Love Local: Loving the Locals | Part 3

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

All right, thanks for taking time to greet one another.

And uh listen, if you're new here today, my name is Dave, one of the pastors here, and uh we're so glad that you're here.

And we hope this is a space that you can authentically and safely just explore who Jesus is.

Uh we're all on a journey, and we're just trying to better follow the heart and the practices of Jesus here.

And so we're really grateful that you're along this journey with us.

And uh, you've actually entered into the end of a teaching series that we've called Love Local, and it's a way in which we're seeking to determine how God wants to move through us and have an impact when it comes to loving our local church, loving our local community, and then also loving the locals within our lives, which are made up of friends and family members, we have neighbors and co-workers and classmates, really all those people that we cross paths with on a normal basis.

And that's gonna be the focus of our teaching here today.

And when Ryan kicked off this series two weeks ago, he actually illustrated our discipleship pathway to kind of allow us to see how this series fits within that.

And I want to reiterate that again as we begin here.

And when it comes to our discipleship pathway or our spiritual formation pathway, it's really uh seeking to cultivate five key characteristics that we see within scripture that emulate or reflect a follower of Jesus.

And those five characteristics, I'm just gonna use uh a contagious faith, all right?

I'm just gonna use the first letters here.

But they have a contagious faith.

They actually have life-giving practices like holy habits, studying scripture and prayer.

They also uh are a part of uh authentic community, and so there's this there's this authentic community that they're a part of where they're sharing and connected to God and each other, uh, usually foundations of prayer and scripture.

We also see that they're a part of a meaningful ministry.

They recognize that they have spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit infuses within them when they cross that line of faith that are to be distributed throughout the church, and we also see that they have extravagant generosity, which is a little bit about meaningful ministry, recognizing that they do have time and talents, but also treasure, that we want to be surrendered, recognizing that all we have comes from our Creator, and again, is to be distributed for his purposes.

Now, our spiritual formation pathway, our discipleship pathway, we illustrate it through four circles.

Uh, the first one being just really come to know Jesus.

And we do this every week.

It's the gathering.

We see it within the temple courts in the early church.

They would meet, gather, give God worship, sit under teaching, and there was this whole idea of this just corporate praise to our Creator.

But every time we entered into that space, we learn and we come to know him in a different way.

Now, we also know that when we see that early church, they not only met in temple courts, they actually met in homes too.

So they went from rows to circles.

And so when it came to that space, it's about growing as a disciple of Jesus.

And so that growth happens in connection with one another.

That growth happens again with those holy habits and spiritual disciplines that we begin to place in the regular rhythms of our lives.

And then we also see that we need to serve in the name of Jesus.

And this has been a really key focal point the last two weeks when it comes to, again, spiritual gifts that we have, but also to recognize, like last week, that when it comes to serving in the name of Jesus, you do that within the workplace.

And at the same time, there is something corporately, individually that we are to be doing as a church to be the hands and feet and realize that we are to bring forth God's kingdom, that there is a restorative movement that God wants to be of us, God wants us to be a part of, that there's this community renewal that we are to be a part of, and we do that in the name of Jesus.

Now, the final bucket here is share the love of Jesus.

That's a big one.

When it comes to us having a compelling faith and sharing the love of Jesus, we have to have a disproportionate urgency and passion to ensure that this circle is big enough to include anyone.

That we can share the love of Jesus with everyone.

Because when you look at that image back there of that circle, we want that circle, the influence of Jesus to continue to expand throughout the Bay Area.

That circle will not expand unless our personal circles of who we are willing to share the love of Jesus with expands.

The Apostle Paul says this in the New Testament: everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

So the main question for us today is: how big is my everyone?

How big is my circle?

Can I truly be in relationship with anyone to then invite them into a conversation or community?

Throughout the New Testament, we find those with the smallest circles having a limited capacity for the other, were the religious leaders of Jesus' day.

We know who they are, the Pharisees.

And this was not only due to the self-righteous systems that diminished their need for grace, therefore to extend grace, but it was also due to this psychological phenomenon that we are all wired with.

It's within us, it's called disgust.

You see, within recent years, there's been new research on the psychology of disgust, and so we're actually gonna go a little bit deeper on this subject matter, and we're gonna have a little experiment to go ahead and test the waters of disgust.

So I'm gonna have Serena and Marty just join us up on stage here.

Let's give it a hand for Serena and Marty, yes?

All right.

Now, the reason why I got a strong applause over here, they are youth volunteers, so thank you for that.

Go ahead and take this gum here, and I'm gonna have you both open those up and go ahead and give it a good chew, if you don't mind.

Now, Serena is also our director of communications and connections, and she does an amazing job behind the scenes for us.

And go ahead and take that.

All right, very good.

So, yeah, so we want that gum all chewed up, and we want to make sure it gets all like this is not this is a technical term, saliva-e, but we want to make sure that that just your saliva is really, you know, a part of that gum.

And uh what we want you to do now is to go ahead and swap that gum.

All right, let's go ahead and do that.

