Walk in Love

Speaker 1: 0:00

Now, have you ever done something crazy in the name of love Dang? No one has. Okay, all right, it's just me today. All right Now, I remember when Aaron and I first started to get interested in each other, it kind of came out of left field because prior to us dating, aaron and I knew each other for a long time and I drove Aaron crazy. I mean, I don't think she liked me, but maybe she did. But I remember. It's a long story, though it's a long story. I drove her crazy until this one summer that Aaron came back on summer break from college. She went to George Mason and she came back for summer break and when she came back that summer, I put on the good old Gaines charm on her, stirred it up and won her over. Okay, it didn't really happen like that, but I like to think it did. Okay, but for real, I remember the summer she came back from break. She came back from summer break and Aaron was home, and at the time I was a worship pastor assistant at our church in Virginia Beach, virginia Beach Vineyard, and so I didn't sing songs though you don't want me singing, okay and I remember standing by our sound booth and the service is going on. I'm standing by the sound booth and the double doors are over there at the entrance way, and I see Aaron walk in and I look over and she's wearing this beautiful red dress, which made her red hair pop even more, and I said to myself oh my gosh, I'm in love with Aaron Corey. It happened just like that, okay, and so what ended up happening?

Speaker 1: 1:42

That summer we started to hang out a little bit more, but the funny part was I told her, I said I'm training for a half marathon and she said Aaron, you should run with me. You know you should run with me. And Aaron said yes. Aaron said yes, so we would wake up early, meet up at a park nearby and go for a run and train for this half marathon. Now, what I didn't know until much later down the road is Aaron at that time in her life hated to run. She did not like to run. Now she likes to run. She's a runner now, but back then she hated to run. But because she liked me so much, it was a perfect excuse to hang out every morning. And for me I was training for a half marathon, which I ended up never doing, but one day I'll do it. But the idea of seeing Aaron every morning was much better of a motivator than running a half marathon.

Speaker 1: 2:37

But love makes you do crazy things, doesn't it? It makes you act in different ways. Now that's a story about romantic love which worked out, which ended up working out three kids in a church later. It worked out. But love moves us. Love moves us. Love for a friend is what moves you. When you get the dreaded text message from your friend, hey, moving next month, want to help, you always got to say, yes, I'll be there. Love is what makes you try to find the best school for your kids or the best daycare, the best environment for your kids to wait to grow up in. Love is what beats in your heart when you see injustice, when you see something wrong, when you see someone in need, and it moves you to want to make a difference. It moves you to want, to quote Bob Goff love does. It does stuff. Love is an action word, it's an action statement.

Speaker 1: 3:40

So today we are in part two of a series called Live in Grace, where we, as everyday people, are learning how to live in the free gift of grace that God gives us. Last week we talked about how grace can give us confidence to walk in faith, and today we're going to talk about how, when we live in grace, we can walk in love. We can walk in love Now. A few things we discovered last week is about grace is that grace is not justice, grace is not mercy. They're different things. And grace is not just the prayer you pray when you're about to eat some fried chicken. Lord, bless this fried chicken and make it healthy to me. You've done bigger miracles than that. You know not to be a cool miracle. No grace, that was funny. All right, thank you, all right.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Grace is the undeserved favor of God. It's beyond earth, like the song we just sang a moment ago. It's nothing I did to deserve it, I couldn't earn it, but God's grace comes after me and I just want some people to know today that God's grace pursues you, god's grace chases after you. Where the world wants to say you never and you can't and you won't and you'll always be this, or that God's grace comes after you and says you are a new creation in him. The old is gone, the new is here. There's victory and freedom for your life. Feeling happy today, guys, st Patrick's Day, here we go.

Speaker 1: 5:09

God's grace is it? Grace is God's undeserved favor. Ephesians 2 says this for his. By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, come on. Not by works, not by trying harder, not by trying to do the best I can, not by works so that no one can boast. Grace is a gift from God, not based on anything you do, not based on your credentials, not based on your bank statement. It is a gift from God to us. And so we also discover is that God's grace is aggressive. Now, I'm not aggressive in the sense of a bully knocking you down, trying to make you do what it wants you to do, but God's grace pursues us and reaches out to us. Romans 5, the message paraphrase, puts it like this but sin didn't and doesn't have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins, hands down. I love that man. I love that because I think sometimes, like I said last week, sometimes we hype up sin and we hype up our problems, and they're real and they're true and they hurt, but God's grace is more aggressive for you than sin ever can be. God's love for you speaks louder than what that bad habit wants to speak to you. God's grace is real. Here you go. God's grace moves you to become the person he has caused you to be, because you are forgiven and you are love, and that love is unconditional. It's unconditional and we can live from that place. Okay, so, okay, we're going to learn how to live from grace. Walk in love.

