Serve Day

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.

Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.

Visit us online at the lookout.church.

Come on.

Come on, I think we have a shot of praise that we still have to release in this place.

There's something about just just remembering as followers of Jesus that our greatest weapon is his very name.

It's the actual name of Jesus, the announcement of the power of his name.

In Philippians 2, 9, Paul writes, he says, Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

That's pretty much everywhere.

And every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And so what happens when we, as the people of God, as the ones who have been adopted into the family of God, the ones that have been redeemed, the ones who have been given breath and a voice to use it to declare who He is, as we take up that opportunity, announce the name of Jesus.

That means not only are our knees bowing to God, that means every circumstance in our life is bowing to the Lordship of Jesus, every fear is bowing to the Lordship of Jesus, every impossible situation is bowing to the Lordship of Jesus.

And everyone around us gets to gets the spillover.

Everyone around us gets the overflow.

So when we shout the name of Jesus, what happens is that sound is released in the spirit, even over this entire plot of land we call Boulder.

This entire plot of land we call Boulder County.

So I just want that as we shout the name of Jesus together, I want you to visualize the sound waves of this room going into the heavens, going out through these windows, going like Marie said, into this neighborhood, uh Heatherwood right next door, into downtown Boulder, into Erie, into Longmont, into Lafayette, into all the places that you guys live, and just visualize every dark and unclean, every wicked spirit that exists in this land being served, notice that there is a king, that there is somebody whose name is greater than every other ruler, every other king.

Amen?

Come on, come on.

So, Jesus, we thank you for our voices in this morning together, Lord God, we shout your name, believing God.

It's not just the volume of our voice, it's not just the not just the hype that's underneath, but it's the conviction, God, it's the belief that your name is above every name.

So today, God, we thank you to break every chain in the name of Jesus.

Let's shout his name together.

Three, two, one.

Let's go, Jesus.

We praise you, God.

We thank you, Jesus.

We thank you that we're yours today, God.

We thank you that we are yours today, everywhere.

Our steep our feet step is now space for the glory of God.

And I thank you, Lord, today that this is a day that the Lord has made, and we rejoice and we are glad in it.

You are worthy, God.

You are worthy to be praised.

Come on, you are worthy, Jesus.

We love you.

Tell them you love him today.

We love you, Jesus.

And it's in the mighty name of Jesus we pray together.

And all God's people said, Amen.

Amen.

High five, the person you're sitting next to this morning.

Welcome them to church.

Gary Lee.

Chloe totally missed that high five.

That was on you.

It was bad.

All right.

What's going on, everybody?

We're doing a shorty today.

Um, everybody excited to get out to the neighborhood?

Everybody bring their work clothes.

That's a that's a C.

I'll take it.

That's a passing grade.

All right.

Well, it's gonna be good.

There's gonna be good stuff happening.

So um hey, welcome this morning.

Um, we're gonna move into our tithes and offerings here.

This is just an opportunity uh just for us to give back and just to sew into what God's doing in our community, uh in our building.

So it's exciting.

We have three ways to give um online text and in person.

Um also wanted to make sure that you guys, if you're new today, any newbies, stand up and introduce yourself.

Just kidding.

Um do we have do we have a welcome team here today?

Is Carly, you're doing the thing.

You guys know Carly?

She's amazing, she welcomes people, it's a huge part of our community.

So um, if you're new, there's gonna be a happy, smiley face in the back greeting you.

So go get plugged in.

Um, we'd love to get to know you.

Um everybody text updates?

That was like three people for the rest of you.

Text hello to this number or scan that barcode.

I want to make sure we get you plugged in.

I love getting a text Friday afternoon, just let me know what's going on Sunday.

So if you're not getting that, make sure you jump in already.

It's pretty helpful.

And no, they're not selling your data.

So uh up next, we got our prophetic round table.

Uh, if you're looking for a place to plug into the prophetic, um be around other people who are who are growing in the prophetic, this might be for you.

Um it's the first Tuesdays on the second floor classroom.

Um so can you text?

You can.

You can text PRT to that same number to get plugged into that.

Uh we also have a missions community group happening right now.

