WEBVTT 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:11.759 Welcome to you this morning from Kelowna Christian Center or FOIA. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:19.039 You can see behind me a little bit of the values that are connected to our Christian community when we gather together. 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:24.320 But we're really happy to have the opportunity to enter into your home today. 00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:31.440 We've been doing this for about three months, coming live stream this way, and I hope that you've been enjoying the word that's been brought to you. 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:39.439 Last week, Pastor Brody shared about how important it was to fall in love with Jesus again. 00:00:39.759 --> 00:00:45.520 And uh he reminded us of of what it was maybe like when we had our first love for him. 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:52.000 And he encouraged us to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. 00:00:52.240 --> 00:01:06.560 And uh I I couldn't uh help uh but think about the changes that I've seen in some people who I've known over the years that used to use Jesus as a swear word, but now use him in praise and uh and it's precious to him. 00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:12.239 And so we want to go back to the that first love and and ignite it. 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:32.719 Um we're we're talking this uh July about some of the values that make our community unique and probably values that are shared corporately with the body of Christ globally, but we really want to uh nail down these values as critically important to the way in which we function. 00:01:32.799 --> 00:01:38.319 And today I want to talk about uh our relationship to one another. 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:44.719 Um at KCC, we believe that people belong, that people really are important to us. 00:01:44.959 --> 00:01:49.040 They've become our passion and our it's our privilege to get to know people. 00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:55.519 Every individual that comes into our life adds a specific dimension to who we are. 00:01:55.760 --> 00:02:02.879 And uh so we pursue, and today we're pursuing you through the means of uh this online streaming. 00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:09.759 Um we say that people are important to our lives because we met Jesus. 00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:19.280 And when we met Jesus, he put the same love that he had in his heart for us personally in our heart for other people. 00:02:19.599 --> 00:02:29.599 And so our understanding of Christianity can be simply wrapped up with two basic laws, and that is love God with all your heart and soul and everything within you. 00:02:29.759 --> 00:02:33.199 But learn to love other people as you love yourself. 00:02:33.759 --> 00:02:42.479 I don't think I'd be alone in stating this as you have probably had time to sit back and watch the dynamics of what's happening in our world. 00:02:42.639 --> 00:02:48.240 I don't think I'd be alone in saying that our our world is in a very serious condition. 00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:54.080 Our world is really struggling to express their love for one another right now. 00:02:54.319 --> 00:03:06.800 Every day we we hear news reports on the breakdown of civility, uh, division and discord, uh the spread of bigotry and prejudice and intolerance for one another. 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:16.000 It appears we've even lost the capacity to even dialogue and work out our issues and try to come to some common ground with each other. 00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:25.280 The whole process of being reconciled to our uh our human family uh does not even appear to be in place. 00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:33.360 It appears that there's a lot of things at work to tear those relationships apart rather than to bring them together. 00:03:33.599 --> 00:03:45.680 And at KCC, it's our dream uh to bring people together, to help them understand one another and then walk in love towards each other. 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:57.120 Now, that thinking has a biblical context, and it comes from a biblical worldview that from our perspective is based on what the word of God says. 00:03:57.360 --> 00:04:09.280 If we're gonna love people the way God loves people, we're gonna have to see the world through his lens, and we're going to have to see people from the perspective that God sees people. 00:04:09.439 --> 00:04:22.720 And so I just want to take you through a little bit of a biblical uh study this morning from the Word of God and then lay this case out before you to encourage you in your passion and pursuit of people. 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:33.519 In Genesis 1, 26 to 28, it says that God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. 00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:41.680 Now, this likeness hasn't to do with a physical dynamic, it has to do with a moral and spiritual dynamic. 