Speaker 1: 6:51

Today, when I was kind of a funny story when I was a youth pastor down in Virginia Beach, I would often have the opportunity to speak to the weekend service. We used to do three weekend services down there. It was a lot, and when it was my opportunity to speak I got to do it a few times a year I was really excited and so I said you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to invite the guys from the Barbershop. Because I had to go to the Barbershop because I knew I was about to speak in front of people, so I had to look fresh to death. You know how to get that fade. I'm trying to hurt nobody out here. Okay, here you go, here you go. So I went to the fellows at the shop and I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Barbershop? My Barbershop was just like that. Okay, people be joking each other. It was great, it was awesome, anyways.

Speaker 1: 7:37

So they already knew I was a preacher. They used to call me young preach and I would go and I came in and so I said, hey, they know what I do. This is going to be easy. I'm going to invite them to Sunday. This is going to be awesome. Okay, so my barber, terrell, who used to be ex-Navy Seal, and he had these massive big hands, and every time that Terrell would cut my hair he would palm my whole head. I'm like Terrell man, get your finger out of my face, you know. And I was like Terrell man, you should come out to church this Sunday. I'm speaking to the main church, you should come out. And it's where I was like oh yeah, yeah, for real, mate, check that out. What are you talking about? Now? Our church was in a series at that time called the Power of Love, and so I said to him oh well, our church is in a series called the Power of Love.

Speaker 1: 8:25

And before I even finish my sentence, every guy in the Barbershop was like love man, I don't want to hear about love, I don't need love. Let me get out of there with that. And then they started joking me and I never got a haircut again. After that they did start joking me, but I was trying to tell them no, it's not just like love, love, it's like love. And they didn't want to hear it. And so, anyways, I leave the Barbershop a little discouraged Still look fresh. A little discouraged, but I asked God before.

Speaker 1: 8:54

I asked God in that moment to never let me forget that, to never let me forget that moment, because one thing about being a pastor that can happen to you people kind of kind of dump their life problems on you when you're not even expecting it. I'm getting a haircut and they're telling me about things like whoa, I didn't know. I wanted to know that. So I knew the story and a lot of these guys. I knew a lot of these guys' stories and I knew in that moment, even though they said, oh, who needs love? Who needs love, I knew that they really encountered the unconditional love of God. It would change their lives. It would change their lives. And so my counselor once told me this. My counselor once told me behind every door of an addiction is a person looking for love. Behind every bad habit, behind every sense of brokenness, is someone looking for love, and I truly believe church. It is our job to be a demonstration of God's love to the world.

Speaker 1: 9:52

John 316. We all know it. John 316 says what for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. That's what we're celebrating on March 31st, isn't it? We're celebrating the gift of grace through Jesus Christ. But God loved his creation so much that he gave what was most precious to him, and through this gift of love we can have life.

Speaker 1: 10:18

Now Jesus says this, though. Jesus says this, and these are one of these things that you can read it and you can kind of glance over it and not really think much about it. There's even something that you can put on a nice Hallmark card. But Jesus says this, and I'm going to say it to you today, and I wanted to bother you. I wanted to bother you like the poison ivy I got two weeks ago. I told you Jacob's janky yard service. You don't want it, but my yard looks good, but it came at a cost. But I wanted to bother you in the sense of I wanted to rub on you, I want you to think about. Jesus says I wanted to challenge you, I wanted to encourage you. This is what Jesus says.

Speaker 1: 11:00

He says a new command I give you love one another. To that you may say well, how so, how so you know when they're nice to me, when they do what I want them to do? Is that when I post no, no, no, no. That's what Jesus says. As I have loved you Well, dang. That's a whole lot of love. That's like dying in your place kind of love that's laying down your life for someone else kind of love. That's a love that when someone doesn't deserve it, you still show up and glove them anyways. That's the kind of love that when someone makes you mad and you want to tell them what you're really thinking, you pray about it first. That's the kind of love that, even though you are guilty, even though you did the crime, that love says I'm going to take your place and you can walk out free. That's a grace kind of love.

Speaker 1: 12:06

And that's the kind of love that Jesus is saying that we need to have for one another. So then he says so you must, I love it. He said you must say well, I just kind of maybe suggest this to you. If you're just feeling good today, do that, he said. He says I promise I haven't had any Guinness yet this morning.

