The Seven Pillars (Part 11)-NT Community & The Relational Nature Of NT Worship - Rod Mills

This is a series on the 7 Pillars of the AeroNova spiritual family, the DNA markers of who God has called us to be as a people. 
 In this final installment of the teaching on the third pillar, New Testament community, we talk about spiritual community and the practices of dwelling together with God are acts of worship.
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Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):

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​So this is our probably our last week on the third pillar. What's the third pillar? Anybody want to take a stab at it? Yeah, you go New Testament community. Some people call it apostolic community, some people call it spiritual family. I like to say it means being people who are deeply relational in the kingdom. And I never planned on spending this many weeks on this pillar. And each week, I would just go back to the Lord and be studying. And the Holy Spirit was like, keep going, keep going, there's more here. And I realized that there's a whole lot more, but I'm starting to feel a release that will we'll move on to the fourth pillar. So the first pillar and the pillar the the pillars of Aaron Nova, and really what we're calling the Friends of Jesus, which is more than just our ministry, but also our spiritual kin, kinship, if you will, and the people that we're working with. So I call that the order of the Friends of Jesus, because this is really a lifestyle. Have you noticed that more and more people are getting the message? How many of you saw that prophetic word that was sent out yesterday, you see what's happening. So this is really cool for me, because we were we really in 2015, when God called us to begin, we were on the front and leading edge of this wave the swelling now. And now those of you that have surfed before, you know, it's really cool when when a wave starts to rise, if you're in the right place at the right time, it's the best place to be is on the front of that wave. Because you don't have to swim very far to get on it. You're already there. And God pre positioned us, if you will, in much of what he is calling the church to in spiritual family, spiritual fathers and mothers, the mantle of Elijah moving in spiritual community, and more of an organic nature of the church rather than organizational even though yes, we have organization. But we're returning to much of the core elements of the Apostolic Church, this is our calling. And it's not focused on the attraction or model, how many people can you gather in a building, it's focused on what's the substance of our calling, and our relationships, and then to take that from Jerusalem to use the scriptures term Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, all the uttermost and we call that a calling to the nation's sneak preview of one of the till the pillars, but many of you already know it. So today, I want to begin by reviewing a couple of things that probably most of you already know. But I want to just review a couple of elements as we dive into this next part here. And I gotta tell you, when I'm studying for this, I get so excited, I can't hardly sit still because it's so exciting to see what God is doing and what he is preparing us for and calling us into. So I'll reread Acts, chapter two, verse 42, and they continued steadfastly, and the apostles teaching. That's what we call apostolic teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and in prayers. And I've mentioned this probably 100 times, in the first 400 years or so of the church worship centered around a meal, not a stage. Now, I'm gonna say this another 100 times, because no matter if this is what's funny, have you noticed that once culture gets inside of you, it doesn't change easily? Woody, we were talking about this yesterday, we're talking about changing culture, no matter how well I know something in my mind, the culture of my, of how I see things of how I live, of how I evaluate things from the past is still competing, even if the Lord is teaching me something fresh, something new, something strong. And so I want to keep saying this because it takes like unlike layers to learn this, the church was not cathedrals the church met just like this Now, unfortunately, they did. Have zoom, but they met in these communities and these spiritual communities, and the early church viewed all four of these elements in Acts 242. As worship Did you hear that? So when they broke bread together, they viewed it as worship. And at the end of their meal, they would have the Eucharist or what we call the Lord's Supper. And that was worship. And they worshiped and they shared songs and hymns and spiritual songs. Worship in the early church in the Apostolic Church for hundreds of years, was an interactive experience, not an observational experience. And it was something that continued through the week. Now, unlike them, we don't all live in the same little village like they did. Many of these towns, they live close to one another. Now, a few of you live really close here in this neighborhood, but they lived really close. Like, where you walk out your door, you go down the street. And it's like, you just