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Well good morning. So good to be here with all of you. And um we're just so glad my wife Lindsay is here uh with me. And um we have three kids that they're at the other church right now. We asked them if they wanted to join us, and I think they prefer their friends than coming with mom and dad. But uh we're so glad uh to be here with you, and we're so glad with what God is doing and in this community, what God is doing in um South Austin. And um a couple of years ago, I know I know you you've heard the story before from from Nick. A couple of years ago, exactly two years ago this January, uh Nick called me up. I didn't know who he was, and he just called me up and asked me to go to lunch, and so I did. He said he was buying. So uh I said, yeah, I'll go. Of course, he was late and he didn't buy. He still loves me that lunch. No, just kidding. But uh ever since then we've developed a friendship and um just got God has been working uh in that friendship. Uh we started praying every month for South Austin. Um, and just through uh through that relationship, uh our hearts just kind of binded uh in that God is trying to do something here in Austin bigger than what uh our own plans have been. And uh anyway, long story short, uh this is we've been talking about this uh partnership, uh partnering up together at Life One Church and also uh Redemption City Church uh to make a bigger impact uh here in South Austin. And we're glad. We're glad that God has moved us. It's not easy, of course, right? Um there's a lot of logistics, a lot of uh things to work through, but I think uh we will all uh one day understand why God did this and why God is moving us forward. Uh we're in this series, uh Up In and Out, and we you started uh we started last week, Life Point is also going through that series, and that you are here. And Up In and Out is just a simple series, um in that if we just remember these three words, Up, In and Out, it will just uh narrow down and simplify what uh Jesus came to do. It will narrow and simplify what's most important to God. And if you can remember and live out these three words, I believe that we will have lived out what that what is God honoring and live out what's most important to Him, to the one who died for us. You know, sometimes religion gets complicated. And that's why I believe that Jesus simplified it for us. And this is as simple as it gets as it gets up in and out. And Nick started you off, and we started last week with uh the this thought of up. And uh let me read to you the text where this series comes from. It's from Matthew chapter 22, verses 33 through 40. I'll be reading from the New Living Translation. But if you want to turn there, Matthew 22, 33 to 40. Just a review of last week. This is Jesus speaking to the crowds and to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the religious of that time. And he says that when the crowds heard him, they were astonished at his teaching. They were astonished at Jesus' teaching. Jesus was the best teacher that has ever lived. But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question. They're trying to kill Jesus. The Pharisees, Sadducees, the religious were jealous of Jesus because the crowds were now following him. They said, Teacher, now they're not being very sincere here, but he says, Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses? Can you simplify that for us? Out of 600, 700 commandments in the Old Testament, which one do you think is the most important? They were trying to trap them. Jesus replied, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law, that means the entire Old Testament, the entire Bible, the law and the prophets, all of it and all the demands of it, are based on these two commandments. Jesus simplifies this for it. It's all about these two things. Love the Lord your God with everything you have. That's what Nick talked to you about last week. To love God, that's that's the most important. This up relationship with God is the most important commandment. Now, if you go back to the Ten Commandments, it was, you know that love the Lord your God is not uh explicit there as one of the top ten commandments, but it is implied through all these commandments that that is the most important thing, to love the Lord your God. The first two commandments deal with idolatry and not having idols in our lives. That means to love God with all your heart. And that's what you talked about last week, the up relationship. Jesus said, This is the most important thing that you can do with your life, to live this out in your life, to love the Lord your God with everything that you have. And the second one, he says, the second one is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. So the next two weeks, that's what uh we will be talking about. How to live this out, how to love others in our lives. Nick's gonna talk to you about loving uh those in God's family to love in next week. And in fact, um Nick was kind of tricky. He says, You want to switch uh these uh next couple of weeks? You preach here, and he preaches over there. I said, Sure, you know, what's the idea? And he said, uh, well, that's we only have to write one sermon in two weeks, and that way we just switch. So he's preaching your sermon next week over there, and I'm doing the same here today. But so he's gonna talk to you about loving uh in. I'm gonna talk to you this morning about loving out. To love your neighbor, to love outside of God's family. You know, God has always had a mission, and one of the things that really drew me to Nick and to this ministry, and I see the hearts of the heart of this church, is that you're a church on mission. That God has set the heart, the DNA of this church to be about other people, to draw others to Christ. You see, God has always had a mission. When we think of mission, we think of mission statements, we think of big corporations that have mission statements, and we think that at times that uh mission statements started with corporations, but missions have started with God. The mission, God has always had a mission. The church was not the first one to have a mission. God