Faithful or Unfaithful

This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit GrandParkway.org.

Pray.

Father God, I'm thankful that you gave us life and that you give us life, and that our life belongs to you.

Lord, we love you, and it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

My name is Travis Dunham, and I'm the connections pastor here at the church.

And what that means is I get to help people move from smaller and smaller environments to where they can get to know one another and study the Bible together with the hopes of becoming more Christ-like.

And so this morning I get to preach why Neil, our senior pastor, is out on sabbatical, and he'll be back with us on August the 9th.

Well, in August, um August 15th will be my three-year anniversary here at the church.

And if I'm going to be honest with you, things here at Grand Parkway have been somewhat like I expected.

We have an extremely high view of Jesus.

We worship Jesus, Jesus is King, and we have a high view of Scripture.

We humbly try to submit to the Word of God.

But if I'm going to be honest with you, there's another quality about Grand Parkway that kind of took me by surprise.

I think it's unique to Grand Parkway.

I don't think it's true of other churches, but it kind of threw me off a little bit.

And that is the high view we have to a TV miniseries called Lonesome Dove.

That we got some fans.

I had not seen Lonesome Dove, and so um I wish I'd have been told about that ahead of time.

But we're sitting in a staff meeting, and all of a sudden someone goes, Hey, every once in a while you just got to kick a pig.

And I'm like, What in the world?

I I could understand it in context, but it just seemed really odd.

But I just kind of dismissed it.

And then a few days later, I'm standing over here by what was Don Mitten's office, and uh somebody goes, Well, Don, every once in a while you just gotta kick a pig.

And I'm thinking, Good night, what do these people have against pigs?

I had no idea from a movie.

Well, in staff meeting, uh a little while later, um, the phrase is said again, hey man, every once in a while you can't be afraid to kick a pig.

And I must have had this look on my face because Clyde goes, You know what we're talking about?

I'm like, no.

And he goes, Have you ever seen Lonesome Dove?

And I said, No, and it's like all the air was sucked out of the room.

Um, just joking a little.

And he goes, Hey, it's from the movie Lonesome Dove.

Gus is in a rant, and he goes, Hey, every once in a while you gotta kick a pig.

You gotta stir things up and point people in the right direction.

So for me, when I hear the phrase kick a pig, that means stir things up and help point people in the right direction.

Well, my D group and I, we're reading through the Gospel of Luke, and it seems almost in every chapter Jesus is kicking a pig.

I mean, Jesus is constantly stirring things up to point people in the right direction.

And we need to understand that this morning, or else this morning's parable is gonna sound really harsh.

Jesus is not harsh, he's just kind of stirring things up a little bit to point people in the right direction.

So the plan this morning is we're gonna read a little bit of scripture.

I'm gonna preach on that, and then I'm gonna pause and kind of ask you kind of a gut check question.

And that question is designed for us to take a minute and to pause and say, hey, Lord, is my is my life, is my soul aligned with you the way you want it to be?

So the parable is found in Luke 19, and it starts off with verse 11.

It says, While the people were listening to these things, Jesus proceeded to tell them a parable because he was near Jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of God was gonna be appearing to them immediately.

So Jesus had been kind of warning these guys about what's gonna happen in Jerusalem, but they still didn't get it because in Jerusalem, what was gonna happen was Jesus was gonna die.

He was gonna go to the cross and he was gonna die for their sins, for our sins.

He was gonna be buried, he's gonna stay buried for three days, and then he was gonna arise.

And then he was gonna go to heaven for a length of time we don't know, but then there was the promise that he would return.

And so that's what's gonna take place in Jerusalem, and he's trying to help his disciples to understand that.

The second thing he wants his disciples to understand is that the kingdom of God is not happening immediately.

They want it to, but they really don't understand how it's gonna or when it's gonna happen or what it's gonna look like.

But Jesus in this parable wants to understand that how the kingdom of God is gonna take place.

And the kingdom of God is gonna take place as his followers faithfully worship him.

So Jesus tells them this parable so that they'll understand those two things.

So um, let's look at what the parable says, starting in verse 12.

Therefore he says, A noble man went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself and re in return.

And he saw them ten of his um slaves and gave them ten minors, and said to them, Do business with these until I come back.

