The Grand Truth - Jamison Creel

You are listening to the Gateway Franklin Church podcast.

To learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, including our service times here in Franklin, Tennessee, visit us online at gatewayfranklin.com.

And now, here is this week's message.

Some of this stuff just comes out.

Not preaching this week either.

This is a unique, this was a unique Sunday where we are one of our mission partners in country, and in country close enough in order to come and be with us.

Jameson Creel and his wife Kelly have five children.

The oldest son Andrew is graduating from the university next weekend, so that is why they're in town.

Jameson and Kelly, well at least Jameson until he got married, but you know, has spent the majority of his adult life in the Middle East.

That the parents signed their kids up for because it was the best English median school in the area.

So they knew they were sending their kids to a Christian school.

Recently, or last four or five years, Janus and then transitioned, he helped them do this to Greece, where they began working with Muslim refugees.

And we were hotel, still is one of you, it was just a little story, so it's okay.

That would at the school uh um school of Bethlehem is what it was called School of Bethlehem, uh, where they would like see one or two Muslims converted and baptized in a year, they're saying two to ten a month in this ministry uh in Greece because these these people have had the entire worldview shattered in this refugee status.

And and we became alongside Jameson uh in order to move this ministry forward.

He has a degree in history and psychology from the university, and he also has a degree in world religions and and uh culture from the University of Jerusalem.

Um so when I want to know stuff about like Israel and Middle East and Islam and stuff, I I have to deal with it.

And um, so I'm really excited for having you be with us today.

If you haven't heard him speak before with us during the virtue, would you please welcome James?

All right.

Well, let me start off by the very first thing I want to say is number one, I love I love it.

Y'all got you guys having very special, very good things about here these days.

And also a very full thing, services.

So you guys are you're awesome.

God bless you.

And and I really mean that I would say God bless you because God, in his infinite myself, chose to make us not self-sufficient, he chose to make us a body, he chose to make it read each other.

And you know, I represent a part of the body of Christ, that's sort of the missionaries where we're we're special forces, you know.

We we go out to the crazy places and and you know talk about Jesus.

And um but as the part, you know, and sometimes some people not me, by the way, some people kind of um think that that's kind of cool or whatever, that that's uh you know neat, interesting, whatever that there's a better glamour, so maybe it's right where uh it's not by the way.

But um, some people think that sometimes the reality is that everything we do is we could not be the part of the body that we are and the things that we do if it wasn't for people like you go to work every day or think over where you are, or you know, leave tithe offerings in the church and have that excess the money's able to afford it to people like me that lets us, you know, rent the building and and live trying to think the family, you know, that lets us be what we do.

We couldn't be able to be the only people you do, and then you really, really goblins.

And you have a part, you have an interest in the work that goes on.

Can you bless it, make it possible?

And quickly, I'll show you how it's going on.

These are all pictures very non-professional, okay?

These are just like you know, uh cell phone pictures from members of our team that they kind of send me so that I can show you a little bit of what's going on these days.

And so, first off, that's just an empty building.

We're gonna look look at more of those.

Um, more of the same empty building.

When's the next one?

Yeah, why am I saying an empty building?

Here's why we got a new building.

So we had a building for three years, it was lovely, wonderful, loved it.

And when our lease ended, the landlord helped us.

Because, you know, some people in other parts of the world they seen America and they think, oh, made of money, you know, now your rent goes up.

Now we're gonna build your rent.

Ha ha ha, because you're an American, you're dumb.

Well, you know, we we didn't do that, we moved, and God used it because God got us into a better, bigger building that's closer to the people minister to that's better suited for what we had just been and for acrobatics.

So God really did a great work moving us, and we've done a lot of work getting that building ready because it was just a shell, yeah.

And then that's been the last couple of months was just lots and lots of hours and hours of you know, construction kind of work, getting things modified and flipping again.

Uh, okay, this is a little bit of a pause.

So something else we've added in the last year or so is we do a lot of work in a field across the street from the camp.

So our buildings are about an hour walk away for the most for the refugees, which they have nothing else to do all day and they don't mind, just so you'll know.

They still walk the hour.

Like, you know, what else are they gonna do?

They don't have jobs, so but it's we're more effective closer, obviously.

And so we've rented a field, it's zoned agricultural land, so we can't build on it, but they don't stop us putting shipping containers out there.

So so we've turned it into a trailer park for Jesus at this point, and um, and so you're looking at the inside of a container.

