Real Community | Casey Trudell | 2 Timothy 4:16-18 — Casey Trudell

Welcome to the Canyon Ridge Baptist Church podcast. In this message, listen in as guest speaker Pastor Casey Trudell from Faith Baptist Church in Bakersfield, California opens the word to Canyon Ridge take you over to who I would consider to be the poster child for walking through and working through communal difficulty. We're gonna read from a man who loved deeply, a man who gave his life for the bride of Christ, a man who poured himself out for the sake of gospel community. He was all in, all the way, all the time, giving everything he had till his dying breath, pouring in to the bride of Christ. And He's at the end of his life. Verse number six of the chapter that you're in says, "The time of my departure is at hand." He's ready to be offered. And he's writing his final letter to his son in the faith. And as we read it, I want you to look for two particular things. I want you to look first for his position as it relates to community.

What position is he in? After having spent his life loving and investing and discipling and training young men and working with older men and planting churches across the known Gentile world, is he surrounded by friends? Is he surrounded by the people he poured his life into? Are they running to his aid in his final hour of need? Are they there? What's his position as it relates to community? And then most importantly, I want you to ask yourself this question as we read. We'll read it in just a second. What's his disposition? Is he surrounded by people? And when you answer that question, I want you to ask the next question. What was his response to his position? What was his disposition, his attitude toward what community had done to him, for him, with him in his hour of need? So I want you to look at the text with me. Paul is writing to Timothy here in, 2 Timothy chapter four.

We'll pick up in verse number nine and read through the close of the chapter. Paul says this in verse nine, "Do thy diligence." To come shortly unto me. For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed into Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, Titus into Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, that's John Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for ministry. And Tychicus, have I sent to Ephesus. The cloak that I have left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.

Verse 14, Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward him according to his work. Of whom be thou aware also, for he hath greatly withstood our words. Now pay attention. We're getting to his position here. We've seen some of it, his relationship with others. Verse 16, at my first answer, or my defense for my life. We'll unpack that later. He says, at my first answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me Here's his disposition: "I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion, and the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." Real quick, does that sound like a bitter, disenfranchised church member? No. Let's keep reading.

Verse 19. And don't zone out. He's gonna list a bunch of names. These are important. He says, "Salute Prisca and Aquila, and of the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus abode at Corinth: and Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick. Do thy diligence, Timothy, to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren. The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen." Let's pray. Father, I pray you'll guide us this morning. Lord, I desire your Spirit to work in the life of these Christians. You have given them this incredible gift. You've given me this incredible gift of being able to walk through this life, not just with my family and my wife, but God, the ability to walk through life with a church family, and the ability to walk through life with those who, don't have a lot in common with me, and yet we have Jesus in common.

And I pray, God, in a special way you will illuminate the Scripture and illuminate our understanding that we might come to a deeper grounding commitment to this thing called church. What a joy it is to be able to gather and sing. What a joy it is to be able to gather in fellowship, and to break bread, and share coffee, and share stories in community Bible groups on Wednesday nights. And Lord, I pray that you would help us, Lord, wherever we're at in our disposition. Maybe we're here and we're disenfranchised with church. Maybe we're here and we're tenaciously excited about it. Wherever we're at, God, I pray that the Scripture would wash over our understanding, it would clarify for us your guiding, direction for our hearts and for our spirits toward this thing called church. I pray you would magnify the view of every Christian as it relates to this beautiful thing you call church.

And the beautiful function of the church, at least one of the functions of the church, is to provide community to the believers, and fellowship to the saints, and edification to the body of Christ, building up one another. And I pray that we would be faithful and tenacious, to a commitment to this thing this morning. In Christ's name we pray, amen. I appreciate you listening so well. I know it's a longer passage. I think we read something like 12 or 13 verses, but this passage is so incredibly important because maybe unlike other passages, and I don't wanna use the superlative that this is the most humanizing passage, but man, I don't know if there's another passage that humanizes this great Bible character more than this one.

