For Our Best, For Together, For Forward | John Challinor

Morning church.

Morning.

Good morning to our online family.

Paul, and that's you this morning.

I hope that you're eating breakfast

and I hope that it's enjoyable.

That I really hope that you're just gathered around

and enjoying each other, but welcome to you.

Glad you're there.

Baghdad, I hope you guys are doing well

and glad you're there.

Kyle, Pastor Kyle, those of you that know Pastor Kyle,

his aunt Jackie is in Colorado online today.

So welcome to you.

We're glad you're with us.

When we do this, just say welcome to our online fam.

Welcome.

There we go, there we go.

You got it, you got it.

Good job.

Rams, huh?

Yeah.

What do you think about that cold weather?

No problem.

What was that?

No problem.

No problem.

Woo.

Okay, how many Rams fans are in the room?

Woo.

Okay.

Some of you still claiming Los Angeles.

Brave people in Prescott, Arizona, let me tell you.

Woo.

What about, what about, who are they playing?

Eagles.

None?

None?

Not one?

Wow.

Okay, one Eagles.

Sorry, you're outnumbered.

Go Rams, let's go.

Any Lions fans?

You guys, you have my heart.

I am so sorry.

I am so sorry.

Like, like you have been terrible for so long

and you get the number one and we had such high hopes.

I was going for, I was rooting Lions.

Once the Steelers were out, I'm like, Lions are my team

and, and nope, I gotta stop rooting for teams apparently

because they all lose.

So, but pretty amazing.

28 points in a quarter.

It's amazing.

Anyways, football talks, good, fun, different.

Those of you that love it, hate it, it's here.

So, welcome if you're here and you're new.

You picked a great time to be in church.

And here's what I mean.

You picked a time that we're talking about

these things that we call values.

We're talking about the things that we are.

And if you want to know if you have values,

I can guarantee you, you have values.

Whether you know it or not,

whether you've ever named them or not,

you have values today in your life.

Here's what I mean.

What's something that makes you angry?

Here's what I mean by that.

I was watching a press conference recently

from California and they were talking about the fires

and they began to talk about people looting.

And inside I'm just like, this is wrong.

Like we got to do something to these people.

Which then the person that was talking goes,

and there's a special place in hell reserved

for those people.

And I was like, I don't know if I go that far,

but like inside I've just got this like anger about,

you can't mistreat people that way.

That's not okay.

Well, why am I having that emotion?

My value of four people that we talked about

a couple of weeks ago, my value for four people

is being tripped.

How we treat people matters, right?

All people matter to God, so they matter to us, right?

What are we supposed to do?

We're supposed to love them.

Looting is not loving, right?

Like another way that you could say,

like if that's on a grand scale,

then maybe let's just pull it down to every day.

You have values in your life.

I could look at your subscriptions

and tell you what you value.

Here's what I mean.

If you came to mine, right,

and you went and looked at my subscriptions,

you would notice that I have a subscription for Peacock.

Right?

I don't know how you feel about Peacock.

To be honest with you,

I don't really care how you feel about Peacock,

if I'm real honest,

because I like it and here's why.

It plays the English Premier League.

Now, if you don't know what that is,

that is real football.

It's called soccer here, right?

Like, but every single game in the English Premier League,

they put on Peacock, right?

So I get more soccer here than I would

if I lived in England, true story, right?

And so my subscription to Peacock tells you

that I really care about soccer.

Now, what's interesting is it doesn't just stop there,

because if you talk to my kids,

what my kids are gonna tell you is,

yeah, on Saturday morning,

somewhere in our house,

there is going to be a soccer game on, guaranteed, right?

Like they just know it.

It's part of the culture of our family.

Why?

Because what you value is what you do

and what you do builds a culture, right?

Like whether you like it or not,

you're building a culture with your life.

Another one in ours would be ESPN, right?

I don't know how you feel about ESPN.

I don't know, you know,

all the connections to whoever and whatever.

And, but here's why ESPN has a subscription for me.

They have Formula One, right?