The Van Peltz are leading that up.

Those beautiful people, they're amazing.

So if you're passionate about missions, um, this is something that you probably want to get plugged into.

It's not something that our our church has has been real active in, but I love that that we're we're starting to burn this fire again.

So thank you, Van Peltz, for leading that charge.

Uh and if this is part of your heartbeat, get plugged into it.

So all right.

Camping trip.

Everybody been on the camping trip before?

Yeah, it's pretty sweet.

It is pretty sweet.

It's gonna happen June 28th through 30th.

If you're not signed up yet, make sure you get signed up because spots do fill up pretty dang quick.

So we want to make sure you're there.

Um, if you're having a baby that week, you probably won't be there or the next week.

But for everybody else who's not me and my wife, you should be there.

It's gonna be awesome.

So uh make sure you get signed up because spots do fill up fast.

So um, we got any more announcements, Luke?

I think that's it.

Can we give it up for Luke?

Bringing a life-changing message to us all this morning.

Yeah, sweet.

Hey guys, good morning.

Good morning.

The clouds have thank you.

Thank you for our children in the back that are very excited for my short message today.

Oh, that's my future preacher's son, disappointed.

He wants to hear the word today.

Um, hey guys, good to see you.

So uh if you haven't noticed, we have kind of a different vibe, a different thing going on today.

If you're just coming uh coming in, you haven't been here in a while.

Uh, today is something we're calling serve day.

So we're gonna keep our time here shorter a little bit, and just just for a little context here, um uh if if you didn't get the message, what's gonna happen is after our our time here, we're gonna do like a little informational meeting after we officially close for all of you guys who signed up to serve, or maybe you didn't sign up but you came ready to serve.

What we're gonna do is invite you guys up for it after the service here, and then we're gonna uh lay down some instructions.

And then together we're gonna go to a neighborhood right next door called Heatherwood.

And there we have about five different teams that are gonna be going around.

Some are gonna be at the uh elementary school, others at the entrances to the neighborhood, and uh others just going door to door and checking in with residents.

And what we're trying to do is uh we're gonna be serving uh some landscape needs, some spring cleanup needs.

Why are we doing that?

Uh well it was uh last year actually we came in contact with Heatherwood Elementary.

It's the first, it's the closest school to this property, uh the closest kind of public school to this property.

And um, and we we we really felt like this year we wanted to build bridges, and so we reached out to Heatherwood Elementary and asked them if they had any needs.

And they said, actually, you know what would really be helpful is we have some uh you know, we have some areas around the school that just really need some TLC.

Um would you guys be interested in doing something like that?

And we're like, yeah, we'll we'll absolutely do that.

And then we came to find out that the entire neighborhood, they don't have a an HOA, so they don't have a way of really organizing other uh um uh being able to tend to some of the other areas around the neighborhood.

So one of the teachers at the school who lives in the neighborhood said, it would be awesome if you guys could come to the the entrances as well and just spruce those up.

And and they started just kind of coming up with a few projects for us, and we're like, we're on it.

And uh, and we really believe that the pathway to building relationship, building bridges is through service.

It starts through service because we want the neighborhood to know that we're here, that we're for them, and that and that we want to be present in their lives.

So that's what we're doing.

I do want to shout out a quick uh for those of you who aren't gonna be joining us, I just want to do a quick shout out to um some of our team leaders today.

So, first of all, Wade and Shannon Capel uh are gonna be leading one of the teams.

Yes.

Uh Gary and Emily Lee.

Gary Gary's gonna be leading a team.

Um, Kevin and Heather Van Pelt, uh, they're gonna be around, they're gonna be leading a team as well.

Neil and Kieran Armstrong.

Neil's here.

Hey Kieran, Mariah actually goes to Heatherwood Elementary, so we get to go to her stomping grounds and serve.

And um, and then Josh and Carly Robertson are gonna are helping out today too.

So, yeah, give it up for these guys.

It's a big experiment.

Fortunately, it's drying up a little bit, the sun is coming out, so I know that probably scared some people away today.

They're like, there's no way I'm going out in that.

It's okay because you guys are here and you guys are the real Christians.

