Heather Drake: Welcome to the First Love Church Podcast.
Heather Drake: This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the Revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala, florida, the book of James, which we happen to be hanging out with for the next few weeks, and so I'm grateful for the many ways that we receive that truth that is engrafted in us, according to the Apostle, that can save our souls, that can change the way that we see things.
Heather Drake: I'm grateful this morning for the babies that are here with us and for the mothers who made the efforts to actually dress them, and maybe they may have dressed them two or three times before they got here this morning.
Heather Drake: I just don't know what part of the baby, the age you are from.
Heather Drake: So I appreciated that.
Heather Drake: And this morning I saw beautiful Abby at one side and Sawyer was crawling under the pews and then Philip was at the other side as the goalie, you know, to keep the baby, and I was thinking this brings me such joy because we're here this morning and beautiful Sawyer is at the age where he's mobile and he's walking around and he is in the house of God and he's on Abby's hip when she comes up to take communion and his whole life.
Heather Drake: May this be, so that he knows that he is welcomed in the house of God.
Heather Drake: Elias doesn't walk yet, but they're working on that with him and I was going to say I don't know how much you want to rush that, because from the time that little people can walk, then all you do is chase so but you know they're first parents and so you let them.
Heather Drake: You let them have their own experience.
Heather Drake: But I love that and I also love this morning that Bob is here.
Heather Drake: He had the red beanie on, Bob is 94.
Heather Drake: And I love the fact that he got his friend to bring him to church, or his friend brought him to church, however that worked out.
Heather Drake: But I love for us in the congregation that we have people with us who are in their 90s and we have people with us who are in their just early stages, even haven't had birthdays yet, and everybody in the middle and all of us who are here reflecting the goodness of Jesus and there's so much hope for us in that.
Heather Drake: I'm grateful all the time for things that I'm observing now and maybe it just happens with age, maybe it happens with renewal and for all of us it's expected of us that our following Jesus would mature and I am receiving lots of witness from nature.
Heather Drake: Recently, when I saw the gutters had plants growing out of them, it just blessed me.
Heather Drake: It's not effective from a gutter, but I just want to tell you that's something that had died.
Heather Drake: A tree had lost its leaf and a bunch of leaves were together and they turned into a beautiful compost.
Heather Drake: And some bird or some wind brought a seed and it grew.
Heather Drake: And I want to remind you that in dead things that is not the final word there is resurrection, and so when we allow things to die, as they often do different seasons in our lives, different relationships that we can trust that there's a power of resurrection, god's resurrection in us.
Heather Drake: Maybe the same thing won't grow.
Heather Drake: Maybe in that compost this is a completely different tree.
Heather Drake: Maybe it was not a tree at all, maybe it was a weed or a flower.
Heather Drake: And really, what is a weed?
Heather Drake: That's just a plant somebody said shouldn't grow here.
Heather Drake: I mean, all plants are.
Heather Drake: Sometimes they're mucky and poisonous, but you know, maybe not to everything.
Heather Drake: So I just remind us in our lives, be mindful not to judge good and bad.
Heather Drake: This is a bad season.
Heather Drake: This may be a season where compost is being formed and something beautiful is coming out of it, and so I encourage us this morning with the word of life that Christ is among us.
Heather Drake: We go to the book of James and we invited last week I hope that you would consider this that as a fellowship, as people who are gathered together, and even for those of you who are online, if you would consider reading the book of James with us and it's a short book and you know, even if you read a few verses every day, or just the verses that we actually talked about on a Sunday, it would really help us to put reset and kind of remind ourselves what it looks like to really follow the way of Jesus.
Heather Drake: The way of Jesus is love, and we must constantly be reminded of that.
Heather Drake: In fact, this is what this morning we're looking at, where James, the brother of Jesus, has a lot to say about a living faith.
Heather Drake: In fact, at one point he says it doesn't matter what you say you believe if your actions don't line up with it.
Heather Drake: So faith without works is dead.
Dennis Drake: Last week he reminded us that everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry and to allow, and oftentimes we refer to that as our fate and I think in modern times what you believe is the most important thing, and it's been taught to me in there, almost every church I I've um went to, that belief is the paramount and though obviously without belief you would not be here.
Dennis Drake: But sometimes belief and head knowledge get exalted and there's a beautiful dance, a beautiful harmony that goes with your walk, your life of faith.
Dennis Drake: That implies that if I believe, I take a step, do you see the connection?
Dennis Drake: And I don't believe one is good without the other, because we know people that think that by their works they will receive, uh, the righteousness of god, and so stepping out and doing those things, as great as they are, that's not what connects us with God, but also just that belief without any corresponding action to it, it's lifeless as well.
Dennis Drake: So that is kind of the when we talk about the way of Jesus.
Dennis Drake: Sometimes I need to follow that way, sometimes I need to get out of the way, and, and so I want you to kind of see that there's that um, that that walk with God, and I think we can find it um, with our connection with God in like a flow, how we will just follow when it's time to follow, and that it's not so much everything that you believe or everything that you do, but if God is doing something, I can just kind of connect with that.
