Love People Into a Relationship With Christ First B Jackson 2024-09-08 Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record. ---- Okay. No. We're good. Yeah. You can stream it. Did you get the the one throw one of the video? There was another I sent you the number 23, slide 23. Okay. Okay. Thank you. How did you get I did just one copy. Just one copy so that when I go granddad, I'll have things to help me out. Yeah. It's fine. Thank you, Nick. Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Yeah. I'm careful. Said it. It's okay now. You never know. Gallagher. Great. That's an old one. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Very, very good to see you this morning. And would you stand and join us in song? Here's an encouraging word from Psalm 66 to lead us in the worship. It's shout joyful praises to God all the earth. Tell the world how glorious he is and say to God how awesome are your deeds. Would you join us in singing great things? Come let us worship the king. And come let us worship our king. And come let us bow and his feet. He has done everything. Let's see He's the hero of heaven. Oh, you will live. You conquer and pray. Be free and recaptive and break every chain, oh God. You have done great things. We dance in your freedom, awaken the light. Jesus, our savior, your name lifted high, oh God. You have done great faith. We'll sing of his faithfulness. And you've been faithful through every storm, and you'll be faithful forevermore. You have done great things. And I know you will do it again for your promise is yes and amen you will do great things God give you great things you. You have done great things. We dance in your freedom, awaken the lie. Oh, our savior. Your name lifted high, oh God. You have done great things. And let's sing hallelujah God. Oh, hallelujah God. Above it all, hallelujah, God. Unshakable, hallelujah, you've done great things. Again, hallelujah God. Above it all, hallelujah God. Unshakable, hallelujah you I've done great things. You've done great things. Oh, hero of heaven. You've conquered the grave. You free every captive Hey, the living water right here. I have a few announcements, and here they are. Blake, would you just scroll through them for me? Old Bills, yesterday was the run, but the giving season is still open. It was so much fun yesterday. So donations are amplified through giving through the Community Foundation of Jackson Health to any of the nonprofits in town. First Bee uses those donations for our benevolence fund. We're thankful for that. Several of you came up to me yesterday at the thing and said, hey. We're doing that. Thank you. How what's next, Blake? Awana. Yep. We have yeah. Look at those handsome guys. We have a Awana leaders meeting tomorrow. And that's at 06:00, and Mike's gonna feed us, and we'll get all set up for the year. So leaders, 06:00 tomorrow, and then kickoff is September 16 at 05:45. So parents, you can register your kids. You can find the website, and we would love to have your kids in Juana this year. That sounds good. Children's Church, I've got an announcement. Or Tim's got an announcement. Hey, look at this. Come on up. Take this, Tim. Okay. I'm not Children's Church, but but part of hey, Judy. Good morning. Good morning. And I just got to put a plug in for the front row. I just sat there, and it's a wonderful place to sit. You get your you really get your money's worth down there. But my name is Tim Dalton, and I have the joy of co teaching the Sunday school group of middle schoolers and high schoolers with Judy Wales. And this fall, we're going to continue our study of the Gospel of John. We've been going through this for a little while, but we feel like it's really important. Our goal is to give a strong foundation and faith to our young adults as they are confronted with the many different ideas they're seeing out in the world. We're looking at the gospel, answering several questions. What is the gospel? What does it mean to believe in Jesus? And what does it mean to live it out? We'll be looking at the life of Jesus to understand the context of where he lived. And we we do this through a lot of different things, sometimes videos of archaeology and geology and things about the the times. We're studying where Jesus lived to get a grasp of the people, the places, and the times Jesus walked this Earth. But most importantly, our goal is, is it reads in John twenty thirty one, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life through his name. We truly want our children to know, love, and live with God in our wonderful savior, Jesus Christ. We hope to see middle schoolers and high schoolers downstairs in the library at 09:30 on Sunday mornings. And and with that, Philip has an announcement for yeah. Thanks, Tim. Thank you, Tim. Morning. So I'm just pinch hitting for Amy. She's downstairs doing things at Children's Church. So just an announcement that getting started this week is the upper elementary class, third through fifth grade. So when the kids get released, third through fifth grade go on down. Tim and Wendy are down there this morning already, saw them. And then, of course, the kindergarten through second grade class has been going on all summer. That's also gonna be going on. Miss Crystal will be down there. And then also, I think most people know that nursery is during this service from nine to ten. So kids from six months to two years old, if you want, you can take them down to the nursery. And then the preschool class, this is something new that's starting this morning. So we flipped the rooms around in the nursery, where we've divided three and four year olds from the younger kids up to two. And so there's gonna actually be a preschool class going at 09:30. You can take your kids down there at nine if you want. But then at 09:30, they're gonna start a preschool class specific for that three and four year old age group. And I think Amy's gonna teach that with a little bit of help from me here and there this fall. So she's down there getting ready for that. And then here's the QR code. If you are interested at all in volunteering, you can just take a picture or scan that QR code. It's gonna bring up a text message that'll go directly to Amy and just say, hey. Interested in volunteering in children's ministry? And in particular, we need more volunteers for the third to fifth grade class if anybody's interested in doing that. And, you know, Amy said it great last week. She said, we don't need the volunteers here for, you know, Amy and me or Carl or Ray or anybody. It's really the kids and and