If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in Matthew chapter 9. Verses 10 and 11 will essentially be our main topic today. But I'm going to walk through quite a bit of Scripture. Last week, Pastor Ryan brought to you guys our first message on Christlike community. And it was a really helpful word that closed with communion.

We're going to close with communion here today as well. I just thought it would be amazing for this three-week series to remember the body and the blood that was broken and then the supper that initiated this, this communion that we partake in. So we're doing it every week for this series. Without further ado, let me jump into this. In Matthew chapter 9, verses 10 and 11, it says this: "While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house." Anyone know Matthew's occupation?

 A tax collector. Very good. Well, he was at Matthew's house. Luke tells us it's Levi. So there's a real conversation about whether it's Levi and Matthew, or whether there's a whole another Levi tax collector that he went to his house too.

But there is Zacchaeus. So maybe it's three whole tax collectors he hung out with. He's got a reputation. Check it out: "Many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples." Verse 11: "When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, 'Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?'"

 you can stay there. I'm going to jump over to Luke 7:34 for a second.

And it says this — and this is Jesus's response to another group of Pharisees who are comparing him to John the Baptist. And so Jesus gives a contrast. In verse 33 he says, "John the Baptist came in this way, right? He was clothed in like camel hairs, and he was eating locusts and honey in the wild. He fasted.

He prayed. He baptized in the Jordan. He came in a very specific way." And Jesus contrasts the way that he came. He said, "The Son of Man came eating and drinking." And you say, "Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners."

I think if there was a summary of the way that Jesus lived out his community, you can find it through the mouths of his opponents. They said he's a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

And Jesus even self-identifies that he likes to eat and drink. Now, before you just make some real radical assumptions based on your own life's choices that you prefer to go to parties and act a certain way, I want to tell you very quickly that the ancient world was drastically different than our present world. It's 2,000 years ago. So while in some cases they maybe did things we don't do, there are also things that we do that they definitely wouldn't have done. So don't hear what the Pharisees say — hear what Jesus says.

He says, "The Son of Man came eating and drinking, " meaning he liked to dine with people, spending time eating and drinking over table fellowship. But what happened is his opponents lifted that up in the wrong way, and they said he was a glutton and he was a drunkard. I'm going to be honest with you — I don't know how Jesus really operated. He had a reputation, and from the Pharisees it was a negative reputation. But I want to build out a case for you talking about Jesus's style, the type of community that he liked.

And we're talking about Christlike community. So let's talk about the community style that Christ liked. And I'm going to go very quickly through this. I'm going to give you some Scriptures about Jesus's capacity for community. There are 28 times in the New Testament — I'm talking Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — 28 times where it talks about Jesus eating and drinking with other people.

28 times. There's one scholar who said, "It's hard to find a time in Scripture where Jesus wasn't either leaving a table fellowship, entering into a table fellowship, or literally at a table fellowship." Jesus liked to spend time in radical community. He had a high capacity for it. Matthew 14, Mark 6, and Luke 9 tell us the story of the feeding of the 5,000. This group of people follow Jesus out into the wilderness.

He's sad about John the Baptist dying, but they come out. They've been hearing him teach. And he says, "Hey, let's eat." And the disciples find five loaves, two fish. And y'all know what happens? He multiplies it for 5,000 people.

This happened in all four of the Gospels. In Matthew 15, Mark 8, he feeds 4,000 people. In Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and John 13, before he goes to be crucified by Pontius Pilate, before he goes to testify before the Pharisees and the Sadducees, before he is handed over by Judas, before he goes to the Garden of Gethsemane, before he sweats blood, he initiates communion at a dinner table. So before he dies, Jesus has to eat and drink a little bit. This happens in all of the Gospels.

It's called the Lord's Supper. John chapter 1, he's hanging out with people. He's walking around, and some of John the Baptist's disciples follow him, and he says, "Hey, come and hang out." And then they go stay somewhere, and they eat and they drink and they stay at somebody's house. John chapter 2, the first miracle is performed at a banquet, a wedding banquet in Cana. He turns water into wine.