Dennis Drake: Are you following what I'm trying to say?
Dennis Drake: I think sometimes we struggle so hard with I better believe, I better believe this, or, oh, I better do more or do more, and sometimes I think that through all that struggle we miss the just following or flowing with the Spirit of God.
Heather Drake: I remind us all that grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.
Heather Drake: There is an effort that requires us all to be grace-filled to the world around us.
Heather Drake: It is effort to be kind.
Heather Drake: But if you're kind because you think that you have to earn the love of God beloved, that's not the reason at all.
Heather Drake: You are kind because you are loved by God, because you know that love is the source of this.
Heather Drake: And James is saying dear brothers and sisters, and please hear the family language, dear brothers and sisters, you're not stepchildren here, you are loved.
Heather Drake: And James is reminding us we belong in God's family.
Heather Drake: My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ and hear his language?
Heather Drake: Here You're claiming to have faith, not just faith in anything, faith in the glorious Lord Jesus Christ, if you favor some people over others.
Heather Drake: For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry and other comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes.
Heather Drake: If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person but you say to the poor one, you can stand over there or sit on the floor.
Heather Drake: Well, doesn't this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives.
Heather Drake: I mean, here James starts to meddle and you do have to appreciate James.
Heather Drake: I mean he is talking to the congregations there and he's saying I know you're claiming to be a part of the way of Jesus, but if you follow practices of discrimination, that has nothing to do with the way of Jesus.
Dennis Drake: You know, sometimes these verses are considered a little harsh or hard on people, and I find it real interesting that when, uh, I might be preaching to, uh people who haven't heard the message about love, believers come along and tell me all the time you better to to toughen up on them and tell them about they better quit doing this and quit doing that.
Dennis Drake: And then when the believers get in the congregation and they hear the message about justice have changed, they go hey, brother, what about grace?
Dennis Drake: You know.
Dennis Drake: And so the point is now ask yourself if you want grace for yourself but want judgment for other people, you know.
Dennis Drake: Ask yourself if, if really the message of grace is great for you, but you want to see other people toe the mark or at least do as well, if not better than, what you've done.
Dennis Drake: And so the point of sometimes these difficult messages that we preach isn't for you to run home and tell somebody that didn't make it to church today, or for you to think, well, that's how I'm going to go reach the people that are out there in the world.
Dennis Drake: But this is really how us followers, we need to do some housekeeping and so we teach a grace message around here.
Dennis Drake: So this might feel very uncomfortable today, because we're getting ready to rebuke you.
Heather Drake: That is not the case, beloved.
Heather Drake: That is absolutely not the case, because anything that we ask, it is not Anything that we ask you to do.
Heather Drake: We are also required to do it in double measure, and so be mindful that everything that we remind you of, we also first remind ourselves of this.
Heather Drake: This is not for you, and then we have a special exemption.
Heather Drake: No one does.
Heather Drake: My dear brothers and sisters, if any of you are playing favorites in any way, this cannot be, and I remind you, it doesn't only have to do with people who are wealthy and people who are poor, though.
Heather Drake: I want to tell you that Jesus always, always, always, identified with the poor, and if you want to find where Jesus is, find those places where there is some kind of poverty, and not just physical poverty, poverty in spirit, poverty in ideas that have oppressed them.
Heather Drake: Jesus came to bring us life.
Heather Drake: Jesus is the great liberator.
Heather Drake: In fact, jesus loves and is committed to your freedom.
Heather Drake: And when the apostle brings us an adjustment and says to us hey, pay attention to prejudice, because if that's happening, that has no place in the glorious faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and not just prejudice concerning wealth and concerning poverty, in fact, he's reminding them.
Heather Drake: You are part of the church of Jesus Christ.
Heather Drake: In the very beginning of the church in Jesus Christ, in Acts, chapter 2, verse 42, and it said everyone, everyone, everyone devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to the prayers and to the breaking of bread, to holy communion.
Heather Drake: This is the church of Jesus Christ when, together, we take care of each other.
Heather Drake: In fact, some of the most miraculous things that happened in the book of Acts that are recorded is that everybody started caring for someone else.
Heather Drake: No one was selfish.
Heather Drake: In fact, it said, if someone had something, they sold what they had so that the goods could be distributed among them.
Heather Drake: And so this distribution, this generosity, this unclenching of our fists into postures where we're open-handed, this is what it looks like to follow Jesus.
Heather Drake: Yes, indeed, it is good when you obey the royal law as found in the scriptures love your neighbor as yourself.
Heather Drake: And this would have reminded the people who were there, because this is from the first five books of the Jewish Testament, this is from the Torah.
Heather Drake: This verse is reminding them of who they are.
Heather Drake: This is the royal law of love, that you would love your neighbor as yourself.
Heather Drake: This is preeminent.
Heather Drake: How do you want to be treated Fairly, I would assume right.
Heather Drake: We all want justice, we would like things to go and be even and be peaceful, but in the world that we live in, we see that that's not so, and so the invitation is how do we make it so with us?