And oftentimes, and I didn't come from a Catholic background, some of you may have, but oftentimes even Christians can kinda have this porcelain view of the you know, the characters of the Bible, like the Apostle Paul. He just floated through life, and angels woke him, and angels put him in bed, and he just had you know, he had no problems and no issues, and it was just a smooth sailing for Paul. Well, this passage shows us the deep humanity of this character because the latter part of chapter number four is deeply personal stuff. It's full of emotion. It's full of attachment. It, Paul desires to see Timothy, to have him come quickly. He wants to see the parchments, the Scripture before he sees the face of Jesus. But Paul is also hurting from those who've left him behind, and he's also hurting from those, and he's reminiscing of those that he's had to leave behind in different places. And there's so much humanity in this passage.

There's disappointment and frustration, but there's also commitment. There's loneliness, but there's also a longing. There's scars that are surfacing over Demas and Alexander the coppersmith. But what you're also noticing, if you pay close attention, is Paul's tenacious commitment to still being involved in Christian community. See his excitement to be able to, "Timothy, I can't wait to see you, and man, bring John Mark. I remember, ah, man, that whole thing with Barnabas, but he's profitable. Bring him to me. I wanna see him." There is this deep hunger to be around the people of God. And in this mixture, this passage, is a mixture of heartbreak and heartache and commitment. We're gonna learn three powerful truths about commitment we need to work into our understanding and our expectation for the church. Let me give you the first one. We'll read the Scripture here in just a second.

But number one, I want us to see, and we'll see it in our text in a moment, is that community is hard because it requires real relationships, which I know sounds like it goes without saying. But the reality is, the the longer we live, the more and more we become detached from reality. We got friend groups on Facebook or friends groups on Instagram or friend groups in our, you know, video game chat room, people we've never met, and we consider them friends. We couldn't pick them out of a criminal lineup, and yet they're our friends. And the reality of Christian community is that it requires life on life. Iron sharpening iron requires real contact. It requires, at times, friction. It requires closeness and pressure And an openness that oftentimes we don't feel comfortable with, which is why a lot of younger people migrate to the online, because you can be whoever you wanna be online and then go be who you really are out in the world.

But Christian community is supposed to be life on life. It's supposed to be tangible and real. They're supposed to be able to look you in the eyes, right? You ever walk into church and someone say, "Hey bro, you okay?" "Yo, I'm fine. Back off." Right? Some of us avoid church 'cause we don't want the eye contact. We don't want people hearing their tone of voice. We don't want people seeing what's going on. But God designed church for exactly that reason, to come in real life and rub, shoulders with God's people so they could look into our heart and into our life. Real relationships are not designed to be surface. In the best possible way, church is supposed to be by God's design, confrontational. I don't mean contentious. I just mean confrontational. You're supposed to confront each other at the back door and confront each other in the coffee area and see how each other are doing.

You're supposed to talk with people and know people and pour into their lives. You're gonna have to, in real community, you're gonna have to put up with people. You're gonna have to forgive some people. You're gonna have to be long-suffering toward the unchanging nature of that one guy who just drives you nuts. Why does he do it that way? Real community is gonna require that. Now, I've been to one professional football game in my whole life, and it was a 49ers game. I grew up in the Bay Area, and so, we went on a Sunday and, I don't… I think we were-- I think I had just gotten saved, and so we were teenagers. And we go to this 49ers game, and we're all wearing the same jersey, me and everybody around me. We're playing the Oakland Raiders, right? We all have the same team. We're all wearing the same colors. We're all cheering against the same enemy. You know, we're high-fiving. We got the same common set of beliefs.