We just get them, sheet rock them, insulate them, throw out a little strip of lighting down the middle of it, little uh split AC unit, and they make pretty good classrooms, and then we we put them next to each other and put awning between them.

So now we got more cover.

Basically, I can take two shipping containers, make five classrooms.

We've got awnings coming off of both ends, middle down the center, and so that's kind of what we've got going up there now.

So it kind of looks like that.

Uh show the next page real quick, or the next page, the next next one.

That's just us, you know.

I mean, all we need is a old ref for and a table, and we can we can work.

So so we just we set up, we'll teach German, English.

Um, of course, we do Bible and discipleship stuff, and then you take the opportunity to share the gospel.

So that's kind of what's going on there.

Now show the building.

That is where where it is now, so it's not exactly completed, but completed enough to work in.

So that's our new our new facility.

You can see lots of people with you know hijabs on and kids.

That's a women's and children's event there.

Uh flip to the next one.

We have to blur because we don't we want to blur faces, but you get the idea full of people in life, and they're all hearing about Jesus many for the very, very first time in their lives.

Show the next one.

This is another bad video.

We see them all lined up outside, uh waiting to come in.

So we're doing good, and we're doing good thanks to you guys and your investment.

You your church specifically took up a very, very generous offering as C Money to get this ministry started.

So thank you very much.

And there are people every single day, every month, hundreds of Muslims who never heard the word of God hear it, and it's large part because of your investment.

So thank you.

All right, now let's move on to the word of God because there's something that has just been burning in me really for the last year, that um Pastor Charlie said, Can you share on certain topic?

And I said, I'll work it into it, I'll work it in.

So, because I just need to share that.

I need to, you know, there's something been burning at me.

And what what I what I decided I wanted to do was within you know about a 30-minute sermon, is I would like to start in Genesis, end in Revelations, and summarize the whole Bible.

Okay, that's that's our plan for today.

Buckle up, it's gonna go great.

All right, so what I want you to do is to just we really are gonna, we are, I'm not lying, we're gonna start in Genesis and Revelation, uh, and and make a few stops along the way.

And I don't want to talk about the great plan of God.

That God from the beginning had a plan and he's working it out.

And you and I have an opportunity to participate in what he is doing, okay?

And it is as a culture, we're so individualistic that we're so focused on what I'm doing, what I'm doing, what I'm doing, and what we have lost track of, we have a generation full of people that are that are full of anxiety and depression and all sorts of negative emotion because they've centered themselves in their life.

And when you center yourself, you have no meaning, you have no purpose, and it just totally ruins everything.

Like it to be a part of his story, and when you when you when you situate yourself right, orient yourself right in his story, everything goes great.

Okay, and so that's what we want to do.

We want to talk about God's story and figure out where we belong in it.

So Genesis chapter 1, verse 31 says that it says God.

Genesis 1:31

So this is the end of creation, day six.

God saw all he had made, and it was very good indeed.

This translation says, Evening came in the morning, the sixth day.

All right, so here's what you got to know a lot of translations will say very, very good.

You get a double the word, very, very.

What you have to know on top of that is that anytime the old testament doubles a word, it means of the purest form.

Okay, so a lot of times your Bible will say something like this was made of purest gold.

What it says in Hebrew is it was made of gold, gold.

Okay, not the not the alloy gold with stuff mixed into it, it was the gold gold.

Ah, so when it says it was very, very good, it was good, good.

It was it was ultimately totally purified on alloyed good.

Random comment.

This is for free.

There's only one thing ever in your Bible that is tripled, and that is the holiness of God.

Holy, holy, holy, right?

Is Lord God Almighty?

So his holiness is even more pure than pure.

Okay, just you know, little, little, little Greek for you.

So, I mean Hebrew, sorry.

Now, so good, good, very good.

Now, I want you to think about that.

God looked at the creation, including the humans, and said it is very, very perfectly good.

I can't even imagine that.

Now, when's the last time you looked around the world and thought, this place is perfectly good?

You know, probably not, right?

Because we got plenty of problems.

And and the reality is that God made it perfectly good, and within about two minutes we messed it up.

Okay, we sinned and we went from a situation that God had created where God was looking at us and saying, You're very good, and we were looking at him and saying, You're very good.

Instead, we heard the criticism of the enemy.

We heard Satan say, He didn't really say that, he's holding out on you.

And we we we listened to his accusation, and we believed it and we followed it.

And from the day that happened, the plan of God has been to get back to this day when he could look at it and say it is very, very good.

