How to CHURCH // Called to Earn The Right

Welcome to the Movement Church podcast. We want you to know that God is

for you, and so are we. You're about to hear a sermon from

one of our weekend services in Palmer Lake, Colorado. We pray that your

faith is provoked, your mind is renewed, and your heart is awakened as

you engage the Word of God. Stay tuned after the message for ways to

get connected with us. God bless you. Thanks for tuning in. Good

morning, everybody. It's good to see you guys. How's every I doing

you good? Well? Listen this morning, we're going to continue in our

how to Church series as we talk about this idea of the high ground of

this weighty word church, and we're going to start with what I call a

bumper sticker verse. There are about five or ten really really well known bumper

sticker verses from the Bible that most of us just kind of know if you've

been in Christendom for a long time, and this is one of them.

It's from Jeremiah twenty nine eleven says this for I know the plans I have

for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for

disaster, to give you a future and a hope. We love this verse.

It's a great verse. It's not only is it a bumper sticker verse,

but it's a pillow sham verse. I don't know if you know this.

This is the kind of verse that you can find at hobby lobby,

you know, on a pillow. And so if you need my wife has

more pillows then we have beds. I don't know why we have so many

pillows, but we need one of these anyway. But we love it because

God's not against you, He's not indifferent. God is for you, and

his plans are gonna be good. This is really kind of core to who

we are at the Movement Church, what we believe. But as in most

scripture, this verse is usually used totally out of context, and when you're

reading the Bible, context is crucial. That's crucial. You need to think

about who's writing the verse, who's he writing it to, what did it

mean to those who first heard it, and what does it mean for us

today? So this is from the Book of Jeremiah. Was written by a

guy named Jeremiah, not that Jeremiah, though it doesn't even look like he's

thinking about writing a book right there. No this book Jeremiah in the Old

Testament, and it comes in a moment of really incredible pain and struggle for

God's people. This is after the Israelite people have been punished by God and

exiled into the land of Babylon. And so the people that are receiving this

verse from Jeremiah are people that are living in exile. They're living in a

land filled with the people that took them captive. They have to be neighbors

with the people who decimated their temple and who desecrated their castle and their homes.

They have to be neighbors with these people. And God is saying to

them something very specific. These people, God's people are strangers in a strange

land. Their customs and their culture and their ethics. They're not at all

similar to the Babylonians. The thing that we know the most of the most

famous thing about the Babylonians was the Tower of Babel, where they decided that

they were going to take God into their own hands. And so it's very

opposite, very opposing ideology the people of God and the Babylonians. And as

it was then, it is now for us as Christians in this crazy world.

And you know something that's true about every person in this room, whether

you know it or not, is that most of us have this core instinct

to be tribal. The base instincts of our humanity is to pick sides.

We can't help but to be tribal, to think about our people and to

put boundaries around our people. And we say things about people that aren't like

us. We say things like, you guys just don't get it. You're

just not one of us. And the new thing to say is listen if

you know you know, right, Like if you know you know, and

if you don't, well then you're not cool and you know you don't belong

here. And so I'm from the state of Louisiana. Did you guys know

that I'm from Louisiana. I'm a displaced Cajun here in Colorado, and Louisiana

is an if you know, you know type of state. Okay, Louisiana

is incredibly distinct, unique, specific. The culture of Louisiana is kind of

almost world famous. People know about Louisiana. They know about Marty Gras right,

they know about jazz and zydeco and the music that makes Louisiana so specific.

When you come into the New Orleans Airport. You are a co with

jazz and zydeco. They're letting you know this is not like anywhere else you've

ever been. When I was a kid, I grew up on hip hop.

That's the music I listened to as a kid. And I'll never forget

how proud I was of Cash Money Records and the No Limit Soldiers. Is

there anybody here that knows about the No Limit Soldiers? Is it just me?

My man Andrew? Make them say ah, that's my dude, that's

right. Make them say h dude when they played, Make them say uh.

On TRL the whole state of Louisiana was like celebrating. We were like,

we did it. We made it Louisiana. On the license plate of

Louisiana, don't if you ever noticed anybody for the license plate game on road

trips, it says Sportsman's Paradise, which is to say that if you were

a hunter or a fisherman, you will love the state of Louisiana. I

grew up going to Pierre Park, Louisiana, which is tiny, with my

popaw and he had a little Piro and we would go down the marshland every

early in the morning. For I don't know why we had the fish.

I don't know why we had to fish at four in the morning. My

Papa said, they don't know we're coming. I said, you go every

day, Papa. I think they know by now. But anyway, we'd

go every morning and we'd fish, and we'd go to the crab traps and

the crawfish traps and whatever we brought home, that's what we ate that night.