Wow, we're gaining fans, people.

I said that a couple of, like, I don't know,

a year ago and there was like two people.

We're gaining fans, we're on the move.

Richard, they're out here.

Richard's in California, by the way.

He holds down our online family.

He's amazing.

Could we give Richard a hand?

He's phenomenal.

But here's the thing.

What you value, what you value, you will do.

So I have a subscription

because I have a value for these things.

What you value, you will do

and what you do will become culture.

Now, as a church family,

here's why this conversation is important.

Because what we're defining,

what we're holding a conversation about

is these are our values.

Meaning, what you value, you will do.

So as a family, what we value determines what we do.

So when we say we are for Jesus,

that means we're gonna give everything

that we have for Jesus.

That means that when it comes to how we live our lives,

it's gonna be for Jesus.

When it comes to how we make decisions,

it's gonna be for Jesus.

If it doesn't matter to Jesus and make more of Jesus,

we're not gonna do it.

Right? Because what you value, you will do.

And so we're for people.

So how we treat people really matters.

We're for the Holy Spirit.

So we create moments in services for it.

We create moments in our life to hear the Holy Spirit.

As a family, we all lean in and go,

this is what we're gonna do with our lives.

I'm gonna take time to listen to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit's gonna tell you

that you should be for generosity.

Why? Because God is generous

and we're supposed to mirror Him.

And we talked about this last week,

that our lives are lived to give away.

And how we do that is we are for serving.

That we are serving other people.

Why? Because we love Jesus.

And what did Jesus do?

Jesus served people, therefore we will serve people.

Right? What you value, you will do.

And here's why this is important.

Because to be a part of this family,

to be a part of this family, right?

What we value, we what?

We do.

And if you go, hey John, I heard your values.

I don't really like them.

Right? This one, I don't like this one at all.

That's okay.

You're welcome to your opinion and your values.

But here's what I know.

When it comes to that area of your life,

you're gonna live as a me instead of a we.

Right? So as a we, as a collective,

we are saying we are for Jesus.

If you go, I'm not for Jesus,

then you're gonna be a me

and you're gonna live opposite of what we're gonna live.

You may hear these and go,

I don't agree with a couple of those.

I don't know if this church is for me.

That's okay.

That's why we establish values so that we know together.

This is the direction we're moving.

This is what allows us to say yes to stuff

and we say no to stuff.

Because these are what we hold.

They value, we value them, therefore we do them.

And so we got, as we move forward,

we've got two weeks left on values.

Next week, we will hit our value of four celebration.

It's baptism weekend.

And so it's a celebration weekend.

We'll talk about that next week.

This week, if you followed,

if you were here last week, you followed that

we create space for the Holy Spirit.

He leads us to generosity.

He leads us to serve.

The next one has to do with how we serve.

And it is for our best.

What does that mean?

That we create space.

We create space for our best.

Why?

Because God gave his best.

So what are we doing?

Because God gave his best, we will give our best.

Right, when it comes to how we serve,

how we love people, how we love Jesus,

we are going to give our best.

We're gonna give everything we've got.

We're not giving the leftovers, so to speak.

We're giving out of the plenty.

And the idea of this, if you look at John 3.16,

we read this last week,

but John 3.16 says,

for God so loved the world,

so God loved every ethnicity that he gave,

that he gave his one and only.

For God so loved that he what?

He gave his what?

One and only son.

That whoever believes in him shall not perish,

but have eternal life.

Okay, this is staggering.

That the God of the universe that created everything

could have created something else.

Right, like he could have gone,

hey, I need a savior for those humans

that are running wild.

I know what we'll do.

We'll create a savior.

God could have created a savior.

You realize that, right?

Like God didn't have to send his son.

He could have created a savior.

He could have created a substitute.

He could have, he could have, think about it.

There's angels, right?

Legions of angels that God has created.

God could have taken an angel,

put skin and bone on an angel and gone,

hey, you're gonna go

and you're gonna be my representative

and you're gonna go save humanity.

He didn't do that.