And he enacted a plan to refute the lies of the enemy and to restore his creation to harmony with him.

And we are living in the middle, maybe the back end of that plan.

Okay, and the plan went something like this.

It was a crazy plan, I would never have thought of it.

Um, the plan went something like this: God decided what he wanted to do was raise up a man who would listen to him.

We call that guy Abraham, and from that man to create a family, okay, and from that family to create a nation, we call it Israel, and from that nation to raise up another man, the Messiah, Jesus, to pay the price and do the work of restoring things back to this.

Okay, that's the plan.

And if you go back and read your old testament, and you should, it's an interesting book, and it it's full of amazing, amazing stuff.

Go back and read it, and that is the arc of that story, okay.

Summarized.

What I want to talk about for just a second, pause on is something that we never ever think about.

Is I want you to think about the situation that men and women of God lived in for 1400 years, okay, from the giving of the Torah, Genesis X, you know, the law, from the giving of the law until Jesus, again, approximately 1,400 years, the people of God lived in a temple system.

Okay, so God, for whatever reason, decided that He would concentrate his presence above the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, and that kind of moved around a little bit.

First, it was in a tabernacle that moved, then they settled that tabernacle in Shiloh for 369 years, and then it went from Shiloh to Jerusalem for a long time, a thousand years, something like that.

Okay, for a long time, right?

How do we know that?

Well, the Bible says it.

Let's look at let's look at what it says here in Leviticus 16.

This is the Lord speaking through Moses to Aaron.

It says, Tell your brother Aaron that he may not come whenever he wants into the holy place behind the curtain in front of the mercy seat or on the ark, or else he will die.

Because I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.

Okay, the presence of God is so dense here.

If you even try to approach the place, you'll die.

He would go on to outline one day a year.

One day a year.

If you do everything just right, you can come in this room.

Okay?

One man, one day a year.

And it was so terrifying that they put bells around the hem of his garment so as he walked, he would make noise.

They tie their rope to his foot to pull out his dead body if he did something wrong.

Okay, that is a fact.

Serious stuff.

Don't just come to my house.

One day a year to the very inner room.

He also said this check the next verse out to the people in general.

You must keep the Israelites from their uncleanness, so they do not die by defiling my tabernacle that is among them.

Okay, so do not come to the tabernacle unclean, or you might die.

That's a lot.

You know, I mean, you did you guys do a ceremonial purification this morning before you entered here?

No, you didn't, because we don't have to anymore.

Okay, they did not just show up.

What is uncleanness, by the way?

Uncleanness is not sin, it's simply being unclean.

If you've handled a dead body, you have to do a ritual purification before you're in the temple.

Um, certain biological issues would cause you to be considered unclean.

Um, if you have an oozing skin sore, okay, you can't go.

Once that's healed, virtual purification, then you can go.

And on there's all sorts of just normal daily life things that make you unclean.

Do a purification, then you can go.

Above and beyond that, Leviticus chapter 1 outlines a whole thing called the burnt offering.

Leviticus 1 · chapter mention

And Leviticus 1, I think it's 1 3, it says, Do this that you might be accepted.

In other words, don't just show up in my house.

Show up my house clean, clean up, and bring a gift.

Don't just come.

Then you can approach me.

We don't have to do that anymore.

Okay?

But for 1,400 years, that's the contract under which the people of God lived.

Okay, so in your Bible, when you read a story like Hannah going to the tabernacle to pray, understand she did not just walk in there.

Okay, what they had, just so you'll know, it was it was a sort of a situation of what I would call something graduated or ever-increasing holiness.

But as you get farther in, it's more and more and more holy.

So anybody could be like out in the courtyard, right?

Then only Jews could enter in to the temple grounds.

And then only women had to stay here, and men could take a step farther, right?

And then only priests could take the next step, and then the holy of holies, only the high priest one day a year.

Okay.

So Hannah's out here in the in the court of women, but she couldn't have even gone there without unless she was in a state of uh state of cleanness, and I've and she probably brought an offering, okay?

Just to be able to pray to come to God with her need, you know, because she she wanted a son, she went, she wanted to plead with God, and she wanted to go to his house to plead with him.

We don't go through that.

I I've already prayed eight times today, you know.

I'm first thing when I woke up, Lord, you know, my family, whatever, Lord, I'm speaking today, please minister through me.

I've I've already prayed several times today, I didn't do anything.

Because now we have a casual relationship.