00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:52.879 But the Bible says, so God created man in his own image, and in the image and likeness of God he created him, male and female he created them, and God blessed them. 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:57.199 That's the first relational connection we see after creation. 00:04:57.519 --> 00:05:03.600 God's love for humanity was punctuated with the blessing of God upon their lives. 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:14.639 But we do see a challenge that happens very early in the creation of man, and that we jump to Genesis chapter 5, verses 2 and 3. 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:19.279 And the Bible says, when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:26.480 He created the male and female and blessed them and named them mankind at the time that they were created. 00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:38.639 But then it goes on and says, When Adam had lived a hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his own image. 00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:44.079 Something happened between Genesis 1 and Genesis 5. 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:49.279 And that something happens and occurs in Genesis chapter 3. 00:05:49.759 --> 00:06:00.399 Between Genesis 1 and 5, we see an event that actually changed and shifted not only the world, but also the human heart through the entrance of sin. 00:06:01.040 --> 00:06:17.920 Humanity, who was created for a relationship to God and to have peace with one another, lost that relationship through disobedience and that affected the relationships he had with everyone else, starting with his wife and then his family. 00:06:18.079 --> 00:06:32.480 And the first evidence, of course, we see of this dysfunction in the human heart shows up in Genesis chapter 4 with the first murder of a brother murdering a brother out of jealousy. 00:06:32.800 --> 00:06:40.879 So the moral nature of God that originally Adam was created with was tarnished through sin. 00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:45.279 And humanity began to change from that moment on. 00:06:45.439 --> 00:06:52.240 And they began to recreate after a fallen image, not the image of God, but after a fallen image. 00:06:52.399 --> 00:07:08.800 So much so that when we get to Genesis chapter 6, the Bible says the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all of the time. 00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:10.879 That's a powerful statement. 00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:30.160 To actually believe that in a very short period of time, human nature could devolve from being created in the image of God after the nature and the character of God into a population that was constantly thinking of doing evil to one another. 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:42.000 Romans 1 in the New Testament picks up on that picture and it talks about how dark the human heart can become when it gives itself over to sin. 00:07:42.319 --> 00:07:49.279 The heart is described as disobedient and impenitent, it refuses to be corrected. 00:07:49.519 --> 00:07:53.199 It's hard and faithless, it's dull and darkened. 00:07:53.360 --> 00:08:01.199 And the Bible actually defines the heart as deceptive above all things and desperately corrupt. 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:06.079 And God asks the question, who could actually know one's own heart? 00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:12.639 Because of the potential that there is within the human heart, not only for good, but also for evil. 00:08:12.959 --> 00:08:17.600 And Proverbs makes it abundantly clear in chapter 20, verse 9. 00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:24.079 It says, Who can say, I have made my own heart pure and clean, I'm pure from my sin? 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:29.360 Jeremiah 13, 23 says, Can a leopard change its own spots? 00:08:29.519 --> 00:08:41.840 And the implication of those scriptures is that the heart of man, the very nature, the very core value system of humanity was shifted by giving in to sin. 00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:49.679 And when sin began to operate within the human heart, it changed them immensely. 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:57.919 And now when we look at humanity and the way the inhumanity to humanity, we say that can't be God. 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:00.480 That can't be the image of God. 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:03.919 That's not how God created us to be. 00:09:04.399 --> 00:09:09.679 But right from the very beginning through the fall of man, God promises a Savior. 00:09:10.159 --> 00:09:21.600 He promises someone to come that would actually change the heart and give us the opportunity to get back into relationship with God and with each other. 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:35.759 And we see some of this in Scripture where David, who was considered a great king, wound up doing some horrendous things, even though he was, we would call a religious man. 00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:41.360 He wound up committing adultery and then covering up his adultery with murder. 