Let me begin by sharing a little bit of a historic fact about the monastic movement.

You know what I mean by monastic movement, where the monasteries are, where the monks and the nuns go to?

Many people think that this has began with the first century of Christianity.

It's not.

It's actually started in the 300s.

And believe it or not, it started in Egypt, not in Rome.

And it started by a very wealthy man, Anthony or Antonio, as was referred to,

who gave all his wealth away, literally to the poor.

He sold everything, gave it to the poor, and decided that in order to pursue godliness

or holiness, he's going to go out in the desert and he's going to be alone with God.

After 12 years out in the desert, the word got out, and his fame was spread, and people flocked to him for wise counsel, for advice, for spiritual guidance, and wisdom, which defeated the purpose for which he wanted to be away in the desert alone with God.

And so after 13 years in the desert, he wanted to get away from

people. So he went to an abandoned tomb. Well, a few years later, they found him. They kept

searching for him. They found him in the abandoned tomb. So he decided to go and live in an old Roman fortress,

and in fact still there to this day, but they found him there too. So after 20 years of this,

he finally built a monastery. The monastery of St. Andrew is still there in Egypt, in oasis in the desert, in the 300s.

No matter where he went, people followed him.

I'm going to tell you more about him at the end of the message.

He couldn't get away from people.

He couldn't get away from crowd.

And I thought, what an incredible object lesson to every one of us who are in pursuit of godliness.

That we cannot pursue godliness away from people.

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