SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, please visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: We are uh finishing today, this Sunday, um, the 11th of August, is um kind of the end of the summer for us here at Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_00: Um we have gone through um a sermon series called the Parables.
SPEAKER_00: Um uh you've you've seen the art all around the church over the summer.
SPEAKER_00: Um today is is our last Sunday of the Parables, which means uh next week uh Neil will be back in the pulpit.
SPEAKER_00: Um I had some friends this weekend, he is doing a uh he's doing a uh a family retreat uh for uh a couple churches up in Missouri.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I said, I was talking to them, I saw him, I said, Well, how do you guys feel?
SPEAKER_00: And the and the wife of one of the pastors said, I'm scared to death.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Why are you scared to death?
SPEAKER_00: And she says, Neil hasn't talked to anybody for 11 weeks, and he's gonna come here, and some of our people might die.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I texted and I said, I texted the guy, I said, Were your wife's fears uh realized?
SPEAKER_00: He hasn't texted me back, so I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad sign.
SPEAKER_00: But um we are uh we're we're glad, we're excited to have Neil back.
SPEAKER_00: We'll have one more week of his sabbatical, and he'll be back.
SPEAKER_00: But this morning, um, we're gonna finish up our parable series.
SPEAKER_00: Um as we talked about these parables going into this planning this last fall, knowing we're gonna do this, um, as we have talked and prayed as a staff, as a church, um, a few things that we were um actually several things that we were praying that we would understand more about Christ, more about God, more about um who he is, what his word says, what his purpose is for us.
SPEAKER_00: And so this week, as I was going through, I just jotted down a few things that I've walked away, not even uh the sermons that I preach, sitting there, being a member of this church, the things that I walked away with when it came uh to the parable series.
SPEAKER_00: One is that Jesus was a phenomenal storyteller.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Jesus did amazing and continues to do amazing things.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus enacted phenomenal miracles and preached um ridiculous sermons and did things that turned the world upside down, but he was also just an incredible storyteller.
SPEAKER_00: And something that struck me this week is he continues to be an incredible storyteller.
SPEAKER_00: Um and hopefully today we'll we'll understand that a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, Jesus was intentional and patient.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus continues to be intentional and patient.
SPEAKER_00: As you read the parables, and today is is no exception, as you read the parables, you see a lot of repeated themes.
SPEAKER_00: And that is one, Jesus being intentional, and two, that is Jesus being patient with us going, you just don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: And I've been with you, and he even says, I've been with you this long, and you still ask questions.
SPEAKER_00: But in that, he's just patient and continues to reveal himself.
SPEAKER_00: And lastly, Jesus used the parables for us to better understand the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, um uh pray that I don't get in the way, and so that that way God can continue to reveal who he is this morning.
SPEAKER_00: So this morning we're gonna be in Luke chapter 19.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 19 for our last parable.
SPEAKER_00: Um if you don't have a Bible, if you didn't bring one with this morning, you have two options.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the scripture will be on the screens behind me to your left and your right, but there are also Black Pew Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: Um around you, you can grab one of those.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna start out on page 878 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: That's where you'll find Luke chapter 19, page 878 in the Pew Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I want to start reading in verse eleven.
SPEAKER_00: It says this as they heard these things, we'll get back to these things in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.
SPEAKER_00: He said, therefore, a nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and then return.
SPEAKER_00: And calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minutes, and he said to them, Engage in business until I come.
SPEAKER_00: But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, We don't want this man to reign over us.
SPEAKER_00: Verse fifteen, When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by doing business.
SPEAKER_00: The first came before him, saying, Lord, your minor has made ten minus more.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, Well done, good servant, because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.
SPEAKER_00: And the second came, saying, Lord, your minor has made five mines, and he said, And you, you're to be over five cities.
SPEAKER_00: And another one came, saying, Lord, here is your minor, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief, for I was afraid of you, because you're a severe man.
SPEAKER_00: You take what you did not deposit, you reap what you did not sow.
SPEAKER_00: He said to him, I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant.
SPEAKER_00: You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit, reaping what I did not sow.
SPEAKER_00: Why then did you not put my money in the bank?
SPEAKER_00: And at my coming I might have it collected it with interest.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to those who stood by, Take the minor from him, and give it to the one who has ten minus.
SPEAKER_00: And they said to him, Lord, he he has ten minus.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I tell you, to every one who has more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
SPEAKER_00: But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: I'm aware that verse 28, probably in most of our Bibles, it doesn't fall under the parable of the ten minus, if that's what it's listed in in your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Um but I included it intentionally, um, and it is not my idea.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's the same reason that Luke places the story of the ten minus in his gospel where he does.
SPEAKER_00: Um I told you that we get back to the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the very beginning.
SPEAKER_00: It says, after they heard these things, look up, and what story is right above the ten minus?
SPEAKER_00: Mumbling, mumble, mumble.
SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus, we little man, and we little man was he, right?
SPEAKER_00: Climb up in a sycamore tree, see what he could see?
SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
SPEAKER_00: Did I just butcher it?
SPEAKER_00: Was that correct?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so Jesus had done this, and Jesus is rounding the corner from Jericho, and he's going into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: At this point, the crowd following Jesus is phenomenally huge.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is, it is it is gigantic, right?
SPEAKER_00: And they're following Jesus, and Jesus is walking and he's talking, and Zacchaeus is up in the tree.
SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus come down from that tree, he goes to Zacchaeus' house, and he has a conversation that's supposed to just be for he and Zacchaeus, but there are people surrounding the house listening to everything because they cannot believe that Jesus is gone to spend time in Zacchaeus' house.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus goes immediately from Zacchaeus' house after Zacchaeus just conviction, the beautiful gift of conviction, falls on him, and he says, I'll give half of everything back.
SPEAKER_00: And if I've cheated, if I've done anything wrong, and God says, kingdom has come to this house today, right?
SPEAKER_00: So that's when it says after these things.
SPEAKER_00: I do that, I say that to set the stage because Jesus obviously never wastes a word, never wastes a parable.
SPEAKER_00: And he's telling the story, piggybacking on this.
SPEAKER_00: And the other reason he's telling the story is remember there's this giant crowd following Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: This giant crowd following Jesus is thinking, okay, he's the one who's claimed to be the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember back in school in the Old Testament, they said the Messiah was going to be the one who's going to come and overthrow the government.
SPEAKER_00: And so they are on the march to follow Jesus as he comes into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to overthrow Rome.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be the conquering hero.