00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:52.159 And he looked at his own life in that very historic passage in Psalm 51, and he laments his own actions and realizes he says, there's something wrong on the inside. 00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:54.799 Evil is pervasive in my system. 00:09:55.120 --> 00:10:03.200 Even though I would consider myself a good man from so many different ways, I know there's something wrong on the inside. 00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:06.639 And he looks at his own heart and he makes this statement. 00:10:06.799 --> 00:10:14.000 He says, God create in me a new heart and restore a right spirit to me. 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:18.240 He recognizes his personal human state. 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:28.399 That word create is a very interesting word because it actually means to bring into existence something that had never been in existence before. 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:42.159 So what David is saying is, with all of my efforts at trying to please you, God, I've wound up doing some things that I have to look back at right now and go, that was wrong. 00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:43.600 I know it's wrong. 00:10:43.759 --> 00:10:46.799 Why did I do what I knew was wrong? 00:10:47.200 --> 00:10:51.039 So David cries out, created me a clean heart. 00:10:51.440 --> 00:10:53.360 God promises help. 00:10:53.679 --> 00:10:55.600 Ezekiel twice said this. 00:10:55.840 --> 00:11:14.879 He says, I'll give them one heart, a new heart, and I'll put a new spirit within them, and I will take the stony, unnaturally hardened heart of their flesh, and I will give them a heart of flesh that's sensitive and responsive to the touch of God. 00:11:15.759 --> 00:11:23.120 So we see historically, God gave humanity his presence, and humanity rejected God's presence. 00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:42.000 God gave mankind conscience, that that twang that goes on inside of us where we know we've done something wrong and we need to resolve it, but we oftentimes refuse to yield to our conscience, and our conscience gets hard as we continue to do what's wrong. 00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:47.039 And then God gave us his law, and we continue to break it and we do our own thing. 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:58.480 And then God sent his prophets, and we we see that in scripture, when the prophets came, they actually didn't listen to the prophets and in many situations killed them. 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:07.759 And so God ultimately sends his own son to die for us because none of these things actually change the human heart. 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:09.440 God sends his son. 00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:21.840 And the Bible says he went to Calvary and died on the cross for us, and in that process took upon himself our sin nature, the mess that was in our heart. 00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:33.360 And he did that so that he could give us God's heart, a new nature, and to reconcile us not only to the Father, but to reconcile us to one another. 00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:36.960 That's the power of the cross, and that's the message of the cross. 00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:54.240 It has both a horizontal relational impact and a vertical element of impact, where our relationship to God is restored, and then through that, our relationship to one another is restored. 00:12:54.480 --> 00:13:05.440 We learn to love God with all that is in our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then we take that and start loving one another with our whole heart and mind and strength. 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:19.840 Jesus, when he came, because he brings the solution from the Father for the broken heart, he requires that there be a new birth, what we call today traditionally as a born-again experience. 00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:33.919 And Jesus said, unless a person is born again, reborn from above, spiritually transformed, renewed, restored from within, then the change cannot occur. 00:13:34.159 --> 00:13:51.440 So he points to this need of humanity to recognize their spiritual need and turn to God, and when one puts their faith in God, there is a new birth experience that occurs. 00:13:51.600 --> 00:13:54.799 And the heart, God does heart surgery. 00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:59.519 He takes the evil of the heart and he gives us his heart. 00:13:59.679 --> 00:14:04.399 He takes the evil of our ambitions, gives us his ambitions. 00:14:04.720 --> 00:14:14.799 He gives us, it takes the evil out of our feelings and desires, and he puts into those feelings and emotions his heart, his desire. 00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:18.559 Paul spoke of it as a new creation. 