Our team is better than your team, and we're on the same team, and we high-fived. It was an awesome experience, and when the last whistle blew, we grabbed our stuff and left, and I never once thought about that man and his wife. I never wondered how that guy's kids were doing. I never thought about the cancer diagnosis of the person behind me. I didn't know anything about those people, and I walked away without caring at all. We high-fived and rode an emotional roller coaster together and left without caring at all about them, because that's not community. But here's the danger. Sometimes we can treat church the same way. We walk in, we got the same jersey, cheering on the same Jesus, rooting against the same devil, same set of beliefs. "Hey, brother!" And that's the extent of our relationship. We don't know him other than brother. "Hey, sister." We don't know her other than sister.

And we have this experience together, and it's a common thing, and we cheer, and we root against the enemy, and we go out, and we evangelize, and we do these things together, but then we leave, and you don't know them, and they don't know you, and it's clean that way. It's disposable But it's not biblical community. Real community is deeply intertwined. Real community is built on vulnerability and honesty. It's a place where emotional connection can actually happen, where emotional investment is the normative. And yes, I get that can be scary because it's risky. We'll talk about that next. But at least it's real. At least there's something going on. Community isn't meant to be this plastic, sterile, Leave It to Beaver, for those of us who grew up in the 1900s, you remember Leave It to Beaver. it isn't meant to be that kind of sterile perfection. It's meant to be deeply interwoven. And I get that that's scary, but it's beautiful.

When you have someone who can look at you and just by the look on your face know you're struggling, we need that person in our life. To have that pastor who cares about us and prays for us and recognizes when we're missing. Isn't it crazy to me? I don't get this, Brother Burnie. People get irritated when the staff or the church checks on them when they're missing. You ought to get irritated if they don't check on you. Like, their looking after you is part of their care and community for you. But we've become this, like, cyber age. And it happened before COVID, but it's definitely happened a lot more since COVID, where people are moving to community online. I think it was right after COVID, Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook is the new church, right? This is our new community.

And so many people are moving onto to, online platforms for… You know, Instagram replaces real friendships and, you know, you work from home and you even do church from home, right? Some of you are live streaming right now, and yes, I am talking to you, okay? But I won't be here next week so you can get ticked off at me and then come back to your church community. Church from home is not real community. That's not how it works. I have people in my own family who I'm constantly trying to work with in, my home, and, my parents. And, "Oh, no, we go to church, Casey. Don't worry about it. We're a part of the e-fam of this church." That's not how community works. Amen. That's like watching the yule log on Christmas and pretending to feel the warmth. That's not how community works. That's not your church, and that's not your pastor.

God designed you to be a part of people and their lives and break bread with them, to put feet under their table. and again, the reason that I'm so frustrated about that is that kind of view of church erodes your expectation and your contentment toward real community. Because what happens is the people online will never disappoint you Oh man, my favorite preacher, he's over in Nebraska. I just love his sermons. I just love that church. Wish I could, you know, go be a part of it. Well, the reason that you love it so much is it's not messy, and the reason it's not messy is 'cause it's not really your church. It's not really your community. It's just pretend. It's a screen, it's not a family. And I get it, the internet preacher never disappoints you, because he never talks to you. He doesn't know you. He'll never offend you by asking if you're okay, and he'll also never help you by asking if you're okay.

He'll never counsel your family, and he'll never pray for your kids. So this, like, online idea that, oh, it's so great over here, is the enemy of real contentment for real community. I remember this happened years ago. Brother Hunter, you'll remember this story. But I got this phone call in the office, and I'm not… I don't have a phone in my office. I happened to be in the secretary's office, and it was an out-of-state number, and so I picked it up. And I just said, you know, "Hello, Faith Baptist Church, Pastor Casey Trudell speaking. How may I help you?" And she didn't even respond to my, like, introductory spiel. You could almost feel the phone being pulled away from her head, and she yells past the phone, "Honey, it's Pastor Casey Trudell on the phone. Come quick." And I was like, "What in the world is going on?"

