Welcome to the first sermon in our new series, "Leveling Up Together: Why Our Gaming Community Needs Spiritual Support." In this episode, "Guilds and Grace: Why We Need Each Other," we explore the powerful role community plays in both our spiritual and gaming lives. Just like in guilds where teamwork and cooperation help us win, we also need each other to grow in faith. Discover how God’s grace strengthens us as a community and why no one should journey alone.
Join us for this deep dive into the importance of unity, grace, and fellowship in building a meaningful, faith-filled life. Whether you're a gamer, geek, or just looking for spiritual support, this message is for you!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Guild Announcer (00:02):
Hey there, fellow church nerds. Welcome to
another episode of Church NerdsUnited, the podcast where faith
meets fandom and sermons are thenew superhero stories. That's
right. Today, we've got a sermonthat's more epic than the Battle
of Helm's Deep and moreinspiring than Captain America's
pep talks. But before we diveinto this week's divine
(00:23):
download, don't forget to hitthat like button, subscribe, and
ring the bell so you never missan episode.
And, hey, if you love what we doand want to support the show,
consider donating. Every littlebit helps us keep the nerdy
goodness coming your way. Youcan find the donation link in
the show notes or head over toour website at greaterguild.org.
(00:43):
Join the ranks of our greaterguild army and help us spread
the geeky gospel far and wide.Now without further ado, let's
jump into this week's sermon.
Grab your bibles, light up yourlightsabers, and get ready to
dive deep into the word of God.
Pastor Brandon Holm (01:02):
Well, welcome back, everyone. It is
your host, pastor Brandon Holmhere at the Greater Guild. I
just wanna say thank you forjoining us today. And we're
gonna be discussing,
you know, why guilds and grace and why we
need each other. You know,people think, well, you know, do
I need to?
I can go solo. I can do all these things
(01:22):
by myself.
And for
the most part, that's true. But let's
really
get to the meat of the whole issue here, is
that you go to work, and oddlyenough you have co workers.
Funny how that works.
(01:44):
And you just basically work with others,
and your goal is to produce theamount of work the job requires
you in a certain set of time,and you're gonna need a lot of
people and a lot ofcommunication goes on. Well,
same thing for guilds. I mean,think about it. You know, a
guild is really bit a bunch ofpeople who have different
(02:05):
talents, different, skills,different, backgrounds that come
together and go out adventuringeither solo or together. So
doesn't matter if you're gonnado a solo quest or a dungeon.
Doesn't matter.
But the point is is that they're all
together. And the
same thing is for us in life. We're not
(02:27):
supposed to do life alone, youknow, faith alone. That's not
how this works. Church andgaming communities thrive when
we support one anotherspiritually. Fellowship is
essential for growth andspiritual strength, you know,
especially when we're havingmajor issues in our own lives.
Now if you look at Ecclesiastes,it says, 2 are better than 1
(02:48):
because they have a good rewardfor their toil. Or if they fall,
one will lift up his fellow. Butwoe to him who is alone when he
falls, and has not another tolift him up. And that really
gets us into the first part ofthis whole thing is the power of
the guild. You know, not justthe greater guild as a, you
(03:12):
know, as a church, but alsoguilds in general.
You know, you go in in MMOs likewar World of Warcraft, they've
got guilds all over the place.And you can find people to help
you tackle a dungeon. Not in theLeroy Jenkins, aspect I hope, or
many of you, but that's thereavailable to you. Now everybody
(03:32):
has a role in that situation,and if you look at the Leroy
Jenkins clip, you have people,you know, one's per calculating
your chances of survival, andvery low as they were. But if
you look at how they're playedout, they've got healers.
They've got damage dealers. Youknow? They've got tanks. You
know? They've got supportcharacters.
(03:54):
The whole 9 yards. And just likea guild needs every player to
survive and succeed, we do needthat in life too. It's not an
alone thing. Now many of us gohome alone. It's fine.
That happens. You know, wehaven't found the right person
to share life with permanently.And during that time, we're
still you know, we go out withfriends. We go to the bars, we
(04:16):
go drinking. We go to thekaraoke club, start singing.
We go to Comic Cons to gettogether. Those are things that
we do as groups and do but howis it that we can't translate
those type of activities intowhat we need to do in life? Is
that be together and go throughit? Now, God designed us not to
be static, not to be alone. It'sreally funny how people think
(04:40):
that way.
It's, like, I can tackle thisalone. I can do this on my own.
But it's funny, if you go and goto the gym, every so often
somebody will come up and helpyou out. A gym partner, or a gym
bro, or a gym lass, that I liketo call the female version. And
they'll help you out.
They'll help you get strength.You know, if you have questions,
sometimes you can find them,sometimes you don't. Or you can
(05:02):
always ask somebody. You know,how do I do this? How do you
know, what's more effective?
How do you get those gains? Youknow, those type of questions.
And then you go to church, it'sthe same thing. Can you pray for
me? Can you do this for me?
But you go to, you
know and then you go to Comic Cons. It's
like you go as a group, you'regoing as friends if you were in
a group, and it's like youyou're playing as a group, you
(05:25):
know, cosplaying as a group. Goddidn't build us to be solo. In
fact, he built us to thrive in acommunity. That's why we have
cities, nations, you know,ideally people who live
together, who have similarsocial mores that work together
to build up a better society.
Pretty much what any nation is,pretty much what every city is,
(05:48):
town, county, state. It's reallywhat it is. And we don't see
that sometimes because webasically have been told, you
know, you you know, for the forthe feminine movement, I don't
need no man. For men we'vealways pretty much done it
alone, that's not a bad thing,but, you know, as one of the
(06:10):
songs from way back in the daysays, a woman needs a man, a man
must have his mate. That's kindof what we're playing here, and
it's very dangerous going solohalf the time.
You know there are games builtfor the single player and those
are great. Aren't they? Butsometimes if you're playing
those games don't you askyourself, man can't I just have
(06:32):
somebody to help me out? Youknow go through this game with
me? You know I wish I hadmultiplayer where we can co op
the single player missions.
I don't you know I don't knowabout you but I have. And that's
when it's like you're gettingkilled. I mean Dark Souls is
really the best option here inin Elder Ring. Any soul or any
(06:53):
really souls like game. And it'sfunny many of the souls like
games do have a partner programbuilt into it.
A co op. Not all of them, butsome of them do. And funny
enough with those it's like itstill is gonna beat the living
crap out of you, but it's a loteasier. You're not dying as much
(07:14):
sometimes. So when you have thatlack of support in life, what do
you think you're gonna do?
Are you gonna succeed a 100%
of the time? No. And I'm
not saying that you have a partner or
friends and stuff like that thatyou can, you know, do life
together spiritually, mentally,physically. But it's a lot
easier, isn't it? I mean, I goand see a therapist weekly. You
(07:37):
know, I I I don't see any otherway because that gets my mental
health totally back on track. Igo to the gym.
