SPEAKER_01: Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: All honorable God, to you all hearts rude, all desires in the tree of secret suffered.
SPEAKER_01: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name.
SPEAKER_01: Through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things, craft in our hearts the love of your name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, bring forth in us the fruit of good works.
SPEAKER_01: Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: After being seated, our children are invited with Jesus and Julia, they're in the back of the word God being played.
SPEAKER_02: We have heard a message from the all-seeing God, and from an envoy sent among the nations, Rise up, let us rise up against Edom for war.
SPEAKER_02: See you.
SPEAKER_02: Blessed shall I be you among the nations, and despised shall you be utterly, and the proudness of your heart has deceived you.
SPEAKER_02: You who dwell in the clefts of the Selah, the rock city, with your habitation on high, you say in your heart, You will bring me down to earth, though you soar like the eagle, and though among the stars Are has a set, from there shall I bring you down, and utterance of the fire of Sinai, for the fire was done to Jacob, the child of your mother, and shame shall cover you and shall be cut off forever.
SPEAKER_02: On the day you stood on the front line, and on the day strangers opened his wealth, and foreigners entered his gates for Jerusalem casting, you too were like one of them.
SPEAKER_02: You should not have just watched on the day your twin, but on the day of your twin's disfortune, you should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah, the women, children and men, on the day of their devastation.
SPEAKER_02: You should not have flapped your lips on the day of distress.
SPEAKER_02: You should not have entered the gate of my people on the day of their calamity.
SPEAKER_02: You should not have just watched even you over Judah's disaster on the day of their calamity.
SPEAKER_02: You should not have sent for their goods on the day of their calamity.
SPEAKER_02: You should not have stood at the crossroad to cut out their recognition.
SPEAKER_02: You should not have shut out their fire on the day of distress.
SPEAKER_02: For the day of the righteous one is there against all the nations, and as you have done, it should be done unto you.
SPEAKER_02: Your recompense shall be returned by your own hand by the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: The righteous God judges the people, so righteousness, according to my righteousness, and according to my integrity.
SPEAKER_02: May it come to an end the wickedness of the wicked, and yet establish the righteous.
SPEAKER_02: God is a righteous judge, and a God who is indeed every day.
SPEAKER_00: So who really are you to judge your word of the Lord?
SPEAKER_02: Now Jesus said to his disciples, It is not possible that things that will trip you up and lead you to stumble into sin will not come.
SPEAKER_02: But woe to the person on whose account they come.
SPEAKER_02: It would be better if a millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea than for them to cause one of these little ones to stumble into sin.
SPEAKER_02: Guard yourselves.
SPEAKER_02: If a sister or brother sins, you must rebuke them.
SPEAKER_02: And if there is repentance, you must forgive them.
SPEAKER_02: And if seven times a day they sin against you and turn back to you seven times and say, I repent, you must forgive them.
SPEAKER_02: This is the gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Praise to you, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_02: Good morning, friends.
SPEAKER_02: So I did not grow up in a Star Trek home.
SPEAKER_02: Did anybody grow up in a Star Trek home or love Star Trek?
SPEAKER_02: I'm jealous.
SPEAKER_02: I watched a lot of sports.
SPEAKER_02: I wish I would have launched a little bit more Star Trek.
SPEAKER_02: I'm catching up, though.
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to watch this new one.
SPEAKER_02: And I will be honest, I spent a lot of time this week wondering, I think, about probably the most important question of the gospel, which is do Vulcans use hyperbole?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, think about it.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, those who know know, right?
SPEAKER_02: Do Vulcans use hyperbole?
SPEAKER_02: Hyperbole is this interesting thing that we've developed as humans to communicate like affects.
SPEAKER_02: Like we just don't want accuracy like Vulcans do.
SPEAKER_02: Vulcans want to know what happened.
SPEAKER_02: This is accurate, this is true, this is it.
SPEAKER_02: We want to communicate our emotion and how we feel about things.
SPEAKER_02: We want to put that oak behind it because we're emotional creatures.
SPEAKER_02: So we use hyperbole.
SPEAKER_02: Hyperbole, right?
SPEAKER_02: So hyper, think, hyperactive.
SPEAKER_02: More, like it's it's more than, it's beyond.
SPEAKER_02: And bole, right, comes from the word to throw.
SPEAKER_02: So for all you mathematicians and scientists out there, right, think hyperbola, right?
SPEAKER_02: It goes way far out to the side.