walk down the street and you see this guy and you see this person and you see this person, and they're all in your fellowship. So they were in small community. So they saw each other a lot. We don't have that. And that's the one of the reasons why we have prayer streams, so that we are encouraging one another daily. While it is called today, lest we fall to a heart of unbelief. Beth and I moved our tomato plants indoors for the rest of the season, because it's getting chilly outside at night. And we had to stake the plants needed to be staked better because we they had just grown so much they needed to be staked. So we start staking the plants. We put them by the windows, a couple of days went by. And we noticed that one entire limb was just withered and wilted one, I mean, one limb had two tomatoes on it, and it was withered and wilted completely. And it was dying. And then Beth got to looking at it, and it had twisted, when we had been staking it. And because there's so many limbs, we didn't notice, it wasn't even connected anymore. It was still staked, it looked like part of the plant. It's its inner mind intertwining with all the other limbs, but it wasn't connected. Do you know you can be in the fellowship and not be connected. You can be around God's people, but lose that spiritual life blood life flow of connection. And that's why I appreciate so much so many of you sharing and ministering and sharing words and prayers, and lifting up one another on the prayer streams. Because this keeps us connected. And no matter that limit, doesn't matter that that limb was right there with the whole plant had tomatoes on it looked great. It was dying. Because of that. We literally had to pick the tomatoes off that limb, put them in the window because those those tomatoes, the fruit there cannot we can't reattach the limb, obviously. So we just have to ripen them right there like they are. So this is important for us that we see x 242 as more than something we do at a Mission House meeting. How many of you know that mission house is not a meeting? I know Mission House is the tip of the iceberg. But mission house itself is not a meeting. It's a family. And Mission House meeting is where we meet, but family and connection, especially around spiritual things very important. So these elements of acts 242. We do them together on Sunday right now. But don't think that that's all the time that you want to do it. We want to connect now we don't program everything. Because a lot of this has to be organic. It can't, you know, it's like, I can't send out a schedule and say, okay, Doug, and Jennifer, you're going to meet with Brad and Lucy on Monday night. And then Colin, you're going to meet with Charles and brisa on Tuesday night have dinner, we don't do that, right? This has got to be organic. And it's got to be a fairly, if you will, intuitive to do that. But acts 242 These four elements is more than just a meeting that we meet in. It's a lifestyle of community. So fulfilling depth with God occurs in the lifestyle of the four elements, not just the meaning of the four elements. It is not uncommon to find unbelievers who are unfulfilled because one or more of these are missing. So this is important. You can't I see you can you could do three of them. But if you leave one out you're gonna notice a significant nutritional deficit in your spiritual life very soon. Now, it may not be like right away, like when Beth and I, when we connected when we staked that limb, and we tied it and everything we didn't know it was dead, it took a few days before we realized it. And there are areas of life that will start doing this if we, if we disconnect on the breaking bread level, or if we disconnect on the prayer level or something like that. So these four are very, very critical, essential for our spiritual health as a community. Now, how often have we heard an emphasis on prayer and scripture reading, but without the same emphasis on fellowship, and the breaking of bread? I mean, I grew up with this, I grew up with the emphasis on teaching and prayer, more teaching initially, and then as I got older, into the prayer streams, but we didn't have a heavy emphasis on fellowship and the breaking of bread. Now, when I, when I say fellowship, and when I'm using this word fellowship in the New Testament, it's more than just a child. How're you doing today? Good to see you. How's your work this week? That's a good start. But fellowship has to go deeper into how are you doing? What's going on in your heart? How's your family doing? What's happening in your spirit right now? What's been going on in your spirit, if we back off from those relationships, where we can share our hearts, what ends up happening is we start to become like that limb. We need these relationships, we need fellowship that goes deep enough to address the life issues in our hearts. And to and to be in that what I call relationship of substance. think those of you who are married, think about this, if you in your marriage relationship, what if all you talked about was the surface stuff, like the house and organization of the yard and what you're going to eat for dinner tonight, and you just stick with the surface stuff. You can't do that and have a healthy marriage, you