A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood - Week 4

Amen, and amen, and listen.

If you ever, if you ever find yourself in a

place where you need, where you're struggling and you need help,

it doesn't matter, you can go to Seystone dot Church

slash help and you can find all the information you

would need there. If you need, if you need prayer,

whatever it is, all the information is right there on

that page. The number to our pastor on call phone

is right there. That's the number you call when you

need something in your life, and we just want you

to know that we make that available to you so

that you can get whatever it is you need into

your life.

So just make sure you're using that. We call it

the help portal.

Make sure you're using that help portal because listen, I

don't expect you to memorize telephone numbers, amen, I don't

expect you to just know the pastor on call number.

But you can remember seastone dot Church slash help. Or

you can just go to the website and there's actually

a navigational menu there that you can get to that page.

So that's for you and you can pass that. Listen,

if you've got a friend that's struggling, pass seastone dot

Church slash help and everything they're gonna need to know

how they can get help for whatever situation they're going

through is right there on that page.

Amen, we're going to we're.

Gonna be closing our series today a beautiful day in

the neighborhood, and we're gonna start in John chapter fifteen,

John chapter fifteen.

This morning.

Let's go to verse sixteen, John fifteen sixteen. It says

you did not choose me.

You know, we could preach forever just right there.

You know, we talk about and we sing songs about,

we write songs about, Oh, when I found Jesus, When

I found Jesus. But you know, we we we didn't

choose him. He chose us on Calvary when he surrendered

his life. He surrendered his life, and he chose humanity

says you didn't choose me, But I chose you and

appointed that you should go and bear fruit.

Let me read that again.

I chose you and appointed you that you should go

and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain. That

whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may

give you these things. I command you that you love

one another. You know, when we talk about sharing our faith,

when we talk about being that good kingdom neighbor, that

good spiritual neighbor. One of the biggest obstacles that people

face is the fear of rejection. It's one of those

primal things that's on the inside of us that nobody

wants to feel rejected. Nobody wants to hear no. It

hurts deep down on the inside. I don't know about you,

but I used to remember on the playground, if I

didn't get picked first for a team, come on somebody,

it was like, oh my gosh, this is the worst

day I have ever had in my life.

Why would I not be picked first?

Well, because I wasn't very fast, That's probably why I

wasn't picked first.

Amen, But that still felt like rejection.

How many of you can remember being young and you

know you had your your eye on that that that that.

Cute boy or girl. Hopefully if you're a boy, it

was a girl.

And if you're a girl as a boy, amen, And

and you never you never sent that note hey do

you like me?

Check yes or no?

Amen, because of fear of rejection, because the worst thing

in the world would.

That note have been checked?

No?

Right?

But basically all that know would have meant is hey,

just move on to whoever's next. But we fear rejections

so bad that it spills over into our spiritual lives.

So we don't talk to people about the Lord in

a way that would lead.

Them to making a decision about Jesus.

We have casual conversations because after all, there's no fear

because I mean, down here in the South, everybody knows

the Good Lord. I mean, oh, oh, the Good Lord.

He blessed my granny. I mean she lived to be

one hundred and fourteen, and that, you know, everybody knows.

The Good Lord.

So we'll have those casual conversations, but we don't have

those intentional conversations and build intentional relationships with the purpose

of a decision being made. And Jesus, who created us,

understood this about us. He unders stood our innate desire,

that primal thing on the inside of us to be accepted.

So he gives us these words of wisdom verse eighteen.

It says, if the world hates you, if you feel rejected, you.

Know that it hated me before it hated you. He says, listen,

they're not rejecting you. They're rejecting me. It's not you.

They dislike it's me they dislike, and the reason is

because if you.

Were of the world, the world would love its own.

See the moment we receive Jesus.

Into our lives as our Lord and Savior, we are

translated out of darkness and into light.

On a brand new creation.