And the citizens hated him and sent delicates after him, saying, We don't want this man to be king over us.

In other words, they protested.

Um, to us, this kind of sounds like a fairy tale.

Hey, once upon a time in a land far away, there lived this noble man.

But um, that's not the case at all.

To these guys, it was a part of their history.

See, um, Herod in 40 BC and his son Archuladius in 4 BC both had to go to Rome to get permission for their kingship.

And for Herod, things went really well, but for his son, the people went and protested, and he did not receive his kingdom.

So, right off the bat, Jesus being the master storyteller, he's drawing them in and he's making a clear distinction.

Hey, there's going to be those who are slaves and those who are citizens.

And there's gonna be citizens who hate him.

So in this parable, Jesus is the noble man, his slaves are his followers, and the citizens are the enemies of those who hate him.

Well, in the parable, the slaves have a very clear job to do.

They're to take the money he's given them, engaged in business, make a profit until he returns.

And for some of you, that sounds like a dream come true.

You have resources and freedom, and you're like way to go.

This is what I've always wanted.

I got my chance.

For others of you, it may sound more like a nightmare.

You have responsibility with no clear direction.

But the truth is, this parable is not about your personality type, it's about God's lordship and our faithfulness.

And let's face it, this is kind of an easy task.

Earlier this summer, uh, we're trying just to think of things to help our kids to do so they're not so bored, right?

And um, so Robin and I went to the store, we bought some cookie dough, some lemonade, and it was about seven, ten bucks.

And we told them, hey guys, you can hold a lemonade stand and just sell some cookies and see how that goes.

Well, they got fired up about it.

They went out there and they started talking to neighbors, everybody driving by, and they ran out of cookies.

So we go to the store, buy some more.

We repeated this process a few times.

And by the end of the second day, they turned that$7 into about$140.

I mean, they did really well.

And so it's a simple concept to understand, and that's what the slaves were commissioned to do.

And so far, that's all we know about them.

But on the other hand, there was the enemies of God, those who did not want Jesus to rule over them.

And the truth is, there's still people like that today.

They may know of the teachings of Jesus, but not really the person of Jesus.

And they don't want Jesus to rule over them.

Um, they may have heard Jesus' teaching on marriage and say, hey, that's just too narrow-minded.

Jesus says, hey, one man, one woman for a lifetime.

And by the way, no sex before marriage.

And people are like, hey, I don't like that.

I that's too exclusive for me.

Or maybe they don't like Jesus' teaching on money.

Jesus says a lot about money, and he tells them, hey, to live generously with your money.

In fact, that you are to use your wealth to store up treasures in heaven, not treasures on this earth.

And maybe people just don't like Jesus' view on money.

Or maybe they don't like Jesus' um viewpoint on leadership.

Jesus says, hey, it's better to serve than to be served.

And so many of us that we don't want to serve, we want to serve.

So people have a problem with Jesus' teaching.

And the truth is, we all do until Jesus renews our heart because we we're just selfish.

So in the beginning, Jesus is laying the groundwork, dividing everyone into two camps.

Either you're a servant of Jesus or an enemy of Jesus.

So just kind of a gut check question for us.

With the time that you have remaining in this life, I mean nobody really knows how long that will be.

Who do you want to rule your life?

Yourself with your limited understanding and with your limited resources?

Or would you rather live in humble submission to the king and trusting him to take care of you?

See, this relationship is all about trust.

The king is looking for servants who will trust him, and the servants are banking everything on the trustworthiness of the king.

But we have to move on in the parable, um, starting in verse 15.

When he returned after receiving this king, and he summoned these slaves whom he had given the money, and he wanted to know how much they have earned by trading.

So the first came to him and said, Sir, your minor has made ten more.

Uh I love the humility of this man.

He doesn't say, Hey, look what I did.

I accomplished this much, look at me.

He's much more humble than that.

He says, Sir, your minor has made ten minas more.

And the king said to him, Well done, good slave.

Because you have been faithful in a very small matter, I will give you authority over ten cities.

Then the second one came and said, Your minor has made five minors.

And so the king said to him, You will be over five cities.