Now, our weddings are much different than their weddings. Our weddings are about, like, you know, if I go longer than 12 minutes on my spiel, some people are looking at me like, "Hey, you finish this stuff up because we got real wedding stuff to do at the party afterwards." And the reception, if it's a really strong reception, lasts into the evening just a little bit. But in the ancient world, it would have lasted multiple days. So this wedding banquet — they run out of wine. Jesus multiplies the wine, turns water into wine, and gives it to those people who had already been partying, possibly for a few days.

Jesus liked eating and drinking. John chapter 4 and his interaction with the Samaritan woman — after he's done chatting with her, he asks for a drink. Y'all remember that? He asked for some water from the well. I don't even know if he gets water from that well.

But the people come out from Sychar, the city in Samaria, and they invite him in to stay with them. And it says he stayed with them for a couple of days. Can you guess what they were probably doing? Eating. And drinking.

John chapter 12, he has a dinner at Bethany, and Martha is cooking food for Jesus to eat, and probably there's drink. [sighs and gasps]

In John chapter 21, when he's resurrected, before he talks to Peter and says, "Feed my sheep, feed my lambs, " they're having breakfast by the sea. He even provides for them fish at that time. In Matthew 22, there's a parable of the wedding banquet where he describes the eternal structure of heaven as a great banquet where we would, for all of eternity — y'all want to guess it with me — eat and drink. Luke 14, there are four scenes.

In 1-6, there's a Sabbath meal at a Pharisee's house. In 7-11, there's a banquet teaching where he talks about not sitting at the front or the top of the table, the head seat at the table, but to sit in a lower spot — because he's talking about eating and drinking, and there's a way you got to do it. In Luke 14:12-14, he talks about who you should invite to banquets. In 15-24, he again tells a parable of the great banquet. In Luke 15:11-32, he tells a story of the prodigal son.

And when the son goes back, what do they do? They kill a cow, and they celebrate at a feast where every single person was eating and drinking. Goodness gracious, Jesus likes to eat and drink. In Luke 19:1-10, you have the story of Zacchaeus, a wee little man was he — he climbed up in a sycamore tree and looked at Jesus. I don't know why he was little.

And then Jesus looks at him and says, "Hey, I'm going to stay in your house today." And you can imagine what they did before Zacchaeus stands up and says great things about Jesus and says what he's going to do in his obedience to Jesus. They were eating and drinking. Luke chapter 24, on the road to Emmaus, he talks to two dudes after his resurrection, and they didn't recognize him. And it was when they broke bread that they realized who he was. In Luke 24:36-43, Jesus hanging out with his disciples — they eat fish.

Post-resurrection, it is pretty clear that Jesus liked to party. So quiet — they laughed in the first service. Y'all scared? It's cuz y'all view party in a radically different way than I'm talking about it. Jesus liked to party.

He had a radical capacity for community. You guys get tired at the level of community Jesus had. He's coming from a meal, going to a meal, or sitting at a meal. He's preaching and he's talking and he's healing and he's hanging out with these different people, always laying his head on a different pillow. He's at different people's houses — tax collectors, sinners.

The Pharisees were struggling with the amount of time he was spending partying with other people. They didn't like it. Jesus had a high capacity for community. That's my sermon title: Jesus liked to party. It was my first year of ministry.

Actually, I just started seminary, and I'd been invited to preach in Houston, Sugarland, Texas, specifically at a youth retreat. And at the youth retreat was a group of students from an Iranian Christian church. They weren't part of the main youth group, but they came for this event, and so did some of their leaders. And the leaders heard me preach, and for some reason, when I was 23, 24 years old, they liked the way I preached. That was terrible back then, but anyways, they liked it.

And they said, "Hey, would you be willing to fly out once a month to teach our people at the Iranian Christian church?" And I was like — I wanted to be a missionary at that point in the future overseas. And you know, maybe it'll still happen one of these days, but maybe 20 years from now, after I'm dead or done here. And I wanted to be a missionary at the time. And so I'm like, "Yo, Iranian Christians, totally. And they're going to fly me over to Houston." I felt like an important person.

