ENCOUNTERS // Jesus Encounters the Distracted

Welcome to the lookout weekly podcast.

Welcome in his family and living on his transform the world with the love.

I am excited this morning.

I'm gonna read.

I'm gonna kick us off.

Uh we're gonna read the Bible a little bit.

And we have that up.

I'm actually we're gonna read from Luke 10 and John twelve this morning.

Luke Luke 10.

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.

And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.

But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?

Tell her to help me.

But the Lord answered, Martha, Martha.

You are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.

Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.

Alright, we're gonna read John 12 now.

We can double, double whammy scriptures in church.

It's okay.

I'm gonna do it anyway.

Alright, six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

So they gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, and Lazarus was Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table.

Mary therefore took a pound of her expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.

The house was filled with fragrance and the perfume.

But Judas, one of the disciples, who was about to betray him, said, Why is this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?

He said this not because he cared about the poor, because he was a thief.

And he in having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself from what was put into it.

Jesus said, Leave her alone so that she may keep it for the so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.

For the poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.

Alright, so word of the Lord.

Yeah.

Nice.

I wanted to kick off with two of those to start.

We are in an encounter series, as you see on the screen behind me.

And we we have a lot of different words in church about encounter.

But but reading that that that first scripture, I chuckle every time I read that because we all have a sibling who, when it's time to do the dishes, they're all of a sudden, you know, I gotta use the bathroom, or I got this thing at Lexi, right?

You know, I'm just kidding.

Um we all have those moments with our siblings.

And uh my my older sister and I, even though my younger sister is this really hard worker now, and and that's not her personality at all, but 20 years later, we like to bring it up and just just kind of reamer for it down the road and how she maybe skipped out on doing some chores every now and then.

And uh, but she is one of those people who also understand what it's like to sit at Jesus' feet.

Um I've had the the privilege of walking with some of your kids uh through the last several years for the better part of a decade, and I have seen some wild moments with God, encounters uh as we might call them.

And when I first started with this youth group, I had come out of a season of being a missionary, and I thought I had seen God do all these crazy moves and miracles, and I stepped into a summer camp where uh there was another youth pastor, and I was watching God encounter our students, and I was like, Where am I?

What planet did I step on?

And uh I remember about that time I was on a call with a family member of mine, and this person was praying for me and um you know prophesying a little bit, and she started the call off with, okay, Gary, what kind of encounters have you been having lately?

And I went, uh I don't know.

None, I guess.

And she had she had just got done just telling me about all these wild things that had happened in her life, and she saw like an eagle fly into her bedroom, and whoosh, and I was like, I I like being in the presence of God.

Like, does that count?

You know?

And what I what I want to do, and as as we're jumping into this conversation this morning, I know that we're all coming at this conversation a very different from very different places.

Um there's some of us here who who might be like our our middle school and high school students who prefer to be undignified before the Lord and like to roll around and cry and laugh and and have the joy and the love of the Lord on them.

And there's some of us who have personalities where might be a little more introverted, and the way that we connect with God might be on more of a personal level.

And I love that, and God loves it too.

And so uh what I want to suggest today is that as God is moving and as God is stirring, there there's not a performance piece.

I I don't want us to feel like we have to do something.

I I think that God is doing something today and he has been doing something.

Um maybe it's not reliant on one particular person or an anointing, but it's him.

And it's us.

And we know that God looks at the heart, and it's about our hearts and how we posture it towards him.

And our hearts can be postured towards God being undignified and dancing wild and crazy up until the wee hours of the morning at a camp somewhere in the mountains, and our hearts can be postured towards him in the silent place.

It can be finding a quiet part of the room and seeking him.

Um Jesus, I whoa, I thank you for this time, God.

I thank you that you're moving here.

God, we say yes to you this morning.

We say yes to what you want to do this morning.

And God, if it's you, we just ask that you'd bring more.

Amen.

So I I love this scripture in Luke 10, and uh this chapter has a lot of meaning to me.

The earlier parts of the chapter have a ton of meaning to me.

Um, but this really stood out to me uh because it's really twofold.

We have somebody who's doing what they're supposed to be doing, making sure the house is set up right, there's guests that came in, possibly unexpectedly.

And then there's somebody who just can't stay away from the feet of Jesus.

And if I'm being honest with you, I'm I'm in a season where I feel a little bit more like Martha Days than I feel like Mary.

And I'm not gonna tell you guys that we're in a busy time of life.