I love this part of the parable, but before we get to that part, we have to look at verse 15, because verse 15 describes our future.

One day you and I will stand and give an account for our faithfulness or our lack of faithfulness.

And then that day comes, you want to be found faithful.

Your story may be, Lord, um, here's your minor.

Um, I didn't earn as many as I wanted.

I may have fallen down seven times, but I got up and I was continuing to be faithful.

Lord, here's your minor.

I have seven minors to give you.

Some of you may have a different story.

You may have said, Hey, Lord, um, I'm not as faithful as I wanted to be.

I kind of procrastinated throughout my life, but I came to my senses.

I woke up and I started, I repented and I started to live faithfully for you.

Lord, here's your minor.

No matter what your story is, when that day comes, you want to be found faithful.

And see, the purpose of the parable is not how many, the quantity.

The focus of the parable is on the person of Jesus.

Look at the heart of Jesus here.

When you read your Bible, um, and you study, when you read your Bible, we should study how Jesus responds to people, how he interacts with them, to see his mercy, his kindness, his compassion.

And right here, when Jesus interacts with them, what we see is his desire to reward them.

He's he's like a little kid in a candy shop.

He's giddy.

His desire is to reward the faithfulness of these guys in such a way that it seems like it's like it's off balance.

It's like Jesus says, Hey, because you are very faithful in the little things, I'm gonna reward you in big things.

It's off balance.

It'd be as if if I went to Kyla, which is my youngest daughter who's six, and said, Kyla, y'all did such a great job on that cookie sale.

I mean, you took about$7,$10 and turned it into$40.

Y'all, y'all did such a good job and y'all were faithful.

I want to give you the family calendar and the family checkbook, and I want you to manage our family.

I mean, we we'd never do that.

It'd be ridiculous.

And that's almost as if what Jesus is doing.

He said, Hey, because you are faithful in a little bit, I'm gonna let you be faithful in a lot.

But also notice what Jesus doesn't do.

He doesn't shame the second servant.

He doesn't look at him and say, How come you didn't produce more?

How come you didn't produce as much as the first guy?

He didn't compare, he just simply rewarded his faithfulness.

And I bet he did it with joy.

To be honest, um, learning faithfulness, learning to be faithful in the small things is not an easy task.

Um, and if you're a parent, you know this.

Uh, we have four little girls, and um teaching them to be faithful is is hard at times, right?

Uh that's just the nature of the job.

And I'll give you a few examples.

Um, yesterday or on Friday night, I did the dishes, and so I knew that there's a few dishes in the sink that were dirty, but the dishwasher was clean.

And so Saturday morning rolls around, and one of my daughters says, Hey, Dad, can I make pancakes?

I'm like, sure.

But at our house, one of the rules is, hey, before you bake something, you clean up the previous mess.

That way we don't have a giant mess.

It just kind of makes sense, or it should.

So she is in a hurry to make her pancakes.

She goes to the dishwasher and she sees that it's clean, and she doesn't really want to unload it.

So she just starts the dishwasher over again.

Um, not a good thing.

Some of y'all are smiling.

And so we kind of go in there, we have a talk, and we we talk about hey, that's that's not the right thing to do, that's the lazy thing to do.

We give you a little grace, but after you make your pancakes, let's clean up the mess.

Time goes by.

I happen to walk through the kitchen, and um, now she's loading the dishwasher.

And there is so much food on these plates, it would get stocked up, it would, it's just gonna break the dishwasher.

So I'm like, all right, now we got to take all these back out, and because you don't know how to use the dishwasher, let's hand wash them all this time, you know, trying to teach a little bit more responsibility.

And so um now she's hand washing all these dishes.

I leave, I come back, and now mom's involved.

Now they're in the kitchen, and because the little girl put the wet dishes up in the cabinet, she has to take them all out and now dry them all off.

And so this is a whole long process of just trying to teach faithfulness and little things.

And the truth is, it's exhausting, right?

And I'm not a perfect dad, but I am a good dad, and I love my daughters.

So I will take the time to teach them to be faithful in the little things, even though it's not convenient.

And if I would do that as a sinful dad, how much more is Jesus gonna pay attention to our faithfulness?

He wants us to be faithful, but with him, it's a little bit more complex because often we just look at the exterior things.