00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:29.360 That if anyone is in Christ, grafted into Christ, looks to Jesus as their Savior, they become a new creation. 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:33.679 Something that King David talked about, created me a clean heart. 00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:36.240 Paul says, you'll become a new creation. 00:14:36.559 --> 00:14:38.080 You'll be reborn. 00:14:38.399 --> 00:14:49.840 The old things that motivated you and controlled you will be passing away, and new motivations and new heart agendas will start taking over in your life. 00:14:50.080 --> 00:14:52.879 That's the power of Christianity. 00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:56.480 And then Paul spoke about it from this perspective. 00:14:56.799 --> 00:15:05.200 He said, We're going to experience being reshaped again, recreated in the image of God. 00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:22.960 In Ephesians 2, he says, we're his workmanship, recreated in Christ Jesus, reborn from above, transformed, renewed, ready to be used to do some good works which God has prepared for us before the foundations of the world. 00:15:23.279 --> 00:15:29.200 This is the crux of any attitude of heart change. 00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:44.639 Paul goes on to say in 2 Corinthians 5, he said it was God in Christ reconciling the world, people to himself, and not counting their sins against them, but canceling them. 00:15:44.879 --> 00:15:54.799 And then he says this important verse, he says, and he is now committing to us the same message of reconciliation. 00:15:55.360 --> 00:16:11.279 In other words, the work that God has done through Christ in reconciling the world to himself through the cross, which was a costly act, is the same process that God is using through us. 00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:26.639 And it's a costly process to cancel the trespasses of people against us, to look in the faces of those who are evil or enemies or said things against you or persecuted you and to love them, just like Jesus, love them. 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:41.440 But God, through Christ, knowing that we have been reconciled to God, even with all of our mess, he says, now you need to reconcile other people to yourself and reconcile them to God. 00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:44.879 That's the message, that's the responsibility. 00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:51.360 And so the church is the greatest reconciling force on the planet. 00:16:51.600 --> 00:17:01.679 And it is the greatest hope for peace between people or races and colors and creeds and genders. 00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:20.880 The Church of Jesus Christ is the only hope from my perspective to bring the world together because, not because of who we are or how great we are, but because of who He is and how great God is and what God has done to the human heart. 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:29.519 You can't go anywhere in the world and get that shift and change to the human heart unless you come through Christ. 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:44.720 And when we come through Christ and our hearts are touched by God, we can reverse a decaying, devolving culture that is more in hate with each other than in love with each other. 00:17:45.200 --> 00:17:47.279 Paul said this about the cross. 00:17:47.519 --> 00:17:53.680 He said, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away from each other, you didn't get along. 00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:58.160 You've been brought near to each other by the blood of Christ. 00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:08.960 What Jesus has done in stretching forth, just like the two men that died with Christ in the crucifixion, in that outstretched arm, he's bringing them into himself. 00:18:09.519 --> 00:18:18.880 He said, He is our peace and our bond of unity, and he breaks down the barrier or the dividing wall between us. 00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:20.640 He breaks it down. 00:18:21.119 --> 00:18:30.799 So Christ and His cross for the Christian and for the church community ought to be the great equalizer within humanity. 00:18:31.119 --> 00:18:39.440 When we stand before God and each other, because we're in Christ, we've lost who we were, we're a new creation in Christ. 00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:41.200 We've left the old behind. 00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:50.720 We're taking on new values and belief systems, and we're taking on the heart of God for humanity like He had for us. 00:18:51.200 --> 00:19:22.799 When that equalization begins to happen through the cross and Christ, when we stand before God, we're neither rich or poor, we're not male or female, we're not black or white, we're not free or slave, we're not clean or even dirty, we're we're brothers and sisters, we're family, where we have one father, one blood, one spiritual DNA, one faith, one hope, one spirit that has been put in all of us. 00:19:23.119 --> 00:19:27.440 That is the that's the salvation of a society. 