One of the interesting things about living in Arizona is that it's been my favorite place to live. Uh, growing up, I lived in several places. I grew up mostly in Ohio. I actually went to a college that played in the same schools that you guys played in and in that same circle. And so I love living in Arizona for the weather and it's awesome. One of the things I've learned since being out here though is that Arizona is not the best on cars. The car batteries die quickly. You have to replace them and maybe it's not for everybody. But for me, it seems like we have to change our tires pretty regularly. Does anyone else have to do that? You have to change your tires? You, you pick up more things. I don't know what it is. But in, in one case, my wife was doing grocery shopping there at Tat Tatum and Bell there at Frys and she got a flat tire. She had picked up a nail. And so being the good loving husband, I said, figure it out, I'm trying to take a nap and uh, no, so I went down and I was like, ok, let's swap cars. Um, cause she had the kiddos with her. And so, uh, we swapped cars. I said, ok, I'll, I've changed tires before I can change it. It's gonna be fine. And so the lug nuts are coming off, it's fine, except the last lug nut is, is like super glued on. So like the little, the ok, the machine there, like, I don't know if they thought it was going through like a NASCAR race or what, but this thing was just stuck and I could not change the tire until I could get the last lug nut off. And so I had the tire iron out and, and it just wasn't working. And so then I put all 100 £60 of myself. Um, ok. Yeah, no one even believes that. Ok, so 100 and 60 plus a little bit, we'll just say, um, I put all of my weight on the tire iron and I stood on it and it wouldn't budge. And so then I figured, ok, I'll start jumping on it. And so I grabbed the top of my car and I'm jumping up and down on this tire iron to which point, uh, uh, uh, the sweet old lady thought I was trying to break into the car and got security and reached out and so the person came over and as I, they thought I was trying to rob my own or break into my own car. And I was like, no, why would I not use the tire iron in anyway. Um And so it was all good. They could see the flat tire and, and so IIF finally came loose, got the tire changed, got a to discount tire, got it replaced. We moved on. Here's the thing that our car was working perfectly. Everything was going well, but I wasn't gonna leave the parking lot until I had four functioning filled tires. And when it comes to our faith, your belief in Jesus is the engine of your spiritual life. Like if you don't have faith in Christ, you don't have an engine, you're not going anywhere. If you don't have the Holy Spirit, you don't have gas in the car, you're not going anywhere. You need those, those are essential components to a spiritual life. You are saved through Christ alone, through faith alone in his word alone. And, and, and so you believe that it's only through Jesus, but here's the truth. If Jesus and faith in Jesus is the engine, your relationships are the tires. They are the literal points where the rubber meets the road and it's where you get to love people the way Jesus has loved you. And if you don't have healthy relationships, if you don't have those tires, your car is not going anywhere. Your faith journey is not going anywhere. And while we are saved through faith alone, you are not meant to go through life alone and that we need healthy relationships. Our vision here at the church is to help every man, woman and child experience Jesus that we believe it's not another program. It's not a policy or a politician, but what our world needs more than anything is a personal relationship with him. And now we try to accomplish that vision through three components. We, we plant the gospel. We're then growing in community and then we're multiplying through service. And last week, we talked about what does it mean to plant the gospel? And so today, I wanna talk to you about what does it mean to grow in community? Our series is called revive. And that is because the word revive literally means to restore to life or to activate and coming out of a difficult season, coming out of a season filled with divisions and distractions. We wanna help start the fall, we wanna help activate your faith. We wanna help you restore your faith like never before. And so the first step to do that is to plant the gospel. And we shared last week, that's not enough to hear the words. You have to hold on to it and it's not whether or not the seed is good. The question is, is the soil good. And we took self examination and praised Jesus. We had five people pray to receive Christ last week. Isn't it amazing? We had five people pray to receive him and many more faith decisions. And while those decisions are incredible, you will be left stranded unless you then turn out, turn around and seek those healthy relationships together. So if you have your Bibles, I want you to open up to First Samuel chapter 23. But what I want you to do as you're turning there is I want you to turn to your neighbor and say these three words, plant, grow multiply some of you who are not paying attention. I'm gonna give you another chance here to try that, that you, I want you to say those three words, go ahead and turn your neighbor and say plant, grow multiply. If you look to the natural progression of a plant or of a tree, this is the same progression that as an organization as a church, but also as an individual, how you can grow in your faith. And so today we're gonna look at that growing aspect. And if you, if you like taking notes, here's our big idea for today. I want you to write this down to grow spiritually. You must connect relationally, to grow spiritually. You must connect relationally. Every transformation story I have ever heard involved a who in other words, there was a coach, a teacher, a teammate, a sibling, a parent, a loved one who shared the good news of the gospel, gave the example, shared with love and openness and led someone to Christ and helped them grow in their faith. Every person needs somebody to believe in them. Somebody to belong with somebody to rejoice in the successes, somebody to mourn in the losses and someone to encourage in the failures that we were not meant to go through life alone. And that if you want to grow spiritually, if you don't want to grow