That's Louisiana. Now reality TV has figured out about Louisiana, right,

They've made stars of these Louisiana people. I think they're mostly making fun of

them, but we don't think so. We're proud of our people, the

Duck Dynasty people and the Gator Hunters and guys. I mean, I know

you think you understand football. I know you do, and I love you.

I know you think you understand it, but you do not know it

until you have experienced Saturday Night in Death Valley, the Home of the Tigers,

Like there's nothing like it. There's nothing like the experience, especially when

we're winning. When we're losing to Alabama, it's not that great. And

every year in Louisiana we have something called hurricane season, but not that kind

of hurricane. This kind of hurricane. This is what Louisiana is really known

for. This drink if you've ever had it, and you probably shouldn't,

especially if you're not you know, twenty one, but this drink is like

famous on the streets of New Orleans. And you got to think, who

are these people that they would name a drink after the storm that tried to

ruin them? What is up with the state of Louisiana. We are unique.

We are in if you know, you know type of culture. And

you know who else is the state of Colorado. I don't know if you

know this, but the state of Colorado is in if you know you know

type of culture. Okay, you are a very distinct, very specific,

very unique. Why because we have beautiful terrain and so people love to They

love to hike, they love to raft, they love to walk their dogs.

Boy, you guys love to walk your dogs. It's like you really

love it. You like to ski and snowboard, and you do a different

kind of fishing where you stand in a river all day and catch nothing.

I don't understand it, but it's called fly fishing. If you're a real

Louisianan, I'm sorry, Colorado. Then you probably have two or three of

these fanny packs right, and inside of each one of these you have sunscreen

because there's three hundred days of sunshine in the state of Colorado, even when

it's windy and gross. And I will say, and I believe this is

true, there is nothing like ball Arena when the Nuggets are playing and when

we're winning, there's nothing like it. You guys are known for the state

car of Colorado. In fact, you're probably not a Colorado unless you drive

what a Subaru outback? And in fact, you're snooty about which Subaru outback.

I read this online that the only official state car of Colorado is the

nineteen ninety eight Subaru Outback. I don't know why that is the one,

but that's the one that you guys are like, if you have this,

you are official Colorado. Colorado is an if you know, you know type

of culture. Now, the one thing I didn't mean as I was starting

this is that Louisiana is really known for one thing, probably more than anything

else. What is it, Louisiana? What are we known for? Come

on with the food, right, the food and the wasistelines. Right,

we're known for food and wastelines. They're both big. When we moved here

then, and we moved here in August of twenty twenty one, we were

in Texas. Then we moved here, and lots of people know that we're

from Louisiana, and so they were telling us, you got to go check

out this restaurant, this Louisiana style restaurant, and so I was excited.

I was like, let's do it. Let's go check out this restaurant.

We went to the restaurant and when we went in there, there were signs

all over the walls Good Food Award, Best of Colorado, like they're like,

Colorado's love this restaurant. Okay, Louisiana Fair. I'm not going to

say where it is. I don't want to embarrass the guy. But so

we're talking to the owner because he's standing at the door. He's walking up

and greeting people, and I don't want you to see his face. Okay,

that's not actually him, but don't worry about it. So he's talking

to us, and he's from New Orleans and so we're talking with him and

he's telling us about his story and how he got here and Katrina had something

to do with it, and so we're talking all about that and he's smiling.

I mean, we're just having the best conversation. Oh man, that's

great. And then he said, where are you guys from? And we

said we're from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And this I've never seen this in

my life. I've never seen somebody go from a smile, like genuine smile

to a scowl. He went, and he said this to me. I'll

never forget this. He said, don't eat here. And I was like,

what, Like, what do you have benon rue and the food and

hah cajuon and he was like, no, man, don't don't eat here.

You're going to be very disappointed if I'm like, dide you own this

place. What are you talking about? He goes, yeah, but you're

from Louisiana and when you taste what we serve, it's not gonna taste like

Louisiana to you. And I was like, oh, you're crazy, you're

just under selling it. We're gonna eat. He goes, Just so you

know, there's no refunds. Okay, no refunds. I warned you,

And let me tell you it was the worst meal I've ever had in my

life. The red beans were somehow too hard and too soupy, the catfish

was gamey. I was like, why the shrimp and grits neither tasted like

shrimp or grits. And the gumbo was tomato based and we don't do that,

okay, And so it was the worst meal of my life. And

what I realized was, my man, this owner is just like the exiles

living in Babylon. He's held captive to you Coloradans, and so he has

to cook food that you will understand. That's why all the awards are on

the wall who gave the awards. There were no Louisianians giving this award,

right, these people who are just only accustomed to granola and like wastelines of

twenty seven and lower, right, like they don't understand. And so anyway,

you know this guy, I feel bad for him, and I'm not

going to tell you where it was because I don't want to ruin that restaurant

for you. But he's a captive. He's a captive in a strange land.