God sent what?

His one and only, his priceless, his very best.

Why?

So that you would know right here, right now,

on a cold January that you are loved by God Almighty.

Right, like he would send his very best.

He would send himself for you.

That's how valuable you are.

That he would give his very, very best for you.

Which then to us as his people, we go,

okay, if I'm gonna live this life for Jesus,

I'm gonna give my very best.

Well, so what does that look like?

Well, if you follow through scripture

all the way through the narrative,

what you find is God's people bring sacrifices, right?

God's people are encouraged to bring and give to him.

And the language that's used with that

is this thing of firstfruits.

Now firstfruits, the idea of that is if you had a garden

and you were like, okay, out of my garden,

I'm going to give back to God.

Then what would happen is you would plant your garden.

When it came to harvest time,

you would look at your harvest

and you would go my first and best,

I'm going to give to God.

That's what firstfruits were.

When it speaks about Jesus in the Bible,

it refers to him as the firstfruits, right?

And so what we're told is when we come in,

if we're gonna give, give to God,

and remember from last week,

when we talk about giving to God,

we're talking about your time, your talent, your energy,

your relationships, your resources, all of life.

And so when I come to God

and I'm gonna give my best back to God,

what it should be is God, this is,

I've thought of you first

and this is the best that I have to offer.

Now, if we just take finances

because that's an easy one to talk about, right?

When it comes to giving to God out of my finances,

the way it should work is that I receive my paycheck

in whatever form and I go,

I'm going to give an offering of worship back to God.

I'm gonna give out of my finances to God.

Then what should happen is this,

that when you receive that check,

you give your what?

First and your best.

God, what do you want?

Now, if you're anything like I used to be, right?

I used to live this way,

that I would do everything I wanted to do.

So I gotta play golf this week,

I gotta do this this week,

I gotta do this, right?

And I've gotta pay these bills, I gotta do that.

And I would get to the end of the week and I go,

I got three bucks, here you go, God.

You're gonna have this.

But that's not what it talks about

all the way through Scripture.

It talks about honoring God with your best.

So when it comes to my time,

God, you get my first, not my last.

God, I don't fit you in, I give it.

Why?

Because I'm giving my best to you.

But why are we giving our best?

What is the idea behind giving our best?

One of the things as a church,

we don't strive for excellence anymore, right?

Excellence used to be, if you talked about a value,

excellence was a value.

But the reason we don't strive for excellence anymore

is because nowhere in Scripture do you find

that God says, hey, make everything excellent.

He says, no, honor me with your gifts.

Honor me with your talents, honor me.

How do we honor Him?

With our best.

And so then in Colossians, Colossians chapter three,

and verse 23, it says this, whatever you do,

how much is left out in that, by the way?

Like whatever you do, that's like all of life, right?

Work at it with all your heart.

So heart being what you love, what you care about,

the center of who you are, right?

So whatever you do, work at it with everything

as the center of you in your heart,

as working for the Lord, as working for the Lord.

So whatever you do, work at it with everything

as working for the Lord, not for human masters,

since you know that you will receive an inheritance

from the Lord as reward.

It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

So now it goes full circle, right?

Because we're for serving last week.

How do we serve?

We serve with our best.

Why?

Because all the way back at the beginning of our values,

we are for Jesus, right?

We, out of our love for Jesus, what are we doing?

We're taking our very best and going,

I will give it back to who?

Back to Jesus.

So when it comes to your life,

when it comes to you living out your faith,

the value of living out your faith is that

God gets your very best.

So when you look at life, right?

When you look at the worship team,

we're not asking the worship team

to show up and be excellent.

We're asking them to show up and what?

Take the talent and give God your best out of it, right?

We're not looking to take the gifts that God's given us.

It would be really easy for a couple of us on staff

who are extremely talented

to run off and do something separate, right?

We have a guy on staff named David Bleckley.

I don't know if any of you know David.

We call him the beard if you've listened to the podcast, right?

Yeah, we can clap for David.

He's phenomenal, you guys.

