Matt Chandler - What Does Faithfulness Look Like?

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them. We are going to look at that passage, but while you’re turning there, can we talk about the parking lot for a second? Let’s just have the conversation. The funny thing is, the fence went up, and I had probably 20 people say, «It’s not as disruptive as you said.» I replied, «Because it hasn’t started, and now it has.» You probably felt that this morning trying to get in here.

So, a couple of options for you: We have a Saturday night service at 4:00, where about 735 to 740 people are expected to come, starting March 23rd. We will have a Little Village there, which is for birth through pre-K, so that’s finally coming. Then we will go full service a few months after that, so we are moving in that direction. This is a viable option if it works for you.

Another option, which many of you are already taking advantage of—thank you—is riding the shuttle over from Highland Village. We actually leased some larger, nicer shuttles, so we can get you here. That’s another option for you.

I would like to ask this: some of you are rightfully parked in East Oklahoma. You probably save yourself about 400 steps by going out the side door, which we are trying to shuttle in and out of. It’s already a disaster over there, and when you do that, it makes it worse.

So, I encourage you to receive this gift from me: do not take your kids out of that back door. That’s the shuttle door for us in this season. Instead, go out front and get those extra few hundred steps. You’re welcome! You won’t feel guilty about it later; that night you’ll check your step count and be able to sleep more soundly. That’s a contextual joke that I hope resonates. If you could do that to help us in this season, I would appreciate it.

Now, here’s a temptation I want to gently address: I love the good gift of technology. If you have a sick child or life has been overwhelming, the opportunity to sit at home and participate in a service is a genuinely good gift of technology—a common grace given to all humankind. However, God has called His people to be incarnational and not to neglect being together. There’s something that happens in the room that cannot be duplicated through streaming. The presence of God among us, as we gather, accomplishes more than the content of the service streamed into your living room.

I mean no shame if you’re watching from home—top off that coffee and engage! It is a useful tool, but it can also lead to bad habits. The temptation, with the parking lot being as it is and the disruptions that follow, is to think, «You know what? I’ll just watch from home.» While I think that’s a viable option, it can quickly become a bad habit, and I know that because some of you watching haven’t been back since COVID.

I want to encourage you to hold fast in this season as we navigate all that we need to go through concerning the facilities. With that said, I want to dive into the message. This week is week three, and here’s what we’ve covered:

Week one was about what you and I are caught up in. You have your individual story, and I love your story. You have a unique background with highs and lows, wins and losses. You have faced catastrophic failures and experienced epic victories, and that has shaped who you are in this room. You didn’t just magically arrive here; you are a product of your background, belief system, and plausibility structure. The Bible says you are fearfully and wonderfully made; you are incredible.

So, you have a story, and I have a story. We all have different backgrounds, and God has woven us together as a family of faith in this strange tapestry of stories creating the culture here. Just as you as a person have arrived here, as a church, we have not spontaneously appeared. We are the product of the prayerful sacrifices, teachings, and service of those who came before us. If God has done anything in your life at this place, it’s tied to someone else who was sitting in a chair like yours long before you got here, long before I got here.

So, there’s your story, there’s our collective story, and then there’s the overarching story—the story of God’s redeeming work among humankind across His creation, across time and space. I argued in week one that the more we bring—not leave behind, but bring—our stories into the overarching story, and the more this church can bring our collective story into the ultimate story of reality, the more real life we will actually experience. I did not use the word «happiness.» I’m talking about a deeper, more fulfilling life.