He's a stranger in a strange land. These two cultures are if you

know you know and the cultures that we live in today, all of us

as Christians, we are living in a culture that's an if you know,

you know type of culture. We share values and ethics that the world that

we live in simply doesn't. God's people, us the Church. We are

strangers in a strange land, and our customs and our culture and our ethics

are not the same as the world that we're living in. And so the

context of Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven is this idea captives in Babylon, captives

in Babylon, and these people are stuck in a place. They're living in

a neighborhood filled with people who ruined their home. They're living in a neighborhood

with people that they don't like, that they don't want to spend any time

with, and they're not at all interested in building a life in the land

of their enemies. That's the context of this verse where I know the plans

I have for you, says the Lord. There are plans for good and

not for disaster, to give you a future and to hope. And so

what I want us to see is we're going to back up and see the

context of this verse. I want you to see that there's two things that

God is asking of these captive exiles. He's asking for them to do.

In the people group of the Babylonians, he's asking them, he's calling them

to something. And I believe that the same thing that he was calling them

to is what he's calling us to as a church. So we're going to

answer these two questions today. What were they called to do? And what

are we called to do? Now. I'm not going to give you the

answer to that question till the end of the sermon because it's more of a

punchline than a setup. And so I'll tell you that at the end.

But let's go back to verse four. If you have your Bible, you

want to pull this up. This is Jeremiah twenty nine to four, and

I'm in the NLT. It says this. We'll read this whole thing and

then we'll back it up. This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies,

the God of Israel, says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon

from Jerusalem. This is what he says, in this land that you don't

like, amongst these people that you don't like, build homes and plan to

stay plant gardens and eat the food that they produce. Marry and have children,

and then find spouses for them, so that you may have many grandchildren

multiply. Do not dwindle away and work for the peace and prosperity of the

city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it,

for its welfare will determine your welfare. This is what the Lord of Heaven's

Armies Israel says. Do not let your profits and fortune tellers who are with

you in the land of Babylon trick you. Do not listen to their dreams,

because they are telling you lies. In my name, I have not

sent them. This is what the Lord says. You will be in Babylon

for seventy years, but then I will come and do for you all the

good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For

I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord. They

are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and

the hope. So do you see how the context of that verse changes the

meaning of it. Do you see that it's easy for us to see this

verse? Put it on a pillow and go God knows the plans that he

has for me. Praise God, But you need to see it's easy to

see that value, but do we value the process that brings the promise to

life? And that's the struggle that we're going to be in today. Does

God have big dreams for you? Yes? Does God have plans for us?

Yes, of course, And He's also got a mission for us.

God's exiled people were being called by God, and so are we. And

so the first of these ideas, what is God? What was God calling

them to? The first one is this. He tells them to dig,

to put down deep roots. Put down deep roots, he says. He

says to the captives, build homes, plan to stay, plant gardens,

eat the food they produce, marry and have children, and then find spouses

so that you may have many grandchildren. And justice. If you're listening on

the podcast, yes this is for you as well. Please do not dwindle

away. God wants his people in Babylon not to punish them, but to

bless the Babylonians. It's a fascinating moment. Also, I want you to

notice what God said, I'm the one that put you into exile. I

did that. That was me. Maybe you remember the reason why God did

that was because they were guilty of continuing to worship false idols. They were

guilty of hiding their idolatry. And God said, have had enough. I

want my people to be single minded. I want their faith to be in

me and me alone. And so I'm going to take them out of all

of these distractions. I'm going to get rid of all the things that are

causing them to be distracted, and all they're going to have left is Me.

And at that point they will understand what worship is and they learn that

lesson for sure. But this is why God did this. He put them

into exile amongst the Babylonians. And I think the lesson here for us is

this is that you you are right exactly when, where, who, and

why you are For a reason, God wants his people to dig deep roots.

He wants them to make this house a home. He wants for people

to be known in their neighborhoods, to be known in their community. When

we moved here in August of twenty one from Texas, we were using zillo

because that was the only way to find a house. Right there were three

how many three homes? Available in our price range the size that we wanted

in Monument Colorado. Okay, three homes. Two of them we couldn't afford.

Turned out we couldn't afford. So now there is one home that we

could purchase. And actually I really love that because I felt God in that.