When we talk about this brand new creation a lot

of times in our mind, the imagery that we have

there is that he goes behind us with an eraser

and that he erases all those bad things that we've

done and we're standing here. But literally it means we

are not the same kind of creation that we were,

that we are not the same kind of creation that

we were before.

It's not that he erases the bad stuff.

It's that he rebuilds us and makes us into something

different than we were before, the regenerated man, where something

is now alive on the inside of us that wasn't

alive before, and that makes us new and different.

That the moment we are saved, we.

Are transformed into that spiritual being that God desired and

created the very first man and woman to be one

that could have communion with Him, that could interact with him,

that that that could that that could walk in the

miraculous and the potential and see things that no one

else could see. That's the transformation that happens when we're saved.

And he says, listen, if you were of the world,

the world would love its own. Yet because you were

not of the world, he says, you're you're, you're, you're,

you're not of the world. But I chose you out

of the world. Therefore the world hates you.

So let's let's let me wrap this up just in

simple thought for you here. So listen that they're not

rejecting you, they're rejecting me. When we travel, we carry

the fault that the thought on through.

And hey, you.

Know, and because I called you out of the world

and you don't really belong to the world, they really

hate you anyway. Whether you ask them to be a

part of what you're doing or not, they already hate you.

So because they already hate you, why not go ahead

and try to bring people over into the same experience

you had, Because whether you ask them to make a

decision about Christ or not, they already don't understand you,

and they already hate you because you're not of this world.

So you might as well go ahead and make the

invitation because you have been pre rejected.

Just think about that for a second.

We live in fear of having those conversations. But the

reality is the world doesn't accept us anyway. All of

the things, all of the propaganda, all of the stuff

that's gone going on on television right now about how

all the religious ride and all that. Listen, that's already

been We've already been thought of that way for a

long long time. It's just now people are saying it.

But the concept is, hey, you're different. Want everybody to

look at me, and you are different. The Bible says

that you were once not a people, but now you're

the people of God, that you were a chosen people.

Peculiar.

Now listen, some of y'all are more peculiar than others. Amen,

But we're all peculiar people. We're all different. Because you know,

it's like it's like suddenly the world became a square

hole and we're a round peg. And Jesus says, hey,

since it's already that way, how how about seeing things differently?

How about getting over that fear of rejection because you're

already living in rejection.

It's not going to be more rejection.

You're already rejected, So why not give it an opportunity

to be acceptance By living a life where our faith

is quiet instead of our faith out loud, we're.

Just accepting.

Rejection into our lives rather than having an opportunity for

someone else to come into the family of God and

finding acceptance. In John chapter four, verse thirty five, it says,

do you not say there's still four months and then

comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up

your eyes and look at the fields, for they are

already white for harvest. We read the scripture last week,

see the reaction, the way we transform ourselves into someone

that that that wants to to to live a life

where we win the lost, where we give people an

opportunity to experience eternal life.

Now, listen, I I just uh I wanna.

I want logically erase all your spiritual thought right now.

Logically I want you to make a decision. All right,

If I'm gonna if you have an opportunity to get

two gifts, one of two gifts, I'm gonna give you

the choice. I will tell you what's in each box.

In this box is a terrible, dark, burning forever future,

and this one is eternal life where there is no tears,

and there's no pain, and there's no worry and there's

no strife.

Are you going to choose this box or this box?

Everybody say, this is my left hand, this is the

good box, this is all right, and this is hell.

So I want you to tell me. Just outline and

will count of three. Everybody, outline, tell me which box

you want?

One, two, three?

Here you want the left box. Do you realize that's

what sharing your faith is. You're offering the left box.

The world's offering the right box. We're offering the left box.

But we're afraid somebody's gonna tell us no. Somebody that

would say no to that offer is challenged. It's okay

because they don't see.

How we see.

But it's our responsibility to build relationships so that they

can see it the way we see it, so that

they don't feel like it's coming from a judgmental hypocrite

because the platform we present it from means everything.

Now, how do I live my life.

In a way that I am building relationships with the

people around me for the intention of leading them to Christ.