Heather Drake: We may not be able to change everyone, but we can change among us, in our heart.
Heather Drake: We can say in here there will be no prejudice.
Heather Drake: We will recognize that each person is made in the image of God, is made from the source of God, that every person is worthy of dignity, that every person bears Christ.
Heather Drake: Now, some of us have marred the image and some of us have lived in a world where other things have marred the image, and some of us have lived in a world where other things have marred the image, but deep within us, the light of Christ, and when we come, and when we come with expectation that I am part of the family, that we begin to love your neighbor as yourself.
Heather Drake: But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin I'm just going to let that sit and you are guilty of breaking the law.
Heather Drake: There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others, but if you have been merciful, god will be merciful when he judges you.
Heather Drake: Beloved, if this isn't a text alone in how we should live with so much mercy, because when we stand before God, when we stand before love, when Jesus is face to face with us, I want to tell you how Jesus described God Infinite mercy.
Heather Drake: That means that we ourselves need to be people of infinite mercy.
Heather Drake: Now, it doesn't mean suffering abuse, it doesn't mean that you stay in situations that are unsafe, but it does cause us to reorient ourselves and say, as followers of Jesus, we must be people who show mercy.
Heather Drake: In fact, the scripture tells us this is one of the hallmarks of our faith that we are a merciful people.
Heather Drake: I hope that is always true and said of us Mercy.
Dennis Drake: You know, this verse here is telling us that, um, that we, uh, we claim christ, you know, and uh, and the problem with their potential problem with that could be to claim christ but reflect in no way the image of christ, you know, and that's that's dangerous because it sends a mixed message, you know.
Dennis Drake: So that's the challenge, you know, we're talking to believers and saying we're here, we're here who claim Christ, so does that, our behavior, the way that we treat people, does that align with?
Dennis Drake: Is that the way Christ treated people, you know?
Dennis Drake: Did he give preference to the rich or no?
Dennis Drake: He was actually, you know, really shown to just really be on the side of the poor.
Dennis Drake: That's that I wonder, if, if that's how I view things, am I, am I always looking?
Dennis Drake: How can I be on the side of the poor, you know?
Dennis Drake: Or?
Dennis Drake: Or I think one of my favorite verses, uh is is in the bible, where it talks about that in christ there's neither male nor female, jew, jew nor greek, slave or free.
Dennis Drake: That that, that that type of uh, non-dualism, uh is what that is is presented by Christ, and we all should probably admit that that's a little bit foreign to us.
Dennis Drake: We're kind of trained to take care of our family first, or take care of us, or don't worry about them, or, in fact, those people are kind of weird over there, so we're keeping them, you know.
Dennis Drake: And there's us and them, and he's saying, no, those kind of things divide us.
Dennis Drake: So I want to challenge you that when you and I say that we are these followers of christ, or we're choosing christ, then how does that bear out in in our day-to-day responses to people?
Dennis Drake: You know, do I now still have the freedom to just be angry and tell people off when they push me far enough?
Dennis Drake: Or have I said no, I am identifying with Christ, and so I want to behave as Christ would in a situation of anger.
Dennis Drake: Because Christ got angry, believe it or not, but he didn't fight the guy in the street.
Dennis Drake: He'd have to have his wife bailing him out of jail.
Dennis Drake: He didn't just treat people any way that he chose.
Dennis Drake: There's that choice of love, and so that's the kind of thing we're wanting us to consider today.
Dennis Drake: In this, I call myself a follower.
Dennis Drake: Well, what does that mean for me then?
Heather Drake: moving forward, I appreciate where you're bringing us here in this life of following.
Heather Drake: In fact, I was reading some really ancient texts this morning and it was they're considered one of the first baptismal liturgies, and it's from early on in the Christian faith and when they were going to baptize someone, which is a sacrament given to us by the church.
Heather Drake: We see it even before Jesus.
Heather Drake: Jesus was baptized into the way of John the Baptist, and John the Baptist had some really impressive things to say.
Heather Drake: He said to people, if you have two coats, one is yours and one is the guy who has no coat.
Heather Drake: And he said you know, let's talk about justice here, let's talk about real generosity, let's talk about taking care of each other.
Heather Drake: But one of the earliest baptismal liturgies is this portion that Dennis mentioned.
Heather Drake: They would say to the people before they plunge them under the water in Christ there is no difference.
Heather Drake: In Christ all the identifiers are gone.
Heather Drake: In Christ we are one.
Heather Drake: There is no Jew and Greek.
Heather Drake: There is no nationality that divides us.
Heather Drake: There is no ethnicity that changes here.
Heather Drake: It is in Christ, and it is in Christ that the family of God is built.
Heather Drake: And so we are reminded of these beautiful things.
Heather Drake: But I draw your attention here to the fact that you have a beautiful opportunity, as do I, to practice mercy.
Heather Drake: We are to be people who are merciful people.
Heather Drake: What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions?
Heather Drake: Beloved here, james is really looking at us going.
