So I want to welcome all of our partner churches around the country who are watching today.

Those of you who are in our Atlanta area churches and our friends really from all over the world.

It's amazing to be part of this expanding network of Jesus followers, men and women and students who understand it's not just about what we believe.

It's about what we do with what we believe because doing is what makes the difference.

Today we're starting a brand new series entitled, as you just saw, Who Needs Church?

And I want to begin with a clarification and then a confession.

So the clarification is first.

In this series, when we talk about church, who needs church, we're talking specifically,

or referring specifically

to the assemblies of Jesus followers, the assemblies of Jesus followers, the local assemblies

of Jesus followers all over the world.

The assemblies of Jesus followers who are committed to the teaching of Jesus and committed

to the new covenant ethic of Jesus. The new covenant ethic of

Jesus is that we are to love one another the way that God through Jesus loved us. We're to love

our neighbors as God through Jesus loved us. We're to love our enemies as God through Jesus loved

us. So when we talk about the church, that's who we're talking about, because that is the

church. It's the expanding assembly that Jesus predicted, and this is amazing. And if you're not a

church person or you used to be, I mean, just these next three or four minutes are just, they're

just mind-blowing because 2,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, Jesus is in the middle of basically nowhere,

this region of Sessariah Philippi that, again, most people will never visit there.

And even in that part, even in the first century, it was important for some people.

It was kind of in the middle of nowhere.

...