Did you do things right?

Jesus looks at the heart, Jesus looks at our affections.

Um, let me illustrate it.

I have a friend, uh, a friend that I love, but he has he's addicted to porn.

He has been addicted to porn for over 20 years.

Recently, for the last few months, he has um really been trying to clean up his act.

And to give him credit, he hasn't viewed anything, he hasn't looked at anything, he's had conversations with his wife, he's adjusted his schedule.

He outwardly has done everything possible.

And outwardly, it looks like this man is being very faithful.

But if you have an honest conversation with him, he is miserable.

Because although things have changed outwardly, inwardly he's still a pervert and wants to do evil things.

And what Jesus does is say, hey, that's not faithfulness.

Faithfulness is not just when your exterior things change, it's when your affections change too.

And Jesus wants us to be faithful in all things, in all ways.

So Jesus looks at the heart.

So this begs the question in the in this parable, the servants knew exactly what to do.

And it begs the question: um, as Christ followers, do we know what Jesus expects of us?

I know that's a personal question because Jesus may ask you to do something that's different than what he asked me, and he may ask me to do something that's different than what he asked you.

Um, for example, God may ask you to help your neighbor pay his mortgage for the next three months while he looks for a job.

Or God may say, Hey, I know we're in the middle of a pandemic, but I really want you to work over here.

I got some reasons for that.

So I want you to quit your job, trusting me, and go take this new job over here.

God may say, Hey man, I know you're in a hurry.

You're always in a hurry, but on your way home from work today, I want you to slow down and help the person broken down on the side of the road.

And as you help them, I want you, I want your faithfulness to bring my kingdom with it.

See, God looks at our faithfulness in little things and personal things, but for all of us, there's some universal things that God is holding us accountable to.

And for us, if we were to, excuse me, to kind of give a catch-all command, it would be the Great Commission.

God has called us to make disciples, to purposely take the time to invest in someone, showing them how and leading them in the ways of Jesus.

And in my opinion, this one issue of disciple making, above all else, is what you and I as Christians will be held accountable for.

Now, normally, right here is when somebody like me will geek out and want to give you a list of, hey, these are all the ways you can make disciples.

But that's not the point of the message today.

The point of the message today is to raise awareness that one day you and I will be accountable for these things.

But um, just a few tips in that area to engage in disciple making.

First, is just ask God, say, God, who do you want me to invest in?

And second, ask God how.

Because remember, the thing we say around here a lot is it's not about math, it's not a formula, it's about music, it's about listening to God and obeying him.

So just ask God, who do you want me to invest in and how do you want me to do it?

And then another good thing to do is find somebody who is making disciples and ask them to teach you.

The bottom line is fruitfulness to the King is living your one and only life for Jesus and His kingdom, trusting Him to care for you as you seek to make disciples in His name.

The truth is, in our church, we have people who are all across the board on this faithfulness spectrum.

We have some people that are extremely faithful, making disciples.

Then honestly, we have other people who are just spiritual takers.

They just take and take and cake and they never give.

But one of the things I've noticed is the people who are who are fully devoted to the disciple-making process, they kind of have this understanding that their life is not their own, that God has called them to die to themselves.

The other day, um, there was a conversation down the hallway.

Um, my office is right over here, and then behind me is Cheyenne, and then Kendra and then Marcy.

And they were having a conversation the other day, and I couldn't really hear everything about it, but it sounded like someone said, I don't like that kind of food.

And then somebody else kind of raised the annie and said, Well, if you were on a mission trip, would you eat that kind of food?

And I don't really know, that's kind of what it sounded like.

And the person goes, No, I wouldn't do that.

Well, then Marcy chimes in and she's not gonna, she's not lecturing them.

She doesn't even have her mama voice.

It just this passion comes out from her, and she goes, You can't think that way.

You are not your own.

You have been bought with the price, you belong to Jesus.

You cannot think that way.

I mean, those are great words.

I'll say it again.

She goes, Hey, you cannot think that way.

You are not your own.

You have been bought with the price, you belong to Jesus.

And I remember sitting at my desk just wanting to shout, Yes, Marcy, go kick that pig.

Way to go.