He is a gift to our family.

If you've seen anything visual,

David has been a part of creating it, right?

He's either had eyes on it or something.

If it's a video, if it's, he's amazing.

David could easily, easily go,

I'm kind of done with this whole church thing.

I'm just gonna go over here and do this, right?

He could easily do that,

but God hasn't called him to that.

And so where God's called him is to use his best

for this community, to make Jesus known, to tell stories.

Right, and that's how this works.

You gotta wrestle with God.

God, what talents have you given me?

And how do you wanna use them in the kingdom?

How do I give my best?

So if that's a role in a specific job, how do I do that?

If that's a, hey, God, you put me in this family

with these kiddos that drive me crazy,

how do I give them my best as a parent, right?

Like instead of striving for excellence,

it's no, we take our best and we use it.

Why?

Because we're serving who?

We're serving Jesus, not ourselves.

So how do I serve Jesus in raising my kids?

How do I serve Jesus at work?

How do I serve the people around me?

And that's how this flows out.

Now, it'd be one thing if you do it,

but you know you were never called to do it in isolation.

You know it was never called to, like anywhere in scripture,

you look at the narrative of scripture,

it's never about the individual.

And here's what's interesting.

The next value that we hold as a church is this,

that we are four together, right?

And it's out of the belief.

It's out of the belief that we are better together.

We are designed to be together.

That God has put us together.

Why?

Because at the center, at the center,

and I don't wanna say universe, because universe is ours.

At the center of it all,

there is a God who is in community with himself.

Here's what I mean.

If you look at Genesis chapter one,

Genesis chapter one, verse 26,

it says, then God said, let,

you'll notice that next word, us,

make mankind, make humanity in our image,

in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish

in the sea and the birds in the sky,

over the livestock and all the wild animals,

and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

So God created mankind in his own image.

In the image of God, he created them, male and female,

he created them.

God blessed them and said to them,

be fruitful and increase in number.

Fill the earth and subdue it.

Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the,

and the birds in the sky and over every living creature

that moves along the ground.

So in the creation narrative, what we're told

is that God who created everything,

that God is in relationship, in community,

working together with himself.

Right, so you've got the father involved,

you've got the son involved, and you've got the Holy Spirit,

which we call the Trinity.

So in the very first chapter of the very first book

of God's story, what he wants us to know is at the center

of everything, it is about community

and it is about working together,

which is staggering to a group of people who live in one

of the most individualistic cultures on the planet.

You realize that what you live in right now is designed

to be all about you, everything about it.

Right, you are designed that everything is built

for you to be an island, for you to be able to survive

on your own, for you to be able to live on your own,

for you to be able to not need anybody else.

One of the biggest things about having a cast,

that God's working through me, it's a four-letter word.

It's not the one you're thinking of.

Help.

I learned real quick, I am not good at asking for help.

I like to do things on my own, thank you very much.

I can tie my own shoelaces, so my wife tells me I can't.

Right, and so it's interesting, it's interesting

that in an individualistic culture, right,

let's just finish the slogan for a second.

If you go to Burger King, you can have it what?

Your way, they did phenomenal marketing, you know that.

Right, that in an individualistic culture,

it's all about you, you do you, bro.

You live your life, don't worry about the haters.

Right, and essentially what happens is,

is you create an island that you live on,

that if you create enough money for yourself,

you can take care of yourself, which across the planet,

if you sat down and told them that story,

they look at you and go, why would you ever wanna do that?

Why wouldn't you want to be with your family?

Why wouldn't you want your family to take care of you?

Why wouldn't you, right?

So we're in this individualistic culture,

but that works against the story of God,

because the story of God is not about individuals,

it's about community.

I love our teaching team.

This week, especially one of the things

that they kind of highlighted for me,

is on a Tuesday, our teaching team gets together.

And whoever's up here communicating,

they'll go in there and they'll talk about,

hey, this is where I think I'm going,

and then everybody kind of breathes in.

It's a community, it's a communal activity

building the message.