We and it we have to be careful with that.

But the Bible does say, Abba Father, Dad, hey dad, can you help me with this?

You know, I I I read or heard a guy speaking one time that I just I really loved what he said to say.

He, there's two ways to live in my house.

You can rent or be my son.

Aren't you glad we're no longer renters?

We're sons and daughters.

When you're a son and a daughter, you don't pay rent, you come and go as you want.

You can ask your dad for food.

Hey dad, can you give me some clothes?

You know, my kids ask me for all kinds of stuff.

If you were a renter, I'd be like, get out of my face, right?

I feed him all the time.

I wouldn't feed a renter, right?

It's a wonderful relationship we have.

How do we get there?

Because he died for us.

He died for us on the cross, and when Jesus died on that cross, he changed the contract.

Okay, Paul says that he reconciled all things on earth and the heavenlies when he died.

He reckoned, he paid off all the contracts, he reconciled everything.

So now we're gonna start over.

It's a new contract, and here's how it's gonna go.

I'm gonna tear that veil.

That thick, that three, four-inch thick curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from everything else.

They weighed hundreds of pounds.

It took dozens of men to hang it and move it.

You know, this this you could not possibly have torn an accident.

Okay, God tore it from the bottom top to the bottom.

I am out of this building, I'm leaving here.

No longer confide myself to this space.

What's the new contract?

What's new?

Look at what Corinthians says.

It says, Don't you don't yourselves know that you are God's temple, the spirit of God lives in you.

So he moved.

Jesus told one at the well, he said, A time is coming when you will not worship here, pointing to Mount Gerizim, the Samaritan temple, or in Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth.

A time is coming, he was telling her, I'm gonna cancel out this temple worship, it's gonna be over.

And you're gonna be a temple.

And the Holy Spirit, instead of resting in that temple, right, untold thousands and thousands of animals died.

And their blood was placed on the furniture in that temple, on the different, you know, implements there to purify the temple so that God's presence would rest there for a while.

And Hebrews tells us that Jesus was a perfect sacrifice, and because he was a perfect sacrifice, it only has to be given once, and that blood was not applied to a piece of furniture, it was applied to me.

And now I am clean.

Okay, and when I stand before God, when I stand before God, if I'm being honest, kind of like Isaiah, I think unclean, unclean, unclean, but God doesn't.

God looks at me and says, It's one of my kids.

You can come, you can approach, right?

Totally change contract.

Now check out what else it did.

It says, at that time, so this is pre-Jesus, you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and for nourish the covenant of promise without hope, without God in the world.

And doesn't that describe every single person you know who's without Jesus?

You're without God and without hope.

Right this morning, I decided to mess my morning up by going to Starbucks.

Okay.

Um, I wanted coffee, I don't know your local places, so I went to Starbucks.

And um, you know, I said in the first service I felt like it was a front row seat for the the fall of Western civilization or something like that.

Um, so I won't go farther.

Yeah, but but I but I saw but you observe people and you just know these people are not living God's plan for their life, you know, and you know that leads to destruction, leads to hopelessness, the wages of sin is death.

They're going nowhere good because they're without God and without hope in this world.

Okay, and it is our duty to present hope to them at every chance we can, right?

And and and that's who we were.

That's who you were.

You didn't you didn't earn your position.

But because of Jesus, he goes on to say a few verses later, so then you are no longer, so now because of Christ, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household.

Okay, so.

You have been adopted in.

You are not even a citizen.

You are now made a citizen of Israel.

Now, this is by just so you'll know, not the nation state.

Okay.

I lived there for 24 years, never got citizenship.

I got like a green card.

It's the best I ever did.

Okay.

Not citizenship, but not a nation state, but of the Israel of God, the people of God, the spiritual Israel.

You are made citizens, but not just that, members of the royal household.

Now, what are we made members of?

Israel.

What does Israel mean?

It means wrestles with God.

You are made members of the group of people that wrestle with God.

I love that.

And I mentioned that as a throwaway in the in the earlier uh service, and Pastor Charlie kind of hit on it later.

And so then I pondered it for a little while.

So just I'll share a couple extra thoughts.

The first sermon didn't get, it's for free.

Um what is it what does it mean to wrestle with God?

Why do we wrestle with God?

Well, I've got three sons and one very tough daughter.

And so I've wrestled with my kids a lot.

Okay.

Now I'll just let you know when they get to about 16, 17, I retire, I want to be undefeated.

You know?