Speaker 1: 12:33

It says you must love one another by this, by what, by what? By this, by this thing, by that thing, by the way you love people, by the way you take care of people, by the way you show up for people, by the way you put others first, by the way you take care of yourself so you can love people responsibly. By this, by this, everyone will know that you are my disciple. Another word for disciple there is apprentice. You will know you're my apprentice, my student. You will know this if you love one another. This is amazing. This is amazing by this, by this, everyone will know. But is it just me? And maybe it's just me? But when I talk to people who don't come to church, about church people most people who don't come to church, when I talk to them about church people, when they think of church people, they don't think of people, of love. They think about a lot of other things, but I don't think love makes the top 10 mark.

Speaker 1: 13:42

My mom, my mom, was a waitress for years, years and years and years and one of the best waitresses ever come on. She said the worst day to work was Sunday afternoon because the church people would show up, ask her to do the most and leave the smallest tip. You know, here's one thing I learned in my life I can't change everybody. I can't change everybody. I can't change everything, but I do have what God has given me right in front of me, and we do have this church.

Speaker 1: 14:19

So what would it look like if LVC people just loved people like crazy? What would it do to our city? What would it do to our communities? What would it do to our families? What would it do to the future generations coming up if LVC people just got good at loving people? What if we had this crazy, crazy love that we expressed from a place of grace in our lives and we walked it out?

Speaker 1: 14:46

So this is what I want to talk about today how do we become people of crazy, crazy love? Come on, crazy, crazy love. I'm talking about that crazy kind of love. How do we become people of crazy, crazy love? First thing is this you don't need permission to love. Too many of us are waiting on permission to make a difference when God is just saying go and do it. You don't need to wait for permission, you don't need a degree, you don't need to be a pastor, you don't need to have the whole entire New Testament memorized. You can just start becoming like Jesus today. When you love the people around you. See, love takes action. Let me make it practical, though. Let me make it practical Crazy love is when you bring the donuts to the break room.

Speaker 1: 15:33

Come on, our apples Depending. Maybe you work for a health club, you know so. Bringing the donuts might do the opposite. They may say who brought these donuts? Satan is here, you know so. When you encourage that co-worker who's clearly struggling, when you go out your way to encourage, when you give your wife some foot rubs come on, because no one like feet, but you do it for your life because you do it for your wife, because it's crazy, crazy love. Somebody. Crazy love does not wait for permission to be the person God has called you to be. How did Jesus do this?

Speaker 1: 16:15

One of my favorite stories in the New Testament is this John 5. It says this after Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Here's this big Jewish festival going on, people from all over the world are coming out to this big party, to this giant rendezvous. Here you go. It says this inside the city, near the sheep gate. I want you to keep that in mind. Near the sheep gate, okay, inside the city, near the sheep gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds here you go. Crowds of sick people, blind, lame or paralyzed, lay on the porches.

Speaker 1: 16:48

See, in the pictures, in the pictures of sheep, sheep look so cute and fluffy, don't they? It's like, oh God, it's a sheep. They're so cute. But did you guys know that sheep are actually kind of nasty? They look cute in the pictures, but in real life actions kind of like your Instagram I'm joking you cute always Sheep. Sheep are kind of nasty because their fur on their bodies. When a sheep uses the restroom, it stays on them, it gets caught up in their fur. When a sheep eats, it gets caught up on them.

Speaker 1: 17:36

Okay, and so during these Jewish festivals, people were bringing their sheep to sacrifice it to God. And you couldn't sacrifice a dirty sheep to God, so you would have to go through the sheep gate, get near the pools which were to clean your sheep. So I want you to see something here. Okay, I want you to see something here. All these people from all over are coming with these nasty sheep and they're bringing them through this gate to the pools where paralyzed people were. They were paralyzed people late all day in the hot heat. Okay, and again, I'm not trying to be vulgar here or anything like that, but I really want you to understand the conditions. One of the cool things about when you really dive into Scripture, it's not just like a story that you can kind of, but it really happened in this real life, and when you can put yourself into the actual situation, it becomes even richer to read. And so here's all these people, paralyzed people, and I want you to understand the condition of what's going on. These paralyzed people will be left here all day, and when they needed to use the restroom, no one was there to help them. So the smell of the sheep gate, the smell of this place scholars would say it was horrible. It was a horrendous smell, for lack of a better word. This environment was a crappy situation.