Yes. I do. You may not see itnow, but I have lost a lot of
weight as many of you've known,and hopefully have noticed since
way back in the day. I go to thegym, and sometimes I'm just
like, you know what? I don'tknow know if I'm doing something
(07:58):
right.
I'll find somebody who's doingpretty much the same exact
workout that I'm doing, or closeto it, and I'm, like, hey, you
know? And I have done this. Hey,you know, am I missing
something? You know? What I'mnot feeling what it's supposed
Guild Announcer (08:09):
to be.
Pastor Brandon Holm (08:09):
Am I missing? What's my technique?
And a person usually very nicelyalways helps me out. And that's
the same with our spiritual. Wecan't do anything by ourselves
spiritually.
I mean, let's go all the wayback to Genesis that God had
built us, and you saw the flashup earlier, because I
hit the wrong button. But seriously,
(08:33):
even God says that we can't be alone.
Then the Lord God said, it isnot good for that the man should
be alone. I will make him ahelper fit for him. Isn't that
true of life? I mean, we try tofind you know, that's what our
friends are for.
That's what our work colleaguesare for. That's what our gym
bros and gym lasses are for.That's what our therapists are
(08:54):
for. They're not there to justbe there. They're help they're
there to help you get throughthe things that you need help
on, and church does that too.
I've been to churches wherethat's a great thing.
Everybody's there to help you.And I've been to churches where
it's, like, they have their ownlittle clicks, and you can't be
part of that click because youdon't fit into their mindset.
I've been to both types,
(09:17):
and it sucks. The reason
why I say playing playing solo is very
dangerous in life, and in manyof the aspects of of physical,
spiritual, and mental, isbecause you get the enemy to
target you a lot better, andyou'll listen to the words a
little bit more because youdon't have somebody to talk to.
You don't have somebody saying,hey, you know, why are you doing
(09:39):
that? You know, it's what isknown as objective morality and
that's one of the cases for God.But also, it's not somebody else
to say, hold on. Why are youdoing that?
Are you are you gonna be doingsomething stupid? You know, it's
that a little check and balancethere. That's why you can't do
life solo. It is the checks andbalances that keep us mindful,
(10:03):
but that doesn't mean anythingif you're doing stuff alone. I
mean, yeah, you can survivealone.
I mean, a lot of people do.That's great. But if you noticed
in the last couple of years,many females are in their
forties now. They were told, youknow, be the powerful woman that
you are. You don't need a man.
(10:23):
You can go on with life. And nowthey're trying to find husbands,
and they're not connecting.They're dating constantly, but
there's no connection. And ifyou notice what they're doing,
they're make some of them aremaking really horrendous life
choices. And this is not to pickon women as in general, but
they're the most vociferous inthis aspect.
(10:46):
And this is why I say, you know,the Annie is looks for people
who are very isolated and willhave them go do other things.
Now that doesn't mean that, youknow, they have to do it. It's
just more of their choices leadto that, and that is on your
level. That is on you. You'rethe one that makes the final
choice in everything.
So when it comes to playingsolid, you have to be mindful.
(11:08):
You have to be sober minded. Youhave to be watchful. Your
adversary, the devil, prowlsaround like a roaring lion
seeking someone to devour, andthat's the main goal of the
devil. Satan, the enemy, howeveryou wanna take, they want to cut
you off from society so you canbe miserable, so you can go down
dark paths, so that by the timeyou're done and everything's is
(11:32):
said and done, you don't have alife to live.
And you're not gonna do life.And say you are in a real
troublesome spot and you wannahelp somebody. You're not gonna
be doing that. Because eitheryou have been shuffled off this
mortal coil early throughvariety of means or you lived a
long and fruitless life and youcan't share on that wisdom. God
(11:58):
will put people, places, thingsinto our lives to make sure that
we're not doing things alone, orto give you that kick in the in
the rear end to say, hey, thisis somebody important that you
need to do life with.
And not just on a spirituallevel. Sometimes it's a mental
level. This is a good therapist.You 2 fit. It works.
(12:19):
Going and playing games. Hey,this team really works. They're
gonna get together. Hey, youknow, we wanna continue doing
that. And that's why guilt inchurches are do you'll find
people to get into that grooveand mindset that says, oh, wow.
You know, that's cool. Or, oh,you know, I'm having a hard
time. Is there anybody that'sgone through this? Oh, yes. I
(12:39):
have.
That's the whole point. And whenwe do that we actually gain
spiritual buffs from this typeof fellowship. You know we we
can you know in games we drinkflasks to buff ourselves. We
drink potions. We drink herbs.
We you know we drink herbs. Weeat herbs. We all and we wear
(13:02):
items of armor, jewelry, youknow, hats, whatever, and they
have certain buffs to us.
Well, that's what really finding
people out there and fellowshipreally is. There are gonna be
people some
of them, don't get me wrong, are going to
weigh you down. But maybe thatthat person weighing you down is
(13:22):
suffering from stuff that youhave done in the past, and they
just need somebody to help themout, where you can buff them up,
where you can say to them, hey,what's going on? Oh, I've been
there before. Here's how Itackled it. Do you need someone
to help you through this?
We've become a society not justhere in America but globally
except for a few countries whereisolation has become the big
(13:45):
thing, and it never helpedduring the pandemic that this
rose you know, that made thateven greater. And the only thing
I can say about that is is comesfrom Proverbs. And it says, iron
sharpens iron, and one mansharpens another. And I'm not
saying man as, you know, themale species. I'm talking about
(14:07):
man as in mankind.
That includes women. Thatincludes children. I mean, if
you've noticed from the past,you know, you go through
elementary school, through allyour schooling, up until
college. And some of you havefriends from you know I did
until he passed away, but allthe way from elementary school
to high school. And we wouldactually talk, we'd you know
(14:32):
joke around we'd have fun we dostupid stuff and thank goodness
that we didn't have smartphonesback then because you can't
prove that I did some of thestuff that I I have done oh the
power of Gen X But if you lookat it at it from that mentality,
we actually worked with eachother built up.
(14:52):
So he would get depressed. Iwould cheer him up. I'd get
depressed. He'd cheer me up. Andwe built ourselves up to have
this great life.
Now some of us didn't have it,and unfortunately my friend did
pass away from from cancer atthe ripe old age of 40, 46. It
sucked. Because now he's goneI'm just like, dude that sucked.
(15:13):
I mean, we played off eachother. Had fun.
We were great Disney nuts. Imean, talk about that. My wife
knew that if we were just like,oh my gosh. They're crazy again.
But, you know, she loved us.