All right.

Not the first time, right?

Really?

This is not the first time they've swapped spit people, okay?

This is a married couple here, okay?

All right, so I want to go ahead here in the Lao Serena.

Actually, Marty, this time.

Marty, I want you to go ahead and take that piece of gum out.

I want you to go ahead and eat some of that salami.

All right, go ahead and eat that up for you.

And we want that those salami, and this is very important, Marty.

Salami juices.

We want them all throughout your mouth, okay?

Get those salami juices going.

All right, and make sure you do swallow it.

We are, you know.

Okay.

All right, put that gum back in.

And we want that gum to absorb a lot of those salami juices, okay?

We just want that's that's this is, yes, this is perfect.

Okay.

And now, once again, let's go ahead and swap that piece of gum.

All right, there we go.

Very good, awesome.

Yes.

That that that face you have, that's disgust, isn't that awesome?

Okay, can we give them a hand?

All right, very good.

All right.

In case you're wondering what the application process is to work with students, it's right there.

Okay, so.

But guys, this small activity actually illustrates just a sliver of what the psychology of disgust is all about.

Because first and foremost, when researchers started to look at uh disgust, they found out it was actually this face you made of over a distasteful food, right?

Did some of you talk about some of the food that you refused to eat?

What were some of them?

What?

Licorice?

Sweet potatoes, really?

Oh, okay, all right, all right.

Minus celery, have no idea why.

All right.

But aside from these unpleasant tasting foods, we also experience disgust when we are concerned with a contamination from something that is offensive.

Because our minds, hear me, our minds are wired in a way that assumes dirty things make clean things dirty.

For example, in that last gum swap that we just had, your disgust meter was triggered because we imagined, like, oh, Serena's, you know, so-called clean mouth, right, is gonna be contaminated with this slami-infested piece of gum.

And actually we thought that, you know, that Marty's gum would actually like make her mouth dirty, right?

No one here thought, oh good, that salami gum's gonna go in Serena's mouth and her mouth will clean it, right?

Because we are wired in a way that thinks dirty things make clean things dirty, but clean things can't make dirty things clean.

I'm gonna say that one more time.

We are wired to think that dirty things make clean things dirty, but clean things can't make dirty things clean.

We're gonna unpack that some more, but what you need to know is the natural assumption that's within all of us, it actually affects our relationships, and it actually shrinks our capacity of who can be in our circle of those that we share the love of Jesus with.

How you see the psychology of discuss played out in the lives of the Pharisees was through boundaries that they placed around them, to the so-called dirty and contaminated of their day, the tax collectors, people of other religions, even lepers.

You see, for the Pharisees to them, it was always guilt by association, it was never grace by association.

And when it came to lepers, many of them, they when it came to them, that many of them had this, not many of them, but as many of you know, leprosy was this horrible disease, not only physically tormenting a person, but it was actually mentally and socially scarring as well.

We actually see a little uh snapshot of what their life was like when we look at the book of Leviticus, chapter 13, verses 45, uh 45 through 46, it says this anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkept, cover their lower part of their face, and cry out, unclean, unclean, as long as they have the disease, they remain unclean.

Leviticus 13:45

They must live alone.

They must live outside the camp.

You see, due to the religious systems of their day, lepers were considered walking dead.

They could be a contagion to those in their path.

And so with the psychology of disgust at work, it created a number of purity laws.

One of them being this if we have a tree, umbrella, okay, all right, a tree?

Okay, okay, all right, all right.

And we have a dirty man underneath this tree, a leper, and a clean man walks by.

This clean man is now unclean.

If you flip it, we have a clean man under the tree, and this dirty man walks by.

Clean man stays clean.

Dirty man stays dirty.

Dirty person can make a clean person dirty.

It's never the other way around.

Yet the gospel, the gospel flips this thinking in having a perfect, spotless God reach out and touch dirty, imperfect, narcissistic sinners like ourselves, and he makes them clean.

This was the new kingdom that Jesus was foreshadowing while he was here on earth, dismantling all the social barriers of his day.

This is what actually theologians call, they call it the Great Reversal.

And it was shaped by Jesus' ministry when he purposefully sought out to elevate the marginalized of his time, the widows, the orphans, the refugees, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, people with disabilities, women, children, people of other religions, and even lepers.

One of my favorite authors, and a priest, Brennan Manning, says this.

He says it this way one of the strangest mysteries of the gospel tradition is the strange attraction of Jesus for the unattractive.

This strange desire for the undesirable.

This strange love for the unlovely.

One of the many examples where Jesus has love and desire over disgust, when he has attraction and transformation over contamination, occurs in Mark chapter 1.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

Starts in verse 40, where it reads, A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, if you are willing, you can make me clean.

And then it says Jesus was indignant.

And by indignant, it meant that Jesus was actually filled with righteous anger towards the brokenness of our world displayed by this leper.

You see, he hated to see sin and disease and death and how it took its toll on humanity because Jesus knew this wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

And so as Jesus is frustrated with the realities of this world, he's also equally compassionate.