And so her husband comes, and he's kind of talking past her onto the phone, and they were like, "You don't understand this? You don't know who we are? We're from…" I don't know where they were, like Oklahoma, somewhere back east where no one cares. And, they're like, "We live out here. We watch every single one of your services." listen, our church is like 160 people. We… I shouldn't be famous, and I'm not. I just was to this weird family. And they said, "We wanna sell everything we have and come be a part of your church." And here's what they began to say, "Oh, your church loves soul-winning so much." We probably had three people out yesterday. I'm not saying we don't. We're trying. We're planting churches. We're trying to do stuff, but you don't know what you don't know about our community. "Oh, Pastor, you're so bold in your preaching." You don't know where… areas I've compromised in.

I've never offended you 'cause I don't even know who you are. And all that did for that poor, dear family was undermine the contentment for the actual community they did have. Because they're comparing their pastor against not even me, the online version of me. The pulpit me. Not the counseling me, not the office hours me, not the me at the church picnic. The pulpit me. And I'm not saying they should be you know, there's duplicity. I'm simply saying you've never been to my home, and I've never been to your home. We don't know each other, and the idea that you would replace real community with this sterile fake thing… And I think one of the reasons we do it is 'cause it's safer. It's safer. They're not gonna hurt you. They're also not going to truly, genuinely help you because they don't know you, they can't speak into your life. Listen, that poor lady, I wish I could've put her on the phone with our church family.

Like, "Hey, why don't you talk to some people before you sell everything and move out here, okay?" We may not be everything that you think we are. I don't think we're a bad church, I think we're a great church. I think the Lord is doing some great things. We've got our flaws. But I wanna remind us to commit with love to the people that God has put us around because that's what makes community truly special. The fact that it's real, the fact that it's tangible, the fact that some kid pushed your kid in the nursery, count it a blessing that there's real people around you, that you get … You who were not a people, you're now the people of God. You now get to rub elbows with saints. You get to spend eternity in heaven with each other forever, and that… Listen again, real community requires real people and real relationships. Now, I've just been talking. I haven't shown you in the Scripture.

I wanna show you now in the Scripture this idea of real people. In this letter that Paul is writing, he's writing about real people to real people that he shared real community with. He sat at their tables. He broke bread with these people. He left his coat at Carpus' house. You ever leave your coat at somebody's house? This is a real human being, and this letter is to and about real people that Paul developed relationships with. In fact, let me tell you this as you're getting ready to read with me in chapter 4. In chapter 1, Paul is writing to Timothy, and in verse number one of the book he says, "My beloved son." But then in verse number eight of the same chapter, he kinda gets us a little bit of a look behind the curtain. He says, "Timothy, don't be ashamed of me or of the message that I preach." There seems to be some tension between Paul and Timothy, and part of the reason it seems that this book is written is to say, "Timothy, no.

Come back. Don't believe everything you're hearing. God is still with us. God is still using us. Timothy, don't be ashamed of me or of the ministry." This is a real relationship with nuance and tension. In fact, what you'll find here is, look with me at, in, verse number 19 is where we're gonna start. There are 15 real names in this list, real relationships. Not just, not just Timothy. Titus is in here. Luke is in here. John Mark is in here. And don't just zone out on these names. Look with me. He says in verse 19, "Salute Prisca and Aquila." Well, who were they? That's Priscilla and Aquila. They were co-laborers with Paul in Corinth. They made tents with Paul in Corinth. In fact, Priscilla and Aquila were the people Paul would leave behind in Ephesus to plant the church the book was written to. These are the real church planters of the church at Ephesus. He says, "And of the household of Onesiphorus."