All right.

Do not tell them we said that this will not go in the live stream.

Um, but Jesus knows.

Um I'm joking.

I'm joking.

Um so uh so that's kind of the lay of the land.

I do want to just just uh I want to share a word of encouragement before we before we head out uh this morning, though.

Some of you guys will not be coming with us because maybe you're not either prepared or you're not physically able, you just can't go and do those, you know, kind of like manual labor projects, and we totally get it.

There's a way for all of us to contribute though.

In fact, we have um we have we printed off some staff directories of the teachers and administrative staff at Heatherwood Elementary.

And one of the things, if you're not able to kind of physically contribute today, but you're like, I will contribute in prayer, um, we have uh after the service, you can grab one of these staff directories and take them home and just pray for the teachers by name that God would bless the school, that he would resource them with strength and wisdom, that he would bring favor on the school.

We want them to win, we want the school to thrive, both the students and the teachers alike.

And you're thinking, well, why would I pray for a staff of a school?

My kids don't attend or I don't attend.

Because we get to, all right?

Because we get to do things that don't make sense because that's the kind of people we are.

We look for people to become targets of blessing, all right?

And we say, I don't know you, but I have your photo, I have your photo and I have your name, which makes you now a target of blessing, all right?

You have a target on your back.

Heaven has marked you, and and I am assigned to you.

I am an assassin, and uh, and I get to, I don't know what's happening in your life, but we are going to rebuke every anything coming against you, and we're gonna we're gonna announce the blessing of God over your life, and we're gonna see what happens through that, right?

Will we ever know what happens?

Maybe not.

But do we get to believe that God has given us prayers that are powerful and effective?

Absolutely.

Amen.

So after the service, I want you to do that.

Some of you are maybe able to come and you can just walk the neighborhood and just pray over the homes and say, God, let this be a place.

The kingdom of heaven is made manifest in every home, every marriage, every uh every every parent, um, every business that is in this neighborhood.

And so possibilities are endless.

Um why are we doing this?

Uh it was about 39 years ago in this church, April 39 years ago, the church officially launched as the Boulder Valley Vineyard.

All right.

April 39th.

So that means next year is a big anniversary.

We haven't done a lot of anniversary stuff because the the history of the church is very kind of hard to target and track the milestones of it.

But April 39 years ago, 1985, I'm told that but the Boulder Valley Vineyard officially launched.

And it was this last year, though, that we felt like God was inviting us to change the name of the church to take the root system of this church community as a vineyard on a hill, a fruitful vineyard on a fertile hill that on this random hill outside of Boulder would be a place of fruitfulness, of spiritual fruitfulness, where where churches before that, if you guys know the history, there was several church plants within it, and at a five, I think it was in a uh five-year period of time, seven churches came came and and then they they closed down.

And it was this church that came and said, We are going to be fruitful in a place of death.

And so they came up to this hill and they started.

And uh, and I'm thankful for for all of those who who put the stake in the ground there.

And so this has plenty been a place of fruitfulness, but this last year we felt like the Lord was saying, not only is it a place of fruitfulness, but I've given you this hill for a reason.

I've given you this view for a reason, not just to be inspired on a Sunday morning as you look out, but that as you look out, that the eyes of your heart would see more than yourself, that you would actually look out in compassion, you would look out in love, that you would be connected to what I am doing outside of your own lives, but in this region.

And so we just felt like the Lord said, it's you know, it's time to change the name, which is why we we embrace this name, Church of the Lookout, that we'd be a church that has a vantage point, a view to be able to look out beyond ourselves, to see what he's doing in our region and say, God, we want to partner with what you're doing.

And so it was because of that we we knew that the Lord was gonna start dropping ideas and inspiration to go and do things as a community in new ways.

And this is one of those ways that we've been dreaming in for a long time.

And I love that today the way we're doing that is we're gonna be getting our hands dirty, both metaphorically and literally.

We're gonna be getting our hands dirty and we're going to be reaching into the soil.

I think that actually is significant today for those who will be participating in that way.

Because it has to do with our origin story when you open the scriptures.

