Well, good morning, Two Rivers.
Good morning. Oh, I love this time of
year. The leaves are turning. Let me be
one of the first to say happy Thanksgiving.
We're rolling into a holiday. It's a holiday
squeeze between two others, but this is a
significant holiday, and I just wanna say to
you, I'm incredibly thankful and grateful for every
one of you. I was reminded this week
from a a letter that Paul wrote to
the followers in Thessalonica, and he said this,
We ought always to give thanks to God
for you, brothers and sisters,
as is right because your faith is growing
abundantly, and the love of every one of
you for one another
is increasing.
Man, that's that's our heart. I am so
incredibly,
grateful to be a part of Tu Rivers
Church and the family that God's called together,
and grateful for every one of you, both
all all here in live. Give it up
for live.
I know we we mentioned other venues. They
applaud. We can applaud live down in Blend,
down in Amped,
all the way down in Roane County and
out in Bearden.
A one church operating and functioning together. What
a great opportunity it is for us to
be together this weekend.
And, I add my welcome to what you've
received.
And, let me just tell you, I'm not
a fix it kind of guy. I,
I have, a lot of insecurity around making
things better, fixing things, repairing things. And, a
couple years ago, I got a new truck,
and my brother called me and goes, what?
You need a new tires?
So you got a new truck. What?
And this past week, I've had a pair
of shoes I've loved for a while. They're
probably seven or eight years old, and,
they're they're starting to hurt because the soul's
given out in them. You know? And a
buddy of mine said, well, you should go
to a a cobbler. I'm like, they exist?
That's not just in Williamsburg or something like
what do you mean a cobbler? He goes,
there's people who actually restore shoes, and so
I found myself down in Bearden off of
Kingston Pike at a cobbler. There there's a
cobbler. Who knew? I thought cobbler was like,
you know, a dessert with maybe ice cream
or or whatever, but I'm standing there and
the guy said, man, I can give you
a new sole.
Some of you are going, finally,
our prayers have been answered. The brother's getting
a new soul.
Actually, I'm getting two.
And that's what that's what Jesus is getting
after this weekend,
about restoration, about going after those who are
broken, those who have have have lost their
way. Last week, we were in chapter 18
of Matthew, and we're still in chapter 18
of Matthew. So if you've got a a
bible or smartphone, you can turn there. Or
if you've got your handy dandy journal like
I have, you can turn to your journal
in Matthew chapter 18. And and last week,
what we unpacked is Jesus said, hey. It's
it's significant
as a shepherd that we would leave the
99 and go after the one. That That
we would go after the lost. We would
go after the one who's who strayed, who
has walked away. That's significant. And as we
look at real life with Jesus, his kingdom,
and you and I,
that's real life. It's it's going after the
one. It's going after the one who's who's
straight and has not has lost their way.
And this week, what he does is actually
gives us the practical application. This is what
it looks like. And the theme that emerges
throughout this text is this,
real life with Jesus calls us to the
hard work of active restoration in community.
Real Life with Jesus calls you and I
to the hard work of active restoration
in the life of the community.
Jesus continues on in in verse 15 of
chapter 18. He says, if your brother sins
against you, go and tell him his fault
between you and him alone.
And if he listens to you, you've gained
your brother.
But if he if he does not listen
to you, take one or two others along
with you, that every charge may be established
by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
If he refuses to listen to them, then
go ahead and tell it to the church.
And if he refuses
to listen even to the church, let him
be to you as a gentile or a
tax collector.
Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind
on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven. Again, I say to you, if
two of you agree on earth about anything
you ask, it'll be done for them by
my father in heaven. For where two or
three are gathered in my name, there I
am among them. Jesus gives some real practical
application, what it looks like to go after
the one who's been lost astray.
In verse 15 through 17, we see this,
pursuing people with love and humility
is the beginning of active restoration.
Pursuing people with love and humility is the
beginning of what it looks like for us
to be actively involved in the restoration of
someone else.
Going after the one who's strayed, who's lost
their way. Folks, that's what family does. If
someone in your family went lost, wouldn't you
go after that? When you go after them,
you you do everything. You'd call search parties
to go after them. That that's that's the
message here.