This is the man Paul lived with when he was in Ephesus. Verse 20, "Erastus abode at Corinth." Well, who's Erastus? A real person. In fact, if you read the book of Acts, Erastus is the city treasurer for the city of Corinth. When Paul went into Corinth, the church was established, and Erastus helped support it. Paul's writing to this guy. Verse, number 20, "But Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick." Trophimus is this brother, he's a believer from Rome, and on Paul's third missionary trip when he was collecting money for the church in Jerusalem, Trophimus came with him on that entire third journey. In fact, Trophimus was likely there when Paul was arrested, and he's in Rome now because of that arrest. Paul says, "Greet that guy." Then in verse 21, we meet this guy Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia. We don't know anything about them, but look up here. Paul knew them. These were real people that Paul loved and developed community with.

So here's the connection. Here's our application How connected are you to the people in your real community? Like the guy in front of you, do you know his name? Do you know his kids' salvation testimony? Do you know the, their journey? How did they even end up here? How long have they been coming here? do you know the people around you? And here's what I'm convinced. Without even knowing you, if you have the Spirit of God inside of you, and they have the Spirit of God inside of them, should you choose willingly to bridge that gap and try to develop a relationship, here's what I bet will happen. I bet you'll love them. I bet you'll find them fascinating. I bet you'll find their story has a lot of inroads with your story.

I bet you'll find a lot of the struggles that they had were struggles that you had, or maybe you struggled with the things before you were saved, and since you've been saved, you've grown in grace, and man, they're struggling with those exact same things. I wonder if it's coincidence God put you two sitting next to each other if you would just reach across the aisle and develop community with them. So my question is, are you doing that? Jesus died. Ephesians teaches us this. We'll study out of Ephesians tonight, but Ephesians teaches us that Christ broke down the middle wall of partition, and He made of two people one, but He made all the families of the world named in Jesus Christ. And then He tells us in chapter number four that we should endeavor. The word endeavor means to excitedly keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

Jesus died to give the church community and unity, and it ought to be an exciting thing for us to reach across and develop relationships with people. "Yeah, but Pastor, if I do that, what's gonna happen?" Probably great relationships, but those great relationships are definitely going to come with our second reality, and this is why I think we avoid it. Number one, community requires real relationships. Number two, community comes with loss Invariable part of relationships. You probably noticed it, we read it in the beginning, but you probably noticed in chapter number four, there's some painful things in there, and that is simply because the reality that community comes with disappointment. Absolutely. Now, before we get to what he wrote, can I just remind you who wrote it? This is the man who brought Christianity to the Gentile world.

This is the man who is the direct result of his preaching that these churches are established, and many of the men listed in this list in chapter four, many of them became Christians because of his preaching. And I want you to see with me how that worked out for him. All the investment, all the sacrifice, all the giving of himself and pouring out of himself to the point that he's bankrupt in prison getting ready to be beheaded by Nero. I want you to see how all that investment worked out for him. Look at verse number nine with me. He says to Timothy, "Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me." Paul's about to die, and he tells Timothy, "We don't have a lot of time. Bring the jackets with you and bring the parchments, but get here before winter. So hurry, son." That's his position. Now, you would think after all the labor that he'd be surrounded by the people that he had won to Christ, but I want you to see what happens in verse 10.

Here's why, "Hurry, Timothy, for Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world and departed unto Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me." Only Luke. At the end of it all, only Luke is there. Demas forsook him. I find it so fascinating what Paul said versus what he didn't say. You know what he didn't say? He didn't say, "Demas forsook Jesus, having loved this present world." That's probably true. He fell in love with sin. He fell in love with the world. He fell in love with its systems, and he walked away from Jesus. But did you see what Paul did say? He said, "He left me." He said, "Man, we labored together." We don't know much about Demas. Perhaps Paul led Demas to Christ. Perhaps Demas was just like a Titus or a Timothy, a young man. He was training up in the ministry, and at some point, Demas decided, "I don't want this. I want the world," and he forsook the Apostle Paul.

