You Are Known | Part One

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Hello, 11 o'clock.

Hey.

I want to know who the real Christians were.

Come to the 11 o'clock service.

You're all rested, ready to worship.

Is that right?

Ready to hear the word of God this morning.

We had a great time in the first service, and uh expect God's gonna do great things here.

We just we uh commented that uh one place we didn't pray for is Calgary.

They're experiencing a lot of snow right now.

Actually, yeah, but Big White is still snowing.

So we wanted to pray for them that the Lord would give them more.

More, Lord, more.

Amen.

Hey?

Come on.

My friends in Calgary are gonna call.

Stop praying for snow.

It's keep keeps coming and coming and coming.

Well, we're so grateful you're here today.

Uh, we're launching a new series.

Uh they'll be going through this time to May on uh you are known.

You are known.

How many of you know that God knows your name?

He knows your name, he knows all about you, and he's called us to carry that same spirit towards reaching out and reaching to uh other people groups, families, uh, communities, uh, letting them also be known that they too are known and they're valuable because each person carries that intrinsic value that God created them on purpose to be known, to be loved, and we want to continue just living our lives the way Jesus intended us to live.

So we're gonna start today out of the text in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

I'm just gonna give you a little bit of a uh premise of what the cultural tone was like at the time.

In Matthew, uh it we're reading about Jesus being in a space above Capernaum where uh crowds were gathering around him.

Now, crowds were gathering around Jesus because he had a certain mystique about him.

Obviously, he he spent his time in the presence of his father.

He was all about his father's business, but he carried something about him that in that time in Jewish history they were being oppressed on every side by Roman rule, Roman law, Roman taxes, Roman government.

And the Jews were looking for somebody who would rise up and rescue them from where they were at.

Someone who would teach them a message that was radical enough to liberate them and help them find freedom.

So Jesus sits on the hillside and he launches the tone of his ministry from this message here.

In Matthew chapter 5, he starts to share this revolutionary message.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

He starts by saying, Blessed are you if you are of poor in spirit.

Blessed are you who mourn.

Blessed are the meek.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Blessed are the merciful.

Blessed are the pure in heart.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Blessed are those who persecute you for righteousness' sake.

Blessed are you when people utter all kinds of evil things about you.

Everyone says amen to that?

Isn't that awesome?

No.

Your tone, exactly, your response, exactly what I'm sure the Jewish people were thinking at that time.

Are you kidding me?

We want a revolutionary message.

And you're telling me that I'm blessed when people say all kinds of slanderous evil things about me?

Are you saying that I'm blessed if I'm meek and humble?

And that, God, you care about my character, my purity of heart?

And that's what matters?

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Listen, we're surrounded by Romans.

They're literally at times they come into communities and destroyed them by the thousands, the Jews by the thousands, just to establish their rule of law.

And he sits with them and he says, He says, This is the kind of culture I want to create.

This is my revolutionary team.

Blessed are you who mourn.

The meek.

And they felt like they were being weakened, not strengthened.

A revolutionary with a message that seems so weak.

What's going on?

See, they were looking for someone like Moses, a new Savior who would come.

And Moses, what he did is he split the Red Sea.

And when he split the Red Sea, they came in, the enemy tried to follow, and the sea came in, crashed around the enemies, and drowned them.

And then they were thinking, well, maybe he's going to be like Elijah.

And Elijah, when he had an enemy, he just called down fire from heaven, and boom, they were toast.

Kind of.

That's kind of funny.

It's like they were charred.

They were burnt.

And they were looking for someone who would drown the enemy, crush the enemy, destroy the enemy.

How many of you would love that?

Like, you you know what I'm talking about.

You've had that time in your life where you've had someone, and your prayer for them isn't, Lord, bless them today.

I just want to bring peace to the situation.

No, you want them done.

You're like, crush them, God.

Lord, bless them so much they can't handle it, and they just drown in blessings.

Like, that's what I want for them.

It's just like this attitude.

And they were looking for it, and they were saying, where is this Jesus?

What is where is this revolutionary spirit?

And so Jesus raised the standard for everyone.

He said, No, no, no, no, no.

I'm not telling you to go after your own ambitious ways of doing things.

Instead, I want you to have a higher standard, and this higher standard, even though you're expecting it to be easier, it's not going to be easier for you.

So he continues and he starts to preach this.

And he sits, and again, a multitude, a crowd of people, a room full of people, jam-packed, waiting to listen to these words.

And Jesus says, I have come to not abolish the law, but I'm going to fulfill it.

And they were looking for an easier way.

They're saying, hopefully, this Messiah will come and liberate us and allow us to do whatever we want.

But instead, what he says is, you've heard how the law says not to murder.

And everyone's like, Yeah, we know, do not murder.