just breathing into those kids and pouring into the kids down there. You know, that's that's really what it's about and that's that's what's so important. So thank you all for everything you do. Thank you very much. Oh, alright. And small group Jamboreeapalooza. Small group Jamboreeapalooza is happening September 22, couple of It's happening down the hall between services. If you host a small group, if you lead a small group, or if you attend a small group, it's for you. And if you don't, you would like to, please, that's for you then too. We'd love for the whole congregation to get up and go jam themselves into the fellowship hall and figure out small group stuff because it's much easier, much easier to live an authentic Christian life in community if the group is small enough that you can manage to know people and be known by people. So if you would, we would love it if you would come down equipping and encouraging in the fellowship halls. Is there anything else, Nick, that I've forgotten about the Jamboreeapalooza? Okay. Men's lunch study. Please do not think that we're going to provide lunch at the men's lunch study. Just not the way these men are operating. But it is a great study. It happens during the lunch hour, 11:55 in the fellowship hall. You come and go as you need to. It'll be over at 01:00. We pray for one another, and we study scripture together. We're in second Peter. It's been fantastic. It's one of my favorite things during the midweek. So men's lunch study, Thursdays, 11:55 in the Fellowship Hall. The moving up and in looks like it's working a bit. I thank you for moving in. So you're leaving some aisle seats open. There are folks coming in. They can get in there. I appreciate that. Oh, gracious. Yes. It is. Let's raise your birthday. Look at these announcements ahead of time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Which I'll stand and we'll sing something else. Let's sing. A race for today is all that I need. Surprised by mercy that's due every morning. Awaken my soul to sing. Awaken my soul to sing. And I by breath overtaken by wonder. One step at a time when I'm overwhelmed. Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Awaken my soul. Awaken Awaken my soul and sing. Awaken my soul and sing. And I will trust where you lead. And I will trust when I can't Fear be reminded. All fear be reminded. My future is secure. Oh, my father has Oh, my father has spoken and he keeps his every word. So I will trust. Oh, I will trust you. Oh, morning by morning. Oh, morning by morning. And I will trust morning great faithfulness to Morning by morning, oh, morning by morning, great is your faithfulness to me. May I share a couple of verses right in line with that song that we've just sung from Lamentation? Here's one. Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed for his compassion or his mercies never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. May I pray on that? Lord, thank you for your new morning mercy, for mercy for this day. Kinda like manna. You've given it for this day, not even tomorrow yet. We're living right here, right now. God, would we receive that mercy gratefully? And thank you, God, for your faithfulness to us. And, God, would you help us through breath by breath, overtaken by wonder, one step at a time when we get overwhelmed. Thank you, God, for instructing us and teaching us in the way that we should go and counseling us with your loving eye on us. In Jesus' name. Amen. I hear the savior say, thy strength indeed is small. Child Jesus paid it all, and all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. God, that you would and you have through your life and your death and your resurrection and then our belief in you that you would do that, that you would make us white as snow. It's it's hard for us to believe, but, God, we we come to you in faith believing this is this is the way that you've provided through Christ through your life, your death, your resurrection, and ascension through our belief. And then, God, you change, you transform a life, you turn it around through the work of your Holy Spirit. Thank you. God, may we be a church that becomes is becoming transformed by you into your likeness, into your image, through your Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, amen. In my mother's womb, you formed me with your hand known and loved by you. Before I took a breath and when I doubted, Lord, remind me. I'm wonderfully made. You're an artist and a plotter. I'm a canvas and a clay. You make all things. And you make all things. You work together for my future and for my good. You make all things. And for my good. You make all things a world together for your glory Amen. You can have a seat here for a moment. This is the worship through giving part of the of the service, and I'll invite our ushers to come on forward. We're gonna sing sing of the words from Micah six eight. And if you've asked, God, what what do you require of me? What do you require of us? Micah six eight is a great place to go to, and that is to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. And before we sing, Ray, I'd like to ask you to pray. Anna, I think you've got something to share too. I do. So I am glad to be up here this morning right now, but I'm gonna sit out there with y'all. And Dave Hatfield and Dave and Kim are here this morning. They're ministering in Kenya, and they're here in The States for a few weeks, but they're headed back. They're heading east from here, they said, going back. And we have been connected with them for several years. They came and lived here for a while, and we love them dearly, and I wanna say a blessing on the offer and a blessing on them. But I also want you to know we're gonna pass the plates twice today. It's not because you didn't put enough in the first time. Okay? We're gonna do it once now. This is a general fund sort of normal offering that we do each and every Sunday. But then after the fact, when we get back up here when the band comes up again, we're gonna pass the plates again, and that's to support them in their ministry. If you brought one check today and you just wanna do this once, put it in the second plate. Okay? Would you pray with me? God, thank you. Thank you that you, Lord, are on mission, that you're on task, that you, Lord, know what you're doing and you're calling your humble and obedient servants to do your will and your way. Lord, may we be doing your will and your way. Here this morning, but extending out from here. Lord, would you use us to reach out to what's been called, Lord? Verily, verily, a