Matt Chandler - Our First Love

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those. We’re going to—I realize it’s been a while. While you’re turning there, I want to take a second to honor a good friend of mine. One of the things that I think makes the Village Church a healthy church is that there’s a group of men and women here with an extraordinary amount of longevity. Surveys would tell you that a pastor’s life cycle at a given church is around three years, and yet we’ve got—I mean, I think 15 to 20 people who have been here 10 years or longer, and some of those are actually chief architects of how God has put us together as a community of faith. One of those is my closest friend—the same as my wife—Josh Patterson. So, I’m going to ask Josh to come out. Josh has been here 15 years this week, so will you thank Josh for 15 years of service? Okay, so if you’re a member, more than likely you know who Josh is; you’ve interacted with Josh. What’s been fascinating as we’ve celebrated his time here is that the testimonies coming up are things like this: «I first met Josh in the parking lot. I pulled in, and he grabbed ahold of me. I had no idea I was dealing with an elder and a lead pastor. He was helping park cars on a rainy day.» Somebody else said, «I first met Josh when I went to pick up my kid. He was the one teaching in Kids Village that weekend.» So, I get a ton of credit for what God has done here, and I’m telling you, we’re not here, and we’re not built like this. Who brings order to my chaos, via the Spirit of God, is Josh Patterson. I love you, and I want to honor you today. We’ve been doing this all week. If you want to give him a $100 handshake or a $20 handshake, I know him, I love him—he’ll take it. Only if you feel led, we’ve honored him, but man, if you want to do that, he is not going to give it back to you. The dude’s got like seven kids, so bless him. Alright, thank Josh one last time. Sorry, okay? So, I want to take a second and explain—I think JT explained it somewhat, but I want to stop for just a moment and clarify why in the middle of our series on the Gospel of John we would press pause. I don’t know if you picked up on the fact that, hey, we haven’t been in John for a bit, so I’m glad you asked. I want to try to answer. I love preaching books of the Bible; I feel safe in it, I feel drawn to it. I love that it will make me say things that I wouldn’t naturally say, not because I’m afraid to say them, but I just wouldn’t think about them in regards to where we currently are. And so, I was really enjoying going through the Gospel of John, but as Multiply began to move forward—and Multiply is not about Flower Mound voting on land; you know that, right? Multiply is rolling off of our campus model to make the Village Church Flower Mound an autonomous church just like our other campuses. It is $22 million of real estate being given to the Kingdom of God by the planting of autonomous churches all over the Metroplex. It is simultaneously sending out four church plants and multiple missionaries. In fact, right now, we’ve got one of our own on the ground in Iraq sending us pictures. He’s just walking and praying, hoping to run across those whom the Spirit of God draws him to, to share the good news of the Gospel with. This is what Multiply is all about. But for the first time, I’ve been able to kind of feel for us here in Highland Village, Flower Mound, Lewisville, Argyle, Bartonville, wherever our little—what would it look like for us to be the church in this place? I started picking up on the fact that in my journal I was getting angsty. Do you understand what that means? I could just feel within me stuff coming alive in my bones. I don’t know how you are, but if I don’t get it out of me, bad things happen. And so, the elders, for my 15 years of service, graciously gave me an extended sabbatical. May 12th will be my last Sunday in the pulpit until early August, and then I’ll be back, which is unbelievably generous to me. My family and I are super excited and super terrified by the notion all at once. If you know me, I’m thinking, «What am I supposed to do on Tuesday?» If I get up early at 7:30 and then I spend a couple of hours with the Lord, then I go work out—okay, it’s noon—what now? I mean, I’ve had a couple of minor panic attacks around this idea of rest. I’ve got a God that’s trying to help me figure it all out, and I’m eager to just enjoy my family, recover, and get ready for the next 23 years. Because I promise you 40, and by the grace of God, I think we’re going to get there. With that said, I need to get this out of me before I go. This isn’t a vision series; this isn’t «this is where we’re going.» This is what’s in my guts. I went to the elders, and in fact, it started a couple of weeks ago. What I told JT English was, «Almost two sermons: let’s get out of John, preacher guts.» So, your two epic sermons from JT English came from that.