I thought to myself, Okay, God must want us to live in

this neighborhood for this moment, in this season, to know these people,

to be a blessing to these people. You are in your neighborhood for a

reason. You are on your soccer team for a reason. I am on

a tennis team for a reason. Each of us have to make sense of

the fact that God sends us into places for a reason. Sometime around the

seventh century, monastic Catholics began to implement something new. It was called the

vow of stability. This isn't something that's still practiced today in most denominations of

Christianity, but the valve stability was that a monk that was placed within a

Catholic monastery would basically say, I'm here no matter what, I'm not going

anywhere. I'm here until I die. A vow of stability. He was

saying to the people that he was serving. You can count on me.

I'm not going anywhere. A guy named Thomas Merton wrote about this. I

love. What he said is that the valve stability means that a monk stays

put unless he's sent somewhere else by his superiors or gets a dispensation from Rome.

A monk must remain in the monastery of his profession. By making a

vow of stability, the monk renounces the vain hope of wandering off to find

a perfect monastery. This implies a deep act of faith. There's a lesson

here for happiness. It's often emp to think that we'd be happy if only

external circumstances would change. Sometimes it's true that some external change would make a

huge difference to our happiness. But most times we need to embrace a vow

of stability and make our happiness in the situation in which we find ourselves,

instead of searching restlessly for perfect circumstances. Maybe you've heard this before, but

if you find the perfect church, get out of there, because you're going

to mess it up. Okay, there's no such thing as a perfect church.

The movement church is not a perfect church. I'm not required to make

a vow of stability as your pastor. But I've made one. I've decided

that this is where I'm going to be until the Lord takes me somewhere else.

I'm not wayward. I'm not looking on church staffing dot Com. When

I have hard days here, I'm in. I'm your guy, like it

or not. I'm the pastor here, and I'm going to stay here.

The Lord's called me here. I believe that that's important. This is my

plan A, and I don't have a Plan B. And I think that

there's something powerful about that for each of us that do we believe that,

can we live that way even if things get hard, even if there's cultural

tensions, Even if, like in COVID, the government shut churches down,

Lots of pastors quit. I don't know if you know that or not.

It was an incredible exodus of pastoral leadership in the Church of America during COVID

because the government shut him down and they realized I didn't like it anyway.

I didn't want to work here anyway, so they all quit. There's a

ton of that happening in our world today. What about you? Are you

going to quit when things get hard? When you're challenged. In fifteen nineteen,

a guy named Hernan Cortez arrived in the New World. He had six

hundred men that he'd brought with him, and upon arrival he made history by

doing something drastic and dramatic. He was hearing from his men a grumble,

a sense of Hey, I don't like it here, I don't want to

be here. What's even the point of this. Let's go back home.

And so Herning Gomez did something. Sorry, Cortez did something absolutely memorable that

we still talk about today. It's a phrase called burn the ships, and

it wasn't colloquial. He literally burned the ships. He went out and set

fire to the only way out of this place, and he said, we're

here. This is where we're going to be. And it served him well.

Two years later, after he burned the ships, he succeeded in the

conquest of the Aztec Empire. He burned the ships, he got rid of

the parachutes. He made it. So this is my plan A, and

there is no plan B. What is God calling us to do? If

you're going to be here, if you're going to live in the Trilates area,

then be all in, be all in dig deep, put down deep

roots. Keep reading verse seven, he says, in work, that's an

important verb. Work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent

you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it. It's welfare will determine

your welfare. What was God calling them to do is calling them to deploy

aim to improve the betterment of your community. Is a huge part of why

a church exists. It's a huge part of why God's people were sent into

exile for the Babylonians, for the betterment of their community. There's a word

that we as Christians simply can't be, an idea that we simply can't be

in our culture, and that word is uninvolved. We're not allowed to be

uninvolved in our community, in our neighborhoods, in our people groups. We're

not allowed. We're not permitted. It's not Christian to do that. When

I was a kid, like six seven years old, my favorite show,

my favorite TV show in the whole world, was The Muppet Show. Anybody

know about the Muppet Show? Right there you go, you can applaud Muppets.

Yeah, so the Muppet Show was very actually was very meta. I

don't know if you know this or not, The Muppet Show was like a

meta show because it was a show about a show, right. The show

each week was we would watch as hygiens what happened backstage, and we would

see, you know, miss Piggy's upset with kermit animals breaking things, the

sweetest chefs, Ruper Birdy Birdy, like, there's things terrible things are happening,

right, and so every week we got to kind of see how they

finally got the show to come about. I don't know who your favorite characters

were, who your favorite muppets were, But my favorite two Muppets, my

absolute favorite characters on the show were these two guys, Statler and Waldorf.

Anybody liked these guys Statler and Waldorf? Okay, well I love these guys.