Heather Drake: We can say a lot of things and a lot of things have been said to us, but how someone lives matters.
Heather Drake: The choices that we make matter, and James is saying this is how you can look at your faith and go.
Heather Drake: Is it real faith at all?
Heather Drake: And is my faith just a personal faith?
Heather Drake: I just want to tell you there is no such thing as a personal faith.
Heather Drake: It's not, it's not in the scripture and no one has a personal faith.
Heather Drake: How we live.
Heather Drake: Our faith is actually toward the world.
Heather Drake: My faith in Jesus means that I live and choose a different way.
Heather Drake: Your faith in Jesus means that the opportunity is for you to take the narrow path, the narrow path that seems like it might be closing in, and Jesus is saying I'm going to tell you something about the narrow path.
Heather Drake: It is so expansive, it is so incredible, and mercy triumphs over judgment.
Heather Drake: This is what the scripture says.
Heather Drake: But if you say you have faith and don't show it by your actions, can that kind of faith save anyone?
Heather Drake: Can it save you to say that you believe something but don't have the effort or the works behind it and there is an invitation into a new way of living that we would be people so loving that mercy would be the first thing that came from us.
Heather Drake: In fact, I believe that's where that prayer comes, where Lord, have mercy, christ have mercy.
Heather Drake: Lord, have mercy.
Heather Drake: When I can't figure out anything what to do with this situation, may mercy come first and may that be the road that we choose.
Heather Drake: Mercy.
Heather Drake: Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing and you say goodbye and have a good day, stay warm, eat well, and you don't give that person any food or clothing.
Heather Drake: What good does that do?
Heather Drake: I mean he's really asking us to look at how we would be the saving grace, how we would offer to ourselves, to look at how we would be the saving grace, how we would offer to ourselves, to others that we would say what is it like to follow Jesus?
Heather Drake: It's like Jesus would be in our midst.
Heather Drake: If someone was hungry, jesus would feed them.
Heather Drake: And I know you're saying, well, I don't have the multiplication Jesus had, but I remind you what Jesus did was say to his friend Philip we happen to have a Philip here this morning so you could talk with him afterwards hey, philip, what are we going to do about the people here?
Heather Drake: There's a lot of them who are hungry and in the gathering there's a lot of provision.
Heather Drake: We may have to look for it, but there is.
Heather Drake: This church is going to be 24 years old in November.
Heather Drake: That's really exciting.
Heather Drake: It's going to be our 21st year as a congregation and there has been much that has been done here.
Heather Drake: One of the things that we have done here was very early in the church history.
Heather Drake: We decided that we would take on five children around the world internationally compassion children or world vision children and we would support them every month.
Heather Drake: And we have done that.
Heather Drake: And I have a daughter who's been raised in the faith and in the church and she's very religious and in fact even this morning she is filling in for the children's church at the American Church of Paris.
Heather Drake: So she's doing children's church this morning.
Heather Drake: But she wouldn't allow us just to give the money to take care of the compassion kids.
Heather Drake: She said you have to write the letters and you have to let the people know that they're loved and we're doing this because we love them.
Heather Drake: And so, okay, I could write a letter.
Heather Drake: And then she said twice a year you're allowed to give presents, and so I'll shop for the presents and the list is very, very clear with what you can give.
Heather Drake: It's very, very specific.
Heather Drake: Like, you can't send rubber bands.
Heather Drake: I don't know why One of the countries in the world doesn't want rubber bands for us it's fine, but you can't send things.
Heather Drake: There's a lot of things you can't send, but Catherine had narrowed down the list and what was not prohibited was kazoos.
Heather Drake: So, okay, thank you for the laughter.
Heather Drake: So we sent kazoos and cute little hair ribbons and stuff to children all over the world with our money, and then we'd have letters.
Heather Drake: And the letters don't come frequently from their side.
Heather Drake: We do send letters every month and we encourage them.
Heather Drake: And you know what is so beautiful and I love that about 24 for us is there's already five children who have their entire life been cared for by compassion and world vision, because together as a group, we said we're going to pay for that.
Heather Drake: Their entire life they've actually aged out of the systems and they sent us new ones.
Heather Drake: We've got new guys and it's wonderful, but it's all around the world.
Heather Drake: But we got a letter one time from Myanmar, and this was about 10 years ago, and this little person that we had been supporting and that we sent a gift for said my parents and my neighbors would like to thank you for the razzmatazz that you sent.
Heather Drake: Now I just want to tell you the parents and the neighbors were not happy that there was a kazoo sent to them somewhere in the jungle.
Heather Drake: Imagine a child's joy to have a kazoo.
Heather Drake: And they didn't have the name kazoo, so they called it a razzmatazz.
Heather Drake: Thank you for the razzmatazz.
Heather Drake: So I just want to tell you, as First Love Church, you're part of the razzmatazz ministry, because not only will we send resources, but we're going to send some joy.
Heather Drake: So somebody in some little paddy field was out playing his kazoo and I don't know if they said we're not thankful, and the child changed that or the person who was interpreting it did, but he said his parents and the neighbors were grateful for the razzmatazz.