spiritually, that's fine. You can run this race by yourself. We live in a day and age where you can actually function without ever seeing another individual. But that is not how God made you and how God made me, that we need relationship. So if you want to grow spiritually, you have to make it a priority to connect relationally there in the Old Testament that set up our story for today, there's a character named David David. Yes, David who had the top charts on the billboard with his hymns and his psalms. Yes, David, the one who slayed Goliath who went from a shepherd boy now going to be anointed as king David. And so David is growing in prominence, the problem though he was anointed king while there still was a king and that current king didn't like that. His name was Saul. Saul had turned his back on God and now he made it his life mission to destroy David and to keep him from becoming king. But in the process, Saul's son who was a man of God named Jonathan Saul, that the hand of God was off of Saul on to David and through faith and through friendship, developed a sense of community to save David to get him to where he needed to be. So David was on the on the run for his life when God came to him in first Samuel 23. And he said, I want you to go save this village, Kaleo. He said, really now while I'm on the run, he said, no, you must go save this village. And so he takes his army and he goes into this village which is about 15 miles southwest of Bethlehem. And he goes in and he defeats the Philistines. Yes, the same Philistines that had Goliath just a few chapters before. And so he saves the town from the Philistines. He sets them free, he rescues all the people and you know what they did to, to thank him, they betrayed him while they love David, they feared Saul. And so while David and his men were sleeping there, they then sent, report back to Saul that, hey, the guy you've been searching for is here, come get him. So word gets back to David. He says, oh man, now we gotta run again. So he takes 600 of his men and he flees to a wilderness called Ziff. And so they're in this wilderness in these caves, in these woods, in this deserted area. He finds himself afraid for his life. And here's where we pick up the story. First Samuel chapter 23 verse 15. And David was afraid because Saul had come out to seek his life. David was in the wilderness of zip at harsh and Jonathan Saul's son rose and went to David at harsh. And I love this phrase. We're gonna underline, underline this one and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, fear not for the hand of Saul. My father will not find you notice in here that there is a hand of God and then there's a hand of Saul and he encourages him. He says to David, you shall be king over Israel and I shall be next to you. Saul. My father also knows this and the two of them made a covenant before the Lord David remained in harsh and Jonathan went home. Jonathan risked everything for the sake of friendship, for the sake of community. He had a lot to lose. I mean he was the next in line for the throne. Yet he humbled himself. He saw the hand in the favor of God on David. And he realized that I need to prioritize God and my faith over my corrupt family. And so he risked his life and he goes and he strengthens David in this moment. And what I love is in this story, Jonathan, when David is struggling, yes, fearful, you know, kill Goliath, saved people from the Philistines. This David when that David was in the wilderness when that David was in the desert, when he was afraid, when he was scared, do you know what Jonathan did? He came? He comforted and then he confirmed his calling, all of us in this room and all of us watching online right now when we're in a season of wilderness, when we're in a season of wondering and wandering and struggling, how helpful is it to have a close friend or family member to come in? And to say you are a child of God be who God has called you to be and he will direct you what to do. And in this passage, we see three requirements for community, three actions taken by Jonathan that we can now apply as we seek community because in order to grow spiritually, we need to connect relationally. The first thing that Jonathan did was he made a choice. He made a choice. He had to consciously choose to pursue friendship. It wasn't like he was walking through the wilderness. 00 David, hey, I didn't see you there. Let's be friends. OK. He had to consciously choose to befriend something and someone who could betray him. Think about the classic inspirational film, Toy story, right? Woody had to put his pride aside and ultimately choose to befriend buzz when he needed him in the same way. In a more serious tone, we need to choose relationship. This summer. I got to do something that I never dreamt was even possible. I got to go to a Phoenix Suns playoff game. Yeah. Amen on that. That was good. We're clapping and we're clapping because no one thought it was gonna happen right for eight years. I've lived here in Arizona and everyone said, oh, the Suns fans are amazing. I was like, really, I'm ready to cheer. But where are they? Because we would go to games for eight years and it's like a few people you could hear other fans from across the way cheering like that's how empty it was. I said, no, you don't understand. We had Steve Nash when the Barclay era like this place goes crazy. I was like, ok, we'll see it. And just two years ago, we were last place and now the right coach, the right players come in the right chemistry and they make the playoffs. So I got the privilege of going to a Sonss playoff game and it was amazing to have 20,000 people. I don't know where that fits in with our CDC guidelines with the pandemic, but we're just gonna set that aside for another combo. 