SPEAKER_02: It's like use of exaggeration to make a point, particularly an emotional one, because hyperbole is interested in affect, not accuracy.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we we we say things like this all the time.
SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, I'm starving.
SPEAKER_02: Really?
SPEAKER_02: You're starving?
SPEAKER_02: Like it's been 12 hours since you've eaten.
SPEAKER_02: Like, there is this thing called starving, and that's not it.
SPEAKER_02: I've got a ton of work to do.
SPEAKER_02: Really?
SPEAKER_02: A ton?
SPEAKER_02: You got a ton?
SPEAKER_02: Like a metric ton, like 2,000 pounds of work?
unknown: No.
SPEAKER_02: How about this one?
SPEAKER_02: I've never heard this.
SPEAKER_02: I have told you a million times.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, a million! Let's count, just so that I can be right in the argument.
SPEAKER_02: A million, really?
SPEAKER_02: Let's deflect from the actual point.
SPEAKER_02: A million.
SPEAKER_02: A million times.
SPEAKER_02: And then there are certain types of people, maybe you're one of them, it's not everybody, who like to use a certain kind of hyperbole.
SPEAKER_02: So let's say you get asked to do something that you don't want to do.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, Sean, would you like to go do this thing?
SPEAKER_02: I would rather put my head through that window than go do that thing.
SPEAKER_02: Anyone do that?
SPEAKER_02: Oh, come on, don't make me be the only person who uses violent hyperbole to make a point.
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to get a point across.
SPEAKER_02: And so when I do that, my wife, who doesn't like violent hyperbole, she says things like, Sean, is that the best way for you to communicate how you're feeling?
SPEAKER_02: And my response is no, but if it's good enough for Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Is that the best way to communicate how you're feeling about this situation right now?
SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, Jesus is teaching, right?
SPEAKER_02: He's like moving from Galilee, and he's trying to get down to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: And along the way, we don't know exactly where he is.
SPEAKER_02: He's somewhere between the two places.
SPEAKER_02: And he's a he's a teaching.
SPEAKER_02: This is the big teaching component, and he's teaching his disciples about what it means to be a community.
SPEAKER_02: And there's all kinds of teachings in this section, and we get to this particular one that seems like it's just about sin.
SPEAKER_02: Because the hyperbole is just so graphic, right?
SPEAKER_02: But it's really about sin and forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02: And so Jesus is talking to them and he says, there's this thing that you cannot help happen.
SPEAKER_02: It's going to happen, but woe to you who caused it to happen.
SPEAKER_02: Basically, he says there's this reality of sin, but woe to you, right, who this sin happens to.
SPEAKER_02: It would be better as if a milk stone was hung around your neck and you were cast into the sea.
SPEAKER_02: Like literally, Jesus doing his best Tony Soprano, New Jersey mafia, concrete boots.
SPEAKER_02: It would be better if you took a 400-pound stone and put it around your neck and cast into the sea.
SPEAKER_02: Is anybody like, Jesus, there might be a better way that I kind of get it, what you're doing?
SPEAKER_02: Because it, like, I don't believe in this God of threat.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I grew up in a household of threat, and don't get me wrong, sometimes I don't speak just because of the threat of getting caught.
SPEAKER_02: I just can't believe God needs to threaten us to do better at life.
SPEAKER_02: So it just can't be threatened here.
SPEAKER_02: So, like, what else is going on?
SPEAKER_02: And if we stop it just a, hey, if you sin and cause, right, the weakest, most vulnerable ones around you to sin, or if you harm the weakest and most vulnerable ones around you, woe to you.
SPEAKER_02: That keeps it's like Jesus threatening me.
SPEAKER_02: Well, you better be a pretty darn good parent, because if you screw your kids up in any way, you're gonna want to put a weight around your neck and throw yourself into the ocean.
SPEAKER_02: Wait, it kind of does feel like that, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's not more of a threat than it is a description, right?
SPEAKER_02: Because there's this other piece that Jesus, I think, is trying to get for us, which is forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02: And if people come to you with these weights, you need to forgive them.
SPEAKER_02: You know, Mike is fond of saying that one of the definitions of sin is just a weight.
SPEAKER_02: That's really what the definition is.
SPEAKER_02: The word, it's like a weight, it's like a heavy weight.
SPEAKER_02: And I will tell you, the weights that are the heaviest for me are when I have hurt the people that are most vulnerable in my life, or when people have been vulnerable with me, and out of my own sin and brokenness, I have harmed them.