Heather Drake: And so I tell you that in what we can do, together is so much greater.
Heather Drake: And if together we would spread mercy, if together we would spread joy, if together we would take people's needs and say I don't know, I can't fix everything, but what can we do, philip?
Heather Drake: What is there?
Heather Drake: And then Philip didn't even show up with his own donation.
Heather Drake: In the original scripture he gets a boy to bring his lunch, or the boy offers it.
Heather Drake: And I just want to tell you, the boy didn't make his lunch.
Heather Drake: I just I'm going to tell the story this way there was a mother who knew that kid was going and she packed the little basket and she had probably made the bread, or maybe the sister did, and somebody, maybe the dad, brought the fish, but she sent him with fish and with bread.
Heather Drake: And Philip found that, talked to that kid who said, yeah, I'll give this.
Heather Drake: And they put it in the hands of Jesus and Jesus gave thanks for it and blessed it and multiplied it and everyone was fed.
Heather Drake: So I remind you that your little acts of mercy matter, matters to the whole world, your acts of generosity matter.
Heather Drake: It matters to the whole world.
Heather Drake: Your acts of generosity matter.
Heather Drake: It matters to the whole world.
Heather Drake: How we live as followers of Jesus is how the world sees the love that is still here today.
Heather Drake: We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today.
Heather Drake: If you're finding this episode meaningful, would you take a moment to share it with a friend?
Heather Drake: This podcast is made possible thanks to the generosity of people just like you.
Heather Drake: If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church and the continued work of our podcast, visit us online at firstlovechurchorg, reminding you to like, follow and subscribe.
Dennis Drake: After men's breakfast there was a guy here and he was hanging around and he wanted work.
Dennis Drake: And so I let him work with us and gave him some money, and then he wanted a ride.
Dennis Drake: And then, as he was riding, he was talking to me and he said Well, you know, for days and days I've been needing to get a ride downtown for some medical thing or whatever.
Dennis Drake: And he said Then I was here at the the church and there was a guy in there and he was vacuuming up the water, and that's todd.
Dennis Drake: He does it every time it rains he comes over here, otherwise this church would stink so bad that none of us could come in here.
Dennis Drake: But he takes his own time and uses his own carpet thing and sucks up them gallons and gallons and gallons of water.
Dennis Drake: And so he was over here and he met that man and todd drove.
Dennis Drake: Of course, no, ever know, except for this guy who just starts telling me about some guy that was vacuuming up water here at the church, like I didn't know who that was, and took him on this ride, you know, and then told him about the breakfast that was happening yesterday.
Dennis Drake: And so then yesterday he had come in and ate the breakfast and we were able to feed him and he was just so grateful and listened to the preach together.
Dennis Drake: And then, all of a sudden, after work, I was going to have him work right away and then Sean's like, well, no, I'm going to take him down, get him some clothes and the other place to get some more food.
Dennis Drake: And so this is what's going on.
Dennis Drake: I have no idea until late.
Dennis Drake: You know, sean's going down and getting him, helping him.
Dennis Drake: You know, no one asked, no one appointed sean, driver of people down to get food and clothes.
Dennis Drake: He took it upon himself in response to seeing this need, as todd did, you know.
Dennis Drake: And then, as I did, I'm driving him back to his house.
Dennis Drake: And then he was saying, yeah, I'm gonna take this little bit of money and go buy some cooking oil.
Dennis Drake: And I thought, well, I just left cooking oil in from you know, it might even be good in two months for the men's breakfast to come back here.
Dennis Drake: And so I was able to take him home and that was again.
Dennis Drake: It was resources that we've pooled together as a church, pooled together as a church.
Dennis Drake: It's not sweet buying the buyer some kid in the jungle, although those kids are being taken care of because of the giving and the effort that you make towards this church, but it happens through this church on a regular basis, here and then.
Dennis Drake: What I want to report to maybe, if you don't realize this, this is happening in you and in the people around you.
Dennis Drake: You know all the time, because if we stopped right now and had a testimony service of how many of you have stopped and fed somebody you know, and so I'm encouraged that that is getting through and it's happening.
Dennis Drake: And then I I also want to remind you that the people in the world are going to tell you you're crazy and those people, they're just going to use it for drugs and they're going to, you know, and they're going to tell you all the reasons why not to help, when, uh, jesus didn't tell you to figure out their motives, and if they are judged by you as pure, then you shall help.
Dennis Drake: It's like help those are, and let God work on the hearts of people.
Dennis Drake: Amen, you know.
Dennis Drake: But for you and I to look around, uh, the, the, when the scripture talks about the fields are ripe for harvest, uh, uh, some of us look at that scripture and go, oh, that's a promise that there's just a bunch of stuff for me, or, or maybe we should turn around and look at that, as there's a lot of people out there that can really use the message that I have and really use maybe that, that, maybe that five bucks isn't a tipping point for you, but if it gets somebody a burger, that's a huge deal, you know, and so I encourage you to look for those opportunities and thank you for those that are responding to them the invitation is not just to the physical, but the invitation is to actually see people, to see them as beloved brothers and sisters.