It's one of the Ten Commandments.

Do not murder.

He says, I'm raising the standard.

I say to you, whoever says to his brother or sister that you're stupid, you're an idiot.

Everyone's like on their phone.

Uh not me.

You know, that's not how many of you have thought that at least this week is like, oh my goodness.

He says, this is what I'm talking about.

A different way, a way that's deeper and richer.

He says, I'm not, I'm telling you right now that before you even come to the altar to worship God, before you come to worship, and you don't have something right with your brother or your sister, go make it right.

See, God was talking about two different ways.

There are two different gates.

He said there's a wide gate, and that gate is so wide, many are those who find it, but in the end, that gate, the people go through that gate and it leads to destruction.

But then there's a narrow way that leads to life.

And few are those who actually find that way.

I'm going to tell you about the narrow way.

The narrow way is don't be stuck with do not murder.

I think we've all been pretty good with that.

If you haven't, we may need to talk later.

But we're pretty good at that.

But how many of you have kept anger in your heart towards a brother?

Anger towards a sister.

Or someone in your community.

He continues.

He says, You've heard it said, if you don't commit adultery, but I'm telling you, it's written, don't commit adultery, but I'm telling you, don't even look at someone else with lust in your heart towards them.

If you do, you've committed adultery in your heart.

So guard your eyes, guard your heart.

And he continues, divorce.

You want just divorce papers and little papers.

You want a divorce paper from the temple that says that you're able to have divorce?

I'm telling you, don't divorce unless there's actually reason to divorce.

You need to have some kind of grounds for divorce.

What about oaths?

Don't swear.

Well, don't let your yes be yes and your no be no.

But that may mean that I have to pay back things that I don't want to have to pay.

Yes?

Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Stick to your word.

Continues.

Oaths, retaliation.

You know how the Bible said, Jesus says, you know how it was said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?

In other words, someone does this to me and I do this to them, and it's like we're just gonna keep score.

Instead, I'm telling you this: I'm saying, if someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the left cheek.

If someone wants your jacket, give them your jacket and your shirt.

Take it that extra mile.

If someone asks you to go one mile, go the go an additional mile with them.

This is the radical, like this isn't Brody preaching.

This is like the Bible telling you how we should live.

This is the gospel.

Now, now let me tell you about this one.

What about loving your loving people?

He says, you've heard it said, love your neighbor, hate your enemies.

But I'm telling you today, love your neighbor and pray for your enemies.

And you hear about those who curse you, those who who who are out to hurt you, I want you to pray for them and I want you to bless them.

Now, how many of you feel really good that you're like 10 for 10 on this?

Not me.

I read it and I'm like, oh God.

I'm not this guy.

And I hope the church realizes that.

You guys all know that, right?

I am not this guy.

Outside of God's help, I can't do that.

And Jesus said, I'm telling you about a tougher way, a better way, a better way that you need to be living.

I'm not going to lower the bar, I'm going to raise the standard.

I'm going to raise the standard that I'm calling you all to aim for.

Don't just settle for not murdering people.

Get it dealt with in your heart to love one another.

And not just love each other, love your enemies.

Like overcome it.

Well, that means I'm going to have to forgive them.

Well, that's why he said.

How often should you forgive?

Keep forgiving, keep forgiving, keep forgiving.

So this is the spirit of Jesus coming to the people, and he's saying, This is the culture that is going to overwhelm and overcome the enemy.

In their day, that was the Roman Empire, that were people who were oppressing them on every side, were treating them small.

And Jesus said, This is my weapon.

And that weapon hasn't changed.

It continues today.

It says, if we really want to reach our family, reach our community, reach our schools, reach our neighborhoods, reach our church, like the church and the people within the church, we need to live this way.

Nothing has changed.

Carry that spirit in us.

It's a radical life.

It says, you got to walk around with thick skin and a soft heart.

You've got to walk around unoffendable, forgiving, tolerant, committed, forever, forever kind, patient.

How many of you are good at being patient?

Hands are up everywhere.

I see the hand, I see that one hand right there.

It's tough.

But we live, we're called to live this better way.

So Jesus uses the example.

He says, I want to tell you a story of someone who actually lived this way.

And he goes on to tell the story of the Good Samaritan.

Let me read it to you today.

He says, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked.

He was attacked by robbers, and they stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him almost half dead.

And a priest happened to be going down the road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.

Why?

Because my hands are clean, and I don't want to touch anything that's filthy.

I don't want to soil myself that way.

So I'm just going to walk around it.

And you avoid the opportunity to actually get your hands dirty.

And the next a Levite came by.

And a Levite came by and saw the man in the ditch, and the Levite says, He walks again on the other side of the street because he's too important and he's too busy and he's too caught up in his own world that he's going to just go to the other side.