Once they get to a certain age, I'm like, hey, hey, hey, what are we doing?

So, but when they're little, they wrestled a lot, right?

So why am I wrestling with my kids?

What am I doing that for?

Because I love them and it's fun.

And and because because they love just being with me, even in that context.

And because in doing that, a lot of truth comes out, right?

They learn to be tough and to be strong and hang in a fight.

Because I I I go easy on them, but not that easy, you know?

And and and I mean, I am undefeated, you know?

And and and they they learn that I'm strong enough to defend them, but they learn I'll never hurt them, you know, like a lot of truth.

They learn how to be in their bodies and how to how to wrestle and fight and not cross lines.

Like a lot, a lot of a lot comes out in that, right?

And and and of course, as a dad, I mean, let's be honest, could you imagine a dad, you know, going full on with his three-year-old, you know, just like you know, no, you wouldn't do that.

And of course, God modifies himself and modulates himself to us, and he's in that push and that pull with us, you know, where he's revealing truth.

And and it's also it's also communal, by the way.

You get into a good Bible study and you're reading the word and you've got other believers, and you're like, I think it means this, but I think it means that.

And and in that push and pull, the truth of God reveals itself.

That's who we are, the people that wrestle with God.

That's awesome! I love that.

All right, so so now we get to be that.

I did want to make one little just side comment as someone who lived in Israel for a long time.

There's a lot of anti-Semitism running around the world these days.

And what I would argue with you is that our posture should be that which is reflected in the Bible.

And the Bible says this in Romans regarding regarding the physical Israel, okay, regarding the Jewish people who rejected.

Paul says this in Romans.

He says, A partial harden hardening has come upon Israel.

So this is the physical group.

This is not the spiritual group that you're grafted into.

Until the fullness of Gentiles has come in, and this way all Israel will be saved, since God's gracious gifts and callings are irrevocable.

Okay, this is what I would want you to see: that the heart posture of the Bible is to be heartbroken at Israel's estrangement from God and to pray for its restoration, okay, and to long for a time when that will happen, because that would be an amazing blessing to this world, okay, is to long for that and to work toward it.

And how do we work toward it?

Well, it says when the full measure of Gentiles have come in, then Israel will be saved.

So, what I my take on it is that when we've won enough people around here, and God says, I got enough Gentiles, let's move on to the, you know.

So we just win people around here and God will handle his plan.

But the heart posture is to love them.

Okay.

So there's that.

Let's move on to the next thing.

Because here is what happened.

He already jumped ahead.

Well, I it's my fault.

I I said too.

Well, that's where we're going.

But um, so so then here's what happened.

We get to live in this new contract.

We we got to live in this space where we have open access to God, we're the temple, right?

And then we got comfortable and we forgot how special it was.

See, see, none of us have lived in the world before it.

We were all born hundreds of years later into the world where the Holy Spirit is available and you can pray and you can come to Him.

But here's what I would argue with you, here's what I would throw out there as being the truth.

I think if you could see with spiritual eyes, what you would see is the fact that this room glows.

Because there's so much.

See, the Bible says that we're the light, right?

And I think if you could see spiritually, you would be every single one of us, because because the Holy Spirit's in us and it glows, and we're little light bulbs walking around this dark planet.

And and if you don't cover it, right?

Jesus said, You don't cover the light, you want to reveal it.

If you don't cover that up, if you'll reveal it, you are the hope of this world.

It's him, but they see him through you, right?

And you walk around, you're just a little mobile temple of the Holy Spirit.

And in a place like this, there's a lot of light.

But if you go with me to dark places, go with me to a to a room full of Hamas members.

A lot of dark.

You'd be the only light bulb there.

But the light shines bright in the dark, it's so different, right?

And we're moving around dark places with the light.

Okay, it's what we do we do, it's what we are.

And and I and I'm because I've gotten to move around Greece and Turkey a lot in the last few years, I got to go several times now to Philippi.

And I think about Paul walking into Philippi and he meets this girl.

The Bible says she was a slave girl, and it says that she was that she was possessed by a spirit of divination, is what your English translation will say.

What the Greek will say is that she was possessed, she had pneuma pithona, the spirit of the python.

That sounds worse.

Okay, if you're possessed by the spirit of the python, we're gonna need you to step back, you know, like that's an issue.

So she had a bad problem.

I mean, first off, she was a slave, totally abused, in probably every way.