There's things happening, we have jobs, we have kids, we have practices.

Some of us do things at church, some of us do things outside of church, right?

Probably have more extracurriculars now than ever before.

And I think this is such a great and timely chapter to remind us that we get to sit at Jesus' feet and have something that can't be taken away.

And one of the obstacles that we face, the problem, is I I don't think that we we we give enough credit to the war that we face to get there.

I don't think that we give enough credit to the reward that we get from being there.

And and and this this church, this body, it has an amazing history.

When I started coming here, it was it was it was full of people, and it still is, who knew both those things.

And if you're one of those people that that that that understand the the war and the reward, you know what I'm talking about.

But I I believe God is calling us back, he's calling us into an intimate moment, he's calling us into an intimate season with him.

And if you're there, you get it and you should be excited.

And if you haven't been there lately, it's something to look forward to.

When we talk about the war, I I've I've kind of been laughing lately.

The things that they that keep us away from that place of being close to his feet, being close to him.

And by the way, it's not about his feet, it's about him and his presence.

But I I've I've kind of been laughing lately because every time I I get in that place and I sit down with God, I'll go out on my porch.

It's like, man, the sun's coming up.

There's nothing that can bother me now.

And then I get like a customer calling me from work.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

This is this is actually I gotta get this.

Okay.

All right, started my day a little early today.

All right.

I whoop phone's dinging, I got swept into something, right?

Anybody relate to that?

A little doom scrolling action?

No, not us.

We're Christians, we don't doom scroll.

Yeah.

That's when you scroll on your phone for a long time.

The scroll of Doom, yeah.

We're working from home now.

We're we're always tied to our work.

It seems to never go away, which is okay because providing is a really important thing.

Being close to our families is really important.

Doing what we're called to do, the work that God's called us to do, is very important.

Whatever Martha was doing that day, I can tell you that it was it was great.

Um I bet everybody was really happy that they had things to drink and food to eat.

But there's an invitation for other things.

Um I'm gonna I'm gonna flow in and out of some camp stories today, but I was uh I was thinking this morning is three out of our last four camps, we have had transportation canceled for three out of four.

Uh two of them the same day uh showing up to rent our vans.

Vans aren't there.

Okay, well now what do we do?

Uh I know a guy with a 15-passenger van.

Jesse, can you help us out, please?

And it happens.

We had one cancel on us the day before we were supposed to leave because they thought the temperatures would be too cold.

There is a war that keeps us from the presence of God.

There are things that are standing in our way for that great reward that we have in front of us.

It's important that we take a minute to acknowledge it.

If you're up against something that's difficult, that's keeping you from God's presence, it's important that you acknowledge it.

It's important that we move past it too.

Because what God has for us is amazing and it's big.

And what we're talking about here is something that God's really excited about.

So we've we've been in these camp moments, um, and I've I've gotten to see God move in powerful ways.

And these things that keep us from from being there.

Um I and when I think about being at the feet of Jesus, there's a couple things that come to mind.

And I'm gonna go back to this really quick.

But one thing is necessary.

Mary chose the portion which had not been taken, which will not be taken away from her.

There are things that we can do to be at the feet of Jesus.

I don't think it's just sitting there.

I think of getting close to God, it's reading scripture, right?

It's being in worship, it's being in prayer.

You might have a home group that you walk in.

But there's there's a part of showing up at church, there's a part of doing these things, reading scripture that that can be like going through the motions.

And what I want to suggest for you today is that maybe there's a deeper level.

There might be something else that God is opening here.

Um, I I never ever want to replace the need for God's word, building our house on the rock.

But I don't want to treat it as just a Bible study.

Hey, we're just a book club.

Perhaps when we get into the word of God, things will unlock in our hearts.

Perhaps it'll come alive.

Perhaps there'll be something that jumps in our spirit.

And if it doesn't in that moment, it will eventually.

God's word does not return void.

There's a greater intimacy in reading God's word that's available to us.

There's greater levels of knowing him.

It's gonna get wild.

When we have new kids come into our camps, there's there's sometimes a part of me where I'm like, ooh, I wonder how I wonder how this is gonna be perceived.

Because getting a bunch of teenagers in a room to sing love songs about God to a wall, it's kind of like, oh, all right.

On paper, this is a little wacky, right?

But when you get into the moment and your heart's fully engaged in that moment, you might as well be at the Super Bowl.

Because it's our Super Bowl, right?