has always had a mission. In fact, when God started to build his family, you remember he started with Abraham back in the Old Testament in Genesis chapter 12. God started to build his family, he goes to Abraham and he says, I want to build a family, I want to bless the entire world through you. Now the problem was that Abraham was 90 years old, his wife was 10 years younger, he had no children. And in fact, he still had to wait about 10 years before he even had his first son Isaac. But listen to what uh Genesis, what God told Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. Abraham was a wealthy man, he he lived in his in his father's home, and and um and God asked him to do something. In Genesis 12, verses 1 through 2, he says, The Lord has said to Abram, leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family, and go to the land that I will show you. So he's asking him, I want you to go. I want you to leave what's comfortable, and I'm gonna take you somewhere else. And he says to him, I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you. God says to Abram, Abram, I know you're comfortable. I know you're in your comfort zone. I know you've been blessed here. I know you've accumulated a lot of wealth, and I know that this is, you know, you could live out the rest of your life here. He says, but I have another plan for you. I want you to go. I want you to leave what's familiar, and I want you to go. I have a mission for you, Abram. And in that mission, I'm going to make you into a great nation. I'm going to bless you so you can bless others. Now you can get the entire message by these two words today. If you can remember, go, and you can remember bless. Go so you can bless. That's God's mission for Abraham. I want you to go so that you can be a blessing to others, so that your family will bless the entire earth. You see, God's mission is bigger, bigger than what Abram could imagine. It wasn't just so that he could have a nice life, it wasn't just so that he could accomplish a few things here on earth. His mission was that he could go out and be a blessing to the entire world. You see, God calls us out of our comfort zones to be on mission for him. And he calls us, also calls us to go out and to bless others. And in fact, God wants our families to bless others. One of the things that we teach a lot about in church, and the Bible teaches a lot about the family. The New Testament, the Apostle Paul taught about the family, how to raise a family, how to keep our family together, how to strengthen our marriages. One of the reasons it's not just for self, just not so we can have nicer families, but the mission is that our families will bless, will be a blessing to others, would be a blessing to other families. God gave this mission to Abraham that he was going to give him a family so that he could go bless other families. God has always been on mission. When I think of the prophet Jonah, it reminds me once again that God has always been on mission. God gave Jonah, the prophet Jonah, a mission to go and give Nineveh a message of repentance. But guess what? Jonah decided to run away, didn't he? Jonah decided to run away from the mission, but God persisted. If you know the story of Jonah, God gave Jonah this mission to go to Nineveh. He tried to run away. He tried to run the opposite direction. He got on a boat. God caused a great storm to come and just everyone was about to perish until they threw Jonah over the overboard. Jonah is swallowed by a great fish, and after three days, when Jonah finally repents, God gives them a mission again. Let me remind you of that mission in Jonah chapter 3, verses 1 through 5. Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time. Isn't God good? When we reject them, when we run away, when we turn them down, when we don't listen, he gives us a second chance. He gives, he's the God of second and third chances. Lord spoke to Jonah a second time. Get up and go to the great city in Nineveh and deliver the message I have given you. This time, Jonah obeyed the Lord's command. It's a good idea to obey the Lord the first time. Or you'll get swallowed by a fish, maybe. This time Jonah obeyed the Lord's command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all. On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds, Forty days from now, Nineveh will be destroyed. The people of Nineveh believed God's message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow. Jump down to verse 10. It says, When God saw that they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened. Isn't God merciful? You see, it was the mission wasn't just about Israel. Sometimes we think that it's it was all about Israel that God just cared about this one little country. No, God cared for that little country so that they could be a blessing to others. Nineveh, one of the reasons Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh is because they were not God's people. They were evil, they were outsiders, they were foreigners. He did not care about them. And God in his mercy, see, in his mission, he has a mission for the entire world. God says, Jonah, go. Go get give this evil city my message. And he asked them to turn their ways. And Nineveh believed from the least to the greatest. And they turned to God, they repented, and God in his mercy forgave them, and he changed his mind and did not destroy them. You see, God is always on mission. God has always been about a mission. When I think about the exile, the exile of Israel, when Israel turned to idols, they forgot about God and he allowed for other countries to come in, other empires to come in and to take them into slavery. And they were exiled in Babylon. And as they are there in Babylon, and people, the Israelites are suffering, and they're wondering when is God's mercy going to show up? When is he going to get us out of this? And Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 11, is one of the most popular verses that there are, right? You're familiar with that? When God says, For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope in a future. You familiar with that verse? Yeah? Most people are, right? Most Christians are familiar