lost and dying world. Would you allow us, Lord, to humbly show the way? In Jesus name, I ask your blessing on this service, on everything that would be said, on this offering, on everything that would be offered. Would you do your will, among us and through us in your way. Amen. It Where you require And no things, no ways, welcome thee. With you, God, it all comes down today to be your hands and feet. Good news to you all the world. The truth will set us free. I just need And news from now we'll see the fruit our hands have sown. It's just like a sea. Only way you hold. At your seat, So they're ministering in he'll I'll let I'll let him tell you. But Niduru, Kenya, Tanya and I and Carl went. In 2019, I think it was, February when the snow was this deep here and That's what all of the people could not believe it there. But I'm gonna let Dave go. He's got the microphone this morning. May I pray for you real quick? You can. God almighty. Thank you for Dave. Thank you for Kim. Thank you for all of the support that they have received from you and from this body. Lord, I pray that you would be about the business of reaching out through Dave, not just where he ministers, but here this morning. Would you show us the way you'd have us go. Amen. Amen. Amen. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. It is great to be together again. Let me see if I can get the slides to work. It's my first day on this particular tool here. It's great to be together again and God has connected us in a way that only he can. It was seven years ago that my wife and I had sold our house. We were giving away our things, and in the midst of that, God said, go to Jackson and encourage the church. That was super unusual for me. It might seem unusual to you too. We'd never been to Jackson. We didn't know anyone in Jackson, and we certainly didn't know what church. What's awesome about it actually is as I've been thinking about this, Ray, you sent me here to meet you and Tanya and Pascal and Carl, your wife and all the rest of you. It's not Jackson. It's you. So we booked a VRBO for a month and we came and we encouraged the church, think. And by the way, Ray said, whoever does that, everybody comes into the church needing something. He goes, who comes in saying we're gonna encourage you? Our God, I guess. And then Ray and Tanya and Pascal and Carl returned the favor. They came to Kenya and encouraged us. It was beautiful. And here we are together again, and he's sent me here to encourage you once again in these times that seem somewhat so crazy. Let's pray and we can get started. Lord, thank you for the gift of this day and thank you for the way that you make your family. Thank you for choosing us and adopting us as your own. Thank you that we are heirs to you, the king of all creation and the king of heaven. And we thank you that the riches of heaven are our inheritance. They're things like peace and patience and goodness and kindness. Thank you for all those things. Thank you for love. Thank you that your spirit is welcome here, only in this building, but into our lives. And I ask that you would connect us as you promised to do through the unity of the Holy Spirit and teach us how to love like you, Jesus. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray and believe. Okay. I thought I'd give you guys a little bit of context. How many have never met us before? How many is this the first time of being together? Okay. Well, welcome. I was a stockbroker. You guys wanna see what I looked like back then? There it is. What? I found Jesus at the age of 46. And seven months later, he sent me on a short term mission trip to Nakuru, Kenya, and he told me to go love the people. And I do. And so as he was busy making me into a new creation and changing my heart, he gave me a deep love for those people who are hurting, And I ended up going to this place. It was a long way from Beverly Hills. It's a dump site in the fourth largest city in Kenya and life can be challenging there. And he said, go and bring God's love and light to these beautiful people, and that's what we did. You guys, I didn't know anything. I was seven months into this thing. This book seems so big to me. I hadn't read all that much of it, but it was too late. He already had my heart, and so I went. And and the gospels talk about, like, right after Jesus was baptized that he returned to his hometown on the Sabbath, and he stood up in the synagogue, and he read some scriptures from Isaiah 61. He said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he sent me to preach the good news. To who? To the poor. That word in the original language means not only those that were lacking material goods, but it also meant the outcast. We know it's true. Look at what he did. We know it's the outcast. Look at Matthew. Matthew wasn't poor. Matthew was rich, but Matthew was an outcast. He was despised by his tribe. He wasn't welcome. But as soon as Jesus said, follow me, he immediately left his tax booth and followed him. And that's who Jesus came for. Think about it, you guys. I came to bring the good news to the ones at that time weren't welcome. Their culture said, you're not good enough. Heaven's not open for you. You're not in the right tribe. I don't know how many of us are Jewish here, but you're probably Gentiles. I preach in Kenya. We're all Gentiles there, and it connects me with the people. You know, even though the color of our skins are different, the the we're all Gentiles. It connects us, and it means, man, we are all outsiders when this book was written. But God came to say, hey, these doors are open for you. I came to bring you good news. I came to bring it to you. And that good news has been shared ever since by the faithful, even to you and even to me. You can see that in a photo like this that things can be overwhelming and you wonder, how can I fix this? And it's easy for us to overthink. You know, but when you see children that are hungry and they live in a dump site and they scavenge for food, guess what you can do to love them? Super simple. You can feed them. So that's what we did. We would serve meals and try and bond with our community, and and he put on our heart to love these kids in a deeper way. At that time, I'd been told that education was the key to getting children out of poverty, to helping them escape poverty. Has anyone heard that? I believed it. So for the youngest ones, we started a school, a little preschool with 18 kids. And I'll tell you when I got that photo that you're looking at, that was the most beautiful picture I think