I was in Target a few weeks ago,
and it's always interesting to eavesdrop on other
people's life in conversations, and
this mom was there with two kids, and
one had wandered away, and she laid into
her her son saying, hey, where's where's your
sister? You were supposed to watch her. Not
the best parenting moment, because she was losing
it. And and a minute or two later,
the little girl was found. But but what
I thought about that when I walked away
was, that's what Jesus is saying in this
text.
We're we're supposed to watch out for one
another. We're supposed to watch out for our
little brother or sister, or even sometimes our
older brother or sister. He's saying, and this
is what it looks like. And he gives
us
a a a a passageway, a a stages
actually, of what it looks like to go
after someone who's been,
walking away, who's going off the reservation.
And at the
the core of of all four of these
stages he lays out for us and overall
is the theme in the heart of, of
God himself that we'd be restored, that we
would restore other people to their relationship with
Jesus and to the family.
Restoration is at the heart of this. Jesus
says in verse 15,
If your brother sins against you, go and
tell him his fault between you and him
alone. And if he listens to you, you've
gained your brother. The NIV says you've won
him over.
If you go and deal with your brother
who sinned, then you've won him over.
And I love this. Go go first one
on one and have a conversation.
Don't
gather support and garner,
gossip around other people, and, hey. Did you
hear what she did or what he's up
to or whatever? And and and allow this
to be something bigger than it needs to
be in the community and and the places
where we like to talk about other people.
Don't don't do that. He says, go go
deal with them privately.
Before you talk to others, before you actually
get get a momentum
about agreement about what this person is doing,
go go and have a conversation.
Have it privately between you and them.
Because this is loving.
It's it's loving to go and and deal
with someone privately. It gives them the opportunity
to respond
if if what you're saying is accurate and
true. It gives them the opportunity to respond
without the embarrassment and humiliation. It's hard enough
to become confronted, and and yet if if
you gang up on a person, it feels
like it's almost impossible for the person to
respond.
And I was thinking about this this past
week, and isn't that what Jesus says in
my life and in your life? Doesn't he
go after us privately?
For a while, he goes after us privately.
Like, this past week, I I I'm confessing.
I have an attitude about somebody right now,
and I'm working through it.
And I thought I was working through it,
and I felt like Jesus came to me
privately and said, you're not doing a good
job with this. Is this really what where
you wanna be in this?
It wasn't like two or three people or
a whole bunch bunch of people ganged up
on me, but I feel like privately between
Jesus and I, he's right. I I felt
the sting of it, and I'm working at
it, but it it's allowing me to make
adjustments and turn
and be in right relationship with him and
with the person I'm having an attitude with.
That that's what he's getting after here. He
says, let let's do it private. Let's care
for the person.
That's what he does for us. Let's be
imitators of Jesus. Let let's let's pursue other
people and the brokenness that's apparent in someone's
life privately.
And you think, well, okay. That's great advice.
Good principles from the Bible. Jesus is telling
us how to actually restore relationships. And you
think, well,
if if the person responds, that's wonderful. If
not, I don't think the the passage here
says, well, you tried.
You did all you knew to do. You
you went after, and, hey, that's on them.
No. Jesus actually gives us a few more
stages and a few more
ways in which he calls us to step
in.
If they've not heard and turned away from
their sin, if they've not
listened to you or or heard your concern,
then he says, I want you to actually
now move to
a bigger part of the community. Move to
two or three other people who actually know
this person and love them also. Go go
and have a conversation
with other people with this person.
And what Jesus is pulling from is the
law. Back in Deuteronomy,
it says a single witness shall not suffice
against a person for any crime, for or
for any wrong in connection with any offense
that he's committed.
Only on the evidence of two witnesses or
of three witness witnesses shall a charge be
established. And Jesus is saying, no. I'm not
asking you to gang up on this person,
but but this is protection for the person
you're confronting. If this is that significant of
an issue, it's not just your soapbox. Two
or three others of you who actually agree
and know this person as well are stepping
into this relationship or stepping into the mess
of this relationship. Why? So so this person
could be brought back and restored into relationship
with Christ. He says, go and have a
conversation
with others.
Sit down with the person.
Having two or three, it actually is a
protector for them as well as for you.
And if the intervention provides the way of
return, then you've you've won your brother over.
You you've you've won them back, back to
relationship with Jesus and back to relationship in
the family.
And if not, he says, if he refuses
to listen to them, tell it to the
church. Matthew 18 verse 17.