with that verse. Even non-Christians are familiar with that verse. But we all uh often, when we look at that at that verse, we we think about, well, God wants to bless me. God wants to be for me to be successful, God wants to answer my dreams. Well, um, the context is not about success here. What God is talking here is not about personal success or personal dreams or personal accomplishment. But the context here, it's about being on mission for God. Although they were in exile for 70 years, God wanted them to be on mission in their city wherever they were located, as exiles, to be a blessing to that city. Back up a few verses in Jeremiah 29, verses 4 through 7. It says, This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce, marry and have sons and daughters, find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there. I heard this church is really good about that, obeying God's commandment. Says, do not decrease. Also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers you, you too will prosper. He says, I know you're in exile, but I want you to be on mission for me in that city. I want you to be missionaries in Babylon. One of the things that really drew my heart to Nix, and is what happened here with this church where six or seven of you the families here from Round Rock moved to South Austin. They just you picked up and sold houses and left jobs and came to South Austin to be on mission. See, God has always been about mission. God has always been about putting his people, his followers in different places and different locations. The apostle Paul reminds us of this. He says he has decided where everyone should live so that people would turn to him in Acts chapter 17. When God took the people of Israel into exile, he gave them a mission to be a blessing. To go and to be a blessing, to bless others, to bless that city. Friends, God has always been about a mission. And Jesus reminded us, go and love your neighbor. Jesus mandated, remember, Jesus, after he was crucified and he was resurrected from the dead, he appeared to his disciples one more time on the mountain right before he ascended. In Matthew chapter 28, 18 through 20, he gave them a mission. It wasn't a new mission, it was a reminder of a mission that God had always had. Verse 18, he says, Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth because of the resurrection. Therefore, go, go out. Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you and be sure of this. I am with you always. Even to the end of the age. See, Jesus gave the church a mission. He created a mission out of the church for his mission. Jesus' mandate has always been for his followers to go out. Jesus' mandate for the church has always been to go out. To go out and bless other people. Our mission is to make disciples. Now some of us will say, but I'm not trained. I'm not skilled. I don't know how. I don't know how to talk about Jesus. I'm not outgoing. There are others that can do that. There are others that we pay to do that, but not me. No, friends. He has given us the same mission. It's your purpose in life, my purpose in life to go out and to be a blessing to others. It takes love to go to people, doesn't it? That's why Jesus reminded us that love your neighbor. You want to know what the most important thing to God is? Love God. Up love others. The entire Bible you can summarize it this way. Love others. Go out and love others. Friends, what I gather from this is that it's not optional. No one is exempt from this. No one can run away from this mission. What I also know is that everyone can bless others. Have you been blessed? Let me ask you. Raise your hand. Have you been blessed? Alright, that's almost everyone here. God says, I have blessed you for a reason. I've blessed you for a reason. The reason I have blessed you is so that you can bless others. Some of us have been blessed with some talents and skills. God says, I want you to use those talents and skills to be a blessing to others. Some of us have been blessed financially. Well, not me, but no, we've all been blessed financially, right? God says, I want you to use that. There's nothing wrong with being wealthy and having things and having money. But I want you to use that for my kingdom. I want you to use that for the sake of others. I want you to be a blessing to others. Some of us have been blessed with education. Especially if you went to the University of Texas. There you go, Amy. Alright? Some of us have been blessed with education. God says, use that to bless others. To teach, to love on people. Go out and be a blessing to others. Everyone, friends, that's the thing. Jesus says, I'm gonna be with you. Whenever you get afraid, whenever you wonder if you can do this, he says, Do not worry. See, he was sending out these apostles, no money, no church building, no properties, nothing. All he said was, all authority has been given to me, and I want you to go. I'm sure the apostles thought, okay, and how do we fund this? How do we pay for this? How are we gonna do this? Here's here's what here's the promise. I'm gonna be with you. Where's the plan? Abraham, I'm sure, when God called Abraham to go and leave, he must have said, What's the plan? And he did say, What's the plan, God? And he says, Don't worry, just trust me. I'm just gonna take you every step of the way. When the apostles said, Okay, when he tells them, go into all the world and be my witnesses. I'm sure they asked, What's the plan? How do we do this? Can we see the end? Like, here's the plan. Just trust me every step of the way. Take one step at a time, and I will be with you. I will speak for you. I will put the words in your mouth. But what I want you to do is go and bless others. Now, the question that we might be asking is who do we go to? God is sending us to go out and to bless others. But here's a question for me. Who do we go to? Who do we go to? Well, I believe Jesus gives us the answer through the word, but also through his example. And the first thing is neighbors. Right? Neighbors. In the book of Luke, Luke tells us the account of the greatest commandment when a Pharisee comes to him and asks him. It's the same story, but Luke explains it