Number one is we have to see through the lens

of scripture We all have a lens that we see

life through. Our hurt, our pain, our trauma, our lack,

our abundance, whatever it is. We all have lenses that

we see life through. And we really don't see life

ever through reality because the reality of life exists in

the invisible world will where nobody sees. That's really where

life exists, is in the invisible place that God created.

So we go through our lives.

And we apply these lenses to other people. I was

hurt by somebody that looked like that, and therefore I

don't like that person.

Amen.

Oh well, those people told me I was no good,

So now I see through a lens that says I'm

no good.

But we have to learn to live seeing through the lens.

Of scripture, because Scripture tells us who we are. Scripture

says that we're above, not beneath, were the head, not

the tail, that we're the apple of his eye, that

we're the pinnacle of his creation. That on day six

when he created us, he said we're very good, and

everything else was just good. Think of the most beautiful

thing on earth. It's only good. Jesus says, you're very good.

But we also must learn to see others through the

lens of scripture, not just ourselves, but see others through

the lens of scripture, because every single person we come

in contact with is someone who the same Jesus that

saved us.

He died for them.

And the only difference between the worst person you can clap,

I can talk over you, But the only difference between

the worst person we encounter in us is.

His blood applied to our lives. That's the only difference.

Everybody we come in contact with is a potential believer

and follower of Jesus, every single one of them, and

the things that they do they do out of a

misunderstanding of who he is, and they're lashing out at

some kind of brokenness on the inside.

And if we can learn to.

See people the way Jesus saw people, listen, Jesus knew everything.

He made his way from Bethany one day and he

was coming down the road and they.

Were on a hill. He could see the city of Jerusalem.

And it says that Jesus stopped and he looked into

the city, knowing that in just a few days the

people in that city were going to brutalize him crucify him.

He looked at that city, and the Bible says that

he wept.

He wept over those people because he sees.

People differently than we see people. He doesn't see people

as an opportunity for our own selfish advancement. He doesn't

see people as a potential threat. He didn't see people

as dirty. He saw people as objects of redemption that

he gave his life for. And it's up to us

to transform ourselves and see people that way. And how

do we do that by the word and allowing it

to become.

Our lens, our filter that we see people through. The

second thing is practice sacrifice.

I know I don't usually preach one, two, three kind

of sermons, but today I just want to give it

to you, simple.

Number two.

Practice sacrifice in your life.

What does that mean? Practice sacrifice? When we give more,

probably you got it. We'll take it. Amen.

But every time we talk about sacrifice, the enemy has

conditioned us to think about money. But that's not what

I'm talking about. I'm talking about learning to live our

lives inconvenienced by others and embracing that as worship to God.

Embracing the inconvenience others put us in, and allowing that

to be an extension of our worship. How do I

practice that? Well, start at home with your family. Start

right there at home, because practicing sacrifice doesn't have to

look overtly spiritual. We're learning to practice sacrifice so it

extends into every area of our lives. Listen, I don't

have this perfect. There are times when my beautiful, loving

daughter Lexi says, when I stand up and I know

she's been waiting for me to stand up, and I

staid up, she says, hey, can you bring me up

to drink other out of the kitchen. I'm like, I

sat there an extra thirty minutes because I knew you

were going to ask me.

I could see it in your eyes. But we do

that that we that we choose to do things.

That we normally wouldn't do that inconvenience us, because it

teaches us to live our lives sacrificially.

So if we do it at.

Home, in the core place of where we live, then

it becomes a natural expression to the next level of

our lives, those immediate relationships, that friendship group, whatever it is,

and we become sacrificial there.

Listen, I want to tell you something that I give.

I give Spencer cape a hard time about a lot

of stuff.

I mean, because he's just an easy target.