have to go into the heart stuff. And the deeper we go into the heart stuff, the healthier our relationship is, the same is true in the church on a on a on a spiritual community level, we need to be able to have those Heart to Heart conversations. Now, you can't have the heart to heart conversations unless you first have the surface conversations, right? I mean, you know, you know, you don't walk into your your brother's sister's house and say, Hey, what's the heaviest thing on your heart this week? You know, you start by going, how are you doing? We know what's going on, let's get a cup of coffee, let's talk what's going on. And then we kind of ease into this relationship, each time that we gather together or meet together one on one. So it's important to to define these four, not as Americans define them, but as the scripture defines them. So when we say apostolic teaching, we're talking about persistent immersion in the Word of God, not just your Bible study, not just your time in the scriptures, but also receiving from others. What is God saying, and receiving teaching? And then fellowship? I already hit that on what we're talking about deeper fellowship, breaking bread together, are breaking bread together will be much deeper. If that fellowship goes deeper, if we're relating during the week together in prayer, and what is God saying? What's the Lord speaking to us? What is on our hearts? What's the burdens that we're carrying? You know, you, you can't carry my burdens unless I share them with you. So I shared with you recently, I asked for prayer for my sister, she had been sick, went into some details on that. And so people, whenever people are praying, it helps lift that burdens with me, so that I'm not carrying that by myself. Several folks I've met with this past week, and just talking about the burdens what they're carrying. What What is it the obstacles that are in front of them, and helping walk through that process? That's me helping you carry the burdens. But the sad thing is, is you also will help me and help one another, carry these burdens, but people cannot help us carry burdens unless we share the burdens. Are you tracking with me? If you and I back off, and we just kind of go to our closets or even our prayer closets and share our burns with the Lord, that's great. But we need to be able to share our burdens with one another so that we can bear one another's burdens together. And don't ask people to read your mind. Right? Don't ask People, you know, sometimes we want people to be so prophetic because we don't want to share, right? We're like, hey, you know, just pray for me just pray. You know, we've all done that. But God wants us to be able to share. And that's part of fellowship and prayer. Fellowship as early church understood it wasn't surface. Teaching and prayer, bring us into a greater knowledge of God in wisdom and revelation. Are you tracking this? So teaching and prayer? Have you noticed that when you're listening to teaching, and you're doing teaching, have you noticed how much more wisdom and revelation that are flowing in your life, add that into get in a per counsel, now you get into prayer counsel, and you're teaching, and you're receiving teaching, and you're studying, suddenly, the river of wisdom and revelation intensifies. Remember this, it's not enough just to be around people who do it. Remember the limb on the tomato plant, you can be right around all the people. But if you're not connected, the limb starts to die. So keep that in mind. But when we do the revelation, and the wisdom starts to flow, and these are plentiful fountains through which God disperses, what I call the seeds of heaven, if you notice that when God does these things, they are like seeds, they are the beginning of many things in God. And we say that a lot in our prayer councils, we say that, because much of what God is showing us is the seeds or the beginnings of what he does in our lives, that become entire regions of obedience, and dreams and God. Fellowship and breaking bread are different though. So we're saying teaching and prayer often bring the seeds but fellowship and breaking bet bread, our means of heavenly relationships, get this, through which God, Till's the soils of our hearts. And he embeds those seeds into the soil. So you and I, yes, we can get a certain amount of that seed into our hearts through teaching and prayer, the apostolic teaching and prayer. But the way the main way those seeds get embedded into our hearts, is through fellowship, and the breaking of bread. That's where the seed comes. Yesterday, we were talking about different spots in the yard where it needs to have seed. And I was saying, you know, whenever we had a Section Two years ago, we had a drought in the winter, and it didn't precipitate for four months, and I had a huge section of my yard that died. And I didn't just go get seed and throw it out there on the yard, I had to take a hoe and a rake and tear it up by hand. And I couldn't use the tiller. But it was that's a little much for this area. But I went in and I had to tear that soil up until it got really soft, until it got really pliable. And then I poured the seed all over that area. Then I took the rake and I begin to rake that area so