even further. When this religious leader asks, now, when Jesus responds, you know, love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself, this religious leader responds by asking, Well, who is my neighbor? I have no idea. Well, I believe your neighbor is what Jesus said, your neighbor. To go to your neighbors. You are called, you and I are called to go out and be a blessing to the neighbors, the people that live on our streets, the people that live down the block. To bless your neighbors by praying for them, by loving them, by serving them. Nick's gonna talk a little more about that next week, loving your neighbor. Number two, who do we go to? To the poor. God has always had compassion for the poor, for the outsiders, for foreigners. God's heart has always been about the poor from the very early age. He wants his people, his followers, his church to bless the poor, to bless those on the margins, to bless the outsiders, the foreigners. You remember the parable of the great banquet? Where there's a master that invites many guests to come to this great feast that he's about to give. And hardly anybody comes. The master comes to his banquet and he says, Where's all the invited guests? Where's all my supposedly friends? Where's my family? They said, We don't know. The master says, No, this place has to be filled up. So I want you to go quickly in Luke 14, 21, he says, go quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. There's many times people who reject God. We shouldn't give up on them, but there are times where God uses this to remind us that there are other people that He wants us to go out and bless. Those who are marginalized, those who are needy and friends, you don't have to see, you don't have, we don't have to go very far to know that there are great needs here in South Austin. You don't have to go very further than this, even this school. You know, the floods of uh uh October 31 here in South Austin. Um we had no idea, right? Uh as most of you probably uh until you woke up the next day. And uh, but we had no idea what the next day we went out, and it was like about one mile from our house where the destruction just started. She's like, wow, it's so amazing. It was so close to our home. And yet we see the next day we went, and there's just people trying to clear out, and and uh my my wife was really good about that on Monday. She just she was so heartbroken about this uh on Monday. What she did is her and she called up uh Sandra from uh from our church, and I don't know what to do, but let's let's go do something. And they bought just a bunch of pizzas because so many people were there working and trying very hard to get all this stuff out, and and they just blessed people with pizzas and and no one turned them down. And they prayed with people, and uh we don't have to go very far, friends. There's so much need around us, there's so much need close to us, and God says, I want you to go, I want you to go and bless. Sometimes, you know, we don't have to preach when we think about reaching others for Christ, we think, oh, I have to preach to them. It doesn't start, it never starts out that way. Jesus never started out that way. He started by loving people, by accepting people where they were, by caring for their needs, by loving them where they were. And as people became interested and they saw his love, they become interested. There's something different about this guy, and he pointed them to the Father. That's how he loved people. Who else do we go to? Well, this was another big go for Jesus. Sinners. This is where Jesus really demonstrated it with his life. He would go out to sinners, to people who who were far away from God. In fact, they condemned him because of this. Because Jesus was supposed to be this great rabbi, this great prophet, this person who supposedly was sent from God. And the Pharisees and the religious people could not understand how he could associate with people that wanted to do nothing with God, people who were drunkards and tax collectors and lived a different kind of lifestyle. Sometimes when we're in the church, we we forget where we used to be. Right? That we also were sinners at one time, that one time we our hearts were far away from God, even if you were raised in church. I know so many people, you know, that were raised in church, and I went because my parents forced me to go, but my heart was not really in it. You see, we we all have sinned and falling short of the glory, but sometimes the danger is that we become too religious. Too religious, and we forget what the plan, what the mission of God was all about was to rescue the sinner. In Luke chapter 5, 30 and 31, Jesus taught us this lesson when he says, when Luke says, But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belong to their sect complained to his disciples, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? Why aren't you in church? Shouldn't you be in church? Shouldn't you be at the Bible study and shouldn't you be with us guys talking about God? Jesus answered him, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. So I mentioned next week, next going to talk about in loving the people in God's family. And when it comes to loving the people in God's family, we we do establish some rhythms, right? Worship service, worship, I love worship. Every Sunday I look forward. I'm gonna be with a church family, I'm gonna see people I haven't seen all week, and people who will encourage me, people who will love on me. It's great to be in community. I look forward to our small groups. It's great. Jesus says we should do that. We should love one another, right? We develop these rhythms of spending time with believers, but God also instructs us to develop some rhythms in our life of spending time with people far away from God. Maybe have someone over once a week. Make it a discipline, make it a rhythm. Having someone over once a week for dinner. Someone far away from God, someone who doesn't know God, someone who doesn't go to church, someone who's not connected to a church. You don't have to preach to them. Just develop that rhythm. Have someone over. Maybe invite an unbeliever to a ballgame. I know