And this week, what I loved about it was,

is as we're sitting there,

and what this gets us out from you guys,

is there's no one person that comes here

and they've been in the ivory tower and come down

and go, thus saith the Lord, type thing, right?

Like it's a community that have interpreted

Scripture together and felt what,

and remember, creating space for the Holy Spirit.

What does the Holy Spirit want for our family this weekend?

And so this week, as we're talking about this,

what was highlighted for me and stood out was this,

that all the way through Scripture,

the language is communal, right?

Think about it for a second.

When God speaks about Israel,

what does He call them?

God's people, right?

When you read into, the disciples go to Jesus,

go, hey, teach us how to pray.

And so Jesus goes, hey, I'll teach you how to pray.

It starts like this, our Father.

Wait, wait, He didn't say to the person that asked,

your Father, He goes, I'll teach you how to pray.

It's our, our, because it's communal, our Father.

You look at the letters that are written to the church.

You know how those letters were to be received?

Stand up and read it to everyone.

It wasn't an individualistic letter.

It's a letter that went to everyone,

that everybody got a part.

Everybody, the idea was that God is building

something together, that we work together.

Why? Because at the center of it all,

there is a God who is working together.

We are four together.

You see it in the early church.

In Acts chapter two, Acts chapter two, verse 42,

they, they, doesn't say Peter, doesn't say John,

doesn't say Luke, it says they devoted themselves

to the apostles, the apostles.

It doesn't say that they went, man, I really like it

when Thaddeus gets up and speaks.

Thaddeus is amazing.

It doesn't say that.

It doesn't say when Peter gets up and speaks,

oh man, I follow, I'm devoted to Peter.

No, it says I'm devoted to what?

The apostles, the apostles' communal teaching

and to fellowship.

Fellowship is being with people, right?

Having in common, the breaking of bread into prayer.

Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders

and signs performed by the apostles.

There's that plurality again.

All believers, all believers were together

and they had everything in common.

They sold property and possessions to give to anyone

who had need.

Every day they continued to meet together

in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together

with glad and sincere hearts, praising God

and enjoying the favor of all the people.

And the Lord added to their number,

they're not a specific church.

It doesn't state that it was the church of Jerusalem.

Doesn't state that it was the church of whatever street.

It says that the Lord added to their number daily,

those who were being saved.

What you see all the way through scripture

is that God is building community.

What you see all the way through scripture

is that what really matters to God,

that if I am going to be for Jesus

and I am going to be for people

and I'm gonna create space for the Holy Spirit

and He's gonna lead me into generosity,

serving and giving my best,

then it's going to be something that is done together,

not in isolation.

We're four together.

We need one another.

It was built that way.

It was built that way.

You follow this through to Hebrews.

And the writer of Hebrews says this, chapter 10, verse 24.

And let us consider how we may spur one another on

toward love and good deeds,

not giving up the meeting together

as some are in the habit of doing,

but encouraging one another and all the more

as you see the day approaching.

Here's what it's saying.

It says, let us, right?

Let us.

That's not let you, that's all of us.

What should all of us be doing?

Let us consider.

That word consider, we like that one.

You could frame it this way, contemplate, right?

And so when it comes often to church,

we make it a very individualistic, easy to say,

faith, right?

We make it all about your faith.

So you know what you need to do?

You need to go have your time with God

and you contemplate you in God.

And so we make it and please hear me.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But if that's where it ends,

we've completely missed the whole point.

Because the idea of me spending time with God

and me contemplating, guess what I'm supposed to contemplate?

How to provoke you, how to bring the best out of you

and what your love for God and your good deeds for God,

your good works for God.

That my life, right, that we are so together

that even in my time with God contemplating,

He is gonna put you on my mind.

The Holy Spirit is gonna lead me your direction.

I'm gonna take my best and use it for you.

Why?

So that it would provoke you to grow

and for you to move forward in your love

and good deeds with God, to be encouraged.

But we've taken it in God, no, no, no,

this moment's all about you, right?

And God's going, no, no, no,

this moment's all about what I'm building

because you're a part of it.