That's the same. And that's howwe do should do life. Now we go
(15:34):
on to college. We make newfriends. Some know their old
friends go away.
That does happen. But it's theones that stick with us
throughout our lives. The oneswho have gone through through
the same things we've done it,through thick and thin, who who
will be there when you are downon your luck. Those are not the
fair weather friends where it'slike you ask for help and
(15:54):
they're gone. These are thepeople that stick with you and
say, hey, is there anything Ican do to help you out?
And it can't and and a lot ofpeople say, well, that's
financial. No. Financial is justmaybe a portion of it. Sometimes
the all the person needs is akind word, a helping hand, a
little support to lift them up.It doesn't have to be financial.
It could be just anything.
(16:19):
So how do we do that?
Well, Hebrews gives us a great aspect
to that, and says, and let usconsider how to stir up one
another to love and good works,and we've talked about that word
works. It doesn't say work, itsays works, and later on in in
the season we'll talk about thattoo. But not neglecting to meet
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together as is the habit of somebut encouraging one another and
all the more as you see the daydrawing near. The day drawing
near? Wow.
Where have we heard that before?We're not talking about a night
and day cycle. In this passagewe're talking about the end of
(17:00):
life. You know when we die, whenwe pass away. So it is always
good to consider that, andthat's what I've been trying to
illustrate here is it's aboutencouragement, accountability,
prayer, wisdom.
It doesn't have to be financial,but that's the whole thing. You
see somebody down the line, whatare you gonna do?
(17:22):
I mean, what are you going to do? Are
you gonna
give them encouragement? Or are they doing
something bad that you're, like,you know, dude, don't do that
accountability. Or they justneed a prayer so that you're on
their
mind, or they're on your mind too, and
wisdom. Maybe you know somethingthat they're going through, and
(17:44):
it's, like, oh,
I've been there before. This is what works
for me. Let's let me talk to himabout that
or her, you know.
Again, sorry. Being the male that I am,
I usually generally go for themale. Please excuse me. But the
idea here is we have spiritualgifts that we have that can
boost other people. Basically,it could be, you know, like the
(18:08):
Bard giving us the charismaboost.
You know, We can do that too. Wehave that power to do it, and
God has given us those spiritualgifts. And if you wanna read
about them further, look atfirst Corinthians chapter 12,
all of chapter 12. It talksabout this. Not at length and
not in a great detail, but ittalks about our spiritual gifts
in relation to how we are and inrelation to others.
(18:30):
And this is why we can't do lifebecause, again, as we talked
about in Genesis earlier, we'renot meant to be going at it
alone. We're supposed to betogether and there's reasons for
this. We have different aspects,different idealisms, different
ways we were brought up, andsometimes we're lacking
something. We have a weaknessthat somebody else has a
(18:51):
strength in, and we worktogether, and we build each
other up, or vice versa. We havea strength in in us that
somebody else may be lackingthat you can help out in.
Works the same. And we see thisin any MMO where everybody's
working as a team,
and I do say that work as a team. I see a
(19:11):
lot of you out there going at it alone even
when you're doing a dungeon as agroup. So what happens? What
should we do?
I mean we're gonna go through this game
of life,
and sometimes we're gonna slip fall,
and that's gonna suck. It couldbe spiritual. It could be
(19:31):
mental.
It could be physical. It doesn't matter. So
what is it?
You know we we are meant to revive the other
person. I say that like it's abat it's a it's a weird thing to
think about. We lift each other,you know, you know, we revive
the person. Revival doesn't meanjust rise from the dead. You
(19:54):
know, you know, we don't get thephoenix down to our Final
Fantasy players.
Right? It's not what we'retalking about. We revive them as
in rebuild their spirit. That'swhat prayer does. We pray over
people especially me when itcomes to when somebody's just
having a really crappy, youknow, life for the moment.
Again, this is you know, crappylives are seasonal and happy
(20:17):
times are seasonal as well.We've seen that constantly
in the last about 5 years.
Now we don't leave I mean, there's a
great idealism in the specialforces that we don't leave a man
behind. Well, we shouldn't bedoing that to others. We
shouldn't promote ourselvesabove somebody else's weakness.
(20:38):
If they're part of your group,you should be with them to help
them up. If they fall, let'ssay, in a task, you go, hey.
Is there anything I can do tohelp you out? Where's the
problem? What's going on? Inthat case, as a team project,
say, in a job business whatever,that works together. You build
each other up.
You put the whole thingtogether. You can actually work
faster and more efficiently. AndJames really puts this in
(21:02):
perspective. My brothers, ifanyone among you wanders from
the truth, and someone bringshim back, let him know that
whoever brings back a sinnerfrom his wandering will save his
soul from death, and willrecover a multitude of sins.
Yeah.
We're sinful. I'm sinful.Everybody's sinful. I'm not, you
know, I'm not sitting on apedestal saying, you're I'm
(21:25):
better than you. That's not it.
I'm just a beggar who foundbread, and I'm willing to
distribute that bread forothers. It's really what I'm
doing. And that's why I preachthe way I do. That's why I
preach to who I do. This isn'tabout an ego trip.
This isn't about fluffing me up.There are people out there that
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are wandering around sospiritually dead that, you know,
God's calling them, and they'rejust like, I don't really care.
I don't believe in God. I don'twant that. And they go sinning,
you know, through life.
Eventually, they're gonna bedead and we mean dead in the
permanent aspect. Whereas,someone who follows Christ,
(22:10):
their sins, yes, are remittedbut here's the thing. That
doesn't mean that we can just goaround do whatever we want like
some Christians reach or someChristians act. It really means
that we have to be on constantvigilance because we have to be
better than a sinner. Be likeJesus.
(22:34):
We're not gonna be perfect.We're gonna sin, we're gonna
crash, we're gonna makemistakes, and we're gonna fall
by the wayside. And that's wherewe come in as a group, is we
come in and talk to that personsaying, hey, why have you
fallen? This isn't meant foryou. You're meant to enjoy life,
and granted life kicks you inthe teeth.
(22:55):
Life gives you lemons. Well, weas a group will come together
and build you a lemonade stand,make lemonade with the sugar,
and everything else you need,and you can
sell it for a dollar. K? That's what
we're talking about here when we raise
people up. And when I talk aboutit talk about when we fall and
(23:16):
just, you know, having a badtime, and we're just saying, you
know, God's not with me, oranything like that. That's
different. In Galatians, we'retaught how to do this. When it
says, brothers, if anyone iscaught in any transgression, you
who are spiritual should restorehim in a spirit of gentleness.
(23:36):
Keep watch on yourself, lest yoube too temp you too be tempted.
Bear one another's burdens, andso fulfill the law of Christ.
That's why we have the guild asa church. That's why we have
guilds. That's why we havefriends and parties and stuff
like that.