And so I fly over, they pick me up from the airport, and they take me — I thought their church was a building, but it was actually at a house. And they took me to this house church, the Iranian Christian church, that was filled with either Iranian Christians who grew up in the United States, Iranian Muslims who were refugees from Iran fairly recently, and Muslim converts. And then some were — did I say they were still Muslim? They're still Muslim. I walk into this house, and I'm looking around at people, and they're all speaking — not English — Farsi.

They're speaking Farsi. And I'm like, "I don't know what to do here." And I went to the leader, and I said, "Hey, so what time would you like me to teach?" And they said, it was 6:00 p.m. At the time, and they said, "How about 9:00? How about we start at 9:00?" And I'm like, "That's three hours from now. What do you want me to do?" And he motioned his hand, and there was a big spread.

I'm talking — I'm talking Iranian-style spread. Like there's hummus, there's — I don't know what they call it, but it's like a version of baba ganoush. They like eggplant, eggplant over there. And then you got this basmati rice, and you got those little yellow raisins — you ever had the yellow raisins? It was just this full, full spread of stuff.

And it was unfamiliar, but I was kind of excited to try it out. So I went and started filling up my plate. And then there was this older Iranian lady — I think she was still a Muslim because she didn't speak any English at all — she's speaking to me in Farsi, motioning her hands, because I didn't understand a lick of what she was saying. And she grabs my plate from me without asking. And I'm like, "What's going on?" And she just grabs it and she starts stacking more stuff on there.

And I'm like, "Hold up, what's that?" And she gives it to me. And I don't know if any of you guys grew up maybe in Mexico, maybe you're Iranian — I have no clue — but if you've been in a more communal society than our post-Enlightenment individualist society (that I'm talking to youth, and I—I'm just learning that I do not have a capacity for community at this level. These people are on a different level. And then it gets to nine o'clock and I start teaching. And I'm planning—I'm a white dude from a Baptist church originally.

And so I'm planning for like a 20, 30 minute talk. And we get to the end of that 20, 30 minutes, they're like, "Yeah, we still got another 45." And I'm like, "I don't have content for 45 minutes." And so they—they fellowship for 3 hours over dinner. [panting] And then I had to teach for like an hour and a half. And then afterwards, I'm staying—I'm sleeping at this house. Okay, they didn't leave at all.

And I'm sitting here like, this has got to be cool somewhere, but I'm not vibing with it at the moment. I think we're in this place in our post-enlightenment culture where we don't have the capacity to do the radical community that Jesus is promoting in the way that he lives. Some of y'all do, but I'm working on it. And I'm going to tell you up at the front end—here's my first point: Jesus came eating and drinking. And if you want to live in community the way that Jesus lived in community, we have got to become accustomed to a different type of table fellowship than we're familiar with.

And I'm going to break this down over the next few moments. But, man, it—for me it's so drastic of a difference the way that he lived out community and the way that we are accustomed to it—that I feel like this entire message is not built on giving you parameters with the parties that you have, though there are parameters. I just want you to know because at the end of this message I'm trying to increase your capacity for radical community, which is like Christian partying. I'm trying to increase your capacity to party. I'm trying to.

I really am. But I need you to know if you're leading a small group and that alcohol comes out and somebody gets drunk, I need you to know it's not going to be a good conversation between you and me. There are parameters to the way that we party. There are parameters to the way that Jesus partied. But I don't want to focus on that because I think we are so unaccustomed to this type of lifestyle that I'm going to hit it hard today.

Okay, Jesus came eating and drinking. I just got back from that culture, guys. And everywhere we went, we were at—we were at the Knesset, which is their parliament, which is where they do lawmaking. I cannot picture, at our legislature building, that they're sitting there with tons of food and hummus and drinks and everything. But we get there and there's a whole spread, and I'm like, we literally just ate lunch like 20 minutes ago.