So she had a really bad problem, but regarding her spiritual issue, I think that it is very likely that Paul was the very first person in the history of the world that could have delivered her from her issue that ever walked in that city before.

We know later in Ephesians that some Jewish guys will try to exercise a demon, right?

And they they tell the demon, you know, in the name of uh the God Jesus talks about or Paul talks about, get out.

And the demon says, I know Paul, I know Jesus, I don't know you.

And then he beats them up and throws them at the house, right?

Like, so I just I don't think there was any before us, there's no body.

Because we're the first time the Holy Spirit was moving around, right?

What a special opportunity that is, and then we take it for granted.

And so in in in Revelation chapter three, Jesus is addressing a group of people who have become self-sufficiently comfortable, like, oh, we're good, you know, we we we got we know all this stuff, and he looks at them and he says the following, speaking to the Laodiceans, okay.

So speaking to the church Laodicea, he says the following.

Again, these are Christians, he's not talking unbelievers, talking to Christians who have become they think they're rich, they think they're they're culturally developed, they think that they're special and great, and they don't really need him so much on a day-to-day basis.

And to that group of people, he says the following He says, I know your works, you are neither cold nor hot.

I wish you were cold or hot.

So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth.

Now, here's what he means.

Some people read this and think cold or hot.

Well, he means either be like hot big for Jesus or be really bad, sinful, and cold towards Jesus.

Either one of those is better than in the middle.

It's not what he means.

Here's what he means.

If you guys came with me to Laodicea and you're invited, tell me when you want to come.

I'll take you.

If you guys call me to Laodicea, here's what you would see.

If you look due north, about nine miles out, you can see a town called Heropolis.

Heropolis has hot springs.

Beautiful, wonderful mineral hot springs that to this day, I guarantee you, today in Turkey, busloads of people came to Heropolis, they call it Pambukale now, to bathe in the mineral springs that they believe are therapeutic.

Okay.

Every single day, busloads 2,000 years later.

And the reason you can see Heropolis from nine miles away is because for thousands of years, the mineral waters coming up and evaporating have left the whole mountain strengthened in white.

And so you can see it.

You're like, oh, it's there.

Hot water, useful.

Okay, it's therapeutic, it's good for you.

Especially in the winter.

In the winter, it's like, oh, this is nice.

Okay, I've done that before.

It's lovely.

You should try it.

If you then pivot, so I'm looking north and look that way, kind of south, something or another, east, maybe west.

If you look that way, southwest, there's a big giant mountain, about 10,000 feet tall.

It's covered with snow most of the year.

And at the foot of that mountain lies the town of Colossae, like Colossians in the Bible.

Okay.

Well, because they sit at the foot of a snow-covered mountain, their water is freezing cold.

The water comes down through the mountain, it's some of its spring water, some of its streams, but it comes, it's snow melt water.

So it's cold.

And on a hot summer day, and it gets very, very hot in that valley, it'll be over 100 degrees most of the summer in that valley.

On a hot, hot day, those cool springs are real nice.

Okay.

There's a park I could take you to where they have picnic tables set up over the water so you can sit with your feet dangling in the water while you have your picnic.

And I've done that, and it's lovely.

Cold water is useful.

Okay.

The Laodiceans had neither.

They had lukewarm springs that were then or kind of tepid, like let's say slightly cool springs a few miles away that came in.

And by the time they got there, because it was closed aqueducts, they had been heated by the air, and they came in as disgustingly lukewarm.

It was also a bad mineral mix, and so it didn't taste very good, kind of a little bit sulphuric.

And so their water was gross.

Their two neighbors had great, wonderful water.

They had neither, and Jesus was using something they understood to explain to them something.

You need to be useful for something.

That's useful therapeutically.

That's wonderful on a hot day, and it's good to drink.

You are neither.

You're good for nothing.

Don't be that.

Okay?

Well, what are we supposed to be good for?

I could think of a couple things off the top of my head, like this.

Great commandment, great commission.

Great commandment.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

This is not something for pastors.

This is for everybody.

You can be engaged in that for his kingdom.

As a matter of fact, you must be today, every day.

You can love your neighbor as yourself, right?

Great commission.

Go into the world, preach the gospel to all men, baptizing, you know, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded.

Make go make disciples.

Also, not a commandment for preachers.

That's for everybody.

How do you witness for his kingdom?

Right?

What are you useful for?

What do you do for his kingdom?

And he kind of goes on.

I won't read the whole thing, but he he he he sort of cites a few things.