And the reason I love these guys is because I don't know if you

know this, but kids don't really understand sarcasm. You know, do you

ever notice this? You try to be sarcastic with your kids and they're like,

what, Like they think you're being very serious. These guys taught me

sarcasm, and I'm so grateful for it, Like I use it every day.

But these guys, their job was to sit up high in an elevated

place and look down upon the muppets and basically make fun of them every week.

In fact, there's a I want to show you just a little clip.

I I put together the fifty best Statler and Waldorf clips. I used

about five of them. So watch this. This is funny. Wake me

when the show starts. It's already been on a while. Wake me when

it's over. I think conness teed's always the best policy. You believe that

no I was lying, Let's tell it. I'm not for a singer who

tap dances and sings cowboys songs. I wonder if there's anything she isn't good

at, yes, choosing what show to be on. Do you suppose they

have any life on other planets? Why do you care? You don't have

any life on this one? Oh, you know it's too bad guns As

leaving the show. Yeah, I can think of some other people I'd rather

see leave the show. Boo me, WHOA? What's wrong with you?

It's either this show or indigestion. I hope it's indigestion. It'll get better

in a little while. Statler and Waldorf, those guys are awesome. But

we can't be Statler and Waldorf. We can't sit at an elevated place and

look down upon the world and judge it and condemn it and make fun of

it. We just can't be these guys. We can't sit up in a

high balcony critique and criticizing and belittling the culture that we are called to improve.

One thing Statler and Waldorf never did. They never made the Muppet Show

any better. They just made fun of it, right. I have a

good friend Kevin McKee, he's a pastor down in Louisiana, and he would

always say this quote, and I think it's so true. He said,

some Christians are so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. Some Christians are

just so moral and righteous and above that I have no space, no time,

no energy, no room for the world in my life. They're no

earthly good. They're just kind of looking up in the balcony and just saying,

you know, I guess we're just going to let the culture go to

hell in a hand basket. Right. By the way, if you ever

thought about that phrase hell in a hand basket, you ever thought about that?

I thought about this, I thought about this phrase, and I was

like, where does a hell in a hand basket? Where do we get

that phrase? Well, it turns out that in the seventeenth century, when

people were killed for being criminals, they would use a guillotine to do it,

and they would put a basket underneath the spot where the head would fall.

Yeah, I don't know why I wasn't called a head basket. I

don't know why we don't say going to hell in a head basket but we

say hand basket. But anyway, the point what I'm saying is we can't

live like that. We can't judge people like that. We have to be

involved, active, engaged, invested, work for the peace and prosperity of

this city. Roll your sleeves up, get busy, get involved. Sweat

equity right, get involved. Now here's what's important. I just want to

say this as a boundary because I'm talking about how we're going to interact with

this community. We are going to do these things. This is who we're

going to be. But we also have to be careful because sometimes you know,

they say bad company corrupts a good character, Right, you have to

be careful about how much of yourself you sort of allow other people to have

a right to speak into which is why Paul said, don't copy the behavior

and the customs of the world, but let God transform you into a new

person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's

will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. And what does

that sound like? Sounds like Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven. Right, I

know the plans I have for you, their plans for good. So there's

kind of a tension point that we have to understand as Christians. And it's

this that we're supposed to be in the world, but not of the world.

In the world, but not of the world. Christians are supposed to

be students of the culture that we live in, not critics of it.

There's a great scene in the Book of Acts where Paul is walking around a

town called Athens, and as he's walking around the town, the Bible says

that he was deeply troubled by all of the idols that he saw everywhere in

the city. I don't know if you've ever spent time in our culture and

seen some things that deeply troubled you. This deeply troubled him because these people

had idols everywhere. Well, Paul's preaching in the community, He's preaching in

the town hall, and eventually he gets called into city council because they want

to understand what is this Paul, what is he talking about. They actually

were kind of Statler and Waldorf because they thought that he was being a total

fool. They thought that they were going to have a chance to lampoon this

guy. So they bring him in to town hall, and this is what

happens. It says standing before the council, Paul addressed him as follows.

He says, men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in

every way. For as I was walking along, I saw many of your

shrines and one of your altars had this inscription to an unknown god. And

then Paul just kind of preaches the gospel. He says, this god,

whom you worship without knowing, is the one that I've been telling you about.

Powerful. So he takes what disturbed him about the culture and he flips

it. He says, here's what I think you're actually trying to find,

and I want to show you how to find it. We live in a

culture that is marked by the pursuits of all sorts of terrible things that we

know are hurting people. We know that the pursuit of these things are causing

people to get more and more involved in themselves and less and less involved in

what God has for them. We know that we see that it should disturb

you what our culture pursues. But what they're really looking for, what they're

really passionate for, what they're desirous for, is the God that we preach

about on Sunday mornings, is the Jesus that we have relationship with. The

Only thing that's going to satisfy a longing heart is the heart of God.