What do we need this spread for? But of course, I drank coffee, and we're hanging out there. And then afterwards, we get back and we got like 30 minutes before dinner, and I—are we going to eat dinner? Yeah, we're eating dinner. We're hanging out tonight.

This is what we're doing. They're constantly eating and drinking in this culture. It is so unfamiliar to me. But this is the culture that Jesus was raised in. This is the culture that Jesus lived in.

This is a culture that Jesus died in. And this is the culture, I guess, he was raised again, if you will—he was raised in this culture. But my capacity is so much more limited than Jesus's. And when I look at Jesus, I look at someone who was always willing to party. And I don't know if you know this, but it is through community that you get a more robust understanding of who God is.

 I know you could open the Bible. And I'm gonna say this, and I don't want to be cocky, Laura—I won't be cocky, Hannah—but I'm gonna say this because I'm fairly confident in this fact: I think I know the Bible better than most of you. And I'm telling you, the Bible's beautiful. It's amazing. It's sharper than any two-edged sword.

It can pierce through and help you divide between your amygdala and your prefrontal cortex. It can really help you in your life understand the things of God. And the spirit of God can use it to change every facet of your being. Yet it is incomplete if you do it in isolation. You have to have community.

And I think your community needs to radicalize a little bit if you're going to understand the full weight of what God wants you to understand. And some of you are sitting here thinking that that doesn't sound practical. And I'm going to tell you, whether something is practical should be a sidebar in the conversation between you and God about what you're called to. You need to sidestep that crap so quickly. It's like, I know it's not practical, but our faith—it was initiated by a guy who came from heaven to earth and died on a cross so that our sin might be forgiven.

Throw practical out the window. It is not practical. But when we look at Acts chapter 4, we see impractical ministry causing people to be radically shifted by the Holy Spirit. It is not practical to have radical community. But radical community is the way that God has blessed the world most recently.

It is church. It is community. It is the gathered ones of God. The ekklesia—it means gathered, but also called out. It is the people that are called by God to connect with one another as they follow Jesus and bless the world.

It is—no, it's not practical. It's not. I mean, I hope you didn't show up to church thinking that bearing your own cross was going to be practical. I hope you didn't show up to church thinking that the peace of God that surpasses all understanding meant that there was nothing bad that was ever going to happen and nothing difficult you were ever going to encounter. No, the life with Jesus doesn't promise a lack of difficulty.

 It promises peace in the midst of it. That's right. And one of the ways he tells us to encounter peace is by surrounding ourselves with groups of people who have that same inner peace that we have all received in Christ Jesus. So it requires community. I'm trying to show you that this is how Jesus himself, the Son of God, operated.

And if he needed to operate within that community over table fellowship, eating and drinking, then I would propose to you, you should probably do the same thing. Now, I know it's not practical, but it's just part of the game. It's part of it. And I know that you might be thinking, well, what about time alone? Yeah, get it.

I mean, Jesus got it, too. Jesus spent time with tons of people. Literally, he's in mourning when most of us choose to spend time alone—5,000 people follow him out into the wilderness. And he's praying, hanging out with the disciples, and then these people come, and he looks at them and he says, "Well, I'm going to have compassion on these people. These people are like sheep without a shepherd.

So I guess I'll feed them. If I can't be alone, I might as well be in table fellowship with these guys." Right? He is constantly moving from prayer time alone to people time over eating and drinking. This is what he constantly does. And to those of you who think, "I don't even know how to do this in 2026, " I'm with you.

I don't know either. We're all so stacked and busy with sports and all these other things that we've added to our calendar and our schedule, and then all that stuff that we didn't add to the schedule, but we do for downtime. I know it's going to be really impractical for you to do, but impractical doesn't make it not worth it. It's worth it for us to develop a high capacity for community. Why?

We'll figure it out as we step into it. But I can tell you now, Jesus did it, so we're going to do it. And I know there are a lot of reasons to not do it. And I got a few excuses—we'll toss them on the screen in a second. But there are excuses to reject community.