Still and remaining at its co at its
core, and the goal here is restoration.
Not tell it to the church. Hey, go
tell on them.
Like, it happens a lot of our families.
Hey. Look what they're doing.
Not not that. Go tell it to the
church, tell it to other people so that
there'd be accountability through relationship that wouldn't just
be one or two people pursuing them, but
now it's a greater sense of a family
issue and a reality. Let the community know
the issue.
And we think about church. We we wanna
put our understanding of church today, 2025,
on the scripture here. The the church really
wasn't fully established yet. Jesus is speaking about
the church, and what he's referring to is
the assembly.
Those those people that are walking closely together
in relationship,
seeking to follow Jesus and follow heart after
Jesus. They're meeting in synagogues and homes and
all over the place. He says, go and
tell it to this community, to this family,
so the family and their webs of influence
could also, alongside of you, step in and
have input and impact in this person's life
to call them back, to draw them home.
Let the community know the issue. And if
he refuses to listen to the family,
he says treat him as a tax collector
or a gentile. Treat him as someone who
who isn't living under and surrendered to the
the values of Christ,
the gospel itself.
Treat them as as one who who's outside
the faith.
Treat them as if they don't know Jesus
because that's what they're demonstrating. And it doesn't
say, hey. Treat them like they don't know
Jesus. It's us and them.
Because what's Jesus' thrust all throughout the the
scriptures of poke folks who don't know him?
It it's not, hey. Write them off.
I'm done with you. Excommunication.
No more to be said or done. But
treat them like a person who doesn't know
Christ.
How do we pursue people who don't know
Christ? They now become the mission field. Treat
treat them as someone who who strayed so
far. Now now you you you can't actually
share the intimate realities of family life with
them because they've stepped away and outside the
family. Treat them like someone you're pursuing,
That we'd be a people who would go
after them. And folks, this is this is
delicate,
difficult, and crazy difficult and hard, isn't it,
to actually pursue folks? I know I'm looking
around the room here, and I can't see
through the screen, but I imagine in the
other rooms, they're gathered here today, plus at
home. There are folks we're thinking about right
now going, yeah. I don't know what that's
supposed to look like right now.
And we'll get to that.
To step into the the mess of another
person's life,
man, this is wild.
It's a difficult place to be. To keep
them from tanking and destroying their world as
personal
and as invasive as this is,
folks, hear this. These are Jesus's words, not
Mark's. This is loving.
In fact, probably one of the most loving
things you could do for a person.
Says about God that
the father disciplines the one he loves.
Discipline isn't isn't, hey. You're wrong. You need
to be punished.
Discipline is, how how do I bring you
back to a place of alignment? How do
I how do I move you back? How
do I encourage you back to a place
where you're falling hard after Jesus?
And as we talked about last week, at
the core of this is humility.
There's there's got to be a place in
our life, my life, as we step into
someone else's world and exist in someone who's
who's straying, that that there's a reality that
that that
is that comes from our spirit, our our
our core as we pursue people.
Humility must be at the core of confrontation.
And I believe when we when we get
into these spaces, we've got a few choices.
And here's the here's the choices I see
us making all the time. Choice number one,
when you find out someone's someone's walked away
or straying or involved in some kind of
a pattern in their life that you know
is not moving them toward Christ, and you're
in a relationship with them, choice number one
is this,
shame.
Shame.
How dare you? How could you do this?
What were you thinking?
So we step in and we wanna bring
shame. We want the person to feel guilt
like, Hey, you're not following Jesus. Here's why.
Here's the reasons why I see you not
following Christ.
And some of us have been recipients of
that. Amen? Let's raise hands. Anybody treats you
that way? Oh, really? Four of us?
I know some of you have been around
church a little longer than that.
The reality is is we're we're uncomfortable with
other people's
infractions. We're uncomfortable with other people's
waywardness.
And rather than go after the heart of
the person, what oftentimes
erupts in us, erupts in me, is something
that makes me so uncomfortable makes me want
to point it out in you because I'm
uncomfortable.
Do you see the lack of humility in
that? It's not about the person who's straying,
it's about me because I'm uncomfortable.
So let let me actually speak guilt and
shame into your world and into your life.
And I know we've been recipients of it,
and maybe inadvertently,
cleverly,
we've actually been
the one who has actually laid it out
before other people.