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus is doing is he's making it clear, he said, Hey, I'm not going to be the God you want me to be.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to be the God you want me to be.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be the God that I am.
SPEAKER_00: And that's going to look different.
SPEAKER_00: And so Zacchaeus, he says, um, and I think it's verse 9 of Luke, he says, Today salvation has come to this house.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: They're wanting Jesus to come and overthrow the government.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm going to come and seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: And let me explain to you how that's going to work, which is how we find ourselves in Luke 19, starting in verse 11 with the parable.
SPEAKER_00: Just a couple thoughts to kind of shape our minds for this.
SPEAKER_00: We talked about this when we did the parable of the lost son or the prodigal son on Father's Day.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the best storyteller.
SPEAKER_00: I kind of ruin stuff and give plot points away before we ever get there.
SPEAKER_00: But I think in understanding this, it's good to know exactly what we're reading.
SPEAKER_00: When you see the nobleman in this story, it's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The distant country, it's heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It's our eternal place.
SPEAKER_00: And the place he would return to is earth.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus went to heaven to receive the kingdom from his Father.
SPEAKER_00: And in knowing these, the correctness of this, the understanding of this really comes into play as God lays out these three things for us this morning that I think that he wants us to see.
SPEAKER_00: Three things.
SPEAKER_00: The first being potential.
SPEAKER_00: And I am well aware when we hear the word potential in church, when we hear it in the context of the gospel, for a lot of us it brings up maybe some not great thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us maybe that is tied to an experience with or an understanding of prosperity, prosperity gospel, an experience there, or maybe it's one of the hundred times we tried seven steps to be a better blank.
SPEAKER_00: And I won't out us all in here for how many of those we've done to be a better blank seven steps.
SPEAKER_00: And so you got this potential and you've got to sow it, and you got to name it, and you got to claim it, and you've got to do all these things.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason that a lot of our minds immediately go there is for the same reason in this parable when Jesus is talking to them is because we have an unlimited ability to corrupt the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We have an unlimited ability to make the gospel sound like what we want it to sound like.
SPEAKER_00: And for the truths to be applicable to how we feel and our worldview.
SPEAKER_00: But what Jesus is going to say is said, Hey, I know what you want from me.
SPEAKER_00: And I know you want me to overthrow the government, you want me to be the conquering king, and that'll come.
SPEAKER_00: But my timing looks a lot different than your timing.
SPEAKER_00: And what I've come now is what I just said in Zacchaeus' house.
SPEAKER_00: I've come to seek and save the lost, and salvation has come.
SPEAKER_00: And so the potential we talk about this morning is not our understanding of our potential, it's the potential that God has sown within us.
SPEAKER_00: It's the calling to which God has sown within us.
SPEAKER_00: Picked up a book I hadn't seen in a while, I hadn't seen in a while, knowing the sermon was coming up, written by this guy named Chip Anderson, just a brilliant theologian.
SPEAKER_00: And I love the fact that he is smarter than I could ever hope to be, and his name is Chip.
SPEAKER_00: I just think that's phenomenal.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a guy named Chip M.
SPEAKER_00: Anderson, and there's a quote I want, it's going to come up on the screen that I want to read you, and it just speaks to our unbelievable ability to corrupt the gospel and try to make it look like us.
SPEAKER_00: He says this we have refashioned God into the image of an omnipotent friend or divine psychologist who champions our full potential.
SPEAKER_00: This, in turn, has led to a new focus for measuring spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than for Christ's likeness to be our goal, we now strive to reach our full potential.
SPEAKER_00: This is the new aim of spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_00: Much that passes for evangelicalism today is only a disguised form of self-worship.
SPEAKER_00: God is little more than a narcissistic projection of our own needs and desires.
SPEAKER_00: We are preoccupied with self-fulfillment, self-fulfillment, not self-surrender.
SPEAKER_00: I have read that no less than 20 times this week, and every time I get sick to my stomach.
SPEAKER_00: Because we fashion God based on our worldview and what we think and what our preferences are, and we'll get to this in a little bit, our list of aspirations and desires, instead of it being the other way around of us shaping everything that we want and desire in the world being based around God.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to highlight three of these and just maybe uh kick myself in the stomach even more with this quote.
SPEAKER_00: Much that passes for evangelicalism today is only is only a disguised form of self-worship.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it says.
SPEAKER_00: This says it starts from right here.
SPEAKER_00: And it starts from right behind here.
SPEAKER_00: And it starts in the classes.
SPEAKER_00: All right, because it's easy for me to get up here or Neil to get up here, or Lance get up here, or one of our guest pastors to get up here, or even a Bible community teacher to get up and begin to say, Well, you people all got to get it right, and you gotta understand that God isn't driven by your circumstances and your preference.
SPEAKER_00: The reason that a lot of us believe this in the church is because it's taught.
SPEAKER_00: And we've been taught it, that God's number one desire is your happiness.
SPEAKER_00: And so then we begin to pass that on to our kids, and then our kids begin to believe that God's number one goal is their happiness, or them getting what they want, or us getting what we think we need.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not gonna stand up here and and use this to berate anything that we desire or that we want, but we we do need to set the stage for what God is teaching us here, and what Jesus is doing and teaching this crowd is that He's saying, Stop making it about you and understand who I am, and then you'll understand who you really are.
SPEAKER_00: And it needs to start from right here behind the pulpit, as you teach my word.
SPEAKER_00: God is little more than a narcissistic projection of our own needs and desires.
SPEAKER_00: We're like, well, we don't do that, but yet somehow we fashion our head that God's a Republican, or God's a Democrat, or God's a socialist, or God is this, or God is that.
SPEAKER_00: And then we begin to believe and we begin to put so much, and I don't I don't I don't mean to spend too much time on that on a quote and not in the text.
SPEAKER_00: There's a reason for this, is because what we do is we put more faith in what our corrupted belief about God is than what his word says about him and what he says about himself.
SPEAKER_00: And then we become members, and I'm not bagging on anybody, it's just maybe this is low-hanging fruit, and if it is, come see me after the service, we can talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: But we become the church of the homeschool, or we become the church of the tea party, or we become the church of the public school, or whatever it is, whatever our leanings and preferences are, and we miss, and God's saying, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Don't wrap it up in a handkerchief and hold on to it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's let's let's take this thing for a spin, right?
SPEAKER_00: My wife, I have said for years and years and years, before I was married, after I was married, four days ago, I will not own a minivan.
SPEAKER_00: All we've been talking about at my house is a minivan for like a week.