And then a Samaritan came on the road.

And the Samaritan looks in the ditch, and there's the man who had been beaten up.

And he goes down and he cleans them up.

The Bible says he pours oil and wine over his sores, gives him ointment, and he places him on his own donkey.

He brings him to an inn and he says, Take care of this man.

In fact, here I'm going to prepay his bill and I'm going to come back.

Any expenses that are on this man's account, I'll take care of next.

I'll take care of as well.

On the next trip.

And then he says this.

He says, do this, act this way, go and actually live like this.

So if Jesus was here today, he would be saying to you today, go and act like this good Samaritan.

Get your hands dirty.

Get involved.

Think more about people than about things.

The people are more important than material.

And get engaged and learn how to love to your own sacrifice.

And so he challenges the people to do this.

He's together, he's challenging the church.

And I think that the only way that we can live this way is that we need to rely fully on God.

Brody cannot live like that.

Only by God's help and God's assistance and by his support and by his grace can I even move in that direction.

So I need God's help.

So why is it though that I have God?

God is in me, and his spirit is in me, and yet I still struggle with how to love people.

Why is that?

I can tell, like part of the reason I believe why I struggle is that I've been hurt before.

How many of you have been hurt before?

I forgave before, and people burnt me again, and then I forgave them, and then they burnt me again.

And sometimes they've said really terrible things about me.

And they disrupted my life, and I was living so peaceful, and then they came into the picture and forget it! Say some words.

I don't think I can say these words in church.

I'm just trying to think about it.

Can I say those words in church?

I don't know.

But you've said them.

And the reason we don't live like this is because we've been hurt.

And hurt people hesitate.

They hesitate from radical living and radical love.

And God's telling us that we're not supposed to hesitate.

We're supposed to love like we've never been hurt.

Love like we've never been damaged, never experienced that pain.

We're supposed to keep on loving and keep on giving the way God gave towards us.

Like that's why it's so radical that the 13th chapter of Corinthians, where it says, love is patient, love is kind, it lasts a long time, it perseveres, it doesn't boast, it doesn't keep a record of wrongs, it doesn't do any of those things.

In fact, love is better than prophecy, love is better than all these other big gifts and generosity.

Love is so important, it will never, ever, ever fail.

So get love.

If you're gonna get faith, hope, or love, get love.

It's the greatest of these.

So get it.

And sometimes we go like, man, I don't know if I can love.

I I've literally reached my limit of forgiveness with people.

And I get it.

So Jesus was like, like their question to Jesus, it was a pretty good question.

Jesus, how often should we forgive?

And one of the disciples raises his hand, seven times?

Oh, I'm so holy.

Seven times?

Imagine that.

I'll forgive seven whole times.

And Jesus looks at him and goes, you don't get it.

Seventy times seven.

In other words, I don't even want you to think about a number.

I want you to just keep on giving, keep on giving, keep on giving.

And this is the idea is that if you're gonna leave here today, leave with this thought that forgiveness is not about keeping score, it's about just losing count.

It's not about keeping score, it's not like I forgave my wife, so I do something wrong.

You need to forgive me, I forgave you.

And we keep this score, this table, you know, and I just want to remind her of the things I've forgiven her for, so that when the time comes, she needs to forgive me.

And we keep the score, forgiveness, true forgiveness is saying, forget, I I I'm not gonna put myself in in a difficult place again.

I'm gonna remember, but I'm not going, I'm gonna keep on forgiving.

I'm gonna keep extending love to you, keep extending grace to you, keep extending forgiveness to you, and I'm gonna keep on doing it.

And and trust that God until God says, that's enough.

You can move on.

So what you've gone through, I understand it can be painful, but the challenge is keep on loving, keep on forgiving.

Keep on doing it until like just don't stop.

Lose count.

Jesus said this when he we were looking at uh the scripture, it says there's this situation in Nehemiah, it's an Old Testament book, and they were rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and rebuilding the temple, and it had been burned.

And all the all the stones that they had used to build the temple walls had been had been torched.

And Nehemiah goes and says to the Lord, says, What should we do with these broken, devastated, burnt blocks?

And he goes, Should we throw them away?

Because they've been burnt.

What should we do with them?

And this is what God says.

God says, I don't want you to throw away the stones that have been through the fire.

How many of you have gone through things that have put you through the fire?

And God says, I don't want you to forget about those things.

I don't want you to throw away those things that you've gone through the fire in.

Instead, they've gone through a devastation.

He says, I'm going to use those stones and I will build walls on top of them.

And it's a powerful image of the fact that God isn't done with you yet.

And he's also saying, God is the God of what you've gone through.

God is the God of what you've lost.