20,000 people just screaming, exciting. And I mean that the ball wasn't even thrown up for the first tip. They were doing layups and the crowds were like, yeah, like how awesome is that? And it was amazing to be surrounded and cheering and, and created what was seen as a home court advantage. Let me ask you the question. Do you have a home court advantage in your life? Do you have people that are cheering for you, encouraging you that have your back? Right? When the ref makes a call, it's always the ref's fault. Oh, come on. Right. Like, do you have somebody that supports you at that level? Because that is who we're called to be as the church? Yet some of us are living our individual relational lives. Always playing away games. You walk in and you feel like everybody's against you in this case, in your soccer team. Yeah, you're gonna play and there's gonna be fans cheering against you. But in our relationships, we get to choose who's in the stands. Can you imagine if people treated everyday life like sports arenas, like you're walking in for that, you know, weekly business meeting and there's people on the other side of the glass going, oh you know, just like this chanting or like, you know, you have Jersey that says Carl from accounting and like they're in and they're like, yeah, like, you know, that's great. Like one that would be really exciting. We, we should think about adding that into the workplace. But, but here's the reality that we all love encouragement and we all perform and do better with encouragement. So why not choose to surround yourself with people who are going to give you a home court advantage or better yet? Why not be the home court advantage for somebody else because the first requirement for community is choice. But the second requirement is equally important in its courage. It's courage. It took courage for Jonathan to leave his post to seek out David and then encourage him. The word encourage means to take courage and place it into somebody else. Relationships, take courage. Relationships are messy because we're messy people. And guess what? You put messy people in the church. The church is also messy. I would love for the church to be seen as a unified team, right? I would love for that. But it takes courage. It takes a choice. And then third, it takes commitment, it takes commitment to have community. It was there in the wilderness when things were tough. Jonathan and David chose to make a covenant before God and before each other. If you want to have a healthy relationship, it's gonna require you to put some of your preferences, some of your schedule, some of your comforts aside for the sake of the team, for the sake of others, for the sake of the group. But when you have a workplace, a neighborhood, a team where everybody chooses to be courageous and committed to one another. Amazing things happen. Those are the three requirements for community. But then I want you to also see the three results. This is what happens when you have a healthy relationship. The first result is strength, there is strength when people pour into one another teams exponentially, outperform others. When they're connected. It's not two plus two equals four. It's two plus two in a team setting equals 2000. I mean, you really can do so much more together in that passage. We saw that Jonathan strengthened his hand in God. When the hand of Saul was chasing him, you get strength from each other. Second, you get security in the wilderness on the run. David had peace of mind knowing that he was right with God and right with his brother. There is strength when you have healthy relationship. And then third, you see a spirit, you see the spirit of God, you see a spirit of unity that supersedes anything dangerous coming their way. In John 17, Jesus could pray for the church and his disciples. He could pray for anything but you know what he prayed for, prayed for unity. I know this is cheesy but maybe it'll help you remember it that you cannot spell community without unity and unity is not the same thing as uniformity. We definitely don't all look alike, but neither do the disciples. But we need unity. If we're going to reach the world with the good news of the gospel, that church down the road is not a competition. It's a teammate that neighbor down the street, it's not us versus them. It's a we when something hurts the church nationally or more fail failure, it breaks my heart. Why? Because we're the body we're together in a world known for separation and isolation. You can be more disconnected than ever before if you choose to. But now is an opportunity for the church that if we can come together as a unified force for the Kingdom of God revival will break out in our community. And darkness cannot and will not stop the light, amen, but we need each other. Proverbs 1717, it says that a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity. The author of Hebrews chapter 10, verse 23 to 25 says this, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering again. That's that planning the gospel in your life for he who promise is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some in today's age, I would say as is the habit of most but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day drawing near as the world gets more divided community becomes more essential Galatians. 51 says it's for in freedom's sake, for freedom's sake. Christ died to set you free. And in 12 verses later in verse 13, it says, for you are called to freedom. Brothers only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, do not use your freedom for indulgence and sin, but instead through love serve one another. Your freedom should always lead to sacrificial love and service to the people around you. And then in Romans 12, 4 and five, Paul writes this for as one body, we have many members and the members do not have all the same function. So we though many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. You know, I, a couple of weeks ago, super grateful for all you guys who prayed for me. I had knee surgery on my left knee, knee is doing really well recovering from meniscus surgery. But when I tore my meniscus and I was hobbling around for like a month and I was preaching, sitting down and stuff. Uh You know what, my right knee wasn't doing, it wasn't like ha ha, I'm fine. Like your body doesn't fight itself. It's not like, well, ok, you're hurt. And so I'm winning. No, when one part of your body hurts, your whole body hurts. And the same is true as a church family. If we wanna go somewhere, we have to have those tires of healthy relationships, we have to be aligned and unified and connected. So how do we do that? Well, here at mission grows specifically, here's how we define and describe healthy groups. If you think of how your body has DNA or at the simplest form the cells that replicate and multiply throughout your body. Here is the healthy DNA of relationships first, healthy relationships help you discover truth, they help you discover truth. It's rooted in the word of