Heather Drake: Sometimes someone has plenty of resources, but what they need is a compassionate witness.
Heather Drake: What they need is someone to listen to their pain, and so those are things that we do also, and so we remind you.
Heather Drake: This is why it is our not just priority, but it is our intention to be people of discernment that we would know the voice of Jesus, that we would hear the voice of the good shepherd, that in every situation we could just be still and listen and say what is needed.
Heather Drake: Here Now we are not Jesus, we don't have every resources, but we know we can be mat carriers.
Heather Drake: You know the story I'm referring to.
Heather Drake: There was a man who is paralyzed, can do nothing for himself, but his friends come and they pick up a corner of the mat and they bring the mat to Jesus.
Heather Drake: They bring the person to Jesus and Jesus heals them, and sometimes beloved.
Heather Drake: That is our highest vocation.
Heather Drake: We are mat carriers.
Heather Drake: We will bring someone to Jesus and then Jesus sorts out the what, what, the things that they have need of, and I am so reminded in this act of mercy if you would go with me in your memories, cause you know the story.
Heather Drake: But love is being crucified.
Heather Drake: Jesus is surrendering his life because he has enemies, and the enemies are people who do not like the way of love.
Heather Drake: The enemies are systems that hate the rule of love.
Heather Drake: And again James is reminding us that love is the way.
Heather Drake: And we look at this love of Christ.
Heather Drake: And Jesus is on the cross, dying, accepting a punishment that is not his.
Heather Drake: And the person on the cross next to him says remember me when you come into your kingdom.
Heather Drake: And Jesus didn't say well, it's a little late, brother.
Heather Drake: And Jesus didn't give a list of anything that person had to do.
Heather Drake: That person said to Jesus remember me.
Heather Drake: And Jesus said today you will be with me in paradise.
Heather Drake: Infinite mercy.
Heather Drake: It is the mercy of Christ.
Heather Drake: In fact, it is the goodness of God that calls us all to repentance.
Heather Drake: It is the goodness of God that we are to be reflective of.
Heather Drake: It is the goodness of God that we are invited to participate in.
Dennis Drake: Sometimes I wonder if I recognize just how gifted my wife is at preaching and the things that she says, because sometimes you'll say something and you'll just blow past it and I'm like, oh, you better stop and do an exhaustive study, and I want to hear about that.
Dennis Drake: When she was just talking a moment about a know, a compassionate witness, you know, I want us to just go back there for a second, because this is something that I learned from her and, um, and there's, uh, there's this idea as a christian that we need to be a witness, and and we're taught.
Dennis Drake: Well, that witness is that you better learn the romans road and you better beat the bible over somebody's head at some point.
Dennis Drake: You know, or that's oftentimes what it ends up being.
Dennis Drake: Uh, and and though I want you to learn the scriptures and I want you to be able to share them with people, uh, when they're open to them.
Dennis Drake: Uh, being a witness is uh, you know, is not that you have to prepare a big sermon.
Dennis Drake: Being a witness is observing what you saw.
Dennis Drake: If you're a witness in an accident, you would say well, that car came and hit that car.
Dennis Drake: You're just telling what happened, and for us witnesses, this is what Jesus did in my life.
Dennis Drake: This is what God has done since I've surrendered, and, furthermore, the idea of the compassionate witness.
Dennis Drake: Somebody was over my house the other day and they were financially uh fine, and they were physically fine, but but maybe emotionally and spiritually they were really hurting.
Dennis Drake: And they began to talk and you know me, I like to talk too a lot and uh, and I wanted to chime in when they set a point oh, I, I, I like that too, or, and I just was overwhelmed with the idea that this person needed someone who would just listen to their pain.
Dennis Drake: And that's a compassion, not correct them, not give them all these scriptures and fix all this stuff.
Dennis Drake: But what about understanding the compassion that is and that's priceless.
Dennis Drake: They're wealthy, they're doing, but yet they're without that thing that we could provide for them.
Dennis Drake: They're really hurting.
Dennis Drake: And so could you see yourself being able to be a compassionate witness?
Dennis Drake: Or have you been a compassionate witness your whole life and not realized that that was a thing, because other people might be the ones running their yapper all the time and you think, well, because I'm not doing all that, maybe I'm not effective, and maybe that compassionate witness, talk about that a little bit, because it's been so life-changing for me.
Heather Drake: When I think about Jesus and I do often or try to think about who Jesus is and imagine the life and look for the witness of that, one of the things that I see over and over again, and everyone else is telling, is how compassionate Jesus was.
Heather Drake: It's one of the things I want us to be.
Heather Drake: This is the 16th Sunday after Pentecost.
Heather Drake: We're in ordinary time and I want us to be paying attention to the sacredness that is everywhere.
Heather Drake: But, beloved, I tell you, I'm already headed toward Advent.