That's the only thing that's going to ever bring peace to a soul. And

so our job is to be deployed to aim to improve. Allow yourself to

be disturbed by culture, but don't stop there. Don't stay up there with

Statler and Waldorf. Get up in it and share with people the love of

Jesus. He goes on to say this, and I think this is good

because as Christians we need to have soft hearts but sharp minds. Says this,

This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies, the God of Israel,

says. Do not let your prophets and fortune tellers who are with you in

the land of Babylon trick. You don't listen to their dreams because they're telling

you lies. In my name. I have not sent them. This is

coming from within, This isn't coming from without. God is saying to them,

I need you to discern be falsehood proof. Discern be falsehood proof.

I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but in our culture right

now, in twenty twenty four, truth is at an all time premium.

It's at an all time premium. People have tribalized and the media conglomerates have

adjusted. This is no longer the age of information. We are living in

the age of affirmation, where people go to the news channel that will tell

them what they already believe. They don't want facts. I'm not talking about

you, because you would never do this. People are pursuing the information that's

going to feed what they already believe. We're not living in the age of

information, facts and truth. We're living in the age of affirmation. I

want you to affirm what I already think. That's where we're living. So

in the twenty first century, truth is at a premium, and God is

saying be very careful about what facts you let inform you, be very careful

about the sources that you listen to, because if I didn't say it,

then it's not truth. Because in the twenty first century, my truth is

at an all time high. Right, live your truth? What's your truth?

I'm just trying to live my truth, man, Right. This is

the phrasing that we say our culture. Right, God is telling us that

we need to be concerned about the truth. Not my truth or your truth,

the truth, because the truth will set you free. As a teacher

of the Word. Every Sunday, it's so weird to stand up here.

I don't know if you guys know it. It's really strange to be up

here week after week and to look out at your beautiful faces and to know

that my responsibility is to help you to make sense of the Bible. Preaching

and teaching is really, really tough. It's a fun part of the job.

I mean, I like it. I like putting stuff together. I

like looking at Statler and Waldorf flips and trying to figure out how can I

use it in as sermon. I like all that. But it's a heavy,

heavy responsibility because I worry that this Sunday morning experience for some of us

in the room is the only time that you're exposing yourself to the Word of

God, that this is the only hour in your week where are actually cracking

the book. And then if that that's the way you're living in Christianity,

you're doing it wrong. Okay, We all of us have to know the

source of truth that's going to inform us, and your Bible is the only

source of objective truth available to you. My favorite part of the job as

the senior pastor here, my favorite part of the job is our move groups,

our discipleship groups, because we get together on Monday lunches and Wednesday mornings

and we open the Bible, and it's so fun to hear these guys talk

about what they're learning from the Word of God. It's amazing to see how

many men in our church are digging into the Word of God. And let

me tell you, ladies, if your husband is in one of those move

groups, you need to applaud him, you need to affirm him, you

need to say I'm proud of you, and you need to ask him,

Hey, could we spend some time in the Word together? Could we do

that? Could you kind of multiply what you're experiencing in your move group,

at home and with your kids. All of us need to be in the

Word of God. Truth is at an all time premium, but it's the

most common commodity for Christians. It's the thing that we have that the world

doesn't. It's the thing that we have. We are rich with truth in

the Christian experience, and it's the answer to eternal life, the source for

significance, the pathway to peace. Kind of reminds me of the old Gatorade

commercial. Do you remember that commercial? Is it in you? Remember that?

Is it in you? Is the Bible in you? And are you

in it? Are you spending time with the truth of God. God is

calling us to discern, to be falsehood proof. So we're digging, putting

down deep roots, we're deploying, we're aiming to improve, we're discerning,

we're being falsehood proof. And now we're going to round third base. We're

going to hit the famous mumper stick reverse. But we got to read verse

ten first and verse ten. Man Verse ten gives me so much hope.

Maybe it will you too. Look at verse ten, this is what the

Lord says, you will be in Babylon for seventy years. Does that encourage

you? But then I will come and do for you all the good things

I have promised, and I will bring you home again, for I know

the plans I have for you, their plans for good and not for disaster,

to give you a future. And I hope what was God calling them

to do is calling them to delight. God's word is true to light in

the promise of God. When I was a worship leader back in the day,

long, long, long, long, long long time ago, when

I was a worship leader, what I loved about being a worship leader and

Jeremiah experienced this this morning up here on the stage, is that leading worship

is binary. It's a binary experience. It's either it either worked or it

didn't. There's no middle ground with worship because none of us on this platform

when we're leading you in worship can see what's happening inside of your heart.