We make it all the time. First off, we feel too busy or too tired. I mean, I just got back—I got back on Friday at around 12:30, and then we had young adults, and for right now stepped in for a few of the teachings, and so I had to go right into that. And then the next day there was a prayer meeting that we had at the city, which was super awesome. I don't know if you saw it, but our leaders in the city have put together a group that meets quarterly so that we can pray for our city.

I think that's amazing that we get to be a part of that. So they invited me to that, and I was sure not going to say no to that—that's more community. And then in the evening, we had like someone's birthday party, and so I went to that, and then they're playing games, but I'm hitting jet lag mode and I don't want to hang out. I'm looking at my wife like, let's go. But then someone comes and talks to me, and I'm like, oh, am I going to choose community or am I going to choose jet lag sleeping time?

Which one am I going to do? And, you know, we did leave earlier than some—I needed it—but at the same time I felt tired. But you know what, tired—if it keeps me from community, what good is sleeping if when you're awake you're not doing the thing God called you to do? Here's another reason: fear of exposure or reliving past experiences. I know it's hard 'cause someone wronged you in the past.

Welcome to the world. I'm not trying to make you feel sorry—that sounded really insensitive. I know it's been hard. I know someone wronged you back in the day. I'm a pastor, for goodness sakes.

Can you imagine what might have happened to me just in the last couple of weeks because someone got offended over something that I said or didn't say, or something that I did say but they interpreted it incorrectly, or something that I said about the Scripture that flies in the face of what their God taught them the last 20 years? I don't know. Some of that stuff happens, and then someone wrongs me, or, goodness gracious, posts on Facebook about me. Or when I go to church, people look at me and question my ability to follow Jesus, all because someone says something negative about me. And it gets even worse when they're right.

And I got crap to deal with, stuff to figure out. And I'm sitting here, and it would be so easy for me to be hurt or traumatized by my past experiences. And it is hard sometimes when you know what people think about you to show back up. I get it. But Jesus was called—the King James says—a wine bibber and a drunkard.

What? A wine bibber! If y'all call me a wine bibber, I don't know if I could show my face back up at church. I got rid of a bib a long time ago. I just don't even do that anymore.

And I just don't—he was called all of those things, and he still showed up

 constantly eating and drinking, because the mission was more important than whatever that person was saying about him. Fear of obligation. A lot of us don't want to be obligated to the thing that God called us to. A lot of us don't want to be obligated to other people. We have developed our own patterns, in the idea that someone would impact my patterns—negatively, or positively, or just change them neutrally—the idea that someone would change the way that I've done stuff for the last 5 years when I kept myself in isolation.

No, you don't. This is who I am. This is how I operate. These are my habits. And when you step into community, your habits shift—it.

They have to. It's just part of the game. It's part of community. But God called us into it because he knew that was one of the greatest ways that our habits would shift from the flesh into a faith style of living. This is one of the greatest ways he called us to do it.

And your fear of obligation is preventing you from doing what God called you to do. Don't let your fear of obligation cause you to step out of community. There's also social anxiety. I'll be sensitive here because I don't want—I mean, some of us have it in a way that doesn't even make sense to us, and we find ourselves fearful. There are people—you might be one of those people—if their first time at the church they see that first time guest parking lot and they definitely don't put on their hazard lights.

They don't let us know they're a first time guest. They go all the way to the back 'cause I don't want to be identified. There's a social anxiety coming into church. Maybe you show up to the small group for the first time. Maybe you know somebody in that small group, and you're like, they knew me back a couple months ago, and I feel like them being in that group is going to cause other people to view me in a particular way.

I had a conversation with someone recently because, like, something happened with them, and they're deeply concerned that the people in this church were going to judge them. I want to say first, the People in this church that give you a look, we call that resting b**** face. They don't mean to do it. They didn't intend it. They're probably thinking about their own struggles, and they're looking at you in a particular way, but they're not judging you.