SPEAKER_00: And I get home last night, I came up here to do something, and my wife's computer is open.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I have to look.
SPEAKER_00: You're researching minivans right now, and she starts to tell me the difference between the toy, and I don't don't come up to me afterwards, grocery grabbers.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care about your swagger wagons.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: But she came up and she's telling me the difference between the Toyota Sienna and the Hana Odyssey and how they're rated and all these things, and I'm just like, can I just get a new truck?
SPEAKER_00: I was promised a new truck, and all of a sudden, now we're gonna get a minivan.
SPEAKER_00: What in the world?
SPEAKER_00: My car's falling apart, the headliner just wraps around my head.
SPEAKER_00: It's like I don't even know how I got caught off on that.
SPEAKER_00: Lastly, and I'll move on, is where was I going anyway?
SPEAKER_00: My wife's not in the service, so I get to rant in this one.
SPEAKER_00: The next one I have to behave myself.
SPEAKER_00: We're preoccupied with self-fulfillment, not self-surrender.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna let the text talk for that one.
SPEAKER_00: Um but I gotta be honest, I don't know if I've read a more poignant commentary on maybe it's just me.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just my incredible ability to miss Jesus and make my own God and make my own Jesus that fulfills my needs.
SPEAKER_00: But hopefully, um me, hopefully us, hopefully all of us can walk away.
SPEAKER_00: Um so we're inundated constantly at every turn with an with with the ability and the options and the tools to serve self.
SPEAKER_00: But in this text, God is calling us to use what he has given us to serve him.
SPEAKER_00: Says therefore, verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: He says, therefore, a nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return.
SPEAKER_00: Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minus, and he said to them, Engage in business until I come.
SPEAKER_00: I don't get caught up in this, I don't get caught up in something you don't care about, but I do want to just point something out so we kind of understand.
SPEAKER_00: It says ten servants, but we only hear about three of them.
SPEAKER_00: Ten is just complete.
SPEAKER_00: Just know that using that number ten is just completeness.
SPEAKER_00: That means it's all of us.
SPEAKER_00: God is calling all of us.
SPEAKER_00: The story is for every one of us, all right, that claims to be a member of his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I'm gonna give you a minus and do business with it, engage ten minus and engage with them.
SPEAKER_00: Um a minor, it's a Greek corn.
SPEAKER_00: Greek corn?
SPEAKER_00: No, Greek coin.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's worth about six months' wage.
SPEAKER_00: Take this six months' wage and do business with it while I'm gone.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying, Take what I've given you, use it for my profit.
SPEAKER_00: For my glory.
SPEAKER_00: It's my money.
SPEAKER_00: I'm putting it in your hands.
SPEAKER_00: It's my glory, I'm putting it in your hands.
SPEAKER_00: Now go do business with it.
SPEAKER_00: No does he ever say, hey, here's your aspirations, here's your desires, here's your list of things that I'll follow God once I do this.
SPEAKER_00: I'll start trusting God once my 401k is just cherry.
SPEAKER_00: Once it is there, then I'll start following God.
SPEAKER_00: Once my kids meet this level, then I'll really start to.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: He says, take what's mine, take my glory, and go do business with it.
SPEAKER_00: Invest with it, be good stewards of it, handle it well.
SPEAKER_00: And don't get caught up on the money thing.
SPEAKER_00: Because some of you are like me and you're like, I don't have two pennies to rub together, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's not the money.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, This is this is this is my kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Kingdom come on earth as is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna put it in your hands, go do business with it.
SPEAKER_00: And God's calling us to relinquish our idea of potential so we can focus our soul to his glory.
SPEAKER_00: It's our nature to make our needs paramount, to make what we think is most important paramount.
SPEAKER_00: Just thinking about that, keep your finger in Luke and turn over to the right to Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be on the screen as well.
SPEAKER_00: And unless you carry around the message version of the Bible, it's gonna look a little bit different in your Bible than what's gonna show up on the screen when I'm gonna read to you.
SPEAKER_00: Because our potential that Jesus lays out in front of the disciples, that this nobleman puts in front of his people, this parable in Luke 19, it's offered to the servants as minus.
SPEAKER_00: It's clearly laid out for us in Philippians 2 what this is, what God is handing over to us.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 2, beginning in verse 5, it says this think of yourselves the way that Christ Jesus thought of himself.
SPEAKER_00: He had equal status with God, but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
SPEAKER_00: When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and he took on the status of a slave.
SPEAKER_00: He became human.
SPEAKER_00: And having become human, he stayed human.
SPEAKER_00: It was an incredibly humbling process.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't claim special privileges, instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death.
SPEAKER_00: The worst kind of death, a crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything ever.
SPEAKER_00: So that all created beings in heaven and on earth, even those long ago dead and buried, will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ and call out in praise that he is the master of all.
SPEAKER_00: To the glorious honor of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Reading this, grasping the bounty of God's potential for us.
SPEAKER_00: We need to reconcile one thing this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Easy.
SPEAKER_00: You ready?
SPEAKER_00: Hello?
SPEAKER_00: Lay down your rights.
SPEAKER_00: Your faces.
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Lay down your rights.
SPEAKER_00: I'm coming after you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not scared of you, Tea Party, libertarians.
SPEAKER_00: Lay down your rights.
SPEAKER_00: Has nothing to do with that.
SPEAKER_00: But living, living in a great country like we do, we are instilled from very early that we have rights.
SPEAKER_00: We have rights.
SPEAKER_00: And we have rights that no one can take away from us.
SPEAKER_00: And we we we we we try to apply that to our life with Jesus, that we still get our rights, right?
SPEAKER_00: That we still have our own way of doing things.
SPEAKER_00: And even though we might be called to do something else, even commanded and mandated to do something else, we still get caught up in our own rights.
SPEAKER_00: Um my folks are in town and they'll be in the next service, so I have to amend this story as well so I don't get in trouble with my mom.
SPEAKER_00: But my mom, her middle sister, my mom, I think I brought this up last time, where my mom and her family grew up.
SPEAKER_00: They're not in here, right?
SPEAKER_00: I gotta make sure I don't want to get in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: That'd be a long ride home.
SPEAKER_00: Um my mom and her family are if you go up to like Hooterville and hang a left where the banjo music is, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you people have been here.
SPEAKER_00: That's where they're from, right?
SPEAKER_00: So they're they're an interesting group.
SPEAKER_00: So my mom, she has uh her middle sister, very eccentric um woman.