God. We are not a Costco membership. You're not a country club or a social club. We are a movement centered upon the message of Jesus with a mission to make disciples modeled by Jesus and then motivated by love. Healthy relationships are rooted in the word of God. Secondly, healthy relationships help you nurture love. The longer you're in the relationship. If it's healthy, the more the love and the service will increase. Not all relationships, nurture love, but the best ones. Do. Do you have people that you can call when you're sick, you can text or deliver a meal to or babysit or kids play together, whatever that is. Do you have somebody in your life that you are reaching out to that is reaching out to you? And then thirdly healthy groups help you affirm mission, healthy groups, help you affirm mission. Jonathan went to David and reminded him that he had been anointed king and as sons and daughters of God, we must continually remind each other through praise and through prayer that we are called to go and make disciples that we are the best when we pursue God and love Him with our heart, soul, mind and strength. And then we go out and we love people the way that Jesus loved us, discover truth, nurture love and then affirm mission. These are what relationships do I want to encourage those in the room to find your home court advantage to be a home court advantage for somebody else. Here in two weeks, we are going to have a community night where we're gonna share all the different groups that you can jump into. Be a part of that you can serve with and connect with. And I encourage you to do that. I encourage you to fill out that next step card. If you are looking for a group, if you're looking to serve, let us know so we can come alongside for you that we can cheer for you. I promise I won't boo I might be tempted but I promise I won't. Ok. I might show up to your workplace with a jersey with your name on it. But we'll see. I don't know but, but here's the thing like we wanna come and help you. Why? Because we also need you with us that we need each other because if you want to grow spiritually, you must connect relationally. Love for Jesus is the engine, but love for people are the tires on the ground. It's where the rubber meets the road and it is what allows you to live out your calling and to be all that God's called you to as the band comes up on stage, I wanna close with this. There's a story that went viral this week of basketball commentator Ernie Johnson. He's a believer. He hosts inside the NBA and he was speaking to the Alabama football team, but he wasn't actually speaking so much about himself. He shared the story how his wife Cheryl saw a news story, how there's an orphanage in Romania where kids with special needs were just being put in a warehouse. And she saw that and it broke her heart and she said, not me, not, not now. So Ernie and Cheryl decided to fly over there to Romania and they went and they saw these kids with special needs and they picked up a little boy and while they held that little boy, the Romanian nurse who was working at the orphanage, looked at, looked at them and said, don't take him, he's not a good one. Don't take him. He's not a good one. So they took him, they brought him home. Little Michael was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. The average age of someone with muscular dystrophy when they have it young is they don't make it really past their teen years for the most part because their muscles don't develop. They, they really just deteriorate. But Michael persevered. He went to high school as he went to high school, he showed love. His favorite phrase. He didn't learn to speak until he was eight years old, but he got to high school. You wanna know his favorite phrase was he wouldn't wait for people to say I love you. He would start by saying I love you too. They wouldn't say anything to him. The first thing he would say is I love you too. A high school basketball coach from a different part of the country heard that they brought him in. And he told his team guys, I'm bringing in an impact player. He's 5 ft tall and he has a zero inch vertical jump. And so he brought Michael onto the team and Michael didn't have a lot of words, but he had kind of a rain man type mind. And so I guess if, if you told him your name and told him what car you drove, he never forgot you. And so the coach of the basketball team taught the team to say, I love you in sign language. One of the ways you can say, I love you in sign language is like this. And if, if you kind of bend the index finger, you're saying I love you too. So Michael was on the basketball team showing them what it means to love what it means to give maximum effort. And then it was senior night. So Ernie Johnson, his wife, Cheryl walked out with their son in his wheelchair. And the previous players when they walked out there was loud applause and when they walked out with their son, Michael, the applause died down a little bit. And at first it was a little sad until they looked up and the entire student section I was doing this. I love you. Too. There was a little orphan boy for Romania who's no good. Don't take this one, taught an entire school and community what it means. What about you? Dear Jesus? We pray now we know that we are saved through faith alone, but we also know that we weren't meant to go through life alone and that if we want to grow spiritually, we must connect relationally. So God help us connect today. There are those in the room have never put their faith in you. I, I pray that they would do that, take that step. But then God, I pray that they would build for themselves, a home court advance that they would invest into the body of Christ, the church that we would make a conscious choice to be courageous and committed to one another in unity. May we strengthen each other's hands before you got some people right now are walking through seasons in the wilderness. I mean, we come alongside and support them and support one another because this is what it means to love, help us to love one another as you have loved us, help us to discover truth in your word, to nurture love with each other and to affirm mission to go and make disciples and to be and become who you've called us to be. We love you guys. And may we start our days? The precious Michael does and start our conversations with simply I love you too. We love you got.