00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:44.559 Without it, we are left to ourselves to try and create laws and means and ways through even religious means and ways to try and create the bridge and break down the barriers between people. 00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:53.119 But in Christ and through the cross, that that barrier has already been broken down and we now have hope. 00:19:53.279 --> 00:20:02.400 And Paul says it this way: He says, We know no one after the flesh, but only through the eyes of Christ. 00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:07.279 That's one of the most powerful statements, I think, in the whole of Scripture. 00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:12.960 When I look at people now, I don't see them through the eyes of the flesh. 00:20:13.200 --> 00:20:24.720 I see them through the eyes of God, through what God created them to be, uh, through what they can become if the grace of God enters into their personal life. 00:20:24.960 --> 00:20:27.680 Just as He changed me, He can change them. 00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:30.000 That's a powerful statement. 00:20:30.160 --> 00:20:36.400 So from now on, the Bible says we don't regard anyone from a human point of view. 00:20:36.720 --> 00:20:41.599 We see them through the heart and the eyes and the lens of God. 00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:45.359 So knowing Christ changes us. 00:20:45.839 --> 00:20:49.519 Nothing can change you like knowing Christ. 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:58.160 Nothing can change you personally so that you actually begin to love yourself again because you're not ashamed of your life of sin. 00:20:58.640 --> 00:21:03.599 Because God has made a way to heal and restore and forgive that sin. 00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:14.240 Now, as looking at ourselves, we're able to look at other people through a different lens and say, if there was hope for me, there's hope for you. 00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:17.119 If God could heal me, he can heal you. 00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:22.160 If God can deliver you, he can deliver, uh He delivered me, he can deliver you. 00:21:22.400 --> 00:21:31.119 And so when we start looking at people through this lens of what Jesus has done, we begin to learn to love like he loved. 00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:36.799 And I tell you, the depth of the love of God that goes well beyond the depth of our sin. 00:21:37.039 --> 00:21:42.799 No one is, no one is beyond the love and the grace of God. 00:21:43.359 --> 00:21:49.440 When God, when you look at scripture, you see Jesus reaching out to the prostitute that everyone else shunned. 00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:59.759 You see him eating with the tax collector, which was probably one of the worst relationships the Jewish community had with uh their own. 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:00.640 People. 00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:07.039 He touched the leper, the untouchable, the people that no one else would touch and love on. 00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:08.160 He loved on. 00:22:08.319 --> 00:22:13.519 He reached out to the Samaritan, those people that were outcasts from society as a whole. 00:22:13.680 --> 00:22:22.799 He even connected to the Roman persecutors, those that had come to control and dominate the Jewish world. 00:22:23.119 --> 00:22:27.920 He reached out to them in love and changed their hearts through his love. 00:22:28.960 --> 00:22:34.640 God so loved the world through Christ that he gave his only begotten Son. 00:22:34.799 --> 00:22:39.200 And he put that same love for the world and for humanity in us. 00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:47.920 And when we are loving people like God loved people, we are at our very best as Christians. 00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:57.359 We are taught when we come to Christ, and we're learned to love as he loved, but we also learn to forgive like he forgave. 00:22:57.519 --> 00:23:00.559 And every single one of us are in need of forgiveness. 00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:06.880 Even when I was his enemy, he positioned his heart towards me in forgiveness. 00:23:07.119 --> 00:23:14.000 And I see what he forgave in my life, and I have no choice but to walk in forgiveness to other people. 00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:23.440 Because of the depth of forgiveness I've experienced, I look at everyone around me with those eyes and I go, how can I not forgive? 00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:27.440 I've got to forgive, just like Jesus forgave me. 00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:31.440 And then we learn to be merciful and compassionate like Jesus was. 00:23:31.599 --> 00:23:36.319 And when I deserved justice, God released mercy to me. 00:23:36.400 --> 00:24:01.359 And I don't understand the compassion of God towards me on a day-to-day basis, but I wouldn't want to live any other way than being compassionate towards other people who have their own life story, who are carrying their own weight and mess in life and look at them through the eyes of compassion and mercy that Jesus found me in the same place. 