I'd ever seen because those kids aren't eating trash. They're eating rice. My community sustained itself on trash. There's about three or 4,000 people that live in it and another 12,000 who live in the surrounding town. But these are the people that God called me and my wife not only to serve, but to love. And in the only way that God is doing things, it seems that he isn't done with us quite yet. Here's our school when we started. It was just a hillside, full of potential. When Ray and Tanya visited, there's a huge hole in the ground. That thing is three stories deep. It's a cistern. It's bigger than the one that's in King Solomon's temple and it holds more water than that. And here it is today. Underneath that building is that hole. And our children are learning to read and write and study the environment and do math and learn proper hygiene. And most importantly, they're learning that there is a god named Jesus and that they get to experience his love through a Christian staff of teachers and and others. And we've grown from 18 students to 320 today. We believe God's asking us to make room for another 70 in January, another 74 and five year olds. That's what we look like today. And right now, there's nowhere to put additional children on our eight tenths of an acre. Every corner right now is decorated beautifully with the joy of children. So he's given us this space. Oh, there they are. Look at those guys. Oh, I miss them. He's given us this space to develop. It's five incredible acres. It was just a gift from another ministry, And that's what we're in the process of doing right now. We hope to open in January with a a 100 students out there. And it keeps giving us things to to nurture and develop, things like land and things like children. This photo really stuck with me for a long time. I'd been told, as I mentioned, that education was the key to getting kids out of poverty, and a slide like this, a photo like this really proves it. Right? You look and you see that what they learn in school, they take right back out into the dumpsite where they are. They're writing in their composition books. These are small children. These are five year olds. So all it did was reinforcing me that I was on the right track. Out front, there's a few copies of a book that I wrote, and you're free to take one if they're still out there. It's a true story. Guys like me usually don't write books because we're do too busy doing the things that we wrote about to actually take the time to sit down and write about it. But I did it so that you could benefit from what God has been teaching me over these past seventeen years and what he taught me about love and forgiveness. And actually for me, sitting down and writing it was good therapy after what I'd been through. I wrote it as much for that as for anything else, I think. The last time that I was here was just after COVID. So for some of you, this I'm just a refresher on the story. One night's 20 I'm some of this is gonna be hard to hear. But when you read the gospels, do you really think about what was going on there? It's literal. Those things were happening. So one night, 27 gang members raided one of our four year old girl's homes. They had stabbed her uncle. They threatened to kill her and burned down her house, and a few nights later, there were two murders. One guy was stabbed 53 times. And God told me I was locked down in a in a small apartment with my wife, Kim. She's right there. Say hi, by the way, honey. Yep. I've known that lady for thirty five years, also a blessing. But we were locked down in this small apartment, God said, go to Nakuru, reach out, and I'll make peace between the gangs through you. So I said yes. And don't know if any of you traveled in the midst of COVID in 2020, but I got on a plane and I went. And to save a bunch of time, I'll I'll just let you know that God did it. And I actually ended up I'm gonna ruin the end of the book for you. I actually ended up baptizing two rival gang members in the same water after they asked each other for forgiveness and peace. And that began to change everything. One of those guys after seeing some other things that he and I had done together, he said, I think God wants me to do something different with my life. He had 47 people in his gang. He was a drug dealer. He was the enforcer in his gang. And when he asked me what I think he should do, I said, have no idea. Oh, sure. I had my list. Right? If somebody said that to you, wouldn't you be thinking, oh, you can do all these things. Yes. Quit beating people. Don't steal. Don't sell. There's all these things, you know, these lists that we think are good for all these other people to do. And and I know I would have messed it up. I if I oh, thank you for not letting me give him my list. I said, I have no idea. And he said, well, really? I said, no. I have no idea. But why don't we open up this book together? Why don't we search God's wisdom and see what he's gonna have for you? So he and I sat down. We started reading the book of John. It's ironic that you guys are gonna be studying that. Isn't that awesome? All over the world. Same word, same truth, we all need it. So we started reading it and as I got to, in the beginning was the word, I'll ruin book of John for you too. Starts off in the beginning was the word. Wesley says, hey, let me go get some of my friends. I'm like, okay. And he got three more guys. The five of us sat down there and we read with John one. That was October 2022, and ever since that day, he and I have been right reading the Bible together with people, and more and more people have been coming. There he is. That was on that third day after we started. He said, hey, let's build a place to get this sun off of us. They went to work. There's our church. What do you think? What? Come on. Let's say we're on the the Dumpsite. That's a beautiful church. God started building a community. You know, I I preach that a church is simply a community of people that's centered around Jesus. That's what we are. We're not a building. Jesus is in the middle and we bring our lives in and around him to support and love one another. And Wes and I have been teaching every day ever since and more and more people come. Some guys walk five mile. There's about a dozen people that walk five miles each way to be there by 09:30 to hear the word of God from a stockbroker and a gang member. Neither of which you went to seminary, so give me grace on the theology of my message today. Children come too. I have the greatest staff. I walk through the community, and they come