When you're with 50 teenagers in a room and there's no cell service, and every single one of them has their heart connected to Jesus, there's something that changes in the spirit.

There's something that changes in your heart.

In this scene, Mary is, this is the first encounter that we we see in scripture with between Mary and Martha and Jesus.

Um there's not a lot to be known except for there was something in that moment that just drew Mary to Jesus' feet.

This is before her brother was raised from the dead.

This is before Martha said, Hey, you are the Messiah.

This is before Mary anointed Jesus' feet.

I think about the rooms that I've been in, the the speakers who I've seen that command a room, right?

I think has anybody ever seen Lou Engel speak in person?

I I watched him twice at the at the standard, and he did this thing where he takes a great big room, and he's probably one of the most famous speakers in the state, and he sits his chair on the floor, and he goes, I want everybody just to sit on the floor right here.

And you can't just help but to be drawn in.

And that's just a guy talking about Jesus.

I can't imagine what it was like to have the real thing.

I can't imagine the draw in that building, the presence in that building, the words he must have been releasing that drew us in.

But I do know what it's like to be at his feet.

Um that used to be on this screen and it might be gone.

All right, I'm gonna paraphrase it.

We've become all too familiar with the God that we know.

I uh a lot of you guys know this isn't my main gig.

I have a whole other job outside of this.

And as we were we were moving into our summer camp this year, we did a uh we did some outreaches and then we went into our camp.

And after a couple of days at camp, we went into the town and did some more outreaches.

And um I found myself in a in a new role at work.

I found myself half spending about half the day just on the phone, just taking calls from customers.

And I I pulled into our camp and I jumped on Wi-Fi real quick.

I look at my phone and I get this like angry email, and I'm like, well, good thing this isn't my fault.

Here, let's clear this up real quick.

And I just use that as an example to we all have external factors in our lives where we're just we might be carrying a little weight.

We might be carrying a lot of weight.

And whatever it is, if it's work or it's family, or if it's personal, or if it's spiritual, we walk into situations with stuff.

And we we stepped into our first night of summer camp, and I was just in work mode, right?

Vans aren't there, taking work calls, trying to figure out how to get 40 people from this place in Boulder to pray for people to eat lunch, and then let's go down to the springs.

And we get there and we step into the worship room, and it all just clicked, and the Holy Spirit just started to move.

And I went, oh yeah.

I forgot.

I forgot how good this is.

And you can be in the presence of God, but just still, you know, carry this stuff.

Carry your stuff.

And and Shannon, right right in the middle of the the first part of worship, she's like, man, I I just believe that that God is calling us to receive today.

And you don't want to miss it.

And there's a moment for us this morning to receive.

And normally when we're in these moments in in years past, the more our kids pray, the more the spirit stirs up, and more, the more the God releases his power.

So we we get our kids off the floor.

Hey, stop laying on the floor.

Hey, go pray for your friends, go pray for your friends.

Engage with God, get your heart on God, cry out to him.

All the stuff, right?

And it's beautiful.

Kids will get healed, joy will show up, you'll get a bunch of teenage guys just laughing and crying and hugging each other, and the God is healing and breaking things off, and it's beautiful, and it's amazing.

And I come back from these camps, and it seems like every year I'm like, I don't know what to do with this.

I've never been in an atmosphere like this before.

And I stepped into that first night of worship, and God had just been saying for days, rest, rest, rest, rest.

And the word that day was receive, receive, receive.

And we had this this great message planned.

We were gonna get the kids fired up, rah, rah, rah.

Let's go pray for for Colorado Springs.

Let's go go ask for healing.

We're gonna get a bunch of people saved, we're gonna feed a bunch of hungry people.

And God's like, I don't that's not happening tonight, guys.

That's not what I have planned.

But you're gonna be on the ground for a while and you're gonna really enjoy yourself.

And you're gonna enjoy my peace, and you're gonna enjoy my healing, and you're gonna enjoy my presence.

At one point, I kind of army crawled over, because it's kind of hard to walk, you know.

To the guys who are speaking, and I said, Hey, we I don't think we can end this.

And the band's playing, you know, there's drums in the background or loud music.

And they're like, oh no, no, no, no, we're not doing this.

We're not, we're not, we're we're gonna let God just be God.

And I watched God just start to break things off of people in the room.

Every time we tried to have our own agenda, every time we tried to get up, he'd say, No.

This is me, this is my turn.

This is what I'm doing right now.