00:24:02.240 --> 00:24:16.480 A few uh days ago, this week, I woke up in the morning and a little song was going over in my mind that I learned probably 60 years ago when I was in a place called Sunday School. 00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:20.400 You know, we call it kids' church or, you know, children's church. 00:24:20.640 --> 00:24:22.799 But for me it was Sunday school. 00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:29.279 And the song went like this it says, Jesus loves the little children. 00:24:29.599 --> 00:24:35.599 All the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. 00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:39.279 Jesus loves the little children of the world. 00:24:39.519 --> 00:25:03.359 Well, I know that that's kind of focused on the children, but in view of our present circumstances in our world today, where you see this the breakdown of civility and this discord and division and this inability to listen to each other and this actual growing of hate and despise for one another, that little song penetrated my heart again. 00:25:03.519 --> 00:25:25.440 And I realized that at a very young age in my life, because I was brought up in the influence of Christianity, my values towards my peers, my friends, the children around me, they were being shifted by a little song that Jesus loves the little children. 00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:44.000 And when I look back at my life, whether I was in Kamloops and one of my best friends was First Nations, or when I went to, you know, Montreal and the Jewish community at that time was going through an awful lot of anti-Semitism, and some of them became my friends, and I realized what they were going through. 00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:53.839 Or whether I was in Acadia playing my trumpet at Sharon Church with the black community, the Akkadian community, they became my friends. 00:25:54.400 --> 00:26:01.839 I realized that a lot of those barriers between the races had been broken down in my own personal life. 00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:07.759 Number one, because Christ had already built a bridge. 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:10.480 He had broken the barrier between people. 00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:17.759 He'd broken the barrier between me and him, and now he was teaching me how to break the barrier between myself and other people. 00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:27.279 I never want to go back to a time where sin invades and creates the kind of mess and culture. 00:26:27.519 --> 00:26:39.519 And so my heart at this point in time in my life is to just dedicate myself to getting this message of the what we call the gospel, the good news, out to as many people as possible. 00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:50.400 I grew up in my Christian family believing that we were all uniquely created and we were created to be celebrated. 00:26:50.640 --> 00:27:01.680 I grew up believing that every individual's value was based upon the immense worth that not I put on them, but that God put on them. 00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:06.160 And God established that worth right from the very beginning. 00:27:06.400 --> 00:27:08.000 Right before we were born. 00:27:14.319 --> 00:27:15.440 He created us. 00:27:15.599 --> 00:27:25.839 And I remember years ago I was I was thinking about this creative act of God, and I heard someone talk a little bit about it, and I want to share it with you today. 00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:32.720 The Canadian mint has created a$20 bill in front of us. 00:27:34.079 --> 00:27:42.240 That piece of paper is not much different than the$5 bill or the$100 or the$50 bill in terms of substance. 00:27:42.559 --> 00:27:46.319 May have a different color, so we can recognize it and different number. 00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:54.400 But it's the creator, the Canadian mint, that created the value of this$20 bill. 00:27:54.640 --> 00:28:18.000 And you can mess it up, you can color on it, you can tear it, you can break it, you can make it dirty, you can do whatever you want with this$20 bill, but this$20 bill remains inherently valuable at$20 because a creator, the government of Canada, decided it was worth$20. 00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:24.400 Well, when you and I were born, God put a value on our life. 00:28:25.599 --> 00:28:27.119 And the Bible makes it clear. 00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:37.839 He says, he who did not spare even his own son, but gave him up for us all, how we will he not, along with him, graciously give us every other thing. 00:28:38.079 --> 00:28:49.039 In other words, God was saying this that if there's only one person that came to him as a result of the cross, he would have done it again. 