And so it's this beautiful thing that what should happen

is that I should be provoking you to love and good works

and you should be provoking me to love and good works.

And together we're growing in the faith

because that's how God designed it.

Can I get a little personal, maybe get in your business?

Is that okay?

Okay, I just wanted your permission

so you can't be mad at me later, okay?

Some of you are living isolated right now.

Some of you are living outside of community.

And by community, I mean the body, the family.

And you're frustrated because you feel alone,

you feel isolated.

But if I'm gonna be honest with you, it's your fault.

And here's what I mean by that.

Two weeks ago, someone stood here

and talked about this thing called life groups.

Last week, someone stood here and people stood out there

and people stood at the park

and they invited you into community.

And for whatever reason, however it works,

you just chose not to step into it.

But according to Scripture, if you're outside of community,

you're outside of what God's building

because you were never meant to do this alone.

We are better together.

And so one of our values that we hold

that we have to remind ourselves

because we live in an individualistic culture

that would love to make this,

you guys, every single one of us has a preference on music.

Right, it would be easy to make it about us.

Every single one of us has a preference about

what a life group should be.

Can I encourage you that if you go,

hey, I missed the life group sign up and it's full,

like, can I encourage you to talk to our team and start one?

Right, like don't live isolated

because we are designed to do this life together.

We're designed to walk together.

Why does God want us to walk together?

Because I don't know if you know this or not,

He's for the future.

Right, and so our last one that we'll cover today

or maybe touch it next week

is the value that we are for forward.

For forward.

What does that mean?

That together, together we are moving forward,

taking our best because we're serving,

go all the way back because we love Jesus, right?

So all the way down that we are taking our best,

we're doing it together,

and we are stepping into the future.

We are for forward.

What that means is this is a church.

We won't get stuck here.

If you look at the church history down through the past,

what happens to the church

as the church gets real comfortable here?

Right, the church gets real comfortable with,

I got my friends that I do church with,

but when those people show up, that's not comfortable.

Right, and so what we do is we begin to close the doors,

tighter and tighter and tighter,

which is why our value of four people is so important

because we're gonna keep opening the doors

wider and wider and wider.

Why? Because the gospel is moving forward.

God's future is moving forward.

You wanna know what he writes as his future?

I'm glad you asked.

Ready?

Revelation 21,

verse two, I saw the holy city,

the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven.

So this is the end.

This is God's future, right?

I saw the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven

from God prepared as a bride,

beautifully dressed for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

look, God's dwelling place is now among the people.

That word would be better translated, peoples, right?

All peoples, all ethnicity.

And he will dwell with them.

They will be his peoples,

and he and God himself will be with them and be their God.

So four together ties in,

but that is the future that is already written.

Okay, so that doesn't change.

No matter what you do in your life, that doesn't change.

No matter what kind of future you think you're gonna have,

what you think you can create, that doesn't change.

And so you have a choice.

We have a choice as a church family.

We either get in line with God's future,

or we try and build our own future.

But to me, if we love Jesus and we're for Jesus,

then we're going to build the future

that Jesus tells us is the future.

And so what four forward does is a value

in our church family in your life

is it allows you to not settle for something

that is the future that I'm creating

versus the future that God's creating.

Is your life today aligned with the future

that God is creating?

Where he is King, where he is God,

where my life is about serving him.

Go back through all the things we've talked about,

where my best is for him,

where my serving, my generosity, all the talents,

all the gifts, all the resources,

all the relationships are all for his glory,

because that's what they will be forever in eternity.

And so is the future you're building for you,

your family as part of this together,

are you moving towards that?

One last story that kind of sums it all up.

It's one of my favorites because of how it's captured.

John chapter 12, verse one,

John 12 · chapter mention

six days before Passover, Jesus came to Bethany,

where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

Okay, so there's this gathering at a house,

and in the house is Lazarus.

Now, if you don't know who Lazarus is,

Lazarus one chapter before was a guy who was dead, right?