We don't have a peek into your so all we can do as a worship

leader is to get you to sing. And so if on the drive home,

if somebody called me as a worship leader, hey, how was today?

How to go today? I would say, well, they sang it

was a great day, or I would say they didn't sing. I think

they hate me, right, Like that's how it would go. And sometimes

man, standing up here as a worship leader and looking at some of your

faces when you're worshiping, and there is just it's not telling the story that

I think the song is trying to tell. Do you know what I mean?

That's why if you ever notice a lot of worship leaders do this and

they shake their head and you think they're saying, I just really mean this,

and they're saying, Lord, I don't want to look at these people,

right. But it's binary. As a worship leader, you're either singing

or you're not. I wish it were that way for a preacher. I

really do. I get in my car on Sunday afternoons, this was going

to happen today. I get in my car on Sunday afternoons and I say,

to God, was that anything? Did that? Did that? Do

anything? Did that? Like? Unlock? Anybody? Was that helpful?

This is why I often ask you to say amen a lot. It's because

I want to know is this connecting? Are you hearing me? Does this

make any sense? Are you alive? Right? Right, and thank you

good Amen. This is why we do this is why I do that.

I want you to sing. I want you to sing while I'm preaching.

I want you to say amen. I want you to say yes, that's

right, or I want you to say I disagree, Actually, don't say

that, Tell me later, Tell me later. But that's the idea is.

You know, I'm not looking for affirmation. I'm looking for a sense

that the Lord is moving in your heart. I miss that as a worship

leader. So as a preacher, that's kind of the culture that I would

love to see us start. And I know we're all most most of us

are kind of Anglo white people, and that feels a little strange to talk

to the pastor in church. But I'm telling you you have permission and you

have a mandate to talk to me or in church. Can I hear an

amen? Amen? All right? So again, when I hear this verse

ten and I see this idea, it gives me so much hope. This

is what the Lord says. You're gonna be in Babylon for seventy years.

It's gonna suck. It's gonna be so hard, you're gonna feel like what

was the point of this, I don't like this. For seventy years,

that's ministry. That's ministry. And you know what, for you in your

neighborhood with your neighbors, how many times are you gonna invite them over to

dinner before they finally say yes? How many times are you gonna, you

know, do something kind for someone before you get something back from them.

It might be seventy years worth of doing that. By the way, the

life span of an Israelite at that time was much less than seventy years.

Okay, they didn't have lifetime fitness back then, right, So this promise

that God's making to these people, most of them are never going to see

it come true. That's why he said, have kids, have grandkids,

pour into them, establish dig deep. That's the idea here seventy years Are

you kidding me? Wow? But that's what we have to understand is that

sometimes the things that God is calling us to are going to be really hard,

and they're still worth it. God is asking them to live a life

of deferred gratification. How many of you love deferred gratification? Anybody here?

No, amens? Okay, this is not something that we as an American

culture are big fans of we want what we want, when we want,

and we want it now. Well, God's saying, I'm preparing a place

for you. In my father's house are many rooms, and if I go

there, I'm gonna make it ready for you when you get there, and

I'm coming soon. Fascinating seventy years. He's asking them to delight in the

promise more than the fulfillment. He's asking them just like he's asking us to

value the mission more than the reward. He's asking us to do the same

thing. In fact, he's calling us to it. I love the way

Eugene Peterson says this. He says faithfulness the word we use a lot.

Here's how he defines faithfulness is a long obedience in the same direction is that

you? Are you faithful? Is that us? Are we going to be

faithful? Are we going to walk along obedience in the same direction. Our

calling is Christians and our mandate as the church is to live in this culture.

Like God was asking these exiled Israelites to live in theirs, what he's

asking of them is what he's asking of us. He wants us to dig,

to put down deep roots. He wants us to know the teacher and

the principles and the leaders of this school. He would like for us to

know some of the names of some of the kids at this school. If

we're going to be here, if this is the place we're going to have

worship, then we should be affiliated and know these people dig deep roots.

He's asking us to deploy to aim to improve. We should want this school

to be the best school in the state of Colorado. That should be our

desire. Since we're here, we're a part of it. You should want

your neighborhood. We should want our city to be the greatest, and we

want the betterment of this city for the good of the city. To discern,

to watch out for fake news, to watch out for truth that's actually

not true, to be really mindful and discerning about what we let in,

and to delight in God's word because it's true. You've probably heard me say

this before, but the greatest gift that God ever gave humanity was salvation.

He said, I'm going to send Jesus from the highest throne of Heaven to

the lowest place on earth. He left majesty for our mess, and he

offers himself in salvation. Praise God. That's the greatest gift God ever gave.