I can promise you, no one I know in leadership or in this ministry has a posture toward you that is negative in the slightest. But when we come into a group, we think, "Oh my gosh, people are judging us for our past." When really, we're projecting onto them the very thing we think about ourselves. That social anxiety, don't let it inhibit you. Push past it. And when you push past that social anxiety, you're going to embrace at a deeper level the God of peace.

And when He's with you, that anxiety flees from you. But here's the real reason: it's post-Enlightenment individualism. Post-Enlightenment individualism. The philosophers, the theologians, and the sociological scientists of the 13th, 14th, and 15th century, they radically shifted the way that we think. And it went from a communal society to a between-us-and-God type relationship, between a us and whatever.

"I think, therefore I am. I am important. The people around me are completely separate." There is me and there is another. We think about ourselves predominantly, and we think about ourselves not in the context of a group. Whereas in the Scriptures, every bit of the Scriptures was written in a communal society, where nothing that is written was ever written with the intent of isolation.

So the people who say, "I can read the Bible alone" — there was not a single bit of this text that was written in isolation, or at least delivered in isolation. Every bit of this text was delivered in the community. It was written for the community. It wasn't written for you as an individual. So when you say, "For I know the plans that I have for you, plans to prosper, " He's talking to a community.

He's not talking to you as an individual. Though it's significant to me as an individual, it is meant within the context and confines of a community of people who are following Yahweh. This is for the community. So don't reject the very thing God died for. He died for all of us, not just as individuals, but He died for His church.

He is the bridegroom, and we as His gathered people are the bride. It is a communal lifestyle, and there are benefits that come from it. Crazy benefits, guys. Like, I'm going to read some for you. Your physical and mental health will improve.

Studies show — I looked it up. I didn't just use ChatGPT, guys. I looked it up. It's comparable to quitting smoking to join a healthy community. It is comparable to, or it's greater than, addressing obesity.

It's greater than increasing physical activity by itself. And what I found is that loneliness increases the risk of depression and anxiety significantly. So if you want to reduce anxiety and depression significantly, get with some people —

 especially Jesus people. Those are better. Yeah, I mean, not better, you know what I mean?

We're all loved by God, but just better for your psych, whatever. You get what I'm saying? It lowers your — it lowers your cortisol, your stress hormone. It lowers inflammation. Yeah.

So some of y'all bloated people need to join a group. It makes better cardiovascular health. Yeah. All you gotta do is stop bypassing a group, and you won't have a bypass. You know what?

Okay. You get a stronger immune response, stronger identity, meaning, and resilience. Like, after trauma, you'll actually have greater resilience if you're in community than if you're by yourself. This is scientific data, but the Scriptures validate it. You have faster recovery from loss and hardship.

So those of you who got dumped recently, join a group. Amen. Yeah. Did you get dumped? I'm not going to ask.

Sorry. I know some people who got dumped recently. Stinks to do that by yourself. Yeah, yeah. Been putting so much stock into this romantic relationship that you've neglected the community that's there for you constantly.

It also shifts your moral, spiritual, and behavioral formation. Community forms greater than propositional content. Like, propositional — literally, my sermon will not form you as well as the community around you will form you. And it has formed you. It's just deformed you.

And what the church is meant to do is reform you into the person and the people that God's called you to be. It'll change your habits, your beliefs, and your emotional patterns. Formation will not happen here in this room. It'll happen when you learn to party like Jesus partied. And if you don't like the word "party, " how about this one: partyation — participate, participation.

Participate in the group. Participate in serving. This is where you were formed. And when Jesus decided to dwell among men, He not only assembled an eclectic group of disciples, but He shared the dinner table with others all the time. He had a radical capacity for community.

And He knew that holiness didn't come from distance from people. It came from constant presence with people. Number two: eating and drinking also brings others close. Not just to you, but to Jesus. Eating and drinking brings others close.

One thing I learned at that Iranian church is that when that lady shoved the plate into my face and stood there until I was done — it's painful, but there's something deeply that I knew. I knew she cared about me. I knew she didn't say nothing, and if she did, I didn't understand it. She spoke Farsi. But she shoved that plate in my face, which some of y'all would have considered rude.