But but I want to tell you this, he has

learned if that next, that next level, that that not

just the core. He's learned to extend that to the

next level. And he is the most relentless friend I

have ever seen in my entire life. He will not

leave you alone because he desires to live sacrificially for

his friends and the people around him. We can learn

a lesson from that by being sacrificial not just in

that group, but in the next group, and in the

next group those people that we work with, and those

loose acquaintances, and in that next group, the people that

we don't even know. As we practice sacrifice away from ourselves,

suddenly we're living a sacrificial life that considers others because

we've already learned to see people like Jesus sees people,

and now we're living a sacrificial life. So when we

see that person this obviously disturbed in the break room,

we don't walk.

Past them anymore.

We sit down and we have those conversations, because it's

all about seeing people come to Jesus, and the only

way to do that is to build those relationships.

And then you know number three. The last thing.

Is just pray for the lost every single day. Just

pray for the lost every single day, because prayer changes us.

Let me say that again. Prayer changes us. We think

when we pray, it changes God's mind.

It don't.

It changes us. It puts us in a position to

receive from God. It puts us in a position to

recognize God. It puts us in a position to celebrate God.

Prayer changes us. So every single day we pray for

the lost. Now, when you sat down, there was probably

a card in your chair, and I want you to

take that card. If you didn't get a card, walk

through there and you know, after service over and find

one in a seat somewhere and there's some slots on it.

I want you to take that card, and I want

you to write down the names of people that you're

going to pray for.

Now, listen, don't.

Write if your mama has a better relationship with Jesus

than you do, do not put your mama on that card.

You should pray for your mama anyway. Mama, I pray

for you. I love you.

Sorry, I haven't been about to see you. I'm coming,

Kathy shaking her head because she knows.

I want you to put names on that card of

people that you are intentionally going to build a relationship

with for the purpose of leading them to Christ. And

then what you're gonna do with that card is every

single day, you're gonna pray over those names.

Every day. When that person.

Gets saved in a few weeks, you're gonna scratch their

name out. You're gonna write another name beside it. If

you need another card, Pastor Clay will find you another card, shoes, notebook, paper.

Pray over those names every day. Now, watch, that's not

the end of the exercise.

So as you pray, God will reveal things to you.

As God reveals things to you, write those things down

and add those things.

As a matter of prayer.

In your conversations with those three people, they're going to

reveal things to you. They're gonna tell you, oh, you know,

I'm struggling in my marriage. Right now, you're gonna write

down marriage, and you're gonna add that to your prayer.

As you just lift their name up, you're also gonna

pray for their marriage. And then they're gonna tell you, listen,

the reason my marriage is in trouble is because you know,

my husband won't pick up his socks and if he

drops one more so I'm divorcing him.

Amen.

So you can pray for gravity to leave their home

and the socks to flow whatever.

But you're but you are.

Adding that, and you're expanding your ability to pray specifically

for the lives of these people. I call it prayer circles, literally,

an idea web that we then can instead of just

struggling to pray for this person for fifteen seconds, suddenly

you can sit down and you have a prayer guide

because you've listened and you've lived sacrificially towards this person.

And now you can sit down and you can pray

over these lost people's lives for fifteen or twenty minutes

without running out of anything to say. Because God is

transforming you and he's creating sympathy inside you, He's creating

some commonality between you, and now that invested prayer goes

from just a prayer to true intercession because you feel

the pain, the shared trauma out of that person's life

and you desire for them to meet the same Jesus

that set you free from your pain and your trauma

because you remember when you used to hate people that

were a different color, and now you don't because God

transformed you. You used to hate people that drove beat

up automobiles, but now you love them. You used to

hate people that had more than you, but suddenly now

I want to love them because I have a heart,

and you want people to experience the same transformation you had.

Play you, guys, come and get ready. In June chapter twenty,

this is I want you to see this imagery because

literally sharing our faith.

This is what it is in Juje, not Jude chapter twenty.

Jude verse twenty. There's only one chapter in Jude. Sorry

it's Jude verse twenty. But you, beloved, that's you. When

you see the word beloved, he is talking about you.

But you beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith,

praying in the holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love

of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Unto eternal life.