He's like, You think you're rich, you're poor, you're naked, you're gross, you're disgusting.

Because they they thought the people in Laodicea, they're like, We're really rich.

They were very rich by the standards of their time.

They also exported ISAV that they made there, was considered to be the best eye healing thing, you know, whatever.

And so he said, You think you have good sight, you're blind, you think you're rich, you're poor.

They are also famous for making textiles, particularly black wool.

And he says, You should get some white clothes because those black clothes are no good.

So he he kind of weigh into them about their self-confidence.

At the end of it all, he says this, and this is what I want to land you guys on.

He says, Behold, or see in the translation of you, but behold, I like behold, it sounds fancier.

I stand at the door and knock.

And if anyone hears my voice and opens a door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me.

I want you to think about that.

From Leviticus to Revelation, what a change.

Before we had to go to his house, we had to clean up, we had to bring a gift to hope in his presence.

Now he's in our house.

Can I please come in?

Can I please come in?

And we take it so lightly, we say no.

We leave on the front porch all the time.

This is not written to unbelievers, it's written to Christians.

Right?

This is written to a church.

And he's like, Man, I just want to come in and hang out with you, and you won't let me.

What does he mean by that?

What does he mean?

How do how do we leave Jesus on the front porch?

Maybe we got a sin issue.

And we're like, Jesus, you're gonna want to stay out there because what's going on in this house is not good.

So just right?

Stay outside.

Maybe we're just busy.

Hey Jesus, I know you came by, I know you want to come in, you want to hang out with me, but um, man, my work's real busy these days.

Sorry.

What's really crazy is what we do now, and the research on this is staggering.

Is Jesus comes by, he wants to hang out with us, and we say, um, hey, uh, can you come back later?

I'm uh I'm doom scrolling for a few hours today, and you know, I'm gonna be busy on TikTok or reels or whatever you use.

Like, are you kidding me?

And we do it all the time.

Well, how do we hang out with him?

How do we let him in?

What do we do?

There's a few practical things.

He wants a relationship with you, right?

What does a relationship look like?

I can tell you from the ones that I have.

These are people I spend time with.

I have conversations with them, both me speaking and them speaking, and we do things together.

That's it.

So how do you do that?

Well, okay, so how how do I how do I have a conversation with Jesus?

Well, you want to hear him talk, so maybe you do want to put down the apps for a while and have some silence in your life so he can speak.

He speaks to his word.

Do you read?

Do you read every day?

Why would you not read a little bit of Bible every day?

Why would you not?

And it's not to make it religious, it's not to make it like, oh, you didn't read your chapter today, you're a bad person.

Like, no, but don't you want to hear him?

Don't you want to hear him?

Um, so you want to hear him, you want to talk to him, you want to share him, you know, your struggles and your life, and because he wants to hear and he wants to intervene, right?

You know, it says that your prayers avail much.

You know, I don't know why he does it that way.

Why does he want you to talk to him before he I don't know, but he does.

So talk to him.

He wants a relationship with you, do things together.

What does that mean?

Well, be in that means that hot and cold water thing.

Be engaged in his kingdom.

We so often beg him to bless what we're doing.

Oh Lord, I'm doing this thing.

Would you bless it?

Why don't you ask him what he's doing and what he wants you to get involved in?

You know, lean into his kingdom.

He the he it the Jesus talks about some of the parables coming back and finding lazy servants.

Do you want him to come back and find a lazy servant when he's done everything?

He died.

He came here, he did everything to change the contract, change the relationship.

And then we look at him and say, like, yeah, it's the outside.

Don't do that.

Okay, let's pray.

Dear Lord Jesus, thank you so much.

God, I thank you from the depth of my heart for this congregation.

I thank you for these people.

I thank you for what they have done to bless my family and our work.

There are hundreds of people halfway around the world who've heard the gospel that is light that is coming out from this place.

And I am so thankful for that.

And Lord, I pray your blessing here.

Lord, I pray that somebody maybe would have heard a little something.

Maybe there would be a little conviction, you know, like, yeah, I've been leaving Jesus outside lately.

I haven't leaned into my relationship.

Lord, let us not take for granted the fact that you love us so much and now you're pursuing us.

Let us not take our privilege.

Let us not think it's cheap.

You pay a lot for it.

Lord, let us lean into you.

Let us long and desire for that intimacy with you and pursue it.

And then, Lord, let us engage with let us have the faith and the courage to engage with your kingdom and to do faith-filled, crazy things for your kingdom, Lord.