SPEAKER_00: And um, but we loved her growing up.
SPEAKER_00: She uh she she never married, never had kids, she was always around.
SPEAKER_00: She traveled the world, always brought us just great gifts.
SPEAKER_00: Um but then for at some point I was perpetually eight years old, so at 16 she was still sending me small t-shirts.
SPEAKER_00: Um like I don't think half shirts are in style, and no one wants to see that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but I remember um I remember when I was a kid, I remember I was in third, I don't remember what grade, but it was 1987.
SPEAKER_00: It was right when um Texas passed and got serious about the seatbelt law.
SPEAKER_00: And we were up in Oklahoma, and she had um uh uh it was one of the first Honda cords, and this thing was sweet.
SPEAKER_00: And you get in and it would talk to you.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, is this kit from Night Rider?
SPEAKER_00: This thing is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Um and it would say, fasten your seatbelt, fasten your seatbelt, fasten your seatbelt, and she would just drive without fastening her seatbelt, and the thing would just talk to her, talk to her.
SPEAKER_00: And I and we Called her Aunt Pip because my grandfather called her a hippie, and we didn't know how to say hippie, so we said Pippy and then Pip.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Pip, I said, don't you want to fasten that?
SPEAKER_00: And she, I mean, I mean she makes Ted Nugent look mild.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she is serious about her rights.
SPEAKER_00: And she would tell me that there is nothing that's gonna make her put her seatbelt on, and it wasn't a law in Oklahoma at the time.
SPEAKER_00: She goes, You backwards people down in Texas think you're gonna have people tell you how to be safe.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do that, and you you can do it on your own.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna wear a seatbelt.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember the next year going back, and the next year, 1988, I think I had my years right, Oklahoma then passed the law that you'd have a seatbelt.
SPEAKER_00: Get in her car, go to the store, fasten your seatbelt, fasten your seatbelt, fast.
SPEAKER_00: I know it surprised you, I was incredibly sarcastic as a kid.
SPEAKER_00: And so I shot off at the mouth uh to my aunt and I said something, and gee, I mean, I think she pulled the car over and gave me like a constitutional law lesson right there on the side of the road, and you can't make me wear a seatbelt and all those things.
SPEAKER_00: And I was reminded of that this week because I thought, okay, maybe some of us in here aren't as blatant to read what God says when he says, take my glory and do business until my return.
SPEAKER_00: And then go, I'm just not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we're not as blatant as that.
SPEAKER_00: But there are things, there are core doctrines of what Jesus calls us to do, core black and white things in the Bible, that we put off and maybe spiritualize it, shrink a little holy.
SPEAKER_00: I'll pray about it.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just pray about it.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: God clearly commands us to do something.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just I'll I'll think about it.
SPEAKER_00: I'll get I'm getting with my accountability group this week, and then we'll pray if God really means what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Let me go take this and wrap it up in oh, I think I hit home with a few people.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm just gonna wrap this up in a handkerchief and then tuck it under my mattress, and then and then we'll see how it pans out later.
SPEAKER_00: God says, No, do do business with me, right?
SPEAKER_00: So we gotta lay down our rights.
SPEAKER_00: And then look at this again.
SPEAKER_00: Calling the ten servants, he gave them ten minus, and he said to them, Engage in business until I get home.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to lay down our rights.
SPEAKER_00: And what does it say?
SPEAKER_00: It says calling ten of his what?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna treat you like the teenager.
SPEAKER_00: Trying ten of his what?
SPEAKER_00: Servants.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you know servants with a lot of rights get to do what they want, play how they want, spend their money how they want, go where they want.
SPEAKER_00: That is not a message we want to hear on Sunday mornings, but look at me.
SPEAKER_00: We are servants of God.
SPEAKER_00: God gets to tell us what to do.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what we get to do?
SPEAKER_00: Do it.
SPEAKER_00: Sermon's over.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Go home, right?
SPEAKER_00: Not so lucky.
SPEAKER_00: Servants have no rights.
SPEAKER_00: The role of the servant is to do the will of the master.
SPEAKER_00: Remember how you look in Philippians?
SPEAKER_00: With that understanding that the servant is called to do the will of the master.
SPEAKER_00: I feel very Baptist right now, leaning on this pulpit.
SPEAKER_00: I want you guys to know.
SPEAKER_00: I'm serious about this.
SPEAKER_00: With the understanding that we are called to do the will of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Look at Second Philippians, look at Philippians 2, rather, again.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think there is a 2.
SPEAKER_00: If you find 2 Philippians, let me know.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 2 5 and 11.
SPEAKER_00: Think about this.
SPEAKER_00: No rights as humans, but our only thing is to do the will of the Master.
SPEAKER_00: Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.
SPEAKER_00: He had equal status with God, but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of the status no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
SPEAKER_00: When the time came, when the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to get up on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want him to beat me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want him to say the things about me they're going to say about me in front of my mom.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want those things to happen.
SPEAKER_00: But not my will, but your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: Have the mind of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thinks of himself.
SPEAKER_00: When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and he took on the status of a slave, became human.
SPEAKER_00: Having become human, he stayed human.
SPEAKER_00: It was an incredibly humbling process.
SPEAKER_00: There are some of you in here that have lived and defended the faith longer than I've been alive.
SPEAKER_00: And you could get up here and you could preach this sermon better than I do because you understand what it is to be humbled following Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is a humble experience when you trust Christ with every area of your life.
SPEAKER_00: Because it means you don't get what you want.
SPEAKER_00: It means you've got to do things that you don't want to do.
SPEAKER_00: This has struck home with me in my house because before Sally and I had kids, we had a lot of preconceived notions.
SPEAKER_00: I know none of you did that, that you would look at people before you had kids in the restaurant and you're like, man, why don't you make that kid shut up?
SPEAKER_00: None of you have ever thought that before, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, my kids are never gonna do that, man.
SPEAKER_00: And I love, I love, and I know there's a lot of young people because they're in my class, and I see you guys sitting out here.
SPEAKER_00: I love when you post and you write on your blog, you post on Facebook.
SPEAKER_00: Why do these people bring their kids to restaurants?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, can't they have more respect?
SPEAKER_00: And dude, when you get to take your kids to a restaurant, like get out of your house and have sanity for like five, it's beautiful, right?
SPEAKER_00: But we had all these preconceived notions of what we're gonna do as parents, and then um, we had people speaking in our lives going, you have no idea what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: What you need to do is go talk with some people that have had kids and raised kids and made bad decisions and have learned how to make good decisions and go ask them.