Choice number one, I would I would argue
not humility.
Is there agreement?
Not humility. Choice number two, which I think
is a go to favorite of mine and
ours,
who am I to deal with anyone else's
sin?
Right?
I got stuff.
Anybody that gets close enough to me knows
I got stuff going on in my life.
I,
who am I?
Who who am I to actually go after
the, you know, the speck in your eye
when I'm walking around with a plank coming
out of my own eye? Like, who what
what what would give me the right to
speak and step into anyone else's life? And
and that sounds like humility at first blush.
Folks, it's not.
That's still all about me. Who am I?
You're asking a question about about you.
What what about the question like, who are
they?
Where are they? I I don't think that
we have to land at a place of
perfection to ever step into anyone else's life
because that would never happen.
That doesn't happen in any of our worlds
in our lives, but in relationship, who am
I to step into someone else's life? I'm
the one God's placed me in a relationship
with, and I'm aware of what's going on
in their life, maybe maybe in a way
no one else is even aware of. That's
who you are.
But but not to do that,
I don't think that's humility at all.
So if we're taking a multiple choice test,
choice one, not humility, choice two, not humility,
I believe Jesus is pointing us to choice
number three,
honestly and courageously stepping into the mess in
someone's life.
Honestly
and courageously
stepping in the mess of someone else's life,
all the while knowing I don't have my
act fully together either. And as I'm following
Jesus, as I'm a struggler, as I'm a
stumbler in this walk to follow Jesus,
it doesn't take me out of the equation
that there's something going on in your world,
in your life that's damaging you. And I
I see it imploding you, and it's not
gonna lead in a place that you want
it to be.
God's called us to step into each other's
lives. This is real humility. This is what
it means to live the real life with
Jesus, his kingdom in you. Not just all
about what we receive, but but how we
live and function as a community, as a
family. Jesus, over and over in Matthew, refers
to us as a family, how how we
take care of the family.
And just so we're clear,
I want to be really clear about this.
This is a great principle Jesus is calling
us to. He's not saying, Hey, this is
for you virtuous noble people, you super Christians
who wanna go the extra mile.
He's not saying that. What he's saying is
this is our responsibility and our obligation
to be in a family together. If my
brother was wayward, I would get on a
plane, fly to his town and go after
him. He's saying, you'd do that for a
blood relative?
Guess what? We're blood relatives. We're tied by
the blood of Jesus.
Go after. It's an obligation. It's a responsibility
we have.
And though that's true, and it is true,
it doesn't erase the reality that it requires
a total dependence upon the Holy Spirit to
do this work. A total dependence. Active restoration
is a supernatural work of the Spirit.
Active restoration, for us to engage and step
into that, is something way beyond what we
what we think or feel or imagine. There's
a supernatural reality that the spirit of God,
only the spirit of God can do in
and through us, and in the in and
through the life of the person that we're
pursuing.
I I don't discipline anyone. I don't restore
anyone,
but God calls us to be instruments and
tools in each other's lives that we would
be a part of the work that he's
up to in their life.
And this is where that veil that we
think exists between heaven and earth is just
completely erased. When Jesus died, the veil was
torn in two, and we refer to this
all the time around here.
Hey. Here's the gospel. The kingdom of heaven
is here.
There there's there's no distinction now
significantly between us being citizens of the kingdom
here and for eternity. The kingdom of God
is here. The veil has been ripped in
two. It connects heaven and earth. And Jesus
says, truly, I say to you, whatever you
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven. And again I say to
you, if two of you agree on earth
about anything they ask, it will be done
for them by my father in heaven.
You see restoration is completely dependent upon the
spirit of God. It's only God who's gonna
move in the life of another person. It's
only God who's going to allow what you're
saying to them to ring true for them
in their mind and their heart and and
and them be able to turn and respond.
Inherent in here, though the word prayer never
emerges, it's clearly here in the text.
He says wherever two or three of you
agree on anything, not just you and I
agree that this person's out of line, that
you and I agree, that he agrees, that
we're praying, that we're, we're dependent upon the
Holy Spirit to know is this a, is
this a reality? Is this something going on?
Is this something you're calling us to step
into? And he says, wherever two or three
of you are gathered in my midst, where
whatever you ask in my name, I'm gonna
do for you.
