture. We don't try to dominate culture. We redeem it by living in it as the people of Jesus. You with me church? Because this is what we're after.
Darren Rouanzoin:We're after a kind of church that looks like heaven on earth and that requires you to be all in. The early church didn't conquer Rome with swords and politics. It became irresistible not through campaigns and crusades, but through ordinary people living empowered by the spirit. The goal isn't to win the world, but it's to live like Jesus and love like Jesus in the power of the holy spirit. And as a result of that, transformation comes by a by by product.
Darren Rouanzoin:So church life filled with invisible power leads to visible transformation. You become a testimony to the risen Christ by just being filled with spirit and walking with Jesus. And, your transformation This is what I love. The point of the power of the holy spirit which we'll talk about next week, is not so that you become the best version of yourself. It's for the sake of the world.
Darren Rouanzoin:And so therefore, witness is a push back against all the ways we make Christianity in the image of America. Witness pushes back against our consumer focus. Our self help project me discipleship. Witness means we lay down our lives to Jesus. It's a life that points to him.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's not pointing to your hobbies. It's not pointing to what you're passionate about unless it's Jesus. It's not pointing to your success or your knowledge or your dreams. No. We come to church to die.
Darren Rouanzoin:But we've made churches wanting wanting to make you the best version of yourself. So here's growth track. We go, give us your passion. Give us your strength. No.
Darren Rouanzoin:Give me your weaknesses. Give me your fears. He'll use those. Yes. Come on.
Darren Rouanzoin:We gotta stop seeing witnesses. It starts with me and what I feel comfortable doing. As we read the book of acts, what the world view need need to have as a witness is Jesus. What is your need mission need for me right now? What is your mission need from me right now?
Darren Rouanzoin:And how can I serve? It's not I'm an enneagram three with gifts of helping administrative tasks. I have a disc test of this and a Myers Briggs personality. I'm an introvert so I'll be behind the scenes in the camera. No.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's what does the mission of God need? What does your church need? I'll get a towel and get lower. Great. You're a CEO.
Darren Rouanzoin:Wash some feet first. Clean some toilets. Cover the $500 a week over there. Absolutely. But get low.
Darren Rouanzoin:Church, this isn't about elevating. If anything's elevated, it's the cross of Jesus. Because what we do in the consumer church is we we we take on convenience. We put on the comfortability of Christ, not the cross. And we wonder why we don't have witness anymore.
Darren Rouanzoin:Because we look just like the rest of the world. We look like a shopping mall or a YouTube channel. We don't look like the image of Jesus in the world anymore. And that's what witness is. Witness is all of the things.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's when you say yes to Jesus, you're laying down your life to his needs. You're you're you're not starting with your passion and competency. You're starting with your weaknesses. And you'll say, I'll serve with the things that I'm terrified at, I'm not good at. I'll use my God, use my fear.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'll serve wherever I'm afraid. Use my brokenness because my struggles can be a safe place for other people to find you. Use my past failures as a platform for others to stand on. Use my mistakes that are confessed and covered in grace as the entry points for others to see freedom. Lord Jesus, use my life, but if necessary, use my death for your glory.
Darren Rouanzoin:Because when you die, you live. And that's what witness points to. It's redefined. So what is it? Yes.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's blessing your neighbors. It's providing meals. It's worshiping with passion. It's confessing your sins. It's meeting in homes.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's carrying each other's burdens. It's sharing your faith. It's discipling the next generation. It's using your gifts for his glory. It's volunteering.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's ushering. It's working with kids. It's hosting. It's practicing hospitality. It's preaching the gospel, it's praying for the sick, it's welcoming in strangers, it's loving the least and the last, it's going to the lost, it's inviting your friends, it's holding space for broken people, it's making disciples and dropping off dinners, it's visiting people in hospitals, it's cheering at the football games for youth and showing up to bible studies.
Darren Rouanzoin:Why? Because he lives. Right. Because our guy's raised from the dead. There's no other greater why.
Darren Rouanzoin:Because of the cross and his resurrection, it doesn't matter. You are not the point of your story. At least, witnesses aren't. So, are you a witness? Are you a Are you pointing to Jesus' resurrection?
Darren Rouanzoin:Are you pointing to your passion? Are you pointing to your hope for a relationship? Are you pointing for your need for retirement? Are you pointing to your four zero one k and your desire for wealth? Are you pointing to be used for your gifts, to be in the entertainment world, to be an influencer?
Darren Rouanzoin:Are you pointing to all the other things or are you pointing to Jesus? I don't know about you, but that that kind of witness, if I would've heard that early on, I would've left. So maybe you wanna leave. That's fine. Because the call when our leadership team was saying, what's the call for response?
Darren Rouanzoin:I was like, I got one call. You ready? Come and die. Because I want you to come and die to the old self. I want you to come and die for the old ways.
Darren Rouanzoin:Come and die to all those idols of comfort and convenience. Come and die to the gospel you made in your image so that you may rise into the gospel made in his. Come and die so that finally, the spirit will fill your life and you will be a sign of resurrection. And, death is the only window into resurrected life. And truly, you can't die for Jesus unless you learn to live for him first.
Darren Rouanzoin:Let's pray.
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