That's what we're meant to do. So that when
(23:59):
one of
us falls there's always gonna be somebody
there to help them out. Whetherit be through temptation,
through a sin, or just beingworn out on life. You know, we
need each other. That's notthat's not a, really difficult
task. It could maybe just say,hey.
Is everything okay? And youprobably you're gonna get
somebody yes. It's every youknow, everything is okay. I'm
(24:21):
fine. But you know better.
You know when to push and whennot to. That's the whole part
about it. And when it comes tosay don't be, you know, unless
we're tempted. If we continue topursue that person in
gentleness, kindness, or anytransgression that this person
does, it doesn't matter. I'vebeen insulted.
(24:41):
I've been called every name ofthe book. I've been told that
God doesn't exist. Okay. Fine.Great.
Next. But it doesn't mean thatI'm gonna ignore that person
said, you know, God doesn'texist. It's just more of, okay,
I'm gonna pray for you to findto have God enter into your life
to have you figure out reallyhow how God is. And if we talked
(25:04):
about in the last series,there's a lot of truths that are
being told out there that arenot quite a 100% true, and
that's what causes per people togo through church burnout. Is
we're taught these things andit's like that's great.
When in when the reality is no,it's really about helping others
and helping ourselves. It's balit that's the balance. You know,
(25:29):
that's how God wants us to be.We wanna be perfectly balanced
in every way. Yeah.
Thanos, I got it. And, you know,as it should be. But we're here
to restore people. That's whatthe church is about. And if you
look at a good healthy gamingcommittee, that's what they do
too.
Now they're not gonna condemnsomebody for making a mistake.
(25:51):
They're gonna go, okay. You madea mistake. What can we do to
help you out next time that youdon't we don't repeat the same
mistake? Or why are we doingthis?
They don't look at the oneperson. They don't project their
problems on the others. They go,okay. We didn't do it this time.
You know, how do we do you know,how are we gonna do this?
Okay. We found that thisperson's having this problem.
(26:14):
How do we help them out? That'show we do the rest restoration.
So that's when it comes
down to roles and responsibilities.
Okay? As we said, people havespiritual gifts. People have the
ability to buff other people indifferent ways. We've talked
about resurrecting people andtalking about how we don't
condemn people.
(26:34):
So as we talk about spiritualgifts, if you look at very
successful guilds or if you'replaying Eve online, the
corporations there, everyone hasa role when it comes to groups
and parties, when it goes todungeon ray
and raids and stuff like that. Think about
it. Have you noticed thatsomebody takes the lead and
says, okay we're going to dothis. We see that
(26:56):
in the Leroy Jenkins video and then
somebody doesn't and look whathappened. You had somebody
leading the whole group. It'sgoing, okay. You're gonna heal
us. You're gonna do this.
You're gonna do that. I findthat the Leroy Jenkins clips has
you know, and you have
to watch the full 9 minute clip including
this stupid part where, youknow,
(27:18):
at least I have chicken at
the end. But if you look at
it, one person is leading the whole
thing asking questions saying,hey, you know, what is our
chances? Look at the survivalrate. Okay. This is what we need
to do. You got that leader.
You have the people that arethere to heal. And when person
(27:38):
was calculated, they're talkingabout strategy. So you have all
these people working together tomake and then you have 1 person
screw it up and go balls in intothe into the dungeon itself and
Well that didn't work. Right?See how playing solo can
actually get you into moretrouble and can bring down other
people.
Really, it's it's really whatthat is. And we see that in 1st
(28:02):
Corinthians 12. For just as thebody is 1 and has many members,
and all the members of the bodythrough many are one body. So it
is with Christ. For in onespirit we are all baptized into
1 body, Jews are Greeks, slavesare free, and all were made to
drink of 1 spirit.
(28:25):
Is that great? Relating how ourphysical bodies are 1, but it
has so many different parts, andeach one is specialized. Our
hands are meant to grasp, touch.Our tongue is meant to taste,
and scoop ice cream off a spoon.Our teeth are there to mash mash
all the food that comes in ourmouths except for ice cream,
(28:47):
that's that's kinda the tonguesdo doing.
Feet for walking,transportation. Legs for getting
that mode to transfer to theground through our feet. Every
part has and then you have thebrain which I always tell people
is the most ironic part of thehuman body because it is the
(29:08):
only organ in the entire humanbody that has named itself. I
know. Real twist there.
But if you look at all
the diversity of roles that we just
talked about, say in the LeroyJenkins, or in Wow, or in any
guild group that you watch goingand doing raids, and just like
the physical your physical body,each one has a unique skill, but
(29:31):
each one is meant to helpprosper the other, so that they
remain healthy.
Right? Makes sense. And yet, we don't
think that way.
We have a role in life, and that's where
our spiritual gifts come in. Weare there to support one
another. Maybe there's a timewhen you are just down on like,
(29:53):
and all of a sudden you havethis only this one friend that
talks to you, sympathizes withyou, and helps you get out of a
very dark place. Every time yougo to the dark place, why is it
always the same friend? Figurethat part out.
That's their spiritual gift to you.
That includes going
to the gym, working on on on on woodwork,
(30:14):
you know forging metal, doingwhatever you do, even at work.
Each person is a cog in theentire machine, and that's how
churches and and our our guildworks. We're not just single
focus single-minded. We're notfocused on one thing. We're
focused on a great deal ofthings because in the end it's
all for God.
(30:34):
It's all for Christ to make usbetter people. Just because
Jesus said you know, with Jesus'sacrifice we are saved, that's
great, but we have to maintainthat because we're always gonna
revert back to sin because sinis the easy way out. We always
have to work harder to dobetter. So what do we need to
(30:57):
do? We need to unite the spiritfor victory.
That's what Jesus is talkingabout. That's what God wants,
and that's what we do here atthe Guild. Now in gaming,
teamwork is essential for forvictory. Same thing in our
spiritual walk. We need eachother to win the battles of
life.
So don't always play solo. Youknow, you gotta build your own
(31:19):
personal spiritual guild. Trustthe Holy Spirit. It's going to
give you that ability to findthe people you need,
and lean into the power of those people.
Lean into the power of what acommunity does.
I mean we see that in Planet of the Apes.
You know?
Apes together are strong, and that's
(31:40):
the greatest meme on the planetespecially for ones of a church.
We together are strong, And notjust in a mental and physical
way, but spiritually. That's thepower of it. So that ends it
here for today. Thank you forjoining us, and we will all see
you next week.
Guild Announcer (32:04):
Wow. That was powerful. Pastor Brandon never
fails to deliver a sermon that'sboth thought provoking and nerd
tastic. We hope you all enjoyedit as much as we did. Don't
forget to like, subscribe, anddonate if you want to keep the
sermons and geeky discussionscoming.