Over the years
over the years, by virtue of the role
that I've played in the church for a
long time,
I've had opportunity not just in church life,
but in my family life and my friendships
to actually
step into someone's world and
and be the person says, is is this
what how you want to live? Is this
really what God's called you to?
And that's a scary place to be.
I've lost sleep.
I've chewed the inside of my mouth to
bit
in the anxiety
of what it looks like to step into
someone's life and to have not only the
audacity,
but the calling
to step into the world that that someone's
in and the chaos that they're in to
point it out. And that's a delicate and
scary
and sacred place to be.
And I've often wondered, how do I know?
How do you know that that this is
what God's called you to do?
I don't think God's called us to be,
the kind of believers, legalistic
believers that walk around pointing out everybody's sin.
But the people that we do life together,
the people that we're in relationship, the people
that we'd say are family or connected to
us, or walking and following Jesus together, these
are the people we've made a commitment to.
How do I know I'm supposed to step
in? How do I know I'm supposed to
be the one? And I've created a litmus
test. I can't give you chapter and verse
for it. Probably could argue it's biblical.
But I know this. As I've prayed
multiple times, god,
is this right? Is this what you want
me to do? I know this.
I know that if I don't do it,
I'm being disobedient
is how I know I'm supposed to do
it.
It it feels like a holy entrapment because
it's not something I wanna do, and yet
I know if I don't do this, I'd
be being disobedient to what I know God's
called me to do.
And prayer dependency
is the undercurrent here. There's a dependency upon
the spirit of God. He says where two
or three of you agree on anything, that
we would be, people who are are asking
God for the direction. And I've heard this
text quoted probably a thousand times, but never
in the context that's implied here. I'm not
saying those other other spaces aren't valid, but
when he says where two or three of
you agree on anything, he's not saying, hey,
two or three of you can agree that
you want something to happen. You can gang
up on Jesus, rub the lamp, and Aladdin
provides.
I I don't think that's what he's saying
here. He said, where two or three of
you agree that this is in accordance with
my will and what I want. And specifically,
what he's talking about here is is discipline,
stepping into someone's life, stepping into the the
heart and and chaos of a person's life,
the mess of a person's life and saying,
God wants more for you than this. God
wants better for you than this.
And it's delicate.
It's difficult,
and it's painful.
There was a guy at my church years
ago, not this church, another church in another
state. And, his kids were in my youth
group, two boys were in my youth group.
And I I hate this story because it's
too familiar. It's familiar
as as recently as the last few weeks
of somebody that I know.
He he stepped out on his wife, had
an affair, decided that she was all that
he was looking for, and divorced his wife,
in essence, divorced his family,
moved to a a different state, created a
whole new life for this woman,
who this guy, I thought, was a solid
believer. Now it's okay all of a sudden
to live with a woman he's not married
to and
all that goes with that and the confusion
of all that.
Stage one, stage two, stage three, stage four,
all the people that are involved, the church,
personal friends, one on one, two or three
on one, I mean, the whole deal. And
he he lived in the reality of the
consequences
of his decisions.
And
he was separated from the body of Christ.
He he separated himself from the body of
Christ, and he was living in the distance
that that's created between people who once did
life with him and were family. He no
longer had that family relationship because something had
changed. Something had broken,
Not only with the people that were close
to him, but with the church.
And what I love about this story, unlike
so many of the stories that you and
I know, and some of you are dealing
with some of these realities in your own
world and life right now, Jeff returned home.
It's a great
end of a story. Jeff returned home. Jeff
found forgiveness
in the turmoil of his life.
And the same forgiveness he found between he
and Jesus, it took him years
to step back into that space with his
wife, with his now grown children, with their
children, with with people in his world and
life. He he he he got to experience
and is experiencing what it looks like to
come home, to be restored. And and if
you believe that that's anything less than hard
work, it it it makes a beautiful story.
You know, we watch a lot of Hallmark
stuff this time of year. I don't, but
some of y'all do. It always ends happy.
There's a happy ending to this.
There is a happy ending, but the happy
ending that this guy's living is day to
day trust issues, day to day the tension
and and the turmoil that happens
in restoring relationships all throughout the church. And
we'll talk a little bit more about what
forgiveness looks like next weekend.
But but but that's that's the place God's
called us to. Jesus wraps up this discourse
with one of his favorite reminders to his
people. And I love this. It's it's what
Christmas is all about. It's what's in this
text. It's what you'll see at the end
of Matthew 28 when he's leaving, and he
says, hey. Hey. It's better that I go.