But for me, I'm like, "Oh, she loves me enough to force-feed me. This is great." And even if it was awkward, I knew that she would not have put that plate in front of me unless she cared about me. She wanted me to experience some sort of love. And her way of giving love, when she couldn't speak my language, was to hand me food. I know that lady loves me.

I don't know if she was Muslim or Christian, but I know she loved me. But the way she was operating, it seemed really Christian, because she kept giving me food. It was super helpful, and she was super nice to me. And maybe the pastor had told her that she needed to follow me the entire night, cuz that's what she did. But I felt loved by this person.

And some of you, right — like, you come in here, be careful with this — you come in here week in, week out, and God wants to do something great in your life, but you hear the propositional content and you exit. And I want to encourage you: don't just exit. Spend time with people. And I want to tell the people who are comfortable here: maybe you shove some food in people's faces once in a while. You know, like, say, "Hey, we're going to eat, you want to join us?" Or, "We have the Sunday picnic" — which I know half you guys probably think, "Why does he keep pushing the Sunday picnic?" Why?

It's because I want to create environments where community can occur. And it's going to take a little while. Why? Post-Enlightenment individualism that is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus. And if you don't get to stay one day, I — we're not saying, "Yeah, look at this individualist." That's not what we're doing.

We're not judging you. But at the same time, I want you to stay long enough to connect with somebody, because it's through those connections and the content that you're going to be formed in relation to your faith. And for those of you who are familiar with this stuff, I'd encourage you: bring a little extra food. There ain't nothing wrong with bringing a double picnic so you can invite somebody who doesn't know Jesus to interact and share table fellowship with you. Eating, drinking — eating, drinking.

This is what I want us to spend time doing. When Jesus looked at Zacchaeus and He said, "Hey, up there in the tree, I'm going to stay at your house" — which is a really awkward thing to say — it's almost like, "Hey, we're going to have table fellowship together. And since you climbed up in the tree, I'm going to assume that I'm already invited to your place." And they go to his place. And it's so cool, because we have fair evidence that Zacchaeus didn't know what to believe. But it was through communion, connection over eating and drinking, that Zacchaeus came to the Revelation of who Jesus was.

You could say this — and churches say it all the time — like, he belonged before he even had belief. This is the type of environment that I want to create at our church. And I know it sounds like I might be talking to all the non-first-time guests right now, but if you have been here for a while, let's create radical community. And in order to do that, we have to increase our capacity for community. I know you might feel stupid bringing extra food for somebody else, but I'm telling you, anyone who's going to reject a free meal — you crazy.

It's too expensive out there in this world to be rejecting free meals. So just offer it, just like that lady. And even if they say no, guess what? They're going to feel the love. And that's what I care about, them feeling.

People are going to reject offers all the time. But ultimately, as we show love to one another, it shows more and more the character of Jesus that we want them to accept. And I know if we can get this right, we're going to close that back door at our church. People are going to stop coming and going at the same frequency because they have connection. And that connection and community will form them into the people that God's called them to be.

And so, here's what Christlike, invitational partying looks like. This is a vision I'm casting for our church. Here's what it looks like. It looks like staying a little longer than you might be comfortable. Just a little bit — don't stay longer than they're comfortable, just —

 Just staying a little bit longer than you might be comfortable.

Sometimes when you stay a little longer. And I was praying to the Lord this morning, and — most of the time it's just me beating my head against a wall and hoping the Lord talks to me. But today it was like I was beating my head against the wall, but then God opened the door, and I — I fell into it. And the Lord was speaking directly to me. And this is what community needs to look like.

It's like, stay a little bit longer. If you stay a little bit longer, the door might open, and you might see the very thing that you were hoping for. You might find that person, that man of God or that woman of God — not in a relationship, like a romantic relationship, but in the friendship that you've been praying for. You might find that couple or family that connects with you in your current life situation. But if you just jet and don't stay, you'll miss it.