Heather Drake: Oh, I'm already thinking about Advent, and I know we're just here in September, beloved, and Advent is coming.
Heather Drake: I just say that's good for your hope, it's good for my hope, and one of the things that we practice in Advent is we allow Jesus to give us eyes to really see, which I believe is very much like what Jesus did Over and over again.
Heather Drake: If you'll read through the gospels, it will say and Jesus saw, and Jesus saw him, and Jesus saw him.
Heather Drake: And there's a mother on the way to bury her only son and it said and Jesus saw her, other people saw her too, but Jesus saw her.
Heather Drake: And then it says and he looked at her with compassion and then the miraculous happened.
Heather Drake: Beloved.
Heather Drake: When we look at people with compassion, compassion is an outflow of mercy.
Heather Drake: When we look at someone, not to judge them right or wrong or different than us, or us and them, when we let go of all of that and we receive from Jesus, we are loved, we're part of God's family.
Heather Drake: When mercy is the first thing that comes from us, a byproduct of that is compassion.
Heather Drake: And so and here's the beauty of it when you start to practice it for other people, all of the sudden you will notice how not compassionate you are of yourself.
Heather Drake: And when you start handing it away, then all of a sudden you'll start looking I need to be compassionate with myself as well, and so here's the hope for all of us.
Heather Drake: In fact, the theologian Dallas Willard reminds us of this you live your way into right thinking.
Heather Drake: You don't think your way into right living.
Heather Drake: So it is this practice that does, that allows us this holiness that God has called us to, but we take the tools that are given to us, and a tool is mercy and beloved.
Heather Drake: Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Heather Drake: In the very end, we will all stand before infinite mercy.
Heather Drake: We will stand before the God who created everything.
Heather Drake: This is the hope for us.
Heather Drake: If, for one minute, you thought standing before God was in some way a punishment, I want to tell you that every correction from God is restorative, not retributive, and God intends to restore us to the holiness that he put in us.
Heather Drake: And mercy, this compassionate witness, this compassionate mercy for the world.
Heather Drake: It does sometimes break our hearts.
Heather Drake: I think a result of being compassionate will require us to weep.
Heather Drake: That's why I also love the series, the time of the year that we have lent, because then we just get to do something with all of our heartache.
Heather Drake: Advent is coming, lent is coming, but this, right now, this is ordinary time and this is the practice of recognizing and joining with the sacred in every little thing In the planting of seeds, in the watering of flowers and plants.
Heather Drake: Recently, we don't have to do that.
Heather Drake: The skies opened up and watered everything.
Heather Drake: It was a little heavy.
Heather Drake: The other day it was coming down so much.
Heather Drake: I was like, please, the little tiny flowers are still out there.
Heather Drake: They seem to be fine the next day.
Heather Drake: And now we have a ton of mushrooms I don't know if you do, they're kind of everywhere but the green moss that was in these tiny cracks I love this about the resurrection moss and ferns.
Heather Drake: What appears dry is a couple of days of that kind of rain, and there is life, it is greening all around us.
Heather Drake: What would it look like for us to be people who have compassionate witness?
Heather Drake: Dennis and I were together the other day and we have someone that is not a friend of ours but is just a person that we visit in a business and we don't know even each other's names.
Heather Drake: But we recognize each other and we talk to each other even though we don't know each other's names, and we can do this with everyone.
Heather Drake: And I said how was your week?
Heather Drake: And she said horrible, just like that.
Heather Drake: And so I put my arm around her.
Heather Drake: That's a little disarming sometimes, but sometimes you can do it.
Heather Drake: And she said my mother just died and I started crying.
Heather Drake: My mother didn't die, but but hers did, and my sister is in pain.
Heather Drake: And she looked at me and she said why are you crying?
Heather Drake: And I said because you're in pain.
Heather Drake: And then she really started crying and I want to tell you it's seeing someone's pain and just naming it.
Heather Drake: I want to tell you that naming pain is a direct path to God.
Heather Drake: If you are headed there, I mean name that pain.
Heather Drake: Christ is the healer we invite that.
Heather Drake: I can't do anything for this woman.
Heather Drake: I cannot bring her mother back.
Heather Drake: I cannot change anything that happened in the past.
Heather Drake: I cannot change anything in the future, but I can be a compassionate witness right now while she walks through the pain.
Heather Drake: And she said to me this is inappropriate because I am taking your time.
Heather Drake: You intended to come in here and you didn't ask for my pain.
Heather Drake: And I said to her but I honor the fact that your pain is here and I care about you.
Heather Drake: And together we shared tears.
Heather Drake: Nothing fixed, nothing changed except compassion.
Heather Drake: And I want to tell you compassion heals us, compassion changes people.
Heather Drake: And Jesus, if you look at him, was full of compassion, in fact, through the prophet Isaiah this is what Isaiah said he is a man so full of compassion that he knows our grief, not only acquainted with grief, but knows our grief, beloved.
Heather Drake: If you want to know Jesus, go to someone in their grief and sit with them.
Heather Drake: But when we look at Jesus and when we begin to see as people, we see others' needs.