But what's the second greatest gift, the second greatest gift that God ever

gave us. I believe the answer is this word participation. That with our

finite lives, our short brief this life is a vapor right, with the

shortness of our life, we get to make eternal impact because of the way

we live our lives. We get to share in the mission of God.

In fact, the mission that Jesus sends us on is called the Great co

Mission. It means together, it means we're in it together. What a

blessing. And so these exiles, what if God had said to them,

look, I'm punishing you because your idolaters, because you say you worship me,

but you actually don't. And so you know what, you're disqualified.

You're done. You don't get to do anything. You don't get to participate

at all. No, it says that he sent them into exile so that

they could participate in his mission. What if he said, you made a

mess of yourselves and now you're gonna have to spend the rest of your lives

paying for it. What if he said that to you, What if he

said that to me? What if he said, fight because of all the

sins in your life, I can never do anything good through you, because

of all the mistakes you've made, I can never use you. That's not

who our God is. His grace has paid for all of our sin,

and he says I can work with that. That's who he is. God

is calling his people into his mission, and so what were they called to

do? And what are we called to do? What I'm really asking is

what's our mission? And how do we state it? It's called a mission

statement. You see what I did there. So the mission statement for the

Movement Church is this, earn the right to share the gospel by loving and

serving people. Well. See, I believe that God was saying to these

exiles, I want you to go show them who your God is. I

want you to show them that even though you got kicked to the curb,

even though these are the people that did it, even though they desecraated your

temple and they decimated your cities and your homes, I want you to go

love them. I want you to go show them how big the heart of

the real God really is. That's what God is asking us to do,

to go earn the right to share the Gospel by loving and serving them.

Well, we're supposed to dig, put down deep roots, deploy, aim

to improve, discern be falsehood, proof, and delight because God's word is

true. Earlier in this series, John Wilson preached a sermon called Salt and

Light and he read this passage. It's where Jesus is talking about who we

are and what our existence is supposed to feel like. Since Book of Matthew.

Jesus said this, you are the light of the world, like a

city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and

then puts it under a basket, whether it's a head basket or a handbasket.

Nobody does that. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand where

it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let

your good deeds shine out for all to sea, so that everyone will praise

your heavenly Father. Amen. My favorite two words in this passage are these

two, so that why do we do this? Why do we shine so

everybody sees how good we are? No, so everybody sees how generous the

movement church is. No, we shine so that everyone will praise the Father.

We shine in order to earn the right to share the gospel. We

shine so that we can draw people into the love, the grace, and

the truth of God. We shine so that God can use us to set

people free so that they'll see Jesus. And if we do that, then

we have really answered the question of how to church. We've really gotten there.

And so I would ask you, what if instead of vilifying and demonizing

the people of the world, what if we sought out opportunities to share the

good news of Jesus by loving and serving them? Well, what if we

didn't presume to know the motives of the people we disagree with. What if

instead we pursued relationship with them and became students of their motivations. What if

we went above and beyond identifying the needs of our community and rolling up our

sleeves to do something to serve them? And what if you did that in

your context, in your neighborhood, at your school, at your job.

On June ninth, we're going to do something that I'm really excited about.

This meeting that we have that we're in right now is called a worship service.

Right you know that this is called a worship service. Well, on

Sunday, June ninth, we are going to serve as worship. That's what

we're gonna do. All of us are going to gather, probably here in

the parking lot, and we're going to go. We're gonna assign you places

to go, and we're gonna go serve the Trilke's area. We're gonna go

clean up some yards, we might paint a room somewhere, we might do

some work here at the school. But on June ninth, all of us

instead of having a worship service, we're going to serve as worship. And

this is going to be a culture keeper for the Movement Church. I don't

know how many times a year will do this, but this is going to

be so good. So bring all your tools. If you men have garages

with lots of tools, men, put them in the truck, bring them

with you, and we're gonna give you some instruction on what to do.

And then after that day we're gonna get together and have a picnic and have

a great dating together on June ninth. So this is how we're going to

try to live this out. We're gonna make our city, We're going to

make the Tilaks area better by loving and serving people kind of hearing the amen

Amen. And if we do that, then we understand what it means to

earn the right to share the gospel by loving and serving people well, and

we will have figured out how to church. So what's God leading you to

do next? And how can we help? Would you send us an email

to info at Movement Church dot co and tell us how we can pray for

you and help you take the next step in your spiritual journey. If you'd

like to contribute financially to our ministry, text the amount you like to give

to the number eight four three two one, or look us up online at

Movement Church dot c. You can find the Movement Church on all social media

platforms, and we hope that you'll give us a follow God bless you,

and remember God is are you, and so are we h