And remember, you can alwaysconnect with us on social media.
Just search for the GreaterGuild on all your favorite
(32:25):
platforms. We'd love to hearyour thoughts and geek out with
you. Thanks for tuning in, GuildNerds. Until next time, keep the
faith and stay nerdy.
Hey there, fellow church nerds. Welcome to
another episode of Church NerdsUnited, the podcast where faith
meets fandom and sermons are thenew superhero stories. That's
right. Today, we've got a sermonthat's more epic than the Battle
of Helm's Deep and moreinspiring than Captain America's
pep talks. But before we diveinto this week's divine
(00:23):
download, don't forget to hitthat like button, subscribe, and
ring the bell so you never missan episode.
And, hey, if you love what we doand want to support the show,
consider donating. Every littlebit helps us keep the nerdy
goodness coming your way. Youcan find the donation link in
the show notes or head over toour website at greaterguild.org.
(00:43):
Join the ranks of our greaterguild army and help us spread
the geeky gospel far and wide.Now without further ado, let's
jump into this week's sermon.
Grab your bibles, light up yourlightsabers, and get ready to
dive deep into the word of God.
Pastor Brandon Holm (01:02):
Well, welcome back, everyone. It is
your host, pastor Brandon Holmhere at the Greater Guild. I
just wanna say thank you forjoining us today. And we're
gonna be discussing,
you know, why guilds and grace and why we
need each other. You know,people think, well, you know, do
I need to?
I can go solo. I can do all these things
(01:22):
by myself.
And for
the most part, that's true. But let's
really
get to the meat of the whole issue here, is
that you go to work, and oddlyenough you have co workers.
Funny how that works.
(01:44):
And you just basically work with others,
and your goal is to produce theamount of work the job requires
you in a certain set of time,and you're gonna need a lot of
people and a lot ofcommunication goes on. Well,
same thing for guilds. I mean,think about it. You know, a
guild is really bit a bunch ofpeople who have different
(02:05):
talents, different, skills,different, backgrounds that come
together and go out adventuringeither solo or together. So
doesn't matter if you're gonnado a solo quest or a dungeon.
Doesn't matter.
But the point is is that they're all
together. And the
same thing is for us in life. We're not
(02:27):
supposed to do life alone, youknow, faith alone. That's not
how this works. Church andgaming communities thrive when
we support one anotherspiritually. Fellowship is
essential for growth andspiritual strength, you know,
especially when we're havingmajor issues in our own lives.
Now if you look at Ecclesiastes,it says, 2 are better than 1
(02:48):
because they have a good rewardfor their toil. Or if they fall,
one will lift up his fellow. Butwoe to him who is alone when he
falls, and has not another tolift him up. And that really
gets us into the first part ofthis whole thing is the power of
the guild. You know, not justthe greater guild as a, you
(03:12):
know, as a church, but alsoguilds in general.
You know, you go in in MMOs likewar World of Warcraft, they've
got guilds all over the place.And you can find people to help
you tackle a dungeon. Not in theLeroy Jenkins, aspect I hope, or
many of you, but that's thereavailable to you. Now everybody
(03:32):
has a role in that situation,and if you look at the Leroy
Jenkins clip, you have people,you know, one's per calculating
your chances of survival, andvery low as they were. But if
you look at how they're playedout, they've got healers.
They've got damage dealers. Youknow? They've got tanks. You
know? They've got supportcharacters.
(03:54):
The whole 9 yards. And just likea guild needs every player to
survive and succeed, we do needthat in life too. It's not an
alone thing. Now many of us gohome alone. It's fine.
That happens. You know, wehaven't found the right person
to share life with permanently.And during that time, we're
still you know, we go out withfriends. We go to the bars, we
(04:16):
go drinking. We go to thekaraoke club, start singing.
We go to Comic Cons to gettogether. Those are things that
we do as groups and do but howis it that we can't translate
those type of activities intowhat we need to do in life? Is
that be together and go throughit? Now, God designed us not to
be static, not to be alone. It'sreally funny how people think
(04:40):
that way.
It's, like, I can tackle thisalone. I can do this on my own.
But it's funny, if you go and goto the gym, every so often
somebody will come up and helpyou out. A gym partner, or a gym
bro, or a gym lass, that I liketo call the female version. And
they'll help you out.
They'll help you get strength.You know, if you have questions,
sometimes you can find them,sometimes you don't. Or you can
(05:02):
always ask somebody. You know,how do I do this? How do you
know, what's more effective?
How do you get those gains? Youknow, those type of questions.
And then you go to church, it'sthe same thing. Can you pray for
me? Can you do this for me?
But you go to, you
know and then you go to Comic Cons. It's
like you go as a group, you'regoing as friends if you were in
a group, and it's like youyou're playing as a group, you
(05:25):
know, cosplaying as a group. Goddidn't build us to be solo. In
fact, he built us to thrive in acommunity. That's why we have
cities, nations, you know,ideally people who live
together, who have similarsocial mores that work together
to build up a better society.
Pretty much what any nation is,pretty much what every city is,
(05:48):
town, county, state. It's reallywhat it is. And we don't see
that sometimes because webasically have been told, you
know, you you know, for the forthe feminine movement, I don't
need no man. For men we'vealways pretty much done it
alone, that's not a bad thing,but, you know, as one of the
(06:10):
songs from way back in the daysays, a woman needs a man, a man
must have his mate. That's kindof what we're playing here, and
it's very dangerous going solohalf the time.
You know there are games builtfor the single player and those
are great. Aren't they? Butsometimes if you're playing
those games don't you askyourself, man can't I just have
(06:32):
somebody to help me out? Youknow go through this game with
me? You know I wish I hadmultiplayer where we can co op
the single player missions.
I don't you know I don't knowabout you but I have. And that's
when it's like you're gettingkilled. I mean Dark Souls is
really the best option here inin Elder Ring. Any soul or any
(06:53):
really souls like game. And it'sfunny many of the souls like
games do have a partner programbuilt into it.
A co op. Not all of them, butsome of them do. And funny
enough with those it's like itstill is gonna beat the living
crap out of you, but it's a loteasier. You're not dying as much
(07:14):
sometimes. So when you have thatlack of support in life, what do
you think you're gonna do?
Are you gonna succeed a 100%
of the time? No. And I'm
not saying that you have a partner or
friends and stuff like that thatyou can, you know, do life
together spiritually, mentally,physically. But it's a lot
easier, isn't it? I mean, I goand see a therapist weekly. You
(07:37):
know, I I I don't see any otherway because that gets my mental
health totally back on track. Igo to the gym.
Yes. I do. You may not see itnow, but I have lost a lot of
weight as many of you've known,and hopefully have noticed since
way back in the day. I go to thegym, and sometimes I'm just
like, you know what? I don'tknow know if I'm doing something
(07:58):
right.