Look down at verse 14. Look at the heartbreak. Verse 14, "Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward him according to his work. Of whom be thou ware also for he hath hated-- greatly, withstood our words." We don't know much about Alexander. We don't know what happened, but we do know this. Paul evidently let Alexander the coppersmith close enough that Alexander the coppersmith could hurt him. He allowed Alexander access to his life, and by that access, Alexander leveraged that to do much evil to the Apostle Paul. Well, keep reading, verse 16. "At my first answer," this is Paul's defense of his life before Nero, likely his first one. He says, "At my first answer, no man stood with me." But all men forsook me. I pray God that he would kill them all. That's not what it says, in case you don't have a Bible. He doesn't say that. He says, "I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge."

So you're seeing, yes, Paul's position. Is he surrounded by all his friends? Is he surrounded by all of his proteges, all of his sons in the faith? Is he surrounded by the churches that he gave his life and his own back to be beaten? The nights and days in the deep, the perils of countrymen, the perils of robbers, the wakings often. After all of that, bearing in his physical body the marks of the cross of the Lord Jesus, he stands there in front of Nero with no one. Not even Luke. Luke is there at the writing of this book. Nobody else is. But at his defense before Nero, no one stood in front of him. Alexander is gone. Demas is gone. Timothy's struggling on whether or not he's ashamed of me or not. No one stood with him. All of Asia departed.

And I hate to say this, church family, but when we're thinking about community, that's part of the risk of doing community with broken people, is that you invest in them, and that you sacrifice, and that you love, and that you give, and you pay that kid's way to camp, and you invest in that, and you disciple this person, and then stuff happens, and they leave. And that's hard. Sometimes they leave like Alexander the coppersmith, and they're throwing rocks on their way out. You were their best friend. You were their pastor. You loved them. You prayed for them. You were there at the hospital. You did everything you can, but something happens, and all of a sudden, man, they're throwing stones and calling for your head Sometimes that happens. Sometimes they leave like Demas, though.

Sometimes they're not throwing throwing stones at you, they're just taking all the investment and all the effort and all the time you you got that person out of the, you know, out of that situation, and you helped them, and you got their feet established, and you got them a job, and you put your name on the application as a reference, and then they take all that you've done and they throw it away. Listen, sometimes we lose people to the world, but you know what else is tough? And you find it in this list. Sometimes you lose people to the work of ministry. And Paul talks about that. He says, "Man, Titus is gone. He isn't loving the world, he's in he's in Dalmatia doing the work of God. Crescens, he wasn't there at my defense either because he was busy in Galatia. Man, Timothy, you're over in Ephesus, you couldn't be there." And you know what? That hurts sometimes.

When you love people and you serve beside them, and then God uproots them and moves them to Pennsylvania like that dear brother. It's hard when God calls Brother Hunter to the USS Russell in San Diego. But that's part of ministry. You say, "Well, if I love people, then they might leave." Yeah. Sometimes that happens. But again, that's part of real community. When you love them, you are opening yourself up to being hurt. And if you wanna not be hurt, don't love people. Some of you are like, "Sign me up, Pastor. Where's the dotted line? As long as nobody can hurt me." No. You don't have that right. We're gonna look at it in a second. The calling of Jesus is to community. The calling of your life is to surrender your gifts and your family and your effort to the community of believers that we would call the church.

Now, I want you to see as we close this morning, moving toward the last point, number one, community is hard because it just requires realness, it requires real people, it requires real risk, it requires real relationships. Number two, community is hard because it will invariably come with loss. Number three, community is hard because it is wholly, completely insufficient. Insufficient. The reason the church does not meet all of your needs is because it was never designed to. Amen. It was never designed by Jesus to be the be-all end-all of the longing and the loneliness of your heart and soul. It was designed to be part of that, but you were never meant as a Christian, as His child, to have every one of your needs met by a person or a group of persons or an entire church. Only Jesus is enough for the longing of your human heart. Yes, God uses other people, but other people will always be insufficient.