that the seed began to be embedded into the soil fellowship in the breaking of bread are critical for the seeds of God's word to get embedded. Now, if I didn't do that, guys, grass would have grown on that section of the yard, but not to the level that it grew. It literally grew in I put in a mix of bluegrass and fescue into this section of the yard. And if you you see it today, if you come over to the house, I'll show it to you. It's embedded in now this lush, thick, strong carpet of fescue and bluegrass covers that entire area that was drought. If I had just thrown the seeds on the soil, to use the spiritual application, if I have prayer and teaching and study, but I don't connect it in with the fellowship and the breaking of bread, the seed doesn't get worked into the soil the same way. Now I asked you a question, which is harder, casting the seed on the ground, or raking and tilling and holding up the ground, which is the harder thing. It is way harder. I mean, it's a lot more work. It's a whole lot more work. And this is the nature of relationships. When we get into fellowship, what we're talking about fellowship and the breaking of bread is we're talking about relationships, relationships are challenging. It's easy to sit next to someone once a week and worship and hear teaching. It's challenging when you live together. Whether when you walk together, when you journey together when you're on mission together, because then we have to deal with conflict, we have to deal with the challenges of being people in everyday life. And yet, that's the way the seed gets embedded into the soil is through the relationships. So my life is much richer with you than it is without you. My My whole life has been enriched by people and relationships. But we had to make the hard choice to be in close relationships, and not draw back from being in those deep relationships, even when there's conflict and challenge. And there's just a whole lot of stuff with relationships. You know, a friend of mine said, years ago, and I've never forgotten this, he's a pastor, he because you know, he gives pastoring would be so easy if it weren't for all the people. And I was like, right, but isn't that the essence of what we do? Right, we dedicate ourselves to investing into one another's lives, don't draw back from the fellowship and the breaking of bread. And you you know, it just because that branch on the tomato plant is in that bunch of branches with that plant, does not mean to use the spiritual analogy that it's experiencing spiritual family. So in other words, I have to be intentional, to invest, and to hear your heart and to and to express my heart to you. And you have to be intentional to express your heart to others, and invest and this is where spiritual family takes place, it will not happen by osmosis, right? This is the nature of the third pillar, this is our calling. This is something that we are called to, and living for long term, because we will live this way in the power of God, we will be able to impart it to others, if we ourselves have lived in it and walked in it. But if we don't walk in it, we become limited on how much we can impart. Make sense. So there are some who listened to teaching, and they take some notes. And they go about their daily lives, without the robust presence of the fellowship and the breaking of bread, and sometimes prayer. And this is what I call the seed collecting lifestyle. So it involves less planting and cultivating, but more seed collecting. Now I can relate to this, because there was a season of my life when I love to see collect. I loved it. And I mean, I just took notes, and I was learning. And the Lord says you got to get in, you got to get your feet in the water. You can't just read about this. And so I began, you know, and it was it was in our early Beth and I got married. And it was really in our first year marriage where God really began to say, you got to go deeper. You can't just collect a bunch of seeds. And I'll tell you I literally had this I don't I don't know if it was from the Lord. But I had this kind of like this image, or you could call vision but an image of the Lord showing me he's like, Look, you got all these notes. You got this, you got this, you got this. And and I just saw it like, you got these seeds in this little cubby. And you got these seeds in this cubby and you got these seeds in this cup. And you got these seeds in this Cubby? Well, I grew up in a family that had huge gardens, and the Lord's like, where's your garden. And I was like, Huh. And so I had to really get out there and start investing. And that was really the birthing of what I would call our first mission house. Many of you know people who were in that 35 years ago. But that's where God was saying it's not enough just to have the seeds and that cool things that are blessing your heart and a revelation, you got to plant it, you got to invest yourself into it. And this is God's calling our lives, to invest ourselves so that we are cultivating the seed in the fellowship and the breaking of bread and the walking together in daily life with the Lord. I don't just want to be a seed collector in the kingdom, I want to be a seed planter. And seed planting means cultivating the soil that goes