There's a lot there verse twenty two and on.

Some have compassion, making a distinction, but others save.

With fear.

Pulling them out of the fire, hating even the gard

defiled by the flesh.

Jeremy, come here for a second. Stand stand just down

there on the floor. I'll get to you in just

a second.

Okay.

We see this picture the Book of.

Jude, one of the clearest pictures we have.

Of those defiled by the flesh, those who have.

Not accepted Jesus as their lord and savior, those that

are just living a shadow of life. And this scripture

says they're already in the fire, not that one day

they're going to end up in hell, but that they're

already in the fire right now.

They don't recognize it and they don't feel it.

But it's positioned in eternity, and time hasn't caught up

to that point yet, but that's already the reality of

their life. And it says that us, in our most

holy faith, that learning to see people the way Jesus

sees people, learning to live sacrificially by praying so that

it transforms our lives. That what we're doing is that

we're walking through life and this pool of people burning

in fire around us.

Just close your eyes for a moment.

I want to help you see what I see.

People surrounded.

By the hottest flames you could imagine burning their flesh

and the agony of their screams.

It's real today when we see people like that, it's hard.

It's hard to fixate on the fact that they didn't

say hello to me this morning when I came into work,

that those people doomed for eternal suffering. The only thing

that stands between them and the reality.

Of this horrible eternity.

Pastor Clay singing a song, it's not Pastor Steve preaching

a sermon. It's you, buddy, open your eyes.

And we go through life and we encounter people and literally.

By going out of our way, we reach down into

that fire, that burning pit of suffering, and every kind.

Word step up one step.

Every time we go out of our way just to

check on them. Every prayer we pray, we're pulling them

out of the fire. We're pulling them into the safety

of Jesus.

I love you.

That's what's at stake. That's the reality of our lives

as believers. That God's calling us to be a good neighbor.

Because it matters, not so somebody will think we're nice.

Not so we qualify to have a bumper sticker that says,

honk if you love Jesus. There's a no honk. If

you love Jesus, pull people out of the fire.

If you love Jesus, any dummy can honk.

I wonder if today the Holy spirits grabbed your heart

and you'll purpose right now.

Form some.

New level of resoluteness in your faith.

To live your life differently and to look outside. You know,

I know, I know it bugs you guys sometimes, but

you know everything we do as we look out there first.

You know what. We don't serve free coffee for the

people that come to church here every week. Donat can

buy your own coffee.

We serve coffee because when somebody comes through those doors

for the very first time.

The most uncomfortable feeling is to know what to do

with your hands.

You don't know whether to shake, You don't know whether

to hug, You don't know where listen. I'm in My

size can hide behind a six ounce cup of coffee.

It's intentional them. The reason we turn the lights down

to your worship.

Is so that if somebody needs to cry, they could

cry and they don't feel embarrassed. If somebody is just

completely disinterested and they don't even know what's going on,

it's okay. They're not going to be embarrassed because they're covered.

Listen.

The reason we play the music louder than maybe y'all

like it is so people can sing and their neighbor

won't hear them. Because some of y'all start singing and

that person is here for the first time might not

come back, so we're covering up your voice. We have

guest information to take out the guests work. We have

this incredible food pantry.

That serves the needs of people regardless.

Of whether they ever come or because those are the

things that Jesus did, and we're always looking at the

lost first. That's why Lord gets here early and gets

everything ready to go and stays laid and make.

Sure that thing is manned.

That's why those nursery workers are back there right now

watching kids. Nobody wakes up every morning and thinks, hey,

I'm gonna go wipe some other kids.

But it's because of the lost.

It's because of an opportunity for somebody to experience the

Jesus that met me in room three oh one of

Drummonds Hall and changed my life forever.

Two weeks ago, I ran into that guy.

I've told that story so many times in my testimony

about how that guys kneel down, besid my bed and

prayed for me.

Two weeks ago, we were at a conference, and I'll

be dog gone if he wasn't there.