So I'm gonna read this passage out of Genesis 2.

If you guys are familiar with our origin story or the creation story, when God made Adam and Eve, he gave them some specific purposes and specific instructions on their first days on earth.

And in Genesis 2, here's what we read starting in verse 5.

It says, When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground.

And a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground.

Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

And the man became a living creature, and the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and he put the man whom he had formed.

Okay, so we'll pause there for a second.

So gardens are really special to the heart of God.

We see a garden, our our our life began in a garden, and the scriptures end in a garden.

And it began in a garden, and and we began in a garden where God would out of the soil and out of the clay, He would He would fa fashion a man, and then He stooped down and He and He breathed into His nostrils.

The breath of life came into our lungs and animated this dirt.

You and I are nothing more than animated dirt.

And that's a good thing.

We came from the dirt, we came from garden soil, and God says, I'm gonna breathe new life into this soil.

And in this particular passage we read, it said that part of the reason that God made man is because there were he noticed that there was no one to work the ground.

There was no one to work the ground, and so he created man with a purpose to tend to the ground.

Now in verse 15, this is what it says Genesis 2.15, it says, The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it.

Now some of you might look at this and you're thinking, wow, so God created man to work?

That's cruel.

He created man to get into gardening like right away.

That's the first thing.

Like that's why would he do that?

It seems bewildering that part of God's purpose for man was to cultivate the land, the garden that he created.

But this is so important, this is so important that we even for today just revisit this, this core purpose in our lives.

Um whether you whether your work, the work that God has given to you on a Monday through Friday basis, whether your work is actually tending to land, or whether it's tending to pets, or tending to the elderly, or tending to computers, or tending to websites, or tending to your kids, or tending to a lot of things.

He's given us all work, he's created us for work because he wants us to be cultivators.

And just a few things I want to point out this morning that really I think are important.

First of all, in this passage, we can see this.

The Genesis story, the origin story tells us this that we are co-laborers with God.

We are co-laborers with God.

You are a co-laborer with God, you're a full participant.

God created the earth, and then he created us to take care of the earth.

Do you guys see that?

He created us to care for what he created.

And our lives and the work of our hands are about full participation in the life of God and the flourishing of the world.

How awesome is it that we're not just robots, that we're not just go do what you're told.

He called us to be co-laboring.

He said, This is the world I made for you.

Do you want to join me in taking care of it?

And this is huge because everything we get to do, not just today, but our entire lives are a co-laboring with God.

It's about being filled with the heart of God, seeing the world that He's created for us, and then joining Him in the work of tending to what a gift it is, what a gift it is that we are called co-labours with God, full participants in the kingdom.

Are you guys uh do you guys receive that this morning?

I am a co-laborer.

We are co-labours with God, but we're also cultivators of the land given to us.

And like I said, all of us have land that is given to us.

And yeah, I am talking about, I do believe in the importance of creation care.

We are given a beautiful earth and we are called to steward it well.

We are called to steward this earth well, do what we can to take care of the earth that God has given to us, but also everywhere we go, we're called to cultivate and to make things better.

That part of our uh edenic purpose, our our our first origin story purpose is to be the kind of people who cultivate the land given to us to make it better.

And so this involves everything that we do with our work.

And like I said, your work could look a lot of different ways when you leave this place.

Some people see their work as simply the grind.

This is my nine to five, and your work exists to just, I just gotta grind it through to get to Friday and to get to the weekend, right?

And that's what we call we're weekend warriors, especially in Colorado.

It's like I'm just gonna do what I have to do to make the make the cash, let's bring the cash home.

And then I'm hitting the mountains on the weekend.

That's how a lot of people refer to their work.

They don't love their job, so they don't actually enter into work, they just have jobs to get them to play, but that's not what God says.

God says, I have given you work, I've given you a calling, and labor is a good thing.

And everything that you do, all of work from God's perspective, exists to do three things on earth.

This is what an author, Sky Genothy, said.

He said, All work is gonna create three different things on earth.

Your labor is either gonna create abundance, it's gonna create beauty, or it's gonna create order.

You're your what you do, what your contribution on this earth is always gonna do one of Those three things, either abundance, beauty, or order.