with it. Now when I was a seed collector, I could tell you about the seeds. I could tell you the principles I could tell you the practices. I could tell you the kind of plants the seeds produced. But I didn't enjoy the many fruits that the seed produced because they were still seeds. We call these gardens whenever we cultivate these gardens. In other words, we go I'm not going to just be a seed collector. I'm going to enter into these relationships I'm going to enter in To the breaking of bread, I'm going to enter into this whole New Testament community. I like to call these communities communities of Revelation, and spiritual family. This is the third pillar. This is the third pillar. Healthy Kingdom relationships are constellations of ongoing relationships, and conversations. So think of it this way. And I should say healthy relate Kingdom relationships are constellations of ongoing conversations. So right now, if any, anybody in this gathering, whether they be on the video teleconference, or here locally, if you and I connected, we could take a whiteboard. And we could say, what are the conversations that are going on in our relationship? And I guarantee you, any one of you could do it, you could say, well, here's the conversations that have been ongoing in our relationship, and you would start to write some and I would write something. And these are conversations that and I'm talking about one on one that you and I have one on one or or two on two with Beth and I, and we have these conversations that continue. Now, if I look out to those who are in my family, you can tell me conversations that have been going on for decades now. Literally, those conversations have not stopped, they have grown over time. So why am I saying this? Because Kingdom relationships are based on conversations that go on. And we don't mean like, Okay, we had a three minute conversation today. What I'm saying is that when you and I today, when we fellowship, there are certain conversations that will jump in the stream, and we'll start talking about, and we've been in that stream 100 times. And that is an ongoing conversation. It is a river, if you will of learning and growth in God that He is manifesting in our relationships, specifically, one on one or family on family, families have conversations with families, these conversations grow with time, because we learn from one another in them. So this is the difference. It's not enough, there's no way that I can teach you everything you need to know in the kingdom because we're in the fellowship, and I happen to be a leader in the fellowship, there's no way I can give you all the food you need. There's no way I can, I can possibly feed you. And there's their church models that believe that like the food they get from the pastor that speaks on Sunday. And that's it. The only way you can be healthy, robust, growing, is to live in these conversations and sharing and ministry and teaching and prayer and revelation. And this is what the meaning of acts 242 is, this is our calling. So our calling today, if you will, is to have these conversations and to grow. And I'm talking about many conversations that are relational, that are biblical, that are revelational that are wisdom, and these conversations will grow and grow and grow and grow. And you and I will grow through them. And as a spiritual family, we will grow 500 times 1000 times more than if we just rely on one or two people to have that now. Yes, in spiritual leadership, someone is at the helm, so to speak with the Lord. Yes, someone's on the bridge, so to speak, that kind of is looking at Lord, where are you guiding this ship, but understand that that ship has people on it that are feeding and giving and ministering and investing into one another? And this is the third pillar guys, Acts 242. This is the third pillar of our calling. These conversations are topics truths, insights, these conversations are wonderings questions and pursuits of God that are going on in our relationships, pursuits of God's truth in the context of spiritual friendship. The context of these conversations are in the midst of doing life together. And this happens around the firepit. around the fireplace, on the couch, drinking coffee, drinking tea sharing. It doesn't just happen on Sunday morning at Mission House meeting. These conversations happen around our spiritual community as we live in Walk This Way do life together, as we carry one another's burdens as we defeat giants together and find answers and find miracles together. This is so important to move together in the rivers of God. This is critical The enemy loves to separate out that sheep that Jesus says He will not leave, he will go after that one sheep, we often look at that Jesus saying that he will leave the 99 for the one. So many times we look at it like, well, where he's talking about the apostate sheep, he's talking about the sheep that just left the Lord. He didn't say that he's, he's really going after that one who has been separated many times by the enemy, have you ever been in a place where the enemy is trying to give you distance between the spiritual friends, the body of Christ, every single one of us should be shaking our head, yes, because the enemy will work overtime. And