out and they grab my hands, and the first one that comes gets to carry my Bible. It was that day for that one. Aren't they beautiful? Don't you love kids? I love kids. Look at this child. Look at this. Look at what's happening here. You see, this child right now, like this, is saying, oh, God, that we're praying. And this child is saying, oh, let your let your glory shine upon me. This child's too young to know that we have to go like this and get small and get quiet. The church hasn't taught him. Religion hasn't taught this child yet. This is the way that you have to act in church. By the way, look at this. No, man. Kids are beautiful. Don't you wanna have a heart like that? Oh, let's set all that behind us. So now anywhere between a hundred and twenty and two hundred people come every day, seven days a week. We preach the Bible from 09:30 to 10:30. No worship, no tithing, no anything else. We just get together, teach the word. Sometimes people are drunk. Sometimes people are demon possessed, and sometimes all kinds of things happen. Sometimes people come with weapons, and then they hand them to me because I say, hey. Can I hang on to that until after the message? Sometimes I give it back and sometimes I don't. It all depends on how they responded to the message. So sometimes when you read the Bible, there is an unhappy character in the crowd. So sometimes when you read the Bible, there is an unhappy character. Sorry that that didn't come up. I was gonna say, you know, sometimes even the pigs roll through our place, and you just keep going. And it is the impact of the word of God that's moving in the lives of our people and changing things. Oh, I didn't wanna name it a church. It was just a Bible study. But after finishing the book of John, I show up, and they they put up this sign. Love and light church. Hint. It's in there. You guys will pay. If you don't pick up love and light from the book of John, Ray, have them call me. I'll I'll be happy to do what I can. But they wanted a churp. I didn't plant this thing. And look at my bro, Wesley. Why are we not having a trouble here? Can you advance that for me? Look at my bro, Wesley. Love and light shines brightly from him, and he's beginning to receive the love that he's craved. And so that I learned a new perspective on this picture. Yes. Education is important for sure. Medical care, proper food, proper hygiene, water, learning about sanitation, all of those things. But that's not the thing that's gonna change my community. And the only thing I've ever seen change a life is the saving grace of Jesus Christ and for people to become his disciples and walk with him. I've seen it in Wes. I hope Kim's seen it in me. So that's my thing, man. Making disciples is my thing. We live in a difficult place. We live in a violent place. My wife and her friend, Kay, are two of the most courageous people that I know. They are compelled and powered by their love. Every morning and every evening, they go into our community and connect with those who have been victims or survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. And in the last three hundred and sixty five days, they've had 206 incidents. That's every thirty two hours. We do emergency response. We get called before the police. We get called before anybody else. We get called because we're trusted and because we love them. Because we're seen of help, we're seen as the people that Jesus has sent to come in and love and connect with them. Most of these things happen five or 600 yards from our school, and those are just the ones we know about. So you keep going. You stay strong, honey. This lady, when she got a Bible, she didn't think it was possible. Right? She was poor and dirty and wasn't welcome in church. That's what all the other churches told her. We don't have I don't if you saw our church. We don't have any walls. Everybody's open. You're walking by whatever. Hey. Come on in. She accepted the word of God, and she got baptized. Never thought it was it would happen. The timing was perfect because a couple of months later, she was lit on fire and passed. Last November, Wesley and I baptized 38 people. I baptized him only a couple of years earlier. It was me a stockbroker in him, a new creation that baptized 38 people. And these are people that never thought they were welcome in church. They were the outsider. They were the poor. They were the criminal. They never saw themselves as the beautiful creation that they are made in the image of God. No one ever told them that they were God's masterpiece. No one ever told them that they were God's prized possession. You know what tells them that? It's right here. We just have to read it, and we just have to believe it. Look at Wesley. Pretty intimidating. That guy this man is beautiful inside and out, and the charisma that that could form and lead a gang and give people hope through their own collective power. That's how he did it before. We will dominate you. Who wants to join? Only now God has given him his spirit, and now he's leading hundreds in our community in a life that's powered by the power of the Holy Spirit. God's filled him with joy. Look at it. And he freely pours it out to his community. So by preaching the Bible every you know, so often, and Ray, every day is Sunday for me, And being in the word every day, he's begun to make some connections within me, and I hope to share a few things before I go. First, I'd like to mention that we have to understand who we are and what time we're in. Know, Kim and I have been traveling around The US for a few weeks and kind of every church I go into it, it seems like we're little bit angry. We're a bit upset. Things just aren't right. World's jacked up. Look at America. Look at the decline. Look what's happening here. Who feels that way right now? Anybody feel that things just aren't going right? I mean, you just feel it inside. It can make us a little unloving and a little unwelcoming and all those kinds of things because we're so angry. And guess what? You're right. Things aren't right. But I think we've forgotten what time in history this is. God's fully aware that things aren't right. They aren't supposed to be right yet. Right? Do you get that? This is our time when things are still dark. When does he set everything right? He promises to. When? When does he set things right? Someone, come on. When he returns. Right? We live like we we live like we expect to live like he's returned already. Oh, no. He came to set us free so we could be his people. We're no longer in that time held by that law with the Jews. We he came. We're we're free. What does he want us to do now? What do we do during this time? I have people tell me all the time, Dave, you're so lucky that you know the will of God in your life. It's strong in you. I can see it. I can feel your passion. He sent you off. You do these crazy things. You do it every day. They they say, Dave, I want that. I want that in me. I wanna know the will of God. Well, guess what? You all know the will of God. It's right here. It's in this book. You just finished the New Testament. Right? Right? Took what? A couple weeks? How long? Right? You laugh. He says things like, who's my family? He doesn't say who's my dad. We all know who our dad is. We don't have the same one. He said, but who's my mom? Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? They are the ones that do the will of God. Do we look at our family like that? Or is it a bullet line? Seriously. Church, listen. If he is Lord and not just the savior, so we can go to heaven and everything's cool, but you go, yeah, I believe in Jesus. Okay. Yeah. I'm in. I can go ahead and live life my own way. I can be the captain of my own soul. But he says, but if you wanna be my disciple, if you wanna follow me, Jesus says, then you have to follow. There's no choice. You have to deny yourself. You have to say it isn't what I think anymore. It isn't what I want anymore. It's what he wants that matters. He's my king. He's my lord. He's in charge. He gets to make the rules. That's it. Your life is no longer your own. You were bought for a price. If you wanna be his disciples, that's where the choice comes in. Just say, hey. You're not my thing, Jesus. But if you wanna say that, then you don't have a choice. Let me ask you. Here's a good way to look at it. Here's the way I look at it. Would you say yes to Jesus? Who here says, yeah, I say yes to Jesus. Okay. Would you say yes to Jesus before he told you what it was he wanted you to say yes to? That kind of changes things. Go, yeah, I'll do it if okay, let me think about it and pray about it, and yeah, then I'll go ahead and do it. If I approve and it fits my thing, How about we just say, yeah, tell me give me ears to hear you, and I'll do it. I promise. I'll do it. I have nothing else. You're my king. There is no Dave decision making in here. You know, he does get the final say. He says, I'll know you love me if you obey my commands. That's in John. You guys will get there. It's right from his the first book that John and I that that Wes and I read together. And how does Jesus synthesize all of those teaching, all of those laws? There's like 613 or something. I think I'm close on that. 613 on these laws. How did he synthesize that and boil it down to? How many? Two. Just two. Two things. Love God and love your neighbor. If you love me, you will obey my commands. And there's two, and they're impossible. You guys, it's impossible. I am a pretty loving guy. Most of the time, I'm different than I was, but I love me more still. You look at my life, it's I'm still first. Some of you are laughing a little bit nervously because you're thinking the same thing. You know, because we we read this word and we read something like, how many of you have two coats? Alright. This is Jackson. I know how the winners are. How many of you have three coats? Do you you know anyone who could use it? If you if you love me, you'll obey my commands. And if you have two coats, you give one to somebody that you need, who needs it. That means you trust me enough that I'm God and I'm gonna provide for you too. But you gotta go love your neighbor, and here's what it looks like. It's not a suggestion, And we're supposed to follow him, you know, and he says, yeah. Follow me. Love your I'm here to bring the good news to the poor. Love God. Love your neighbor. Here's what it looks like. What's the first thing he does? He goes to his hometown. He's in Capernaum. There's a demon possessed guy in church, and he stands up. If you are a demon possessed man, what is the best way I can love you? So what's he do? He casts out the demon. Then he goes to see Simon's mother-in-law who's sick. She's got a high fever. She might be dying. Who knows? It doesn't say, but he she's really sick with a high fever. Those were dangerous back then. What's the best way that he can love Simon and the mom? Heal her. Oh, he does that. Then a leper, then Matthew, and how about the the thing the thing with the fish? If you fished all night, you caught nothing. Anybody watch The Chosen. You catch nothing. You're there. I have I worked all night. I have no money. I can't pay my bills. How do you love that fisherman? Here you go, man. More fish than you've ever seen in your life. Jesus had two coats, and he gave one. We think that's a miracle. It's not a miracle to give your coat. Maybe for some of us, maybe it might be, but it's not a miracle. Come on. So then I was thinking about why is it over and over again that Jesus says love your neighbors. Right? It's kind of one of his things. It's like I heard you the third time. But he says it. Why? Why do we do that? Why? Why do we need to love our neighbors? Why is that so powerful? Because it's nice? Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I think Jesus wants us to love our neighbors because that way we will love we'll we'll we'll have a relationship with people that we can love them into a relationship with Christ. How many of you have argued somebody with somebody on Facebook into a saving grace relationship with Christ? Anyone? Right. You condemn their behavior, their choices, and then you expect them to go, oh, yeah, bring on some more of that Jesus. Oh, I just want to hang out with you. No. The way you do it is you love them there. You show up like my wife does when a five year old's been raped and you just don't know what to do. And I'm telling you, when there's nobody when there's nobody to come and you are the one that gets the call and you can't fix it, you can't fix it, I can't fix it. That one I can't undo that one. No. There's 15,000 people right now that I love dearly and I can't fix it for them, But I can be with them. I can be with them in their pain, and I can be with them in their suffering, and I can be with them in their loneliness and in their grief. And then together we can become a family centered around Jesus and we can lift our concerns up to God and let him do the work. So that's the way we evangelize. We evangelize by loving our neighbors. And guess what? That's when the magic happens. Everything changes when that happens. Why? Because when they accept Christ as their savior, what happens? The Holy Spirit enters them. The promised spirit, it's in here. He promises it. You accept me as your savior. The counselor is going to come. The Holy Spirit's going to come, and it's going to live in them. And God is gonna do his job. The spirit of God lives in you. He goes to work. Philippians two thirteen says that. It's awesome. Here's a verse. Do you guys like memory verses? Go for this one. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and power to do what pleases him. You don't have to do it. You don't have to nag at anybody. You just have to love him. Let God do his work. Bible tells us that we are created to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. Do you know that everybody, believe it or not, is created to be the temple of the Holy Spirit? It's just who lives inside? Who's in who's in control? What spirit's in control? Is it the spirit of the world that's in control or is the Holy Spirit taking control of their life? That's when we stand that's when we stand a chance. That's when we can walk people through the scriptures. That was when we can disciple people. That's when they have the ability to have that have an impact. So let's love people into relationship with Christ. Let's have the Holy Spirit move within them and then let's be patient. You wanna know what God's God's will for your life? He wants you to be patient. He wants you to be kind. He wants you to be good. He wants you to be faithful. Oh, there's there's other stuff in here. Did you ever read what Jesus' brother had to say about anything? James. James four. Oh, that's awesome. You ready? You wanna know God's will for your life? James four eleven. Don't speak evil against each other. I didn't write it. Just reading it. This is amazing. Know, I mean, James got such impact from the Sermon on the Mount and the book of Proverbs. Don't speak evil against each other. What if we just didn't do that anymore? What if somebody came into the church and they never heard anybody speaking evil about anybody else? You wanna know what God's will for this church? Don't speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. How about the next one? It says, don't criticize or judge anybody. What if people who walked into a church for the first time never heard anybody judging or criticizing anyone. James goes on, if you criticize and judge each other, then you're criticizing and judging God's law. But your job is to obey the law. That's our job, to obey it, not to judge whether it applies to us or not. God alone gave the law, and he's the judge. And that's that law. Love God, love your neighbor, all boils down there. James says, so what right do you have to judge your neighbor? We're not the judge. This part's hard, right, when we hear that. This is coming right after I'm doing James in reverse here. This comes right after a thing that says, it's your tongue that lights the fires. Does that mean if somebody's wrong and I really need to set them straight that I shouldn't do it? I mean, come on. I'm a Christian. I know it's my job to set them straight. Yeah. You should just hold your tongue. Just bite it. I'm going to end on this part because I love the book of Luke. Actually, I love the gospels. I get to talk about Jesus. I mean, there's just so much Jesus in the gospel. It's awesome. Luke six. He's talking about love your neighbors, and he says, hey, if you have ears to hear you ever think about what that means? Hey, if you have ears to hear. Hey, if you're my people I mean, some people that, you know, the holy ones, it's not that the whole pious thing. It's so if you're my people, if you're set apart, if you're the ones that have ears to hear me, if you wanna listen and hear Jesus, then here's what I say. It's a mystery of God to me why he gives us the ability to listen or not. He gives you a choice. He'll let you listen to yourself. He'll let you listen to your culture. He'll let you listen to whatever channel on cable news you want. I don't have a TV in Kenya. It's awesome. Whatever it is that you are listening to and is coming into you, that's what you have ears to hear. Jesus is saying, hey, if you have ears to hear me, if you have ears to hear to hear Jesus, I say, love your enemies. Oh, it's easy to love your friends. It's easy to love the ones that love you. Even the Gentiles do that. Even the ones who don't have God do that. But love your enemies. Here's the hard part in this. We think we we we get this misconception like God fills us with such love that no one's my enemy. There's just rainbows and unicorns and bubbles everywhere. I have such love that comes from me. No one's my enemy. No one even upsets me anymore. Oh, thank you for beating me. Thank you for stealing from me. You know, like, I I leave this bottle of water over here, and all of a sudden, you're drinking it. Oh, thank you for that, even though I'm a little bit thirsty right now. That isn't what it says. It says love is in action. You wanna see? There we are. Luke six twenty seven. Right here. But if you're willing to listen, I say love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. That's an action. We Americans are so funny. We we look for these. Like, what is is what does the Bible really mean? I mean, what's that say in the Greek? Do good to others. Like, what's it mean? There's Yeah. Lots of people that hate me. There's lots of people that proclaim Christ as their savior that hate me. There's lots of pastors in my city that hate me. I don't preach a prosperity gospel that rhymes with lying in their pockets, but I get to do good to them. It's an action. Do good to them. You wanna know the will of God? Do good to those that hate you. Do good to those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you, and do to others what you'd have them do to you. This is so important. It's like, gee, I don't know if Jesus thought people weren't listening, but it's like eight verses later. Oh, love your enemies. Do good to them. Same thing, just in case you missed it the first time. How about that? What verse 35. Love your enemies, do good to them, lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Does that flow? Does that make sense to you? Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. What are they? Your kids? Why would that be there? Why would that immediately follow? Took me a while I did it for that to make sense, but it would then he's like, oh, hey, you can't love both God and money. You can't serve two masters. Do you love getting your money back more than you love the person that you lent it to? Or do you love your money more than you love them? Jesus was serious about this stuff, man. He says, then your reward will be great. You'll be acting as children of the most high. And are you ready for this? It says, he is kind to those who are the unthankful and wicked. You know those unthankful wicked people? You get to be kind to them. You get to be compassionate to them just like your father is compassionate because you're supposed to have a resemblance, family resemblance to your father in heaven. And then we're gonna love people into a place where they just have to be with Jesus. When they experience that from people, they have to be with them. They can't do without him. He's everything to them. Life means nothing without him. Are you gonna chase your culture? Is that the one? Or are you gonna follow Jesus? And I think about Jesus going off to the cross, and, you know, sometimes we we think and it get it's cuts gets taught us. Jesus goes off with, oh, great joy to the cross. He went with great joy to the cross. It's just if you read it, he was in such agony that he was sweating blood, beaten beyond recognition, tortured. And he's going, I don't want this. I don't want it. Dad, don't do this to me. All things are possible for you. That applies to salvation too, by the way, when you read that passage, it's like all things gotta be some other way. There's gotta be some other way than having me go through this. And finally, he says, oh, it's not my will, but yours. So love your enemies. And while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us. We all know where to find God's will in our lives. We just have to look. It's in here. Romans 12 tells us not to copy the behaviors of this world. That's his will. Don't copy the behaviors of this world, but let God transform you into a new creation by changing the way you think. Then it says, then you'll know the will of God. You learn to think like God, you're gonna know his will, and then you'll know how good and perfect it is. And his will for you and his will for me is that we love our neighbors. Whether they're your blood relatives or not, whether you're friends or not, it's everyone. If they are a human being, they are created in the image of God, and they are built to be the holy temp the spirit of the holy temple, and so are you. Have you ever told yourself that? Have you ever told yourself you're the temple of the Holy Spirit? Well, guess what? You get to do it right now. Tell yourself. Let me hear you. I am the temple of the Holy Spirit. One more time like you're not afraid. I am the temple Spirit. Right. Do you believe it? Yes. Okay. Now turn to your left. Look in their eyes and tell them you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Turn to the one on the right. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. What if we looked at everyone like that? What if we looked at everyone like that? The wicked and unthankful ones. Oh, you're the temple of the holy I'm picking on you today. You're the temple of the Holy Spirit. It's just you need a different resident maybe. You know? I mean, that's our job. They need a new tenant. You wanna change your city, love people into a relationship with Christ so the Holy Spirit can move within them, then you can disciple them. Then you can go to work. Then you can sit down together and explore the scripture because God is gonna give that person such a hunger and a thirst that they have to know it. And then the unity of the spirit will bring us together. They'll bring a stockbroker from America and a gang member from Kenya generations apart to the point that that young man looks at me and says, you're not only my spiritual father and my pastor and my mentor and everything. He says, you're my best friend. God gave me another son. How is that possible? And how life changing is that? When that happens, you don't have to convince anybody of anything. I have people in our community. I am the world's worst evangelist, by the way. I never do an altar call, rarely. Well, maybe today. People on the street, they'll run up to me. They'll go they'll go, daddy Dave, daddy Dave, I want to get saved. I wanna get born again. And I'm like, wow. And my head's immediately looking for Wesley. And I'm like, Wes, this one wants to join the kingdom, wants to join the family. And I let him lead it. It's not about me. It's not about the white guy from the West doing this thing. It's about Wesley, a transformed person that they've seen the difference. He's been there his whole life leading and beginning to shepherd the people in his neighborhood. You guys let's quit messing around. Let's quit playing church. Those lost and wicked ones need it so badly for us to be who God wants us to be. Lord, thank you for this time together, and thank you for that advocate. Thank you for the one that was promised. Thank you for the one that took that it took your death. That would be what sends the the spirit to counsel us and to guide us and to convict us and to change us and to make us into new creations. Teach us how to love like you. Help us bear each other's burdens and reach out to the lonely. Help us look for those who are the outcasts. Let's look for those who are hurting because that's where you are. Send us there even if it's just around the corner or even within the walls of this room. Oh, get rid of the coats in our closets and fill our hearts with your presence. I thank you that we can get together and worship you like this and open your word like this. Thank you for the way that you love us. Teach us to love like you Jesus. And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. We're inviting the ushers back forwards. Band's gonna play. You've already won. Sounds good. How about an honor? Act justly. Act mercy. Justly was gonna say that fit. Act justly love mercy. Micah six eight. We're gonna sing that together again and this is time of an an offering being taken up for Dave and Kim's ministry in Nakuru, Kenya. Lord God almighty, we love you. Amen. Mercy. Welcome me with you, God. No things in the ways. Welcome me with you, God. But it all comes down to this, to be your hands and feet. Good news to you all on the world. Oh, the truth will set us free. At your feet, I'll come. I come live with you, God. And all things, in all ways, I come live with you, God. What's beauty? It's beauty for ashes. It's morning and dancing. Closer and closer, the kingdom of valor. And years from now, we'll see the fruit our hands have sown. Faith just come thee with you, God. And all things in all ways are come thee with you, God. Awesome.