For those of you who are here, bring enough for more than you. How do you form community if you're never invitational in the community you're bringing? Be the host if you're not a guest. Like, the moment you come in here, if you're not parking in that first-time guest parking lot, it's official — you're a host. And when you look at someone who's walking around like a chicken with their head cut off, it's because they ain't been to church in 20 years and they don't know what to do in this moment.

You say, "You know what? I'm going to love on them" —

 and we don't have any food here, but we can do some drinking. Here's some coffee. [clears throat] I'm going to communicate with them in such a way that they would not just want to stay at the church, but they would want a part of the life that we get to partake in. Make community happen.

That's what it — make it happen. And don't just let it happen, because it won't, if you just sit there and wait for it. This is why we're doing the Sunday picnics. This is why we push small groups so deeply. This is why I'm doing a sermon series on Christlike community.

This is why I'm changing Next Steps up. Next Steps didn't really hit my vibe. It was in a library, and I went to too much school to do stuff in a library anymore. And it was the way we would do it — we would do it after the second service, and it would get the least of my energy, and I don't want you to get the least of my energy if you're new to the church. And then we moved it to where we do it after both services, so people from both services can make it.

And then it was on a video, and I had a bad hair day when that video was done. And so I just — I hate the idea of you guys watching a video. But this isn't propositional content I'm trying to get across. I'm trying to invite you into the life with Christ that our church is a part of right now. And that's what Next Steps is supposed to be about.

So what we're doing is we're going to do like J I want it to be a relational environment where you can make the official decision as to whether you like the vibe or not of our church. That's my, what my heart is. There's going to be volunteers there if I feel led to connect them to you. There's going to be leaders there if I think you would fit really well onto a team. And then there's going to be like a bunch of new people that you can connect with.

 But no longer at our church are we going to settle for no community when Christ Jesus himself lived in radical community. So that's what I want us to do because, ultimately, and this is my final point, the future will be eating and drinking. Anyways, there's one metaphor that Jesus uses to describe, in Luke chapter 14 and Matthew 22, our eternal dwelling place, our eternal dwelling place. And it's a parable. And he describes heaven as a giant wedding feast.

Of all the metaphors he could have chosen, he chose eating and drinking as a metaphor to describe our eternal life with God in heaven. And Jesus has invited us to dine with him. Isaiah 55 and Isaiah 25 say, "Join me in dining with fine foods and a feast with the richest of fare." Like, what God is inviting us into is a life of eating and drinking into eternity with him. And the only way to get into that wedding banquet, the only way to get into that party, is by accepting the invitation that comes from Christ Jesus himself. Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me." That's what the Bible says. Revelation actually calls him not just the host of the party. As we see in Luke chapter 15, the Father is the host of the party, but Revelation actually says that we'll no longer have the sun as our light. It will be the Son of God. Christ will be our light.

He will be at the center of the new Jerusalem, the center of the heavenly dwelling place. He will be the host of the dinner fellowship that we have with God for all of eternity. And all he asks is that we come join him for that feast. And the Bible makes it clear how we join him. We confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord.

We believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead. So, if everybody would bow their heads, close their eyes, I want to give you an opportunity to accept the invitation to the eternal wedding feast where we will eat and drink with our Creator for all of eternity. Just repeat after me. Say, "God, I believe that Jesus is your son, that he died on the cross and rose from the grave. Forgive me of my sin.

Make me new, and I will follow you into eternity." It's in Jesus's name that we pray. Every head bowed, eyes closed. If you just accepted the invitation into the eternal life that God offers through Jesus, I want you to make eye contact with me really quickly. Just let me know that you made the decision to follow Jesus. I see you.

I see you. We're going to celebrate for you in a second, but I want to help you, take your next step toward God. Could you fill out a connection card for me? It's on your seat. Fill out your information, drop it off at the table, or you can bring it to one of the prayer team that's going to be up here in a moment.

In fact, if the prayer team could come up here during this last moment, I want to give you the opportunity to receive prayer. But if that was you, please take a next step. Hey, can we celebrate all of those who just trusted in Jesus? Amen.