But God is the God of what you've got left, and what you've got left is amazing.

And God can do incredible things with what you have left.

Amen.

Amen.

So don't count your loss.

You may look at your life and you might say, Pastor, you don't know, like it's burnt.

There's a lot of burnt stuff.

And God's saying, don't give up on it.

I'm telling you right now, it's okay.

I'm going to build something on top of that structure.

What you thought was a devastation, I'm going to build a wall on top of.

I'm going to keep building.

And you're going to look back and where people are going to say, just forgive and forget.

Like, just forget.

Like, you can't do that.

You can't forget that someone left you with three kids or stole$100,000 from you in a business deal.

You can't forget that.

It's just impossible.

We God doesn't like supernaturally cause things to disappear.

But He can take that moment and He can say, I'm not going to allow that moment to have power over you anymore.

Instead, you're going to put it on the ground, you're going to look at it, and you're going to move and keep on moving.

And you're going to remember, I once was there, but now by the grace of God, I'm here.

And God is helping me move forward.

Amen?

So that's the way God is.

He's going to take you from a moment where you thought, man, it was extremely painful.

And he's going to use that moment to make something really powerful out of it.

So allow God to move you forward.

So we do this with the heart of God.

Now, there, I love the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the three Hebrew kids.

They were, they were told to bow down before an idol, and they didn't bow down, and God said, and the king said, If you don't bow down, you're going through the fire.

And they said, Well then put us through the fire.

So they put them through the fire, and the Bible says that in the middle of the fire there was another person there who was hanging out with them, which is just so cool.

And the Bible actually says, it was like he was the Son of God.

Like, who is this guy?

And when they left the fire, it's very particular.

The Bible says this none of their clothes were singed at all.

And there wasn't even a hint of smell of smoke on their skin.

God can move you through.

God can move you through.

And you can move through, and you might see the most painful, terrifying furnace, and you might have to go through it.

But God will move you through.

So you choose.

And today it's a day of a choice.

It's where we are caught in a place where we have to actually say, God, I'm going to choose to do it your way instead of doing it my way.

I'm going to choose to love like I've never been hurt.

I'm going to choose to forgive like I till I lose score.

I'm just going to keep on forgiving.

I'm going to choose to bless when other people are persecuting and cursing me.

I'm going to choose to say yes, make my yes, yes, and my no-no.

I'm going to keep my word.

I'm going to keep on loving.

And that challenge today is a challenge that will turn the world upside down.

And that's the challenge that will affect our community.

If we really want to affect the people in our world, love like you've never been hurt.

Love that way.

Never lower your standard on love.

Billy Graham said it this way.

He says, God will judge.

God will judge.

It's his job to judge.

It's the Holy Spirit's job to convict, but it's our job to love.

And sometimes we think that, you know, like my kids do something wrong.

I should pull back on my love for them, which is ridiculous.

So that I can show judgment and punishment.

No, it doesn't change.

I continue to love my children.

My job is to love and keep on loving and keep on pressing in to love and keep on pressing in to showing them how much I care.

This is the heart that we carry, and this is the heart that will move the world.

Amen?

Amen.

Would you bow your heads with me for a moment here?

Father, we thank you for your word.

How many of you are grateful for the word of God today?

Amen.

We were reminded of your love today for us.

We're reminded of how generous you've been in your love towards us.

And we say to you today, Father, that we we want to be like you and we hear your word, and we ask, Lord, that you would just change our hearts, Lord, transform us, and so that we can become more and more like you.

Amen.

If you're here today and just every head bowed, every eye closed, if you're here today and this is maybe your first time at church, maybe you've been coming to church for a long time, but you've never made a decision to encounter God before and to experience this love.

I'm telling you today that it is the only way to move life forward.

The only way for you to move forward in life.

And today I just want to give you an opportunity to introduce you to Jesus.

And if you want to pray a prayer with me, it's called a salvation prayer.

It's what we do to respond to Jesus' invitation to come and forgive our sins and set our life on a new trajectory.

I want you to just pray this prayer along with me.

And I'm gonna invite the whole congregation to pray it as well together.

And it may be your first time praying this prayer, and I just want you to pray it.

It's not just words, it's power.

And these words actually mean something.

So would you pray together with me, Church, dear Jesus?

Welcome to my world.

I invite you today to come into my heart, to come into my life, to make me a new person.

I ask you to forgive my sin.

I receive you now into my life, into my heart, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And with every head bowed and eye closed still, if you uh prayed that prayer today for the first time, just between you and me, would you just raise your hand real high?

If there's someone here who's prayed the prayer for the first time, I'm just gonna give it a moment.

If you prayed that prayer, we just want to acknowledge you and take that moment.

Amen.

God bless you.