But um, I'm a little bit more reserved, so I just gave her a fist bump and went on about my day.

But that's kind of stuck with me.

What would our lives be like if we truly believed that we belong to Jesus?

I think three things would happen.

One is obedience and waiting would be attainable.

Obedience and waiting would be attainable.

Let's face it, waiting is hard.

And most of us put things in the ditch when we have to wait because we get impatient and we begin to trust our own reasoning and our own emotions instead of waiting for God.

But if we truly believed our lives belonged to Him, we could trust His priorities and His timetables for our life.

I also believe that obedience would be more joyful, not always easier, but more joyful.

Because obedience would move from being a set of obligations to an act of worship.

God, I I love you, therefore I'm obedient.

And I also believe obedience leads to um understanding his riches, the under better understanding the riches of his love.

I know that's kind of cheesy and it doesn't really flow, but I couldn't think of another way to say it.

I have a friend a few years ago, they moved to Colorado to work at a boys' ranch, and he loved it.

He felt like God called him to do this, and it was, it was his passion.

But as time went by, money became tighter and tighter and tighter.

And they were aware of this, but they decided, hey, this is what God's called them to.

And so one day he comes down and he tells his wife with a big old smile on his face, We are out of money and we cannot pay our bills.

This is so exciting.

She did not share the same response.

And she's like, What are what's wrong with you?

And he's like, Hey, I believe God's called us to this.

So God's going to provide, and we just get to sit back and watch what he's going to do.

That is an extreme amount of faith.

And I think it's the right amount of faith.

But the truth is, most of us don't want to be put in that position.

We don't want to be put in a position to where all we have to do is depend upon God.

We still want to depend upon ourselves.

But the truth is we'll all be there in one way or another, whether it's financial, maybe it'll be in our family, maybe it's in work.

But if we have this understanding that we belong to Jesus, then it's much easier to deal with those situations.

So kind of my gut check question for this part is can God trust you to be faithful in the little things of life?

The things that are often unnoticed by others and are usually just between you and Him.

So as we we continue to read in this parable, the mood shifts from celebration to regret and disappointment.

Let's continue to read.

Then another slave came to him and said, Sir, here is your minor.

I put it away for safekeeping in a piece of cloth, for I was afraid of you because you are a severe man, and you withdraw what you did not deposit, and you reap what you did not sow.

And the king said to him, I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave.

You knew you did not, you knew, excuse me, did you, that I was a severe man, withdrawing from what I did not deposit, reaping from what I did not slow.

Why didn't you put my money in the bank so that when I return I could collect it with interest?

Guys, you do not want to be this man.

You do not want to stand before Jesus one day and only offer excuses.

Lord, I wanted to be faithful, but we are in the middle of a pandemic.

Surely you understand.

Lord, I wanted to be faithful, but we have a newborn at home, and I am just so tired.

Lord, I wanted to be faithful, but I have a short window of time to finish this project.

Lord, I want to be faithful, but I've just been diagnosed with cancer.

And well, you know.

Lord, I want to be faithful, but honestly, I keep putting things off because I think I would have more time.

These excuses and all excuses are nothing more than fig leaves covering up the truth and our shame and our guilt.

And if any of those excuses um apply to you, I'm not making fun of you.

These honestly are excuses that I've given throughout my life.

And I think the most condemning one was the last one, when I procrastinate.

It says, um, remember, anytime you do not engage in your responsibilities because you are either uncertain of the outcome or not willing to go through the discomfort of doing the work, you are not just procrastinating, you are being unfaithful.

Procrastinators need to learn to engage in their responsibilities and to trust God with the outcome.

It's easy to hear those quotes and to think, hey, um, sometimes I'll procrastinate at home, sometimes I procrastinate at work, but that's not what we're talking about this morning.

As Christians, we are to engage in the lostness of our communities, interacting with those enemies of the king, seeking to make disciples.

And this is what we are called to be faithful to, to usher in the kingdom.

And if we procrastinate in disciple making, we are sin, we are simply sinful and unfaithful.

When we offer these excuses, um we're doing basically doing two things.

We're seeking to minimize our sin, and we're um taking the power away from the cross.