So much so that the language that was used

is he stinketh, that's how dead he was, right?

He's gone, he was beyond the time

that they thought you could come back to life.

Jesus shows up and he raises Lazarus to life.

Don't miss the monumental moment of this,

that this is someone who is dead,

who is alive because of Jesus,

and he's sitting and the next word it says,

the next verse it says, here a dinner was given,

so Lazarus is sitting having dinner,

but the dinner was given in Jesus' honor,

Martha served while Lazarus was among those reclining

at the table with him.

So the context we're given is that Jesus is what?

He is together, he is together around the table with people.

That's that four together language, he is in community.

In those days, if you shared food,

it was to call someone your friend.

And if you follow this story in other places,

it's that it's captured within the narrative.

Like the people around the table aren't all nice,

the people around the table aren't all people that he goes,

oh, this is my best friend right here.

They're like talking about how they're gonna kill him

after this, but he's around the table, he's four together,

and in the midst of that context, it says verse three,

then Mary took about a pint of Purinard

and expensive perfume.

She poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair

and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

So Jesus is at the table.

Now, to understand the context, they reclined at the table

so their feet were away from the table, it was low,

and you had person, person, person,

and it went around like that.

Mary, who if you follow Mary's story, one chapter before,

she's a little mad at Jesus.

She's a little disappointed

because her brother is dead and Jesus delayed.

Jesus raises a brother to life and in this moment,

in this moment, because she's recognized who he is,

in this moment, she's had a life altering interaction

with God and it's changed everything about her.

She comes to this meal and in the context, culturally,

to touch the feet of someone was the role that a slave took.

You were told to do it, you didn't volunteer to do it

and she comes around the table and it says that she,

she takes this perfume.

Now, we may not think much of that because in our culture,

you can pick up perfume anywhere.

But this perfume was worth a year's wages.

It was her future.

It was her very, very best.

And what does she do?

She takes it and in an act of honor,

because she is for Jesus, she puts it on his feet

and begins to take something else

that's very valuable to her, her hair.

And she starts to wash his feet with the perfume and her hair.

It's a beautiful act of love.

But notice what happens.

The whole house, the whole house smells, it says,

of the perfume.

What that's happening is the whole house smells

of the perfume.

What that tells me is everybody who is together

was affected by her bringing her best to Jesus.

That the whole house was affected.

That you couldn't be there and not know what she had done.

You couldn't be there and not be impacted by what she had done.

In this beautiful moment of giving her best to Jesus,

everybody who were four together in that space.

But it didn't stop there.

Verse four says, but one of his disciples,

Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected.

Why wasn't this perfume sold

and the money given to the poor, it was worth a year's wages.

He did not say this because he cared about the poor,

but because he was a thief.

As keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself

to what was put into it.

He's acting as a me.

He's not about the community.

He's not about what's happening.

Notice what Jesus says, leave her alone.

Jesus replied, it was intended that she should save

this perfume for the day of my burial.

You will always have the poor among you,

but you will not always have me.

Another place that captures the same story.

It says that everywhere the gospel of Jesus is told,

what she has done will be told.

She brought her best.

It impacted everybody else.

And the future that God's writing, he goes,

you didn't know that your best was a part

of the future I'm writing.

But let me tell you, for generations upon generations,

and in Prescott, Arizona today, we are talking about what?

The act of her bringing her best to Jesus.

I wonder, church, I wonder, I wonder.

On a Monday and an average Wednesday,

whatever your mundane day is, when you bring your best

for Jesus, I wonder how the house, the people

will be impacted because you showed up and you go,

I'm gonna give my best because he's worth it,

because he gave his best.

I wonder what it will be like for a family to do that,

for generations to come.

I wonder what the testimony will be of this group of people,

because we chose to take our values and to do it.

We chose to walk forward and go, I will give my best

because he has given his best.

I will do it in community together.

Why?

Because we are moving towards the future

that God has written.

So you have an opportunity.

Would you stand?

And would you take your breath and would you give

your best together in worship

to the future God's writing?