I'm going to send the Holy Spirit to
be with you. But but trust me,
I'll be with you always, even to the
end of the age.
He says in verse 20, For where two
or three are gathered in my name, there
I am among him. There I am among
them. I'm with you.
God promises to be with us in this.
Jesus is with us in the pursuit no
matter the outcome.
Hear that. Jesus is with you,
with us in this pursuit
to see to see the wayward come home
no matter what the outcome, whether they do
or they don't. And I think oftentimes we
look at passages of scripture, and we want
this to be like, if I do this,
this, this, you gave me four stages. If
I follow these four stages, it's gonna happen.
Maybe, hopefully,
Jesus will never force a person in a
heart to return.
That's that's a violation of relationship. He wants
a person to turn and to change.
And I walk through these
stages and chapters with people, and what breaks
my heart oftentimes is we've gone at step
one. Hey. Go one on one. Go privately.
Go go a few on one. And what
happens oftentimes in church life is that you
get offended and you just walk out and
go to another church. You take all the
stuff you never dealt with here, onto your
next church, because somebody has come here leaving
somewhere else, and we've done all the reality
of what you've taken from your last church
and brought it here.
I mean, in a in a sweet and
kind way, this family's messed up.
Yeah.
And then and then the messed up, God's
calling us to a a place of walking
with him and walking together with him. And
rather this than this being a formula for
how to get it right and how to
fix it, I think you'd be walking away
from the text disappointed and mad because that's
not what Jesus is getting at.
Rather than a formula, Jesus gives us a
pattern that demonstrates
our dependency and obedience to him.
I'm dependent on him. I I can't make
anyone come home.
You can't make anyone come home
as much as I know you want to.
I know we're praying. I'm praying for people
in my life. You're praying for people in
your life, and
and, boy, sometimes you wish you could. You
wish god would just do it.
He'll he'll chase him down, and he'll use
you to do that, but he's not gonna
force a heart to turn. That that's up
to the person responding to him.
And so it's the call in my life,
the call in your life that we'd be
men and women who are obedient,
obedient to follow in what he's called us
to do.
This is divine guidance,
and and there's a lot of encouragement here
for us who are called to actually step
into the life of someone else. And and
I know we've spent our whole time talking
about one side of the coin. I want
to end closing, talk about the other side
of the coin. There's great principles here for
us as we're called to actually step into
the mess in someone's life. Great principles. He
even gives us, hey, stage one, stage two,
stage three, stage four. But but but to
think it's all about what we're supposed to
do in confronting would miss some of what
I think is here in the text.
He's calling us to step into people's lives
with love and humility and utter dependency upon
the spirit. And that being true, let's not
miss
how a person who receives this ought to
receive this.
Because a lot of us in this room,
all of us in some way, shape, or
form are people who probably need to receive
this.
When when he speaks about, hey, he leaves
the 99 to go after the one, I
think if we're not careful, here's what we
think about that.
Well, it must be one of those things
that doesn't happen very often. You know, the
flock's out there, there's 99, every once in
a while someone goes astray.
And so he leaves the 99 and, you
know, he'll go after the one.
I don't think that's the text. I think
the text is the one matters so much
to him that he'll go after the one.
He'll go after the one.
This isn't something that's that's random and doesn't
happen often. This is the stuff that that
that happens
often in our life, my life, your life.
He's given us some instruction on what it
means to be a recipient of someone who's
coming after you and saying, Hey, I want
to sit down and have a conversation with
you about your life. I don't know your
story, but I know mine. I've walked with
Jesus fifty five years, maybe even a year
more than that.
And I've never left my faith. I've never
left the church, but I'd be a liar
if I didn't tell you I left the
reservation.
I've left it.
Sometimes will willfully and knowingly, and other times,
it it took a brother or sister to
sit me down and go, you left the
reservation.
What's going on?
Couple weeks ago, I forgot which pastor it
was, Tim, Dave, Dave, one of them. They
said, hey, we should we should try to
live lives that aren't easily offended.
Well, that's great for them.
I'm easily offended.
I'm I'm even more easily offended when you
come after me and point something out in
my life that ain't right.
In fact, when I'm offended, I get defensive,
and that's how it rolls.