I'll find somebody who's doingpretty much the same exact
workout that I'm doing, or closeto it, and I'm, like, hey, you
know? And I have done this. Hey,you know, am I missing
something? You know? What I'mnot feeling what it's supposed
Guild Announcer (08:09):
to be.
Pastor Brandon Holm (08:09):
Am I missing? What's my technique?
And a person usually very nicelyalways helps me out. And that's
the same with our spiritual. Wecan't do anything by ourselves
spiritually.
I mean, let's go all the wayback to Genesis that God had
built us, and you saw the flashup earlier, because I
hit the wrong button. But seriously,
(08:33):
even God says that we can't be alone.
Then the Lord God said, it isnot good for that the man should
be alone. I will make him ahelper fit for him. Isn't that
true of life? I mean, we try tofind you know, that's what our
friends are for.
That's what our work colleaguesare for. That's what our gym
bros and gym lasses are for.That's what our therapists are
(08:54):
for. They're not there to justbe there. They're help they're
there to help you get throughthe things that you need help
on, and church does that too.
I've been to churches wherethat's a great thing.
Everybody's there to help you.And I've been to churches where
it's, like, they have their ownlittle clicks, and you can't be
part of that click because youdon't fit into their mindset.
I've been to both types,
(09:17):
and it sucks. The reason
why I say playing playing solo is very
dangerous in life, and in manyof the aspects of of physical,
spiritual, and mental, isbecause you get the enemy to
target you a lot better, andyou'll listen to the words a
little bit more because youdon't have somebody to talk to.
You don't have somebody saying,hey, you know, why are you doing
(09:39):
that? You know, it's what isknown as objective morality and
that's one of the cases for God.But also, it's not somebody else
to say, hold on. Why are youdoing that?
Are you are you gonna be doingsomething stupid? You know, it's
that a little check and balancethere. That's why you can't do
life solo. It is the checks andbalances that keep us mindful,
(10:03):
but that doesn't mean anythingif you're doing stuff alone. I
mean, yeah, you can survivealone.
I mean, a lot of people do.That's great. But if you noticed
in the last couple of years,many females are in their
forties now. They were told, youknow, be the powerful woman that
you are. You don't need a man.
(10:23):
You can go on with life. And nowthey're trying to find husbands,
and they're not connecting.They're dating constantly, but
there's no connection. And ifyou notice what they're doing,
they're make some of them aremaking really horrendous life
choices. And this is not to pickon women as in general, but
they're the most vociferous inthis aspect.
(10:46):
And this is why I say, you know,the Annie is looks for people
who are very isolated and willhave them go do other things.
Now that doesn't mean that, youknow, they have to do it. It's
just more of their choices leadto that, and that is on your
level. That is on you. You'rethe one that makes the final
choice in everything.
So when it comes to playingsolid, you have to be mindful.
(11:08):
You have to be sober minded. Youhave to be watchful. Your
adversary, the devil, prowlsaround like a roaring lion
seeking someone to devour, andthat's the main goal of the
devil. Satan, the enemy, howeveryou wanna take, they want to cut
you off from society so you canbe miserable, so you can go down
dark paths, so that by the timeyou're done and everything's is
(11:32):
said and done, you don't have alife to live.
And you're not gonna do life.And say you are in a real
troublesome spot and you wannahelp somebody. You're not gonna
be doing that. Because eitheryou have been shuffled off this
mortal coil early throughvariety of means or you lived a
long and fruitless life and youcan't share on that wisdom. God
(11:58):
will put people, places, thingsinto our lives to make sure that
we're not doing things alone, orto give you that kick in the in
the rear end to say, hey, thisis somebody important that you
need to do life with.
And not just on a spirituallevel. Sometimes it's a mental
level. This is a good therapist.You 2 fit. It works.
(12:19):
Going and playing games. Hey,this team really works. They're
gonna get together. Hey, youknow, we wanna continue doing
that. And that's why guilt inchurches are do you'll find
people to get into that grooveand mindset that says, oh, wow.
You know, that's cool. Or, oh,you know, I'm having a hard
time. Is there anybody that'sgone through this? Oh, yes. I
(12:39):
have.
That's the whole point. And whenwe do that we actually gain
spiritual buffs from this typeof fellowship. You know we we
can you know in games we drinkflasks to buff ourselves. We
drink potions. We drink herbs.
We you know we drink herbs. Weeat herbs. We all and we wear
(13:02):
items of armor, jewelry, youknow, hats, whatever, and they
have certain buffs to us.
Well, that's what really finding
people out there and fellowshipreally is. There are gonna be
people some
of them, don't get me wrong, are going to
weigh you down. But maybe thatthat person weighing you down is
(13:22):
suffering from stuff that youhave done in the past, and they
just need somebody to help themout, where you can buff them up,
where you can say to them, hey,what's going on? Oh, I've been
there before. Here's how Itackled it. Do you need someone
to help you through this?
We've become a society not justhere in America but globally
except for a few countries whereisolation has become the big
(13:45):
thing, and it never helpedduring the pandemic that this
rose you know, that made thateven greater. And the only thing
I can say about that is is comesfrom Proverbs. And it says, iron
sharpens iron, and one mansharpens another. And I'm not
saying man as, you know, themale species. I'm talking about
(14:07):
man as in mankind.
That includes women. Thatincludes children. I mean, if
you've noticed from the past,you know, you go through
elementary school, through allyour schooling, up until
college. And some of you havefriends from you know I did
until he passed away, but allthe way from elementary school
to high school. And we wouldactually talk, we'd you know
(14:32):
joke around we'd have fun we dostupid stuff and thank goodness
that we didn't have smartphonesback then because you can't
prove that I did some of thestuff that I I have done oh the
power of Gen X But if you lookat it at it from that mentality,
we actually worked with eachother built up.
(14:52):
So he would get depressed. Iwould cheer him up. I'd get
depressed. He'd cheer me up. Andwe built ourselves up to have
this great life.
Now some of us didn't have it,and unfortunately my friend did
pass away from from cancer atthe ripe old age of 40, 46. It
sucked. Because now he's goneI'm just like, dude that sucked.
(15:13):
I mean, we played off eachother. Had fun.
We were great Disney nuts. Imean, talk about that. My wife
knew that if we were just like,oh my gosh. They're crazy again.
But, you know, she loved us.
That's the same. And that's howwe do should do life. Now we go
(15:34):
on to college. We make newfriends. Some know their old
friends go away.
That does happen. But it's theones that stick with us
throughout our lives. The oneswho have gone through through
the same things we've done it,through thick and thin, who who
will be there when you are downon your luck. Those are not the
fair weather friends where it'slike you ask for help and
(15:54):
they're gone. These are thepeople that stick with you and
say, hey, is there anything Ican do to help you out?