In a midweek class, um, we we teach, there we talk about um common excuses people give, whether you're defending or faking, hiding, exaggerating, blaming, downplaying.

These are all lies we tell to make excuses for our sin.

And when we do that, we we forfeit the right to receive God's forgiveness and his grace.

And worst, maybe not worst of all, but also at this time, the enemy beats us up.

He beats us up on the front end of the excuse.

He entices us, saying, Hey, do this, it'll be fun.

And on the other end of the excuse, he accuses you.

I can't believe you just did that and you call yourself a Christian.

The best thing for an unfaithful servant to do is simply to forget, confess his sin, and to seek forgiveness.

In the parable, we're told why this, the why this man um did nothing.

He gives an excuse because I was afraid.

I was afraid of the king.

Well, the truth is we know that that's um that that's based on fear because the king is generous, the king is kind, and he's also based on ignorance because he didn't know him.

When people who live in proximity to Jesus remain unfaithful, it's usually for two reasons.

They don't know the person of Jesus, or they don't really love Jesus as they should.

So the question becomes how do we grow in our faithfulness?

First, we don't grow in our faithfulness by simply trying harder.

It starts with the confession.

Jesus, I want to know you.

I want to be faithful.

Please reveal yourself to me.

And then by the after that, we begin by engaged in reading the gospels and getting to know who Jesus is.

Next, um, a good um suggestion would be to play the high low game with Jesus.

Um, you know I'm talking about, you play this at dinner sometimes with our kids, where you go around the table, hey, what's the best part of your day?

What's the worst part of your day?

I think that's a good way to enter to engage Jesus in prayer.

Jesus, this is the best part of my day today.

This is what happened, this is why I think about it, this is how I feel about it.

Lord, lead me.

Lord, this was the worst part of my day today.

This is what happened, this is what I think about it, this is what I feel about it.

Lord, lead me.

Learn to engage Jesus in the everyday things of life.

And then simply to ask him for the strength and the grace to do whatever he asks you.

Recently, uh, I met a man for lunch the other day, and uh it was it was refreshing.

This man was truly broken and truly seeking Jesus.

Um, before the waitress could even bring us our drinks, this man was confessing his sins.

And um, there was so much remorse and so much freedom that he had found.

And he began to tell me the things he'd done.

He said, Listen, I grew up in church, I know what's right and wrong, but I have been unfaithful to God and I've been unfaithful to my family.

A few months ago, my sins were exposed and I was scared to death and I thought I was gonna lose everything.

But I woke up the next morning and I began to seek Jesus.

Because I did it routinely.

Every morning before I go to work, I'd spend an hour trying to read my Bible, trying to pray, begging God to restore my life and restore my marriage.

And he goes, slowly after slowly, I began to build confidence that God was gonna restore things.

So I began to thank him.

So my morning routine was to read my Bible, to pray, and to thank God.

He said, after doing this for a few months, I woke up one morning and it was as if Jesus was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me.

He goes, everything changed in that moment.

I went from thinking, I need to do this, to wow, I get to be with Jesus.

And he goes, my mindset has not changed since then.

He goes, I wake up early every morning excited to spend time with Jesus.

And he goes, the truth is, Jesus was there waiting on me on the first day.

I just didn't realize it.

And the thing that helped him turn the corner was thankfulness to realizing that God is faithful to him.

This man went from being unfaithful to faithful.

And last time we talked, I think through him telling his story, he has seen four people come to know the Lord.

The gut check question I have for you this is what sins are you tempting?

What sins are you tempted to minimize?

And what do you think the long-term outcome will be from minimizing those sins?

Well, as you read your Bible, you're gonna see that Jesus kind of says the same thing over and over again, sometimes in different ways.

And that's what happens in verses um 24, he says.

And he says to the ascendings, take that minor from him and give it to the one who has 10.

And they said to him, Sir, your ten minor, he has ten minors already.

I tell you that everyone who has will be given more, but the one who does not have will be taken away.

So what Jesus is saying here is similar to what he says in Luke 9.

He says, If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it.

Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Odds are you will not be faithful.

But if you hold on to your life loosely, serving and obeying the king, odds are you'll be very faithful.