SPEAKER_00: And we did that.
SPEAKER_00: And I would encourage you, if you got babies, if you're gonna have babies, go and get around people with gray hair and ask them about how to be a parent, right?
SPEAKER_00: Ask grandparents how to be a parent.
SPEAKER_00: And so we did that, and I remember we heard a lot of great stuff.
SPEAKER_00: That was from our own parents.
SPEAKER_00: Shocker, right?
SPEAKER_00: You get advice from your own parents.
SPEAKER_00: That was our own parents.
SPEAKER_00: That was we went back to the people that did our premarital counseling.
SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of you in this room we spent some time with before we had Sophie and circle back around, knowing we're gonna have a boy, how to how to raise a son, and all those things, and talk to some of you men.
SPEAKER_00: I got some great advice, but the one that kind of rose to the top in my mind looking at this was um, it's okay to admit you're wrong to your kids.
SPEAKER_00: Hello?
SPEAKER_00: Some of your parents are like, I've never been wrong, I have no idea what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And the teenagers are like, My parents aren't wrong, just ask them.
SPEAKER_00: They never said it, right?
SPEAKER_00: I've been at this about five minutes being a parent.
SPEAKER_00: All right, my oldest is four and a half years old.
SPEAKER_00: So I I've you probably guys have socks older than my kids.
SPEAKER_00: But um I have uh I have I I I've spent some quality time in my in my daughter's room saying, Hey, I'm wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Daddy, daddy was wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Dad, dad um didn't know what he was talking about.
SPEAKER_00: You and your mom had a conversation I didn't know about, and I came in as as uh Conan, the conquering father hero, right?
SPEAKER_00: New sheriff.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the deal, and some of you, some of you wives can relate to this.
SPEAKER_00: I travel a lot, and I'll come in with all the ideas of how things should be done in the house, right?
SPEAKER_00: And how things have been falling apart at the seams while I've been gone, right?
SPEAKER_00: Not a good idea, by the way, husbands, let me tell you.
SPEAKER_00: But I'll come in and you know try to straighten the kids out.
SPEAKER_00: And my daughter now she knows, and she's respectful that most of the time about it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, mom said this, this, and this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, well, that just trumped everything I just did right then.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but that is humble, that's a humbling experience to point your kids towards Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Because to be full of pride and never be wrong, because here's the deal, parents.
SPEAKER_00: You knew your parents when they were wrong.
SPEAKER_00: You knew when your parents were wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Your kids know when you're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: They're not mad at you for it.
SPEAKER_00: But it's just this amazing, humbling experience to be able to have a conversation with your kids.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you to give up power, neither's God.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: It's his anyway, but he's giving you some authority over your kids.
SPEAKER_00: He's just saying, be more like me.
SPEAKER_00: Be humble.
SPEAKER_00: It's a humbling journey following me.
SPEAKER_00: Become a servant.
SPEAKER_00: This is the last thing.
SPEAKER_00: Become a servant.
SPEAKER_00: It says, when the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and he took on the status of a slave and became human.
SPEAKER_00: Having become human, he stayed human.
SPEAKER_00: It was an incredibly humbling process.
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along the line, from when we become Christians, and I'm guilty of this, right?
SPEAKER_00: I get paid to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I got my name on a door over here.
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along the line, from when we first become Christians to when we become seasoned veterans of being believers, we forget how to serve.
SPEAKER_00: Remember when you were first a Christian, you wanted to jump into everything.
SPEAKER_00: And you wanted to get plugged into everything.
SPEAKER_00: But now we have excuses and we just know how to make them sound really holy, right?
SPEAKER_00: Of why we can't serve.
SPEAKER_00: But if we're going to take on the mind of Christ, if if saying, okay, this prophet that Jesus talks about, the the the money, the dividend prophet, not the speaker prophet, the prophet that he speaks about that we can have when we trust him with everything, and it says that we got to be like him to do that, he was a servant.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't claim special privileges, instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life, and he died a selfless, obedient death.
SPEAKER_00: The worst kind of death, a crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: Um here's what I want to do, because I want to move on.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the same guy that I showed you the quote from earlier, um, he's got a book called Uh Destroying Your Personal Cities.
SPEAKER_00: Some questions are going to come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: I was doing youth ministry.
SPEAKER_00: We used to call this the doggy bag.
SPEAKER_00: Um when you go out to eat and you got a big meal, it's hard to can't take it all down.
SPEAKER_00: If we were smarter as Americans, we would go in and just say, hey, can you go ahead and take half that meal and put it in a doggy bag, in a to-go container, because I don't need to eat 4,000 calories at one meal, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so can you go ahead and dice that up and I'll take that home and eat it for the next four days because that's how big that meal is.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes you eat a big meal, and this is this is a there's there's a lot about God's character in a in a very short parable here.
SPEAKER_00: Um but I have no desire to to try to get something out of it, it's not there.
SPEAKER_00: So what I want to do is just kind of allow us to be the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: And just some questions, maybe make a middle note of one of those which sticks out to you.
SPEAKER_00: If you take notes, maybe write these down.
SPEAKER_00: We'll leave them up there for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's a great book, destroying our private cities.
SPEAKER_00: It just talks about the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's all written around Philippians 2, 5 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: And it really this text really asks, what are we afraid of sacrificing and following God?
SPEAKER_00: Because I want to meddle just a little bit is um the things that we have decided to sacrifice and suffering here in America, a lot of it's pretty laughable if we're gonna be honest.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't want to hear my heart and look at me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to diminish any real suffering that's going on in a lot of our lives, because there's real suffering.
SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to following God and the excuses that we make to not trust God, a lot of that just comes down to our preference and our desired list of accomplishments.
SPEAKER_00: And then if we trust God, that might get in the way of getting what we think we need.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I ask the question, what's being sacrificed?
SPEAKER_00: Is it my rights?
SPEAKER_00: Destroying my private kingdom, my private city?
SPEAKER_00: My potential, my pride?
SPEAKER_00: Just some questions to chew on.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you guys look mad at me, so I'll move on.
SPEAKER_00: Now that we've explored our potential of dying to ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about making a profit, huh?
SPEAKER_00: Does that sound good?
SPEAKER_00: Hello?
SPEAKER_00: Are you really are you bored or mad at me?
SPEAKER_00: I can't figure out.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15, go back into Luke.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't been preaching long enough for you to be that bored, so I'm going to go with mad.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to go for the fences now.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by doing business.