Heather Drake: This is the compassionate witness.
Heather Drake: I cannot change something for you, maybe, but I can let you know you are not alone, and this is the promise of God that we are not alone.
Heather Drake: And maybe you'll be like Philip who, in the scripture, said hey, there's a bunch of people that are hungry and Jesus cares about it.
Heather Drake: Who's got a lunch?
Heather Drake: I don't know, maybe he shook the boy down, who knows?
Heather Drake: I mean, we don't really know that Philip was this great guy.
Heather Drake: But Philip is the one who said hey, there's a boy here with a lunch and brought it to Jesus.
Heather Drake: And so maybe for us we have to be the people who say, like Todd did hey, there's a breakfast tomorrow.
Heather Drake: Do you want to come?
Heather Drake: Maybe we just give the invitation and say, together, there are people in the jungle who need a razzmatazz, and they didn't know it, but we got together.
Heather Drake: We sent him a little instrument.
Heather Drake: So probably I don't know there's, you know, five families who are just so full of joy.
Heather Drake: Now I think they probably destroyed them, but we sent the metal ones because we thought the plastic might not go through the mail, so like a good metal kazoo.
Heather Drake: So they got hair bows and fun things like that and a razzmatazz.
Heather Drake: I bring that up because sometimes it is just in the joy of giving, it is in the joy of saying this is what it looks like if you see someone in need and you don't do anything about it.
Heather Drake: That's why, together, we practice generous living.
Heather Drake: Together, we practice feeding the, the poor.
Heather Drake: Together, we practice taking care of each other and taking care of people who are not ours but who are ours because they're the family of god.
Heather Drake: That's it this is the hope for the world.
Heather Drake: This is how we change, that we experience the compassion of jesus and then we ourselves, full of god's compassion, go to others and offer that same compassion and I couldn't fully explain to you what exactly happened.
Dennis Drake: But I'm telling you what the presence of God was in that restaurant when Heather was holding that woman and I was weeping at the table and, uh, god did something.
Dennis Drake: She left that spot different.
Dennis Drake: And I believe that for you and I, that's all within us and I think sometimes we want to try hard or think maybe we don't know enough or we've got to get some more information, instead of just following that flow, because it's God who's doing it through us, you know.
Dennis Drake: So you don't have to.
Dennis Drake: You know, it's for him the will to do for his good pleasure.
Dennis Drake: You know, I think about when I was younger I wanted to go boogie boarding and one of the kids in my youth group had done it, lived by the coast and so he was really good at it, and so I went out there and I just had waves crashing on me and I'd hustle up and I just couldn't catch it and and it was like you know, and it was just like a surf movie or something.
Dennis Drake: He takes me out and he's like just look at the waves and and it's like meditating almost.
Dennis Drake: That's why I think a lot of surf people are can be very spiritual, because you're just stopping all your figuring and all your scheming and you're like, well, I'm just going to ride a wave.
Dennis Drake: That is so giant, you know, I mean one time a wave crashed on me and I just held the boogie board and just that little square inches of pounds of weight I mean I think it broke my thumb and it was just.
Dennis Drake: I mean, there's such power in that and I can't control that.
Dennis Drake: But if I just relax and just all of a sudden I was riding that giant wave, that strength that was so much greater and I couldn't control it.
Dennis Drake: I just had to learn how to get out of its way and kind of ride with it.
Dennis Drake: You know, and what an incredible metaphor, right For us.
Dennis Drake: You know, god's not asking you to figure all this out or to drum it up, but would you get out of the way and then just ride when God wants to do something amazing for somebody or wants to use you, that we can just get in more of that calm, meditative state where I can just watch the waves and I can see what's around.
Dennis Drake: And now I know it's time to move, because I've taken the time.
Dennis Drake: We spend that time in the presence of God and spend the time around followers who, who do know the rhythm and all of a sudden I can just take that plunge and step in that thing and sometimes you might miss it.
Dennis Drake: I missed that one.
Dennis Drake: Let's go back out and wait.
Dennis Drake: You know, the same thing with our walk with god.
Dennis Drake: There's just such a beautiful flow to that.
Dennis Drake: But do you see how the god of the universe so great in his power and we're trying to produce it.
Dennis Drake: But wouldn't it be better if you and I just got out of the way and let you know god, show us what wonderful things god wants to do?
Heather Drake: The invitation is that we would participate in the kingdom, that we could live like Jesus lived while we were here, that we could offer love to ourselves and to the world.
Heather Drake: And the invitation is to use the faith that we have been given not to keep people away, but to bring people into the love of Christ.
Heather Drake: Our faith is given to us as a way of living and this faith, in fact in verse 17, faith by itself isn't enough.
Heather Drake: And he's not saying faith in Christ isn't enough.
Heather Drake: He in fact is a follower.
Heather Drake: But he's saying if you just say you're a person of faith and you do not have corresponding actions, it's dead and it's useless.
Heather Drake: We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon.
Heather Drake: If you would like more information about us, visit us online at firstlovechurchorg.