he will do it and just try to separate you a little bit. And then once you get separated a little bit, he'll try to separate you more. And then once you get separated more, he'll try to isolate you until you're all alone. And then he'll tell you people don't care. And then he'll tell you, there's rejection in your midst. And then he'll lie to you more. And he'll tell you more. And they'll tell you more, because his goal is to separate you like the tomato limb, so that you cannot receive the lifeblood of what God is giving in the body of Christ. Don't fall for it. But if you did fall for it, or if you do find yourself where the enemy's putting distance between you and the body. The good news is Jesus says He will leave the 99. And he'll come after you. And he'll come for you to pull you back in. Don't wait until you're way out there. Some people wait until they're so far out there, they believe half the lies. Don't wait until you're that far out. But come in. This is the meaning of acts 242. People who learned to live this way. They're cultivating communities of Revelation. And we all long for this because we were made for this. We were made to live in communities of Revelation, we were made to live in spiritual family. We were not made to live like the average American family lives. We were not even made to live like the average American Christian family lives. We were made to live in spiritual fellowship, and communion and connection. And we all long for this because we're made for it. And I've often said this, the quality and I quoted a one of my professors from years ago, good friend, who I saw recently, he says the quality of the conversation determines the quality of the relationship, because the conversation is the relationship. So if you want to see where you are spiritually in these things, look at your instrument panel and say, Where are my conversations? Am I having the robust conversations? Am I Are we having these? Am I bearing one another's burdens? am I sharing my burdens? Or have I become afraid to be vulnerable? Or have I become free? There's so many things the enemy does to try to cut us off? Are we doing that? Or are we cultivating the quality of the conversation? Now there's several applications of this x 242 truth I want to cover before we start tapering it off here today. So first, I want to talk about the content of the conversation. Say if you can't say content, I want that to sink in. I'm looking for moving lips out there and zoomline content, say content. Yeah, the content of the conversation. First, the content of the conversation are the truths, the wisdom, the revelation, the sharing the the needs, the burdens, all of these things are the content of the conversation. That is what we're talking about. So for a moment, if you're married, I asked you to ask yourself this question. What is the content of the conversations in your marriage? Is it mostly the grass and the kids? And what we're gonna have for dinner tonight? Are you having conversations about the deeper things? And then ask yourself this question, what is the content of the conversations I'm having with my whole family? What's the content of those conversations? Now, here's the third question. What's the content of the conversations you're having? With spiritual family with this spiritual family? What's the content? Are you having those deeper conversations? Maybe you're having them in your marriage? And you go, but I'm not having those conversations outside of my home. I know some people they're very private. And what they'll do is they'll put walls up around their family, so they don't have those conversations. is beyond their family. God called us to live in spiritual family. Those conversations need to happen beyond our spouse, beyond our children, they also need to happen in spiritual family. Here's the second second group here. So the content of the conversation is especially gained from prayer and teaching especially, and but the quality of the context of the conversation happens through fellowship and the breaking of bread. Can you guys say context? So the context of the conversation is in fellowship and the breaking of bread, in other words, another word for this relationship. That's another way to say it. So the content of the conversation very important. But if you don't have context of, in other words, if we don't have the biblical context for these conversations, many times the conversations either won't happen, or they won't happen in spiritual depth. Are you tracking with that? So what what Luke is saying here in Acts, chapter two, is he showing us that the New Testament model of doing church together New Testament community, it has to have both the means of content and the means of context? Because it's not enough now? Have you ever been in a situation where you're just, it's not conducive to relationships? Have you ever been in a situation where it's not conducive to conversation, you know, you guys will remember a few years ago, we went on a camping trip on Memorial Day, up and up in the mountains. And the first day and a half was just beautiful. And it was gorgeous. And it was awesome. And everybody's sharing, and we're eating together. And we're fellowshipping. And we're ministering to one