SPEAKER_00: And the first came before him, saying, Lord, your minor has made ten minus more.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, Well done, good servant, because you have been faithful in very little, you should have authority over ten cities.
SPEAKER_00: And the second came, saying, Lord, your minor has made five minus.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, And you are to be over five cities.
SPEAKER_00: And then another came, saying, Lord, here is your minor, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief, for I was afraid of you, because you're a severe man.
SPEAKER_00: You take what you did not deposit, you reap what you did not sow.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Jesus is he's traveling, he's making his way into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Just going to set the stage for you as he's telling the story, and you picture these people coming back to this ruler, this nobleman, to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's around in the corner, it's early on Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: The crowd is huge, it's massive, right?
SPEAKER_00: These are the people that are going to throw down the palms as he walks in underneath the donkey's feet and say, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest.
SPEAKER_00: These are the same folks that are going to be yelling crucified just a few days later, right?
SPEAKER_00: Same group of people.
SPEAKER_00: Huge.
SPEAKER_00: He's telling this story to them because they're thinking, remember, from the very beginning, they're thinking he's going to come in and he's going to conquer.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to come in and I just want to be on the right side of him.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be on the right side of him when he comes down and he takes over his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why he includes this third person who just takes their minus and just kind of wraps it up in a handkerchief and hides it.
SPEAKER_00: And what the prophet that they want, what the prophet that this one had, who just had the one and hid it, is the prophet, is for Jesus to walk into Jerusalem, overthrow the government, and for Jesus to make then the Jews, the Israelites, the ruling party, and they want to be on the right side of him.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is like, not yet.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation has come to this house, Zacchaeus.
SPEAKER_00: Remember?
SPEAKER_00: Back in verse 9 before this parable?
SPEAKER_00: I've come to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: And so what I'm going to call you to do, the profit that you get to reap, is my work.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, it's not just about money, it's his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's his glory.
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to entrust us with it.
SPEAKER_00: The first came saying, Lord, your mind has made 10 minus more.
SPEAKER_00: The second one, it's made five minus more.
SPEAKER_00: And the third one came and said he hid it.
SPEAKER_00: But let's look at those first two.
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't, I did sales for about six months of my life.
SPEAKER_00: And I would sooner bludgeon myself in the eye with a blunt object than do that again.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are built for sales, and that makes the world go round, and I am thankful that you can do that.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot do it.
SPEAKER_00: I was not good at it, and uh it just didn't pan out, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so, but but in my short season of doing that, um, I kind of understood, okay, what's a good payoff?
SPEAKER_00: What's a good commission?
SPEAKER_00: How do those things work?
SPEAKER_00: Man, making a thousand percent commission.
SPEAKER_00: We're making a thousand percent, taking, we're taking one minus and turning it into ten.
SPEAKER_00: That is that's a pretty good payoff, right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's a payoff good enough to be then the mayor of ten cities, but it's a pretty good payoff, right?
SPEAKER_00: You've turned that much money and you've flipped it over and you've made it into ten, that's pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: But remember the parable, what Jesus is doing is he's saying, hey, just understand this and understand about my character, my character.
SPEAKER_00: And what he's saying to us is hear this story, hear what I'm really saying, and understand my character.
SPEAKER_00: Because everything is symbolic for something else.
SPEAKER_00: And the lesson that Jesus is teaching us here is that faithfulness in small matters always brings disproportionate rewards when the Lord's work is concerned.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna have a lot of money.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: God's not talking about money.
SPEAKER_00: What God's talking about is his glory.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, what would it look like for you just to trust me and for me to get glory out of that?
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like for you to finally have a conversation with your neighbor that you've been living across the street from for six years or seven years?
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like for you to begin to be more intentional with my glory?
SPEAKER_00: Our willingness to share the gospel with even one person could result in over a thousand souls being saved.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm kind of a tactical tact tactical?
SPEAKER_00: No, tactile learner.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Shows you.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't have it in front of me, so I didn't know what it was.
SPEAKER_00: Tactile learner.
SPEAKER_00: When I think about things, especially new concepts, when I'm trying to learn stuff, for me it helps to see things.
SPEAKER_00: It helps to have kind of an illustration behind it.
SPEAKER_00: Um I was thinking about what it would look like to lay down my own rights for God's prophet as it lays out in Luke 19, um, in this parable for my prophet to be aligned with God's prophet.
SPEAKER_00: Um I started thinking about this guy named Jim Elliott.
SPEAKER_00: Um, some of you are familiar with the story.
SPEAKER_00: There was a movie that came out, there's a book about it.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it'll sound familiar.
SPEAKER_00: Um there he is on the screen behind me.
SPEAKER_00: If you bear with me, I just I just want to read, um, I've I've kind of boiled down a phenomenal story into just a really short kind of reader's digest synopsis of Jim Elliott's life.
SPEAKER_00: Um and maybe this for you, as it did for me, um, just bring about just a little bit of granularity and grab some traction as we kind of turn our own corner and and and start to look at um ending this service.
SPEAKER_00: Um early in 1952, Jim Elliott sailed for Ecuador.
SPEAKER_00: The plan was to locate in an old oil station that was abandoned because it was considered too dangerous for oil personnel.
SPEAKER_00: It was close to the Aauka Auka tribe and had a small airstrip.
SPEAKER_00: The Aukas were a violent and murderous tribe and had never had any contact with the outside world.
SPEAKER_00: Jim wanted to bring the gospel, so he started a plan which was called Operation Aauka.
SPEAKER_00: Besides himself and his wife, his team consisted of five more missionary couples.
SPEAKER_00: The men discovered the first Aauka huts with the help of missionary jungle pilot, Nate Saint.
SPEAKER_00: The first attempt to contact them was by airplane.
SPEAKER_00: They would fly around the camp shouting friendship words at the Aauka language through a loudspeaker and dropping down gifts in a basket.
SPEAKER_00: They would literally, they would fly around, they had this um fixed wing, and they would fly around and they would they'd learn some Aauka words for like, hey, we're friends, hey, you're great people, hey, your land is beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: It was like airborne affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: It was great.
SPEAKER_00: They were just circling around, they would say wonderful things, and then they would drop gifts.
SPEAKER_00: I need more of that in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Um I should remember the first service.
SPEAKER_00: I'm on one of the flight plans for Southwest.
SPEAKER_00: If I could get them to fly a little bit lower and just tell me how nice my yard looks and that my hair looks good today, that would be great, and then drop a gift.