Speaker 1: 19:06

This is not a pretty picture. Here's the best part. The word Bethesda in the Hebrew means mercy, and all these people aren't experiencing that though, are they? So here's all these sick people, ill, paralyzed, laying on the pool of mercy, but in the same condition they were in yesterday. But check this out. One of the men lying there had been sick for 38 years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him would you like to get better? Would you like to get well? Now? I want you to see something here. I love this.

Speaker 1: 19:39

Jesus is with his crew. He's with his disciples. He hears about this one particular guy that's been here for 38 years. That's a long time. That's a long time to be in the same spot. That's a long time to be in the same spot, wishing you weren't in that spot. And for some of us today, you've been in the same spot for a long time, wishing you weren't in that spot, and God wants to bring freedom to you right now.

Speaker 1: 20:01

Here you go, here you go, jesus. Jesus does something. I want you to see this. I'm going to wait for permission to step into this man's crappy situation. Jesus sees this man. He's been there for 38 years and Jesus is like I can't sit back. I can't sit back and just watch Again. I want you to see the aggressive nature of grace. Grace is not passive, grace pursues. Grace does not sit back and watch things go bad. Grace steps up, grace goes out there. People check this out. I can't, sir, the sick man said, for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me. Now, legend had it that an angel will come and stir the waters of the pools and the first person to get into the water would be healed. Now what would happen? Because of this legend, evil men would come and manipulate the sick and say, for a certain amount of money, they would put them into the water. And so here's this man, for 38 years in the same condition. He can't even trust people anymore. He's stuck in his junk, he's stuck in his problem, he's stuck where he is. And Jesus told him come on.

Speaker 1: 21:18

I like this part. This is my favorite part of the story, because this man comes with an excuse and Jesus replied with his excuse. He said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead and stand up and pick up your mat and go ahead and get up and walk. And then the man. Then the man. Instantly the man was healed. He rolled up his sleeping mat and began to walk. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on a second. This man came with an excuse and Jesus came back with a healing. This man came with an eye can and Jesus came back with an eye can, and it's kind of like sometimes God heals not just because of faith, but sometimes God heals because of grace. Sometimes God moves just because His grace comes after us. His grace is not based on. It was nothing what this guy did. This guy didn't say the right prayer, he didn't have the right devotional, he didn't have the right shoes on Jesus, and His love for Him saw Him stepped into His crappy situation and healed Him.

Speaker 1: 22:38

And friends, I gotta say something we have to quit waiting for permission to do what God has called you to do go and love people. Go and love people. Go after people. Cause love takes action. What I'm about to say right here I'm speaking to Jesus followers. If you're with us today and you're kind of trying to figure out your faith and trying to figure out maybe you're not sure about this thing. First of all, I'm so glad you're here. I hope LVC is always a safe place for people to discover faith.

Speaker 1: 23:12

But this one particular moment, I wanna talk to Jesus followers for a second and I wanna ask you something. If you're a Jesus follower, if you're an everyday person learning how to become a Jesus follower, I wanna ask you this question Are you getting into people's crappy situations in bringing love? Hold on, I want you to get this. Are we stepping into people's situations and not bringing more drama with us, not bringing eyes of judgment, not saying, oh well, they deserve to be in this spot, they deserve to have this happen to them. Well, they did this and that as Jesus people, it should be known of us that we step into people's situations and say, hey, I'm gonna bring healing, I'm gonna bring help, I'm gonna bring encouragement. You're going through anxiety? Well, I'm gonna sit with you in that moment. You're going through fear, I'm gonna sit with you here. It should be known of Jesus people to be moved when we hear here's the crazy part.

Speaker 1: 24:23

I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I get these news alerts on my phone and they're just so casual. Seven people die today On vacation. Family kid gets stuck in the sand, dies. Anyone know what begins to happen to us. We get calloused and we see a sad news story and we say, oh, it's just Tuesday. May it never happen to the people of God that we hear the troubles of this world and our hearts become callous to it. May we always look towards the need of people and say God, you have called me to make a difference, I'm gonna go after it. I'm gonna go after it because crazy, crazy love overcomes fear. Crazy, crazy love overcomes fear. Now, fear can prevent you to become the person I do, the things God has called you to do. So how do we overcome fear? With crazy love, we cultivate a spirit of godly confidence. Notice, I didn't say self-confidence. I don't know about you guys, but I'm too inconsistent to have confidence in myself. But I can't have confidence in a God who hasn't failed and he won't start with me.