another, and, you know, just Heart to Heart stuff and sharing what's going on in our lives. And it was just a wonderful time. And then a blizzard blew in, you remember that some of you remember that Blizzard, and it got cold, and it starts snowing and freezing rain and snowing some more and the winds start blowing 25 miles an hour. And everybody just wanted to go home. That is a situation where you no longer have the context for the conversation. Right? You can't focus anymore. I mean, you're sitting there by the fire. Some of you remember this, but you some people still give me a hard time about this. And Beth goes, You better not get your feet so close to that fire, because you're gonna burn your shoes up when my feet were freezing. And so I had my shoes, well, all of a sudden the fire. The fire just melted my shoes and the bottoms came off. But you know, I'll tell you my feet were so cold, I was just like, Man, I just don't have I can't even think about talking to Brad over there. I'm just like, my feet are freezing man. Context is important. So context, whenever the Scripture teaches us about fellowship and the breaking of bread, he's teaching us that a context of spiritual family must be present, not just at the Mission House meeting. But at all of our gatherings or when we get together family to family, or three families or two people or whatever. So many of you know that when I get together with you one on one, or Beth and I get together, a lot of times we like to go eat. Because when we break bread together, something happens in our midst. And Jesus says we're two or three of your gathered, I'm in your midst. So he's already in our midst. And then we have context what God tells us his context for spiritual friendship. And as Brad was announcing earlier about the men's wisdom guild, there's something about men when you get them around a campfire, you get them around a campfire next to a lake, even if it's cold. It's still something about the fellowship and the connection and the sharing of hearts. It is profound what happens. And this is the nature of what X 242 is teaching us is don't be so spiritual, that you're going prayer and, and teaching or prayer and apostolic teaching. But we don't implement the context that actually causes that seed to fall into our hearts and grow and bring forth much fruit. And we don't want to be like that plant that I mean that tomato branch that it hangs around the plant but it's not connected. We've got to be connected in this is the nature of the kingdom. Without in depth sustain prayer and apostolic teaching, fellowship and breaking bread. We gradually become more surface oriented. And even though we may be spiritually mature, we grow more shallow by the day. Now one of the things that surprises me eyes about this is how fast this happens. Remember, I told you about that limb, within three days the limb was dead. It was that quick. That's the reason why the scripture says encourage one another daily, while it's still called today, lest you fall to a heart of unbelief, because it can happen so quickly. I'm not saying you're good. I'm not saying Oh, you didn't have fellowship this week, you're dead. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying it does happen very fast. And it surprises me, the older I get, how quickly it happens, and how much we need this x 242 connection. And many, many people, even Christians who are in spiritually shallow relationships, they don't even know it, especially if most of those relationships are on the same level. Now, what really helps is if you get one or two, really spiritually deep relationships, that's good, because then you can go well, these other relationships, they need some work, they need some help. But don't think that God only wants you to have to deep relationships because the Lord is growing all of us. So when we lack in depth, heart level fellowship, and breaking bread, in our worship life, and in our life rhythms, in in our prayer life, and in our family life, it's not uncommon for the scriptures, ministry, and relationships to quickly get shallow very fast, very, very this, this is remarkable how fast it happens. So this is why it's so important to stay connected, to stay tapped in to the vine, in the vine, by the way, is Jesus. But have you noticed, the vine is also all those branches that are tapped in to the vine as well. And that's the lifeblood of our spirituality, our depth and our walk with God. So I believe when we run a deficit of prayer and God's Word in the context of relational depth and spiritual intimacy, what I'm calling New Testament spiritual community, it's like trying to live life with oxygen deprivation. Now, some of you know, living at this altitude, I think, here, right here, where we stand today is 7200 feet. And so you know something about oxygen deprivation. And some of you had been reading my notes, because I saw some traffic on the prayer stream about this, by the way, the updated notes are in the shared folder. So if you need that, there's a PDF copy of today's updated notes, which is, I think, around 43 pages right now. So there's an updated copy there. I recently mentioned, this example of what oxygen deprivation does in another series we did in the summertime. And some