SPEAKER_00: That'd be beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what they're doing, and they do it for months, and that's how they begin uh to begin to make themselves familiar to the Aauka.
SPEAKER_00: Um, after three to four months of gift dropping, they decided to make a base on the Curry River.
SPEAKER_00: They called it Palm Beach.
SPEAKER_00: And after they had set up a shelter, they eventually made contact with the Aukas.
SPEAKER_00: And after a little persuasion, they were able to convince some of them to come to their camp.
SPEAKER_00: Encouraged by this visit, the men felt that it was time to go and minister to them.
SPEAKER_00: And one morning, after numerous songs of praise and considerable prayer, the men radioed their wives saying they were going to the village and would radio them again later.
SPEAKER_00: Operation Aukka was underway.
SPEAKER_00: The next day, a group of twenty or thirty Aukas went to Palm Beach.
SPEAKER_00: And so their plan that morning was we're going to take our group and we're going to go into their village.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to bring gifts, we're going to bring food, we're going to make our presence known.
SPEAKER_00: Well, they're getting ready to go, they're praying, they're worshiping, and here they see a group of about 30 Aukas coming their way.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, the Aukas are coming.
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as the others heard that, they flew into action, straightening up their camp.
SPEAKER_00: But little do these five men know that this would be their last few hours of life.
SPEAKER_00: The radio contact they made was the last radio contact they made, rather, was with Jim calling his wife, saying, We'll call you back in three hours.
SPEAKER_00: Jim Elliott's body was found downstream with three others.
SPEAKER_00: Their bodies had been brutally pierced with spears and hacked by machetes.
SPEAKER_00: After Jim's death, Elizabeth, her daughter, and another of the missionary sister Rachel, moved back to work with the Yahoo Indians.
SPEAKER_00: The love of Christ shown through their forgiveness allowed them to have an amazing success with the once murderous Indians.
SPEAKER_00: Jim's life was not a waste.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, God used his death to bring life through salvation to many Aukas in encouragement and inspiration to thousands of believers worldwide.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't really get to see himself happen what he had planned to happen, this Operation Aukka.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you guys might have seen the documentary they did.
SPEAKER_00: They kind of did a remake documentary, Into the Spears, a great book, The Gates of Splendor.
SPEAKER_00: So some of you know this, but um Jim Elliott's family goes back and they spend time and they love on and they live and they see they see them come to know Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They see the man who killed Jim Elliott come to be a believer and become a pastor in that tribe.
SPEAKER_00: Um I had the opportunity to see the Pilate's son out in California and see some of the tribe members that were there when Jim Elliott and the others were killed, and they're believers in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Why do I share that with us?
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes giving up, being a servant, saying, you know what, this is a humble road, but I want the prophet of God because the potential of me is a waste of time and energy.
SPEAKER_00: And every time, and some of you can relate to this, and I know I can, every time I have one of those marky moments, and I'm like, man, when this happens, then I'll be good, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I reach that and I'm like, that was so anticlimactic.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta be honest with you, I've never said that about anything that Jesus called me to.
SPEAKER_00: Never.
SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, we're not always gonna see that prophet played out.
SPEAKER_00: Jim Elliott didn't get to see it.
SPEAKER_00: But because of that, his kids and his wife, his wife never left.
SPEAKER_00: And they continued to minister to the Aauka, and now the Auka are coming to America, and Americans are getting saved because of the Auka's ministry that all started with Jim Elliott and and and Project Auka.
SPEAKER_00: Parents in here, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: Your kids are watching, right?
SPEAKER_00: Share with you, my parents are here this weekend, and um I even included in in the tomorrow email last night for those of you who get that.
SPEAKER_00: And I just have these memories that just my parents didn't do everything right.
SPEAKER_00: And and I can see them staying out in the foyer, so maybe they can't hear me.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're not listening to me right now.
SPEAKER_00: But I have these, I have these memories that just that stick with me, and my understanding of finances comes from a conversation that I had with my mom when I was five years old.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember I got some money for doing something.
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember what it was.
SPEAKER_00: But I got some money for doing something, and I told my mom all the time, because you have no concept of money.
SPEAKER_00: Well, most of us grown-ups, we still have no concept of money.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're in more debt than any other country in the world.
SPEAKER_00: But I had like four dollars, and I was like, I'm gonna buy a new bike and a big wheel and it's gonna get every He-Man there.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what I was gonna do, but I was gonna do all these things, right?
SPEAKER_00: And my mom, I remember my mom saying, that's not your money, that's God's money.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you what we do when it's God's money is you're gonna take a, you're gonna take some of that, you're gonna take 40 cents of the$4, and you're and you're gonna give that.
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna put it in the plate, and we're gonna say, God, thanks for giving you.
SPEAKER_00: And that's simple, but I I remember that.
SPEAKER_00: I remember we were living in Aurora, Colorado.
SPEAKER_00: I was five years old.
SPEAKER_00: I I remember that stuck with me.
SPEAKER_00: And I share that because I say, parents, the this prophet that God's calling you to is going to be played out in your kids.
SPEAKER_00: Their understanding of God's character, just like God's laying out his character for these people, you get to be ambassadors of that.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have kids of people at work that know you're a believer.
SPEAKER_00: Your neighbors that know you're a believer.
SPEAKER_00: I think Jim Elliott understood and lived out this quote that I'm gonna put on the screen from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that has just been slaying me lately.
SPEAKER_00: Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will.
SPEAKER_00: The master in the parable, and our master and savior Jesus Christ, is not calling us to leave a headstone behind that reads, lived a safe and moralistic life.
SPEAKER_00: Um lot of our family trips, I come from an older family.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm at the very young, I was kind of the surprise at the back end.
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of funerals when I was a kid, a lot of old Southern families, so a lot of trips to go uh see graveyards.
SPEAKER_00: That's morbid, by the way, but a lot of doing that when I was a kid.
SPEAKER_00: And so it just started as a morbid line of thinking of, you know, what would my headstone say?
SPEAKER_00: I had a lot of relatives that fought in World War II and Korea, and I just remember reading those, going, man, those are phenomenal.
SPEAKER_00: Um, amazing women of faith and the things that it said about them.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that our headstone, that God's intention for us is say lived a safe and moralistic life and avoided sin, right?
SPEAKER_00: I think it's more living a life and then leaving behind a legacy that says lived courageously and actively did God's will.
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to the final point of the story, and I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: It's the promise.
SPEAKER_00: The promise.
SPEAKER_00: Going back to that quote at the very beginning about how we can shape God into what we want and what we want to hear and what we want other people to see.