They will forget the things they said they will remember. They will not pray when they said they would pray. Ask Jesus about that. "Hey, guys, could you not watch one hour and pray with me?" As He's getting ready to go to the cross, and they fall asleep. Listen, church and community and Christians, they are not the author and finisher of your faith. Jesus alone is meant to meet all of those needs. No human being can or should fill all the voids of your heart. And listen to me, if they can, they're your idol If that person is the reason the sun rises and sets, if that girl is your reason for existence, she's your idol. Only Jesus is supposed to be sufficient. And I want you to notice how Paul … We've already seen his disposition, right? We've seen that he's saying, "Hey, don't lay it to their charge, Lord. Timothy, I really do wanna see you." We've already seen he's committed to community, but I want you to see why.

How is it that Paul, after all of the being forsaken and the and leaving behind this guy and sending that guy, how is he still committed to this thing after all the heartbreak? I want you to see with me in verse 16. He says, "At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge." So sure, there's hurt. Sure there's been heartbreak. Paul is actually alone. Paul has paid the price for real community. But we've already seen he's not bitter, and he's not angry, and he's not vindictive, and he isn't done with the church yet because he understood the church was never meant to be all things to him. Look at verse 17, the very first word, notwithstanding. That word notwithstanding is an acknowledgement of what was previously said, but he's about to change the direction. He says, "Yep, I was alone and nobody came. Luke wasn't there. Luke's here now, but nobody else was.

Notwithstanding in my defense, notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion." Paul says, "I got this job to keep preaching, and I'm not done with it, nor should I quit. Because, yes, you guys weren't there, and Titus you didn't come, and Timothy you were still busy, and this guy was over there, and that guy forsook me, but Jesus stood right next to me in the darkest valley of my life." And church family, can I just remind you? There'll come a time when probably somebody should have showed up at the hospital and they didn't Don't be surprised. But also don't be done, because nevertheless, notwithstanding, the Lord was there. The idea of stood with me is beautiful. It means to stand beside. So here's Paul at the end of his life. None of his proteges are there. None of his friends are there.

None of the churches sent a delegation. Paul's standing before Nero with nothing but him and the creator God of all of heaven and earth, and Paul says, "That was enough for me. and in fact, I've still got a job to do, and I've still gotta preach so the Gentiles hear the gospel, and I'm gonna keep going because he is enough." And notice his disposition in verse 18. "The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom." He said, "He is gonna carry me all the way into his presence." Now, Paul is probably well aware at this point that that carrying into the presence of God comes with a brief intermission where Nero will behead him, and yet Paul is still so excited. Look at the end of the chapter. "To whom be glory forever and ever, amen." It's not the end of the chapter. Paul goes on.

But he says, Paul, he… Paul says, "God's gonna guide me, and he's gonna bring me into his glory, and I'm gonna continue until then." And honestly, church, if you look at this passage, I'like I do, I look at it and say, "Man, Paul, like, I'd be done." I don't wanna ask for a raise of hands, but we probably all have church hurt. Like, I could trade stories with any of you, like for sure. Like, oh yeah, there's this guy, he led me to Christ, and, you know, he fell into sin, and so I'm just walking away. No. Jesus stood with you, and Jesus will carry you all the way to the end. Even if there's people who disappoint you, build that into your expectation and commit to community anyway. Paul's not done. Paul isn't done. Some are done with Paul, but he's not done with Christian community. His answer is that Jesus stood beside him. And I wanna remind us as we close, without that mindset, we'll never have that disposition.

Because the reality is we're gonna end up in that position one way or another. At some point in our life, someone's not gonna be there. They didn't know about the miscarriage. They didn't know about this thing. They forgot that thing they said they wouldn't. We're all gonna be in the position where we feel like we've been left out to dry by the church and the community of people. But I wanna remind us that a disposition that says, "He's enough," keeps us from that kind of devastating idea. And I also wanna remind us, this is it as I go to end. The church is not about us. Church isn't even about them. Church is about serving Jesus 'cause he's worthy. Yes. Sometimes what you put in, like let's just give a hypothetical. You got this new guy, I think of one kid, when I was first a youth pastor. His name was Ryan. He came out of the public school, had been kicked out of his house. Man, I just poured into this kid. I loved him.