of you were not present for that, because we did it in the mountains, it's on the teaching library. But I want to cover just a few of these. So what happens when you experience oxygen deprivation? I looked up what some of the symptoms are. And you say, Why am I doing this? Because I want to use this as an illustration to our spiritual life. And again, to make the connection one more time in case you missed it. If we don't live in all four of the acts 242 elements of spiritual family, it's like taking like, let's say you just take one of them away, you just took 25% away. So there's four of them. If you take one of them away, you just took 25% of what God's called us to. Now some of you know in the age of COVID. Most of you know what's the magic number where they send you the hospital and say, You guys stay here if your oxygen level goes down? That's about 90%. Isn't it right around there? That's 10%. Man, what would happen if you showed up at the hospital emergency room and go Well, I'm down around 75. But I'm breathing a little bit hard, but I'm making it are they going to let you go home? No, they're not gonna let you go home. And yet, we think sometimes spiritually that we can do this and survive. Don't think that let's look at some of the symptoms of oxygen deprivation, chronic fatigue, and exhaustion, lightheadedness, dizziness, heart palpitations, shortness of breath. There is a spiritual equivalent of that, guys. There's a spiritual equivalent of what we just talked about chronic fatigue. And it's easy to cultivate or to develop chronic fatigue very fast. If we are missing all four of these elements, or if we cut ourselves off, or begin to get distance and the enemy knows this, he knows this. So what he'll do is he'll try to just get you some distance. So at least one of these are not happening in your life. He's trying to cut off your oxygen supply. Another one is brain fog, or dysfunction. Now, there is a spiritual brain fog. One of the one of the easiest ways to start lacking clarity is to get out of the streams of the revelation that is As a community of Revelation, what God's saying, what God's doing what God's speaking in as soon as you do, you may not notice it immediately. But over time, gradually, we lose clarity on many things. Now we have clarity on a few things right in front of us. But what ends up happening is we begin to lose that greater clarity, that holistic clarity that God calls us to another one is a weakened immune system, or chronic sickness, if you if you have oxygen deprivation long enough, your immune system starts to go down, and you become more susceptible to infection to attack of foreign bodies. And so that's another one where you don't see it until you're sick. And you're like, oh, man, why am I feeling this way, and I'm talking about spiritual now I'm not wanting to make the spiritual connection. Another one is persistent pain or weakness. So people who live this way, and they start to back off out of this, there is a there is a weakness that starts to come upon the Spirit and you go, man, why am I feeling more tempted lately? Or why am I not feeling strong spiritually, and what's wrong? And the problem is, you're still trying just as hard as you are always work. How many of you know you can put 100% in and try with all your heart. But if you have 75%, oxygen level, you're trying hard is not going to produce the strength that you need, you need to be reconnected into the oxygen of the Body of Christ. Another one is cold sensitivity, and poor circulation. Now, I'll tell you, let's talk about sensitivity for a minute. Have you been real? Have you ever found yourself in a place where you just become irritable, and impatient, I won't ask for a show of hands, because everybody should raise their hand on that one. All of us have been in times where we reach a point where we're irritable, and we're extra sensitive, and somebody says something, and we don't like it, or we try to read between the lines, something that might be there, or might not be there. And there's this extra sensitivity and irritability for whatever reason is going on? Well, spiritually, the same thing happens when people are deprived of the spiritual oxygen. Have you ever noticed when you're healthy, and your relationships are healthy, and you're connected in and you're hearing from God and prayer is good. And people, you know, you're moving in spiritual community together. There's just something about is like, if somebody says something to you, it's a little off or whatever. You're like, Ah, it's like water off a duck's back, you know, you're like, ah, no big deal. He just a grouchy today. Now, some of you, you know, how you'll know whether or not this is working, because how you respond to your spouse, right? Like, if your spouse says something, and you're like, you know, you buy you bark back or you bite back. It's like, oh, that's not good. But have you ever had those really good days where your, your spouse barks at you or said something, and you're like, what's bugging you today? You know, and you just start laughing? And that is that is a total opposite of that irritability. Why are we saying this? Because folks, if we disconnect from the Divine oxygen supplies that God has called us to,