SPEAKER_00: Um pastors' preachers are not immune from that.
SPEAKER_00: Um leading up to a text like this in the last couple weeks, and I'm gonna preach this, it's just like, okay, this is a hard part of the text.
SPEAKER_00: That's a hard pill to swallow.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Jesus is gonna slay some people.
SPEAKER_00: And people aren't gonna like that I say that.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not my job to apologize for what God says is truth, right?
SPEAKER_00: But I can be guilty of trying to realign or maybe skip over it real quick so you guys don't get mad at me and I don't have a lot of emails from you who don't agree with that.
SPEAKER_00: But that would mean that I am not living up to the potential of trusting God and His Word and living in the profit of just do my work, do business with what I've given you.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's read about this promise as I tell you that everyone who has more will be given.
SPEAKER_00: But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
SPEAKER_00: But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.
SPEAKER_00: That verse 27, Jesus is making something that is really hard to swallow sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: This reality of his promise very clear.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying to the people and he's saying to us, if you, if you do not have a relationship with me, if you do not trust me as Christ, if you do not take what I give you and do business with it, saying, I trust God, I know I've been called to be an ambassador of him, to be Jesus with skin on at work and at home and with my kids.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't do that, then your eternity is spent apart from him.
SPEAKER_00: The slaying, this physical death that he's talking about, is the spiritual death of being forever separated from Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that bothers some of us in here.
SPEAKER_00: It bothers some of us in here, but it is the promise clearly laid out by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is why it says in John 5 22, it'll be on the screen the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.
SPEAKER_00: That all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
SPEAKER_00: Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
SPEAKER_00: Those who have not believed, therefore, the Bible says, if you do believe, you do not come into judgment, therefore, if you don't believe, you come into judgment.
SPEAKER_00: The enemies of verse 27 correspond to the unbelievers in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They not only lose reward, but their very lives.
SPEAKER_00: But the promise of God is also clear in verse 24-26.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to those who stood by, take the minor from him and give it to the one who has ten minus.
SPEAKER_00: And they said to him, Lord, he has ten minus.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that the people who heard the story, they're like, that's not fair.
SPEAKER_00: Why don't we give it to one who has less of a reward?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't we go and for the one who didn't really trust, but they they tried their best.
SPEAKER_00: And for some of us in here, it seems drastically unfair.
SPEAKER_00: But we've we've we've missed the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: When this third one says, hey, I took the coin, I took the minus, and I wrapped it up in a handkerchief and I stuffed it under my mattress because I knew, I knew you were harsh.
SPEAKER_00: God isn't agreeing with him when he says, Oh, if I'm harsh, then this and this.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, hey, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me show you the fallacy, let me show you the holes in your argument.
SPEAKER_00: If you really believed that I was that kind of God, which I'm not, because if you believed that, then you completely miss my character.
SPEAKER_00: But if I was really that kind of God, which I'm not, then you would have taken that minus and you would have at least put it in the bank so we gained a little interest on it, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I could get a little scratch when I came back into town.
SPEAKER_00: But you didn't really believe that.
SPEAKER_00: You don't even believe that about me.
SPEAKER_00: I would venture to say that I don't even think you know what you believe about me.
SPEAKER_00: You just know that, hey, I'm just gonna try not to mess this up.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just gonna take it, I'm gonna wrap it in a handkerchief, and I'm just gonna hide it.
SPEAKER_00: And church, here's my fear, and I'm done is that some of us we come week in and week out relating to God that way.
SPEAKER_00: I don't really know what to think about you, but I'm just trying to screw it up.
SPEAKER_00: And if I could just stay on the right side of you and just continue to check off my list of the things I want to get done, because I'm too busy to do business with what you've given me.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just gonna keep working the list of things I want to get done.
SPEAKER_00: If we could just reconcile that, God, would that be okay?
SPEAKER_00: I was really good this week, and I didn't look at this and I didn't say this, and I didn't, and we make God this angry taskmaster up in the sky.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of recognizing that God has already done it, He's already set us free.
SPEAKER_00: He's just saying, Hey, enjoy the prophet.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy working for me.
SPEAKER_00: It's a profit of work.
SPEAKER_00: We all get excited to work, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: God's like, come work for me.
SPEAKER_00: There's your prophet.
SPEAKER_00: You can see my glory through your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you know about me.
SPEAKER_00: Do stuff for me, that's how you'll know who I am.
SPEAKER_00: Trust me, that's how you'll know who I am.
SPEAKER_00: Realize that I've already charted it out.
SPEAKER_00: Walk in it, trust it.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you figure out who I am.
SPEAKER_00: Do me a favor, stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_00: If you would put your hands out like this, just palms up.
SPEAKER_00: I was reminded this week, um, I was gonna send this out in an email, and I thought, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I think I'd be cheating my people if I did an email.
SPEAKER_00: Um had a conversation with with Beakram de Gaulle.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you guys know Beakram de Gaulle.
SPEAKER_00: We refer to him as the Beak around here.
SPEAKER_00: The Beak is uh is a pastor in India.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the Beak runs an orphanage that we have been blessed as a church to be able to sponsor and to uh and to fund his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Um you have been seeing this for years.
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who have been around for a while, we have been building a freestanding, debt-free orphanage for 40 orphans.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Beek called me on Friday and said, Pastor, can I move the orphans in?
SPEAKER_00: The building is done.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Beek, why did you even call?
SPEAKER_00: Move them in.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Um, because of you and just giving abundantly and just prayers and just all that goes into that mission, along with everything we do, but that mission in India.
SPEAKER_00: The reason I bring that up is I remember two years ago, Lance led a trip um to India, and I remember um seeing on a video, he was speaking a blessing over the kids in the orphanage.
SPEAKER_00: And orphanage, I mean uh a room smaller than most of our master bathrooms, but there's 40 kids in there.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, uh, put your hands out like this.
SPEAKER_00: This is the part right trying not to cry.
SPEAKER_00: He says, put your hands out like this.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason we do this is we're just expecting to receive.
SPEAKER_00: Um and it's not from me, and it's not from Neil, and it's not from Lance.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's from God.
SPEAKER_00: And it's simple this morning.
SPEAKER_00: He said, God's already charted the road.
SPEAKER_00: He's just asking us to walk it.
SPEAKER_00: He's asking us to trust, to lean into the prophet of work, to live up to the potential that he has for us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do that.
SPEAKER_00: It's good, it's humbling, and it's cathartic, and it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do that this week.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.