Let us be brave and trust you and be faithful and be selfless and go out.

And Lord, I pray for every single person here, Lord.

I pray that you would bless them and their finances, their health, their relationships so that they can serve your kingdom better.

Lord, bless them all.

And Lord, I pray for the light that goes out from this place.

Lord, I pray, let Gateway Franklin be a light to this community, to this region, and let light even go all over the world from this place.

Lord, I pray growth on this house, Lord.

I pray just just wonderful, glorious blessing on this place, Lord.

Thank you for it.

Thank you for this day.

We pray.

Amen.

The I love getting to sit through um, to be a part of both both messages.

Um years ago, I didn't have any struggle uh preaching uh two services, but when we went to three services in our old building, I remember asking God how I was gonna do that.

And what I remember him telling me specifically was there are three different congregations.

Now, not that we're multiple congregations, but but what struck me was like, how can I, how am I gonna repeat myself multiple times and try to carry the same force multiple times?

And what I felt like the Lord's telling me was that He was going to emphasize different things at different times to the same messages.

And and and what I took away this particular time, Jameson, right, where we live, it's it's documented, the loneliest, most anxious generation.

And and here here's why.

When we shifted to a postmodern culture, when we drifted into that, postmodern culture makes everything about self and removes us from any kind of storyline.

We are our own story.

So we're lost.

We're lost in our own story.

When we're the center, when we're a part of God's story, we have a place.

We have a history, we have a purpose, we have a future, which is what he's invited us into.

There's a famous painting by an artist, William, I believe it's Holman Hunt, mid-1800s, 1850 or so.

It's called the Light of the World.

And as creatives do, they criticized his painting as soon as it came out.

The painting is Jesus standing outside of a garden gate, a garden wall with a wooden door and vines.

And the criticism is that there is no there was no doorknob on the side that Jesus was standing on.

And Hunt's response was uh the doorknobs on the inside.

The door opens in.

We open the door.

I stand at the door and knock.

I stand at the door and knock.

He doesn't come in, he doesn't push his way in.

He invites us.

He invites us.

He says, invite me in.

When you invite me in, then the now I'm your story.

I'm I'm present with you.

Your identity now changes.

The and the the thing that grabbed me in the first service was the Israel meaning wrestling with God.

And I thought, wow, right?

Because that's that's Jacob's name change.

He wrestles with God.

This is and our interaction with God, the analogy he gave with wrestling with these kids and and the fun and the enjoyment that takes place in that wrestling with your kids.

Yeah, learning your boundaries in those kids, the tiny history.

All of this is the invitation of Christianity with Christ that comes with no other world religion, no other philosophy, no other man-made-up thing where you take a little here, you take a little there, and take a little you, and you put it together.

It's still all about you and it doesn't work.

And Christianity's worked for centuries.

So, what's the invitation today?

Wow, there's a lot of them, isn't there?

Because the Holy Spirit has the ability to take one man's thoughts that that he wrestled with God over and hit all of us in a very unique way.

And the only lose in any kind of worship setting is we worship.

Walk away and we do nothing with what has taken place in the room.

So, Father, I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Lord, I pray for the person watching now.

I pray for the person watching in a month from now.

Lord, I pray for the person that's Christ curious.

Came in today, maybe have never been in a church, maybe it's been such a long time.

Maybe they can reach back and go, well, my mother took me, or my grandmother took me, or my dad told me about this.

And they've reached a point in their life where they're curious again.

Is there anything to this or not?

Does this remotely hold the answer that I'm looking for in my life?

And can I say, even in this prayer, can I speak to you even through this prayer to say you you're not you don't need an answer?

You need a relationship.

That relationship with Christ is life-changing, life-altering.

And Lord, I ask that you do that in our moment together.

That you would renew or that you would establish that relationship.

Church, the way we end every service, if you've part of Gateway, you know this.

Over here we have this side of the altar.

You can come and pray by yourself.

Over here, you can have someone that will pray with you.

We have communion on my right, we have communion on my left.

What the Holy Spirit wants to do is bring peace and shalom into your life.

This is a restorative, restorative wholeness.

Wherever you find yourself not whole today, the invitation is you can be made whole.

Movement always matters.

So that's why I encourage you to move, move to an altar.

Stand with me.

They're going to lead worship, and I invite you to move.

We hope you were encouraged and challenged by today's message.

Again, to learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, find us online at gatewayfranklin.com.

Thanks for joining us today.