00:28:49.359 --> 00:28:57.839 Because the value of a human life is based upon what God would pay to redeem that value, that life. 00:28:58.079 --> 00:29:06.960 And the value that God put on your personal life is the value of he had towards his own son, Jesus Christ. 00:29:08.319 --> 00:29:13.200 That's a powerful expression from my perspective of how much God loves me. 00:29:13.680 --> 00:29:15.839 Agreed, it's not warranted. 00:29:15.920 --> 00:29:19.680 It's by the grace of God that I've been loved this way. 00:29:19.920 --> 00:29:31.759 But it's the great equalizer because just like I have to give up everything in my life to become a Christian, and God gives everything of Him to me, that happens for all of us. 00:29:32.079 --> 00:29:37.119 Doesn't matter what our background, what we've done, what we haven't done. 00:29:37.359 --> 00:29:46.480 The issue is that at that moment in time, God says, I love you, and I will redeem you and I will make your life valuable. 00:29:46.640 --> 00:29:52.160 And so my life's value does not come from whether other people say I am. 00:29:52.480 --> 00:30:01.039 My life's value comes when I look up at Jesus and I see how much he loved me and how much he gave for my life. 00:30:01.519 --> 00:30:05.599 That mentality I take to the world around me. 00:30:05.839 --> 00:30:16.000 And when I look at every life, whether it's the pre-born child in the womb, whether it's the older person that's ready to die, whether it's a married couple, it doesn't matter. 00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:20.240 When I look at them, I look at them through the lens of Jesus. 00:30:20.559 --> 00:30:21.920 He died for them. 00:30:22.240 --> 00:30:26.240 He loved them immensely, he has a plan for their life. 00:30:26.559 --> 00:30:36.720 And I want to be in the same place that God is, welcoming them into my life in terms of relationship. 00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:39.119 We're all like somebodies. 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:45.519 We're all nobodies who become somebody because of someone, Jesus. 00:30:45.759 --> 00:30:58.960 We all have a past, but more importantly, now in Christ, that past is washed away, and we have now a relationship to Christ, and we all share the same future. 00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:04.400 And the walls that separated us from one another have been broken down. 00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:23.119 And the bridge of reconciliation has been built through the cross, and now we have access into the hearts of humanity all around us, and because of Christ, his passion for people has become our passion for people, his pursuit of people has become our pursuit. 00:31:24.079 --> 00:31:28.400 So, in conclusion, this morning, I just want you to go away with this. 00:31:28.799 --> 00:31:47.519 The only hope for peace between ourselves and God and ourselves and one another is reconciliation through knowing God, knowing Jesus, and then knowing one another and loving one another, just as he loved us. 00:31:47.839 --> 00:31:50.559 It requires a heart change. 00:31:51.359 --> 00:31:57.599 The problems in our world that I look around and see, and I'm not blind to it, you aren't either. 00:31:58.079 --> 00:32:03.839 If the heart was changed, and only Jesus can change the heart. 00:32:04.400 --> 00:32:11.200 If the heart was changed, what a wonderful society and culture we'll be living in. 00:32:11.599 --> 00:32:25.039 Jesus gives us a new mindset, new emotions, different agenda, desire to love people, forgive, be merciful, and laws cannot bring peace to a broken humanity and culture. 00:32:25.279 --> 00:32:30.160 You'll never shift our culture through creating more laws. 00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:38.799 Religion, doing our very best, the best way we can, in our own power, with our own might, will not do it. 00:32:39.039 --> 00:32:41.599 It cannot change our culture. 00:32:41.920 --> 00:32:51.759 Only a relationship to Jesus and a heart change can bring peace between people and a hope for change in our future. 00:32:52.240 --> 00:33:10.880 Well, this morning, if you haven't uh invited Christ into your life and you're struggling with some of these emotions that we've talked about that are constantly breeding division and discord and breaking down relationships rather than building bridges, I encourage you to come to Christ. 00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:18.160 And to come to Christ is a simple, a simple matter of saying, I recognize my need. 00:33:18.720 --> 00:33:24.720 I can't change the way I think and the way I feel in my own power. 00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:38.079 And Jesus, would you come in to my life and change me from the inside out through changing my nature and my heart, giving me a new mindset and new emotions inside. 00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:42.880 I know it doesn't happen in a flash, but take the step. 00:33:43.279 --> 00:33:59.759 Start the process, and you'll find the great power that there comes through not only you being reconciled to God, but how God will use you as a reconciling force to bring people together to love on people just as He loved you. 00:34:00.160 --> 00:34:01.759 May the Lord bless you today.