And it can't and and a lot ofpeople say, well, that's
financial. No. Financial is justmaybe a portion of it. Sometimes
the all the person needs is akind word, a helping hand, a
little support to lift them up.It doesn't have to be financial.
It could be just anything.
(16:19):
So how do we do that?
Well, Hebrews gives us a great aspect
to that, and says, and let usconsider how to stir up one
another to love and good works,and we've talked about that word
works. It doesn't say work, itsays works, and later on in in
the season we'll talk about thattoo. But not neglecting to meet
(16:40):
together as is the habit of somebut encouraging one another and
all the more as you see the daydrawing near. The day drawing
near? Wow.
Where have we heard that before?We're not talking about a night
and day cycle. In this passagewe're talking about the end of
(17:00):
life. You know when we die, whenwe pass away. So it is always
good to consider that, andthat's what I've been trying to
illustrate here is it's aboutencouragement, accountability,
prayer, wisdom.
It doesn't have to be financial,but that's the whole thing. You
see somebody down the line, whatare you gonna do?
(17:22):
I mean, what are you going to do? Are
you gonna
give them encouragement? Or are they doing
something bad that you're, like,you know, dude, don't do that
accountability. Or they justneed a prayer so that you're on
their
mind, or they're on your mind too, and
wisdom. Maybe you know somethingthat they're going through, and
(17:44):
it's, like, oh,
I've been there before. This is what works
for me. Let's let me talk to himabout that
or her, you know.
Again, sorry. Being the male that I am,
I usually generally go for themale. Please excuse me. But the
idea here is we have spiritualgifts that we have that can
boost other people. Basically,it could be, you know, like the
(18:08):
Bard giving us the charismaboost.
You know, We can do that too. Wehave that power to do it, and
God has given us those spiritualgifts. And if you wanna read
about them further, look atfirst Corinthians chapter 12,
all of chapter 12. It talksabout this. Not at length and
not in a great detail, but ittalks about our spiritual gifts
in relation to how we are and inrelation to others.
(18:30):
And this is why we can't do lifebecause, again, as we talked
about in Genesis earlier, we'renot meant to be going at it
alone. We're supposed to betogether and there's reasons for
this. We have different aspects,different idealisms, different
ways we were brought up, andsometimes we're lacking
something. We have a weaknessthat somebody else has a
(18:51):
strength in, and we worktogether, and we build each
other up, or vice versa. We havea strength in in us that
somebody else may be lackingthat you can help out in.
Works the same. And we see thisin any MMO where everybody's
working as a team,
and I do say that work as a team. I see a
(19:11):
lot of you out there going at it alone even
when you're doing a dungeon as agroup. So what happens? What
should we do?
I mean we're gonna go through this game
of life,
and sometimes we're gonna slip fall,
and that's gonna suck. It couldbe spiritual. It could be
(19:31):
mental.
It could be physical. It doesn't matter. So
what is it?
You know we we are meant to revive the other
person. I say that like it's abat it's a it's a weird thing to
think about. We lift each other,you know, you know, we revive
the person. Revival doesn't meanjust rise from the dead. You
(19:54):
know, you know, we don't get thephoenix down to our Final
Fantasy players.
Right? It's not what we'retalking about. We revive them as
in rebuild their spirit. That'swhat prayer does. We pray over
people especially me when itcomes to when somebody's just
having a really crappy, youknow, life for the moment.
Again, this is you know, crappylives are seasonal and happy
(20:17):
times are seasonal as well.We've seen that constantly
in the last about 5 years.
Now we don't leave I mean, there's a
great idealism in the specialforces that we don't leave a man
behind. Well, we shouldn't bedoing that to others. We
shouldn't promote ourselvesabove somebody else's weakness.
(20:38):
If they're part of your group,you should be with them to help
them up. If they fall, let'ssay, in a task, you go, hey.
Is there anything I can do tohelp you out? Where's the
problem? What's going on? Inthat case, as a team project,
say, in a job business whatever,that works together. You build
each other up.
You put the whole thingtogether. You can actually work
faster and more efficiently. AndJames really puts this in
(21:02):
perspective. My brothers, ifanyone among you wanders from
the truth, and someone bringshim back, let him know that
whoever brings back a sinnerfrom his wandering will save his
soul from death, and willrecover a multitude of sins.
Yeah.
We're sinful. I'm sinful.Everybody's sinful. I'm not, you
know, I'm not sitting on apedestal saying, you're I'm
(21:25):
better than you. That's not it.
I'm just a beggar who foundbread, and I'm willing to
distribute that bread forothers. It's really what I'm
doing. And that's why I preachthe way I do. That's why I
preach to who I do. This isn'tabout an ego trip.
This isn't about fluffing me up.There are people out there that
(21:47):
are wandering around sospiritually dead that, you know,
God's calling them, and they'rejust like, I don't really care.
I don't believe in God. I don'twant that. And they go sinning,
you know, through life.
Eventually, they're gonna bedead and we mean dead in the
permanent aspect. Whereas,someone who follows Christ,
(22:10):
their sins, yes, are remittedbut here's the thing. That
doesn't mean that we can just goaround do whatever we want like
some Christians reach or someChristians act. It really means
that we have to be on constantvigilance because we have to be
better than a sinner. Be likeJesus.
(22:34):
We're not gonna be perfect.We're gonna sin, we're gonna
crash, we're gonna makemistakes, and we're gonna fall
by the wayside. And that's wherewe come in as a group, is we
come in and talk to that personsaying, hey, why have you
fallen? This isn't meant foryou. You're meant to enjoy life,
and granted life kicks you inthe teeth.
(22:55):
Life gives you lemons. Well, weas a group will come together
and build you a lemonade stand,make lemonade with the sugar,
and everything else you need,and you can
sell it for a dollar. K? That's what
we're talking about here when we raise
people up. And when I talk aboutit talk about when we fall and
(23:16):
just, you know, having a badtime, and we're just saying, you
know, God's not with me, oranything like that. That's
different. In Galatians, we'retaught how to do this. When it
says, brothers, if anyone iscaught in any transgression, you
who are spiritual should restorehim in a spirit of gentleness.
(23:36):
Keep watch on yourself, lest yoube too temp you too be tempted.
Bear one another's burdens, andso fulfill the law of Christ.
That's why we have the guild asa church. That's why we have
guilds. That's why we havefriends and parties and stuff
like that.
That's what we're meant to do. So that when
(23:59):
one of
us falls there's always gonna be somebody
there to help them out. Whetherit be through temptation,
through a sin, or just beingworn out on life. You know, we
need each other. That's notthat's not a, really difficult
task. It could maybe just say,hey.