And some of you do all three of those things, maybe you do one or two of those things, but when you get to the core of what you do and the callings that God gives us, they're not seen as apart from God's purposes.

They're at the center of God's purposes, and he calls us to cultivate whatever that is for the glory of his name, right?

So we're cultivated, we're co-laborers, we're cultivators.

But the third thing here is this we are commissioned to extend blessings.

So when we purposefully do creative acts, when we do what we're doing today, when you do what we're doing, and maybe you do it on your own for your neighbors or you go above and beyond for people in your life, when you purposefully enter into a creative act on behalf of somebody else, flowing from sacrificial love and service, what we're doing is we're announcing that the kingdom of God is among us.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Jesus.

That's a good work, Luke.

That's a good word, Luke.

When we step into creative acts and we give ourselves to sacrificial service, what we're doing with our lives is we're announcing that there is a kingdom that is more real than the kingdoms of this earth.

We're saying there's something, there's another guideline that I am living by, and it's the kingdom of Jesus.

Because serving in and of itself is a prophetic act.

And what it does is it shows that God has done something great for us.

And so it is our joy to do the same thing for others, to give ourselves away.

The way of the world, listen to me.

The way of the world is marked by fear and scarcity and self-preservation.

But the way of the kingdom of Jesus is about love and abundance and self-sacrifice.

That is the way of Jesus.

And that's how you know followers of Jesus from any other, from followers of any other way, is that we think with abundance, we think with love, and we think of how do I serve you?

And what happens as we enter into that, it leads to freedom for us.

When we serve, it actually not only benefits the people we're serving, it's about freeing up our own hearts away from the fear, away from the skull scarcity, away from self-preservation, because we have been given the kingdom of God, and it's the Father's good pleasure to give us even more of his kingdom.

I'll keep going until you show up, right?

This is good news for us today.

The way of the kingdom is about getting down into the dirt, clearing out what doesn't belong, planting new seeds, and nurturing the soil right beneath us, believing that God wants to grow something new out of the soil.

This is the last scripture, and we'll be done.

Isaiah 62 or 61.

Isaiah 61, right at the end of the beautiful proclamation of what the kingdom of God looks like, the prophet Isaiah says this for as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown to be to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.

Come on, let's stand to our feet here.

Here's what I want to do.

I realize not all of us are gonna be going, but this message is for all of us, okay?

This message is for all of us because God has called you to be a co-laborer, He's called you to be a cultivator, and He's commissioned you to be an agent of blessing with whatever He's given you to do.

So here's what I want you to do.

Just put your hand on your heart.

Alright.

And I want to bless you.

I want to bless you today as one who's an agent of blessing.

So, God, I thank you for my friends here today.

I thank you for those of us who are gonna go out and get into some trouble here in Heatherwood and hopefully do some uh do some damage to the kingdom of darkness and just announce and just bring peace and light with with even our servant serving acts, God.

I thank you, Lord Jesus, for a spirit of joy to accompany us as we go.

We thank you, Lord God, that every step we take, we're we're taking with you and for you.

And so what a joy it is to serve you, God.

But I thank you, God, for all of us here today and the work that you've given us, God, that everything we do is not not it's not secular, it is sacred because you because we are temples of the Holy Spirit.

So I thank you, Father, as we leave this place that you have given us great work to participate in for the glory of your name.

And again, I speak it out for as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.

Can I get an amen?

Amen.

Come on, give a shout to Jesus in this place.

Awesome.

So here's what we're gonna do now.

I'm gonna officially release you.

If you have to go, if you have other things that you're doing, you can feel free to go.

I want to bless you.

We're gonna have our connect team in the back.

And if you're new to the church, you can go connect with us in the back.

But if you are here to serve today, if you're ready to go to these neighborhoods and you want to do something, um come forward and we're just gonna give it just a couple minutes, and then Carly Robertson's gonna come up here and give some uh some instructions, and then we're gonna head out in our cars and go over there.

So go in the peace and the strength of the kingdom.

If you're serving, come forward, and we'll do a little meeting here in a second.

I love to see you.