Speaker 1: 25:47

Second Corinthians 12 says like this my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. My grace is sufficient. My grace will meet you time and time again, meaning we can rely on his grace in any and all circumstances. But that's something we have to cultivate. We have to be willing to trust. Second Timothy 1, 7 says this for God has not given us a spirit of fear, intimidity, but of power, love and self-discipline. Power meaning that we can walk in step with the spirit. We can walk with confidence, knowing that God is with us. Love meaning that we can live our lives encouraged that we are loved by the one who sees me and in return, I can love people around me. The self-discipline meaning from this grace and love I'll position my habits to move me to become more like Jesus. So crazy, crazy. Love overcomes fear with cultivating the spirit of godly confidence and and getting good people around you. Getting good people around you, because we all know this, whoever you spend your time with, whoever you hang out with you tend to become like them, and I believe the life change you want is in the context of healthy relationships, healthy friendships. It's a lot harder to be fearful when you have brave people cheering you on.

Speaker 1: 27:24

This past week, a few guys from church came over to my house to cut down what I deemed as smaller trees in my backyard. Now I've got some big trees in my backyard. These ones were smaller to me and so so. So they came over and there was some good male bonding time and and so my friend Rob, evan and Craig came over and and and their job was to get the trees down. My job was to cook the hot dogs, yup, and we were crushing it. We were crushing it all right. My brother and his family coming over, and so even my nephews were there helping and picking up the branches. We had three trees we had to cut down and things are going great. They're crushing it. All the trees are going down. This is wonderful. Just male bonding time, which is great, the smell of wood in the air and I said, yeah, her, it is awesome.

Speaker 1: 28:30

Then we get to the third tree, because things are going smooth. Have you ever had things going so smooth? You're like this is going too smooth. Right now. It is going so smooth till we get to the third tree and my friend Rob. He has his chainsaw and he's cutting it down. He's doing his thing, but then the chainsaw gets stuck in the tree, and so it's stuck in this spot that the tree is either going to fall, the direction we want it to fall, or it's going to fall on my neighbor's deck, and so that's not good.

Speaker 1: 29:05

And so we actually got a picture of it, kari, you can throw that up there. There's the tree and, as you notice, that's Aaron in the back, and I've got to show you something real fast. This little foot right there, that's me, because my hot dog started to burn. My hot dogs were on the grill. I said, oh, shoot my hot dog. Before you start judging me, they weren't like ballpark Franks, they were Hebrew national, those things like 550 a pack, and they only come with eight in the pack. They're not a lot, so don't be judging me. And so here you go. So we're pulling this tree, we're pulling, and then there's wind blowing in the opposite way and I'm like God, don't you even care? And then you go. So me and my brother, my brother, my nephews, my wife were pulling this tree, and then my friend Evan, with this precision work, he's chipping away to get the chainsaw out of the tree. He was pretty impressive. And then so we're all doing this long story short we pull the tree down in my neighbor's yard, but not on their deck, and it was totally cool.

Speaker 1: 30:17

But I got to be honest with you. I'm not going to lie. Not for one moment was I fearful. Not for one moment. I'm not going to lie. Not for one moment was I like oh man, this is about to work out, this is not going to turn out for us. Not for one moment. You want to know why. I mean, evan and Rob could have the best poker faces ever, but their confidence gave me confidence. Their assurance on what they were doing made me feel assured, made me feel OK, and I'm going to say something about that, because oftentimes we get people around us that aren't cheering us on, that aren't encouraging you to become the person you want to be, and if they're not, you will always believe for the worst to happen.

Speaker 1: 31:05

But when you got people around you, good people around you that are cheering you on, that are pointing you to Jesus, that are saying you got this man, you can knock down any tree, you can knock down any mountain. You can go the distance, you can face the scary things in life when you have people who are joining with you. It's up to that I say. First again, don't let me do your yard. Second thing join a small group. I'm serious. Join a small group. Get people around you that could cheer you on to be the person God has called you to be, because crazy, crazy love overcomes fear when we cultivate godly confidence, getting good people around us and then doing the scary things. Doing the scary things, see, I want you to know, to become a person of crazy love, a person that's not sidelined by fear. You got to start doing the scary things in your life.

Speaker 1: 32:21

I want you to hear me here today. I want you to hear what I'm about to say to you, because I think you might need to hear this. We live in a world that's all about convenience and easy and comfortable and I think we have mixed that with the gospel but when we look at the life of Jesus, it was never easy, uncomfortable and convenient. When we look at the life of Jesus, it was often not comfortable, it was often inconvenienced and it was often scary. And I want you to know today it's time for you to start doing the scary things. It's time for you to start going to marriage counseling and it's time for you to start it because you've been sitting on the sideline and you've been saying, oh well, I got this thing and I got that thing in this schedule. You want to know what's more scary than getting to marriage counseling 10 years from later, when your kids are in counseling, because you didn't handle your stuff as a parent and I know I'm speaking harsh today, but gosh dang it.