I picked him up. We fed him. We didn't have a lot of money. We had like 30 bucks a month if we, if I walked to work every day. Like we were broke broke. And I was like, "I'm gonna buy this kid some food. I'm gonna get this kid some clothing." And I just poured in. He was there for like four weeks. It was so exciting, and then he disappeared off the face of the planet. And I remember feeling… And this is, this is, this is so early. We've faced so much more since then, 15 years of ministry. But I remember feeling so hung out to dry, like that wasn't worth it, what I put in and what happened. Like he just wasted all of it. It just wasn't worth it. And the Spirit of God just spoke into my heart in that moment, and I've remembered this theme throughout my years of ministry, is this: It may not be worth it, but he is always worthy of what we do. So when it comes to our church investment, don't hedge your bets.

"Nah, I don't think they're gonna… They're probably not gonna pan out. I'm not gonna develop a relationship with them. Oh, they seem like they're struggling. I'm not gonna… I'm only gonna do it when I know that it's gonna turn out." No. Love lavishly. Love. Develop relationships with every person you can. Get to know everybody's story. Have people over to your house. Fellowship with as many people as you can for the glory of King Jesus. And here's why it matters. You've probably heard this. I've heard this in society: "I love Jesus, but I can't stand the church." You know what that's like? All right, let me see. brother, what's your name? Logan. Logan. All right, Logan. I come say, "Hey, Logan, man, after church today, Logan, we're gonna go out to eat. Man, we're gonna have a great time, get to know you. I wanna hear your story." And he says, "Oh, man, you know, Pastor Casey, it was such a blessing to hear you know, preach.

You know, I really do look forward to kind of spending some time with you. But you know that lady on the fourth row, Stephanie?" Is that your wife's name, Stephanie? He says, "I'd love to go to lunch with you, but I can't stand that woman." I'd be like, "Yeah, Logan, probably should get different lunch plans then. That's my wife." I think you know where I'm going with this. The church is the bride of whom? Christ. Of Christ. You are called to love the church. You are called to give yourself to the church, and if Jesus looks at the bride with all of her faults and all of her flaws and all of her warts, of which I am one, and he looks at it and says, "That's worthy of my life. That's worthy of my death. I'm gonna sanctify that as a bride to myself," and then you and I cross our arms and say, "She ain't worth it. She doesn't meet my needs. She's not all I hoped she'd be." Yeah, and you're part of that.

But the reality is, you and I are commissioned and called to love this thing called church, and to ferociously and intentionally and continually develop real relationships with real people and work through those differences. And on the other side of those conflicts is where true life-giving community happens. Some of you have been… And I don't know, like pastors have not told me a single thing about this, so I could be totally off base, but perhaps there's people in this room, you've just been bouncing from one church. Two years there, four years here, three years there. "Oh, they're not good enough, they're not good enough, and they're not good enough." You need to just decide, "God, you put me here.

I want to develop relationships here, and as soon as I get affronted by their imperfection, I'm gonna love them through that," because at some point, the shoe's gonna be on the other foot, and they're gonna have to love you through your imperfections. And if every time it gets hard, you run, or every time it gets hard, you fold your arms and push your lip up and refuse to answer the door when the pastors come by, "Oh, they're just imperfect." There's no perfect place. You long for utopia. You long for heaven, and in heaven, there'll be no world, flesh, or the devil. It will be beautiful, and he will be King, and he will be with us, and we will be his people. But for now, this is what we got, and it's broken, and it's messy, but it is a holy habitation, a dwelling place for our God, and we should tenaciously commit ourselves to loving it and cultivating those relationships amongst our families and amongst our church.