Is everything okay? And youprobably you're gonna get
somebody yes. It's every youknow, everything is okay. I'm
(24:21):
fine. But you know better.
You know when to push and whennot to. That's the whole part
about it. And when it comes tosay don't be, you know, unless
we're tempted. If we continue topursue that person in
gentleness, kindness, or anytransgression that this person
does, it doesn't matter. I'vebeen insulted.
(24:41):
I've been called every name ofthe book. I've been told that
God doesn't exist. Okay. Fine.Great.
Next. But it doesn't mean thatI'm gonna ignore that person
said, you know, God doesn'texist. It's just more of, okay,
I'm gonna pray for you to findto have God enter into your life
to have you figure out reallyhow how God is. And if we talked
(25:04):
about in the last series,there's a lot of truths that are
being told out there that arenot quite a 100% true, and
that's what causes per people togo through church burnout. Is
we're taught these things andit's like that's great.
When in when the reality is no,it's really about helping others
and helping ourselves. It's balit that's the balance. You know,
(25:29):
that's how God wants us to be.We wanna be perfectly balanced
in every way. Yeah.
Thanos, I got it. And, you know,as it should be. But we're here
to restore people. That's whatthe church is about. And if you
look at a good healthy gamingcommittee, that's what they do
too.
Now they're not gonna condemnsomebody for making a mistake.
(25:51):
They're gonna go, okay. You madea mistake. What can we do to
help you out next time that youdon't we don't repeat the same
mistake? Or why are we doingthis?
They don't look at the oneperson. They don't project their
problems on the others. They go,okay. We didn't do it this time.
You know, how do we do you know,how are we gonna do this?
Okay. We found that thisperson's having this problem.
(26:14):
How do we help them out? That'show we do the rest restoration.
So that's when it comes
down to roles and responsibilities.
Okay? As we said, people havespiritual gifts. People have the
ability to buff other people indifferent ways. We've talked
about resurrecting people andtalking about how we don't
condemn people.
(26:34):
So as we talk about spiritualgifts, if you look at very
successful guilds or if you'replaying Eve online, the
corporations there, everyone hasa role when it comes to groups
and parties, when it goes todungeon ray
and raids and stuff like that. Think about
it. Have you noticed thatsomebody takes the lead and
says, okay we're going to dothis. We see that
(26:56):
in the Leroy Jenkins video and then
somebody doesn't and look whathappened. You had somebody
leading the whole group. It'sgoing, okay. You're gonna heal
us. You're gonna do this.
You're gonna do that. I findthat the Leroy Jenkins clips has
you know, and you have
to watch the full 9 minute clip including
this stupid part where, youknow,
(27:18):
at least I have chicken at
the end. But if you look at
it, one person is leading the whole
thing asking questions saying,hey, you know, what is our
chances? Look at the survivalrate. Okay. This is what we need
to do. You got that leader.
You have the people that arethere to heal. And when person
(27:38):
was calculated, they're talkingabout strategy. So you have all
these people working together tomake and then you have 1 person
screw it up and go balls in intothe into the dungeon itself and
Well that didn't work. Right?See how playing solo can
actually get you into moretrouble and can bring down other
people.
Really, it's it's really whatthat is. And we see that in 1st
(28:02):
Corinthians 12. For just as thebody is 1 and has many members,
and all the members of the bodythrough many are one body. So it
is with Christ. For in onespirit we are all baptized into
1 body, Jews are Greeks, slavesare free, and all were made to
drink of 1 spirit.
(28:25):
Is that great? Relating how ourphysical bodies are 1, but it
has so many different parts, andeach one is specialized. Our
hands are meant to grasp, touch.Our tongue is meant to taste,
and scoop ice cream off a spoon.Our teeth are there to mash mash
all the food that comes in ourmouths except for ice cream,
(28:47):
that's that's kinda the tonguesdo doing.
Feet for walking,transportation. Legs for getting
that mode to transfer to theground through our feet. Every
part has and then you have thebrain which I always tell people
is the most ironic part of thehuman body because it is the
(29:08):
only organ in the entire humanbody that has named itself. I
know. Real twist there.
But if you look at all
the diversity of roles that we just
talked about, say in the LeroyJenkins, or in Wow, or in any
guild group that you watch goingand doing raids, and just like
the physical your physical body,each one has a unique skill, but
(29:31):
each one is meant to helpprosper the other, so that they
remain healthy.
Right? Makes sense. And yet, we don't
think that way.
We have a role in life, and that's where
our spiritual gifts come in. Weare there to support one
another. Maybe there's a timewhen you are just down on like,
(29:53):
and all of a sudden you havethis only this one friend that
talks to you, sympathizes withyou, and helps you get out of a
very dark place. Every time yougo to the dark place, why is it
always the same friend? Figurethat part out.
That's their spiritual gift to you.
That includes going
to the gym, working on on on on woodwork,
(30:14):
you know forging metal, doingwhatever you do, even at work.
Each person is a cog in theentire machine, and that's how
churches and and our our guildworks. We're not just single
focus single-minded. We're notfocused on one thing. We're
focused on a great deal ofthings because in the end it's
all for God.
(30:34):
It's all for Christ to make usbetter people. Just because
Jesus said you know, with Jesus'sacrifice we are saved, that's
great, but we have to maintainthat because we're always gonna
revert back to sin because sinis the easy way out. We always
have to work harder to dobetter. So what do we need to
(30:57):
do? We need to unite the spiritfor victory.
That's what Jesus is talkingabout. That's what God wants,
and that's what we do here atthe Guild. Now in gaming,
teamwork is essential for forvictory. Same thing in our
spiritual walk. We need eachother to win the battles of
life.
So don't always play solo. Youknow, you gotta build your own
(31:19):
personal spiritual guild. Trustthe Holy Spirit. It's going to
give you that ability to findthe people you need,
and lean into the power of those people.
Lean into the power of what acommunity does.
I mean we see that in Planet of the Apes.
You know?
Apes together are strong, and that's
(31:40):
the greatest meme on the planetespecially for ones of a church.
We together are strong, And notjust in a mental and physical
way, but spiritually. That's thepower of it. So that ends it
here for today. Thank you forjoining us, and we will all see
you next week.
Guild Announcer (32:04):
Wow. That was powerful. Pastor Brandon never
fails to deliver a sermon that'sboth thought provoking and nerd
tastic. We hope you all enjoyedit as much as we did. Don't
forget to like, subscribe, anddonate if you want to keep the
sermons and geeky discussionscoming.
And remember, you can alwaysconnect with us on social media.
Just search for the GreaterGuild on all your favorite
(32:25):
platforms. We'd love to hearyour thoughts and geek out with
you. Thanks for tuning in, GuildNerds. Until next time, keep the
faith and stay nerdy.
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