Speaker 1: 33:28

Sometimes you got to speak a little harsh Because people are out there telling you this thing and that thing and I want you to know today there is freedom in your life, but you've got to do the scary thing. For some of you, it's going back to school and pursuing that dream that God put on your heart. For some of you, it's getting out of the comfort zone of your suburban house and man, maybe it's time for you to go on missions. Maybe for some of you, it's time to look at the scary things to say I'm going there, I'm doing that thing because I'm convinced, friends, I'm convinced, that if you want to find where God is in your life, it's when you step outside and you face the daunting or uncomfortable things and you get a little uncomfortable and you go after it. You go after what God has for you. And so the last thing I'll say is this crazy, crazy love pre-decides to be inconvenienced and pre-decides. I'm making a decision every day that God inconvenienced me. I'm going to set up margin in my life that God, wherever you're doing, I'm going to step into it, I'm going to go after it, I'm going to go for it.

Speaker 1: 34:42

Throughout the Gospels we see this with Jesus. Jesus is walking somewhere and somebody who didn't have an appointment with him, someone who didn't ping his Google Calendar, comes up to him and needs something from him. And most of the time, most of the time, they come up with their own personal problems and want Jesus to fix it. And you want to know what Jesus does. Time and time again, he meets the people in their needs. Jesus is walking and 10 left first start calling out for him. Talk about inconvenience you trying to go to Wegmans and someone's inconvenienced you. Hey, I need something. Jesus heals all 10 of them, but only one comes back to say thank you. They interrupted his schedule and nine of them couldn't even send a thank you card. But one does. One does Another one.

Speaker 1: 35:40

A woman who's been sick for 12 years sneaks up behind him without permission, touches his clothes. The Bible says it felt like power left him. Jesus stops, stops the crowd around him and he looks for the one who touches him. Jesus has something else he was doing that day, but he stops for the one that touches him and he speaks to her. It says your faith has healed you. 12 years gone, in one moment. And then Jesus. Jesus will have dinners with sinners throughout it.

Speaker 1: 36:16

And then there's another story Zacchaeus, a notorious thug, a tax collector. Jesus finds him in a tree looking for him and Jesus stops and says come down, zacchaeus, today I will have dinner at your house. And Zacchaeus, his whole life, changes in that moment because Jesus was inconvenienced. Matthew, another tax collector. Jesus calls him and says you are more than a tax collector, come and follow me. Then, at third place, they ate. Story after story Jesus lives with the margin in his life to be inconvenienced.

Speaker 1: 36:53

And friends, I'm going to end my message with this thought. I'm not going to hype us up today, nothing like that. I want to end it with this thought I'm not sure if we can be people of the kingdom without doing something scary or regularly being inconvenienced. So, god, jesus, holy Spirit, we say we want to walk in love. We want to walk in love like you did Jesus. So, lord, we start to do the scary things. We're going to go after it. Right now, I even felt like the Holy Spirit is saying mental health, that's a scary thing To start going after that, finding healing in your life.

Speaker 1: 37:54

Trauma come, holy Spirit. For too long I feel there's a word specifically for somebody For too long you have allowed trauma to write your story and I feel the embrace of a loving heavenly father saying hand over the pen to me. Freedom in the name of Jesus. Courage in the name of Jesus. Courage to do the scary things. Courage to fight for my marriage. Courage to fight for my dreams. Courage to fight for the person God has called me to be. Courage in the name of Jesus, for you did not give us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, of love and self-discipline. We hold true to your words today, lord, and inconvenience us, lord, for your kingdom's sake. Inconvenience us, lord, for what you have for us.

Speaker 1: 39:07

Come, holy Spirit, be in this place. If you're in here today and you don't know this Jesus I talked about, maybe you have, but you kind of walked away. If you want to make a decision to trust Jesus with your life, I just want to pray with you right where you are. I'm not going to call you out. Have you come up front? Nothing like that. Just write where you are. If you want to make a decision to trust Jesus with your life, just pray this prayer with me right where you are. Say Jesus, forgive me for my sins, make me new. Today I trust you in my life Today. I follow you In Jesus' name, amen, amen. Let's give God some praise in here today, amen.