The first time I've seen him in probably what I

don't know a long time, says I left Emmanual College.

First time I saw him, he grabbed me and hugged me.

He was crying.

He said. You don't know how many times I've told

that story.

I said, not as many as I have, But it

meant something to him because he was instrumental. I'm telling you,

the first time you build that relationship and you have

that conversation and someone comes to Christ, it changes you

fundamentally forever. And I walked that for you. But more

than that, if you're here today and you're not close

to Jesus, if you don't know for sure that if

you breathed your last breath right now, you would go

to that, you would go to heaven.

If you're not sure of that, I want you to

be sure.

Because the story is amazing, The story of redemption is amazing.

That this man.

Jesus innocent, was found innocent by court.

You realize that he actually was not judged.

As guilty of anything. He was just turned over to

be killed because his blood needed to wash away our sin.

And they put the instrument of his death on his shoulders,

that old cross, and he walked down those dirty, dusty streets,

the whole time being able to see Calvary's Hill, walking

towards the place of his death, and carrying the tool

in which they would kill him.

He thought of you. It was the power that kept

him going.

And on that elevation that day, he laid himself down

and allowed him to drive nails through his hands and his.

Feet, and they raised him up a display for all

to see. And he looked into this.

Room two thousand years into the future. He said, Father, God,

forgive them.

For they don't know what they've done. That he breathed

his last it is finished, and he died. And that's

a moving story.

There have been soldiers sent to war that have died

for you, though unfortunately for us, that's not where our

story ends. See paid the ultimate price of death. But

here's how much Jesus loved you.

He loved you so much that he didn't stay dead.

He loved you so much that he kicked death in

the face, and he rose again so that you can

have the power of resurrection to have eternal life. Nobody's

ever done that for you before, nobody's ever come back

to life for you before. And right now, in this moment,

you have an opportunity to simply receive that end of

your life everybody's staying with.

If you're here today, I did what about back your heads,

close your eyes. We're gonna make it easy today.

If you're here today and you've never asked Jesus to

be your savior, maybe you have, but you.

Feel far from him. You don't feel close to Jesus

right now.

You know you've got sin in your life.

But if you're here right now and you want to

ask Jesus.

To save you, to restore you, to wash you clean,

make you and you creation, if that's you right now, just.

Slip on your hand and say that's when me pastor

pray for me.

Amen Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen Amen Amen.

Everybody open your eyes and look this way.

Ask your alter team to come quickly. Here's what the

Bible says.

The Bible says, confess me before men, and I'll confess

you before my Father in Heaven.

Deny me before men.

I'll deny you before my father in Heaven. So here's

where the rubber meets the road. Right here, in this moment,

I want to first of all assure you with one

hundred percent certainty that everybody in this room is cheering

for you and pulling for you and loves you and

have probably already been praying for you for the last week,

whether you've been here before or not.

But here is where your faith meets the road.

I'm gonna count to three, and if you raised your hand,

I'm gonna ask you to step out and make.

Your way to one of these altarworders.

And when you get here, they're going to pray a prayer,

They're going to ask the Lord to forgive you of

your sense. They're gonna walk you through that so that

you can have that brand new relationship with Jesus. But

do not let fear hold you back. This is where listen,

all those things the devil's been doing to you, this

is where you punch them in the face this morning.

This is where you say, listen, you've had your way before,

but not today. Today.

Things change because I'm sick and tired of being sick

and tired. So on the count of three, every single

person that raise their hand, I want you to step out,

and I want you.

To move one, two, three, step out and move right now.

Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on,

come on, come on, come on.

Come on, come on, come on, come on. Church, come on.

Church lives for me and say, filter down this way,

filter down this way, filter down this way.

Hey, how can I shut the tunnel off to the ship?

Thank you Jesus. All right, Church, let's worship.

When we create a habitation, holy Spirit shows up, miracles happen.

So right now we're gonna worship together, create a habitation

of the miraculous.

Pastor Clay