when I get tickets, three tickets to something, the first thing I think of is, hey, who can I invite from the church? Maybe develop this rhythm where who can I invite? Someone who's far away from God. Just spend time with them. Rub shoulders with people far away from God. Spend time with people far away once a week. Maybe make relationships at the places that you frequent. Restaurants, coffee shops, the gym. Just develop friendships, relationships, and let's see where God takes that. There's uh our our youth pastor, Dusty, you'll get to know him. Uh, but he he works at Chili's, he's uh he's a server, and uh last year he got married. Last year was it last year, year and a half ago? They have a six-month-old baby now, but uh as you know, it's when your family starts to grow, um you have to make more money to feed the kids. So uh he was there was something that was really troubling him, um, I could tell, and he finally got the courage to come talk to me, and and he said, Josue, uh, you know, I've been serving there at Chili's as a waiter, and you know, I've been happy, you know. I don't have to make a lot of money, but I've been happy doing that. He says, but uh I've been offered uh sort of like a promotion, something that's gonna make me a little more money. Um, but I don't know if it's gonna be okay with you. I said, what's that, Dusty? And he said, uh, I've been offered the job of a bartender. And tips are bigger, the bartender, but I don't, I don't know if it's I don't want I didn't want to ask, but I said, Dusty, man, that is great. That's a great opportunity. Those are the people that God wants you to rub shoulders with. God wants you to spend time. People like that. Uh, it's one thing that means awesome things happening at Chili's South Park Meadows. Dusty invited one of the other servers who she'd been struggling with life, and uh Dusty invited her to church, and uh she's she gave her life to Christ uh last Easter. Her life has just been transformed. She is so excited about Christ. You're gonna get to know her, Adriana. Uh she's so excited about Christ, she's just inviting everyone. She's they started inviting everyone at Chili's. We've had uh managers from Chili's come to church. We've had the the big boss who she's single mom, she has two kids. They started coming to our Wednesday night program. I mean, everyone at every time we go to Chili's, like we've seen one of them at church at one time or another. There was there was another customer also there at the bar who started to develop just, you know, if you go to the I mean, I don't know, I've never you know gone to the bar too much, but maybe I should. But there's a there's there's a customer there that just was there just about every day, and he developed a relationship with Dusty. And um just as this customer started opening up about his life and his problems, this Dusty invited him to church. One time they came, him and his wife, and their life is changing. It comes, it turns out that they're our neighbors just around the street. So Lindsay and I have been spending time with them. In fact, I went to the bar with him, not to drink, but you know, I had a diet, diet coke. But we watched the football game there. You see, sometimes the religious were so scandalized that Jesus had been spending time with sinners. Jesus says, that's that's my father's heart. If you only knew how much my God cares about sinners. If you only knew how much God cares about people who are far away from Him. If you only knew my father's heart, you would know my mission. You would know why I'm here, that I'm here not for the healthy, not for the people that think they have it all together, but I'm here for those who are sick. I've not come come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Friends, my question for you and for me, for us do you have a heart for people who are far away from God? Do you care about them? Are you going to them? Now, Jesus was not asking us to do something that we couldn't do. He was saying, you can all do that. All of my followers, all of my disciples, every single one of you can do this. Go out wherever God has blessed, placed you and bless others. And friends, as our churches come together, we partner up. We want to be a church. Where this is happening all the time. All the time. Not only are we in community with one another and we learn to love one another, but also when we're in community with those outs those outside the faith, those who are far away from God, the sinners. He loved them so much that he died a cruel death on the cross for all sinners, including you and me. He died for you and me. He says, at one time you two were far away from God. Remember when you lived in darkness? And God loved you and he rescued you and he transferred you. Nothing you did, you didn't become a good person on your own, but he had so much grace and mercy on you that he transferred you from the kingdom of darkness, and he transferred you through his love, through his sacrifice, to the kingdom of light. And God is on a mission to do that all over the world. And he wants to use us here in Salha to trust him and to be on mission for him. I love that first song, the first couple of songs we sang. I didn't know what they were gonna be, but that chorus, his love is relentless. That's the only way to describe God's love. It's relentless. He won't give up. He won't give up on his mission. And that's why he sent his son to die on a cross. And he invites us to be part of that. Don't we serve an awesome God? That he invites us to be part of his work. Isn't it nice to be invited to do something? Isn't it nice to be included? Well, God transferred us from that kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light to include us, to be part of his family, to include us in his work. And he says, I know you don't know the plan exactly, I know you don't know how it's gonna turn out, but I want you to trust me. One step at a time, trust me. Be a blessing to others. Friends, to conclude, the message is this we can't always stay in. We have to go out. Love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength. Follow Jesus relentlessly and bless people. Love people shamelessly.