Author Kenneth Boas says it like this we cannot be receptive to God's plans and purposes until we abandon the strategies of our own control and acknowledge his exclusive ownership to our lives.

Really similar to what Marcy said in the hallway.

I am not my own, I have been bought with the prize, I belong to Jesus.

Man, as Christians, every morning we should look in the mirror and repeat that phrase to ourselves.

I am not my own, I have been bought with a prize, and I belong to Jesus.

Kind of the gut check question here is is there anything in your life that you're holding on to so tightly that if Jesus were to ask for it, you would struggle to let go?

If so, beware.

I mean, the truth is, as Christians, we should enjoy all of life's blessings, but we should never let our love for those blessings become an idol that leads us to unfaithfulness.

Well, this parable ends abruptly with Jesus circling back to the citizens that hated him.

In verse 27, it says, As for those former enemies of mine who did not want me to be their king, bring them here and slaughter them in front of me.

If you're reading that and you think that's cruel or that's harsh, it's not.

In love, Jesus is redirecting people towards the truth, highlighting the fact that no one stands in opposition to a holy God.

And if you do, it will end in death.

But much more than a physical death, the reality is it's gonna end in eternal punishment without the grace of Jesus to comfort them from the pains of hell.

And then after this abrupt ending, the Bible goes on to teach what Jesus, that Jesus went to Jerusalem to die, to hang on a cross and to die for our sins, to die for our hate and to die for our unfaithfulness.

However, the Bible goes on to teach that one day Jesus will return as the righteous judge to reward the faithful.

And my prayer for me and I prayer for us is that we will remain faithful.

One of the ways we like to conclude the message is just to have some questions of reflection.

So just spend a little time um looking over those this morning.

Father God, um, I'm so grateful that you're coming back for us.

And Jesus, it's my hope and prayer that we would all be faithful.

Lord, that we would understand that that our lives have been bought with a price and that we belong to you, and that brings us comfort and joy and strength.

And we can be faithful because of your grace.

Lord, thank you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

We have a few announcements for us to watch here, and uh I think they'll be rolling here in a minute.

We feel that it is the right time for us to begin a responsible path towards opening back up for in-person worship.

Beginning July 19th, we will meet in-person with new service times and some new requirements.

We will continue to live stream our service each Sunday at 9.30 a.m.

as well.

Again, take note of the time change as we will begin live streaming Sundays at 9.30 a.m.

Beginning July 19th, we will have two family worship services with no child care.

The first service will take place at 9.30 a.m.

and the second service will take place at 11 a.m.

Each of these services is limited to 90 people and is available by RSVP only.

To reserve your spot, head to Grandparkway.org and click the Plan Your Visit button, where you can find the RSVP link.

While you are on this page, you can also see the overview for our remaining reopened schedule, including when child care will be available.

Here are some key things to take note of concerning our path forward.

Childcare will be available starting August 2nd only at the 9.30 a.m.

service.

In the future, once we are up and running at full capacity, there will be no child care preschool or children's ministry activities at the 8 a.m.

service.

Everyone will be required to wear a mask while in the building, and sanitizing stations will be available at each end.

We will temperature check all staff and volunteers each Sunday morning.

We will not temperature check attendees, but if you have any symptoms, you must stay home.

Finally, one big change is our new service times.

Once we are back to a normal schedule on August 16th, services will be at 8 a.m., 9.30 a.m.

and 11 a.m., which is 30 minutes earlier than the previous times.

This change reflects our desire that families have the opportunity to attend a Bible study and then worship together in the same service.

We also believe this will balance out the attendance in the last two services.

Our students in adult Bible studies will meet at 9.30 a.m.

Kids Ministry and Childcare will take place at 9.30 a.m.

and 11 a.m.

Again, to see a full overview of our reopening schedule, just click the plan your visit button at grandparkway.org.

Thank you.

There's one other announcement that didn't make the slide, and that is this Tuesday, uh the men are going to meet at Rudy's at 6:30 for a chance to have a meal together.

Um let's stand to our feet and let me speak a blessing of you.

Let's hold our hands up.

Hi.

As God's servants, we belong to us.

We belong to Him.

He has paid for us, and we are His.

And let us go and enjoy the freedom that He takes care of us.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.