I was in,
I was in seminary
years ago,
and
I'd I'd met a guy and we were
meeting, for bible study on Wednesday nights and
months and months ago into this. And he
said to me
one week, he said, man, I'd love to
get dinner with you next week. And so
at the time, my dinner of choice was
a Big Mac and a chocolate shake because
that's a good that's a good meal. So
I remember meeting with him at McDonald's, and
he said,
but it's really good to be together with
you. I said, well, thank you. It's good
to be together with you. And he said,
I I I have an observation about your
your life, if if you don't mind. And
I said, sure.
And he said, You've done a really good
job of integrating Jesus into your life.
And I felt pretty swelled up. Like, Well,
thank you. I'm glad you noticed that. I've
worked really hard at that. And he said,
No, I think that's your sin.
What? I
What? I didn't see that coming, put my
shake down. What do you mean that's my
sin? He goes, yeah, you've done a really
good job of integrating Jesus into your life,
but but nothing's really changed. I've known you
for a while. Your your language is still
the same. I hear your heart and your
motives that comes out every time you have
a conversation.
I know that you know that I know
that there's behavior and activities that are going
on in your life have nothing to do
with following Jesus.
Is that how you wanna live?
Yeah. Thank you for the corridor. That was
helpful.
I felt it.
I felt it in my gut and in
my spirit. I I
I felt the hair on the back of
my neck go up. I I was as
offended and defensive as I've ever been. And
so rather than going, man, thanks for sharing
that with me,
I said, well, how so?
And I know he didn't do this,
but he opened up a piece of paper
in my mind, and it rolled across the
whole floor of the restaurant.
And he started going through a list of
stuff. It didn't happen that way. But in
my mind, that's exactly what took place. He
goes, man, I would love to to meet
with you every week before bible before bible
study. And you and I study the scriptures
together. You and I pray together. Let let's
let's walk. Let's talk about these things. Let's
walk through these things.
Pardon me if I get emotional.
I know where I'd be today had Doug
not stepped into my life.
He changed the trajectory
of my life.
I know. This isn't hyperbole. I know where
I would be today, and it wouldn't be
here.
That's real life with Jesus, the kingdom in
you.
That's the family we belong to. That's what
God's called us to. You have the opportunity
to step into someone's world and someone's life
maybe no one else would ever do and
change the trajectory of someone's walk with Jesus.
This week as we move into
a new week, moving toward a holiday,
you'll move out of here. There's lots of
things going on this weekend. But before you
do, let let can I just ask you
to bow your heads for twenty seconds?
And let's ask Jesus this question.
God, who are you calling me to pursue?
Even as I've heard your word today, there's
people that come to mind.
Do I have the relationship?
Is it me that you want to use
to step in? And I know my life's
not perfect, but, man, I see them tanking.
And to sit back and watch doesn't seem
right. I don't know what to do. Show
me what that's supposed to look like.
God, would you right now bring if this
is you speaking, would you bring
someone to mind
in each of our lives?
You can
raise your head
and open your eyes this week.
I don't know if you've ever done this
before.
We encourage you every week. You you know
next steps. Here we go. Live it out.
Yeah. Live it out.
How are you gonna know what's going on
in someone's life? How are you gonna know
what's right between,
you and God, and you and the other
person, if you're not in the word, if
you're not praying? So would you live it
out with us this week? We're gonna ask
these same questions as we step into that.
That God would use us in a profound
way,
to be the hands and feet of Jesus,
to be the family he's called us to
be. I'm gonna end where I started.
Paul says, we ought always to give thanks
to God for you, brothers and sisters, as
it is right, because your faith is growing
abundantly.
And the love of every one of you
for one another is increasing.
God, I thank you for Tuiverse Church.
I thank you for the men and women
in this venue and across all of our
campuses today who who love you.
And and I thank you for the reality
that that our faith is growing
day by day.
God, thank you for doing that. That's the
work of your spirit within us. With grateful
hearts, we say thank you. And thank you
that our love for one another is growing
in abundance.
God, would you move our our love for
one another beyond
ethereal feelings
to practical application as we seek to live
this life together? It's in the powerful name
of Jesus we pray.
Amen.
Isn't it great to be in the church?
Isn't it great to be in the family?
Isn't it great to be in worship today?
I heard you. Let's stand and worship Jesus
together.