SPEAKER_02: Those are really heavy weights.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus had said, you it if it is named, the brokenness, the hurt is named, they repent.
SPEAKER_02: We name it.
SPEAKER_02: We have to be a community of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02: The word apimi in Greek literally means to let go or release.
SPEAKER_02: That's what it means.
SPEAKER_02: I imagine a person that is falling in the sea with this 400-pound weight, and then somehow it gets released and they can re-emerge.
SPEAKER_02: I think Jesus is saying that if we are going to be different, we have to be people who have hard conversations.
SPEAKER_02: We have to do hard things in our life, we have to be willing to shine a light into the darkness, the places we're trying to avoid, the shadows of our culture, the shadows of our relationship, the shadows of our own lives.
SPEAKER_02: Like we have to be children of the light that do that, and we have to be the children of the light who don't keep burdens on each other when we do it.
SPEAKER_02: I wonder, like, I was thinking about how often in my life, in my quest for truth or justice, to see things correctly, or maybe just to be right in the light, that I forget that when we come here, we are all carrying burdens and just hoping, hoping to hear a word of forgiveness, a word that we're loved despite our brokenness.
SPEAKER_02: We're hoping that just maybe for a moment these weights and these shame and these hurts that we are carrying, that we relieved them just a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: I wonder if that's what it also means to be a community of the light.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, after this, we're gonna say the creed, we're gonna proclaim our common faith, we're gonna tell the story about God's love and sacrificial love for us, and then we're gonna do this like really countercultural thing.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna confess with each other.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna like open ourselves up to the weights that we're carrying, the heavy burdens of shame and disappointment, the brokenness of our life, and sometimes feel so heavy that we can't move.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna open ourselves up to our failures, and we're gonna ask God, are we forgiven?
SPEAKER_02: And God is gonna say, yes.
SPEAKER_02: How about we take some of those weights off?
SPEAKER_02: Hear me, friends.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying that we want to have communities and relationships where we just deny and we don't look at hard things and we pretend like everything is okay.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying that.
SPEAKER_02: We we need to do hard things.
SPEAKER_02: But there's a certain kind of heaviness that comes from having responsibility, from seeking.
SPEAKER_02: To push back against injustices, to be honest and seek reconciliation.
SPEAKER_02: Like there's a certain kind of heaviness there that feels good, that makes us feel whole and human.
SPEAKER_02: Who wants a life where nobody counts on you at all, or you don't have any responsibility?
SPEAKER_02: You're like, no, no, we need that.
SPEAKER_02: But what we don't need is a community where we're constantly feeling judged.
SPEAKER_02: That's what the epistle is trying to get.
SPEAKER_02: And if you look at the epistle, and how many of us are have been to churches where you walk in with this heaviness that feels like all that's coming back is more heaviness, more judgment?
SPEAKER_02: How many of us in our relationships feel like we're offering our own heaviness to people when it feels like all we can pack is more weight?
SPEAKER_02: And so I want to challenge us to be a community of the light.
SPEAKER_02: I want to challenge us to think about what does it mean, right, to hold intention the quest for naming truth and hurt and sin and balancing it with this forgiveness, this releasing, this reminding each other.
SPEAKER_02: That we don't have to carry these weights.
SPEAKER_02: It's attention, friends.
SPEAKER_02: It's attention that Jesus talks about Himself.
SPEAKER_02: Anyone think of the Matthew Gospel where Jesus says, My burden is light, my yoke is easy, my burden is light.
SPEAKER_02: My burden is light?
SPEAKER_02: My yoke is easy?
SPEAKER_02: Like this is interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: This relationship of how do we be a community that does hard things and also a community that enlightens each other's loads?
SPEAKER_02: And how are we doing that in our relationships?
SPEAKER_01: And how are we doing that with ourselves and our own self-talk?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I made a mistake, and I'm still left.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't that feel a little bit lighter?
SPEAKER_02: And so, friends, I want to be children of the light.
SPEAKER_02: I love Garmin does such a good job.
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know what spurred this whole circuit was actually garbage, music choice.
SPEAKER_02: You do such a great job of picking the music and intentionally doing that.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to take seriously what it means to be a community of the light and children of the light, not just those that seek the truth, but those that seek to take weights off each other, weights off ourselves.
SPEAKER_03: I think that's a good challenge this week.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: We believe in one God.
unknown: We send the third day.