And the text continues in verse 41.

It states, he reached out his hand and he touched the man.

You have to understand this was much worse than swapping some salami gum.

I mean, people all around, when they saw this, they dropped everything.

You have to know that Jesus, he could have easily healed this man with a simple verbal command.

Yet he suspends any temptation towards disgust and he physically reaches out and he touches him.

This was an unheard, this was an unheard of act of compassion.

You have to realize that this man probably hadn't been touched in years.

This was not only an act of compassion, but it was also a clear act of rebellion to the religious authorities of his day.

Showing the world no law, no power will ever separate a person from the intimacy of Jesus.

You see, for Jesus, everyone, everyone was in his circle of love.

Now to the leper's desperate request to be healed, Jesus responds.

He responds not only with this compassionate touch, but he also responds with this very powerful pronouncement.

Continues reading in verses 41 through 42.

I am willing, he said, be clean.

Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

And so, with our natural posture to think that dirty things make clean things dirty, thereby removing others from our circle, limiting the scope of who we are willing to share the love of Jesus with, we discover that with Jesus, contact cleanses rather than pollutes.

Jesus reverses everything, declaring that there is a new day where everyone is a part of his inclusive circle of love.

And yet we know when we are left to our own devices without the power and the heart of Jesus, are bent towards judgmental disgust, our fear towards guilt by association, it can take control, it shrinks our circles, and it limits the ones of who we will share the love of Jesus with.

Number of years ago, when I was a youth pastor in the Midwest, a subpar youth pastor, by the way, um, one of my former students, James, he was 19 at the time, he asked me if I would go to him, would go with him to his family, so that he wanted to tell them that he was gay.

The announcement didn't go well.

And following that announcement, several weeks of conflict, uh, James decided to move out of his house.

And he decided to embrace fully the gay lifestyle he moved in with his 30-year-old boyfriend.

However, after several months, he believed the Spirit of God was convicting him towards a sexual doctrine similar to what we have here at Awakening.

That though he was oriented with same-sex attraction, he really concluded based on what the Spirit was guiding him, and as he sought the scriptures, that sexual intimacy was designed by God to be reserved for a man and woman within a marriage covenant.

He believed his orientation didn't come with a different set of sexual standards, and so therefore, he was confident that God was leading him towards celibacy.

And so he broke up with his boyfriend, he moved back home, and then he asked me if I would support and counsel uh Dan, his former 30-year-old boyfriend.

You see, Dan had taken the breakup extremely hard.

And though he had always received condemnation from the Christian community, he was seen as a social leper.

He was desperate for anyone to touch and heal his emotional pain agreeing to meet with me.

And so Dan and I we started to meet for coffee on a regular basis just to talk through his relational loss, encouraging him in his journey back to emotional health.

And you need to understand, my my plan was simple: just comfort, just encourage.

If an opportunity arises, just talk about the unconditional love of Jesus.

And on one occasion when I was meeting with Dan, he was so stressed out about his car.

He just didn't have the funds.

He said something was up with the tires, he wasn't sure.

I said, you know what, let me take a look at it next week.

If you know me, I'm mechanically illiterate.

So that you never want me to look at your car, okay?

But I grabbed a handyman from our church named Wade and just had him come along to assess the car while Dan was at work.

The car was in the apartment complex, and and we were there in the parking lot and examining the car, and Wade actually had a tire iron, and he was tightening up some of the lug nuts on the tire.

And he asked me, Hey, how do you know Dan?

And I said, He's James' boyfriend.

He's just going through a tough time right now, or was James's boyfriend, and he's going through a tough time right now, and we're just trying to help him out.

And it all began to compute in Wade's head, and he was like, Are you saying he's gay?

I kid you not, he dropped it and walked away like that.

It was the psychology of disgust that displayed right before me the actual fear of contamination.

For Wade, Dan had no room in his circle.

An awakening, the question that we have to wrestle with are who are those people that make you drop the tire iron?

Who are those people that trigger your disgust meter?

Is it the sexual minority?

Is it a person on the other side of the political aisle?

A person of another color or nation, someone from a different economic status, whether rich or poor.

Obviously, Dodger fans, we know that.

I mean, we can't, we're not miracle workers here, you know.

God's wired me in a way, and it's not anything like mature.

He's just wired me in a way, like I'm oh like I have a welcoming heart to like the antagonistic atheist or to the addict.

Uh, but my tire iron owl.

It drops when I'm confronted with a legalistic Pharisee.

Guys, when I cross paths with a person who has rooted their superiority and their identity in being morally right, wanting the police, every questionable act, I want to run the other direction.

And yes, guys, Jesus had stern warnings to the Pharisees.

He realized that their judgmental hearts actually smothered the gospel, but you need to hear me on this.

Jesus loved the Pharisee, He was drawn to them, He ate with them, He cried with compassion over them.

And so, as I'm supposed to be one that champions and teaches a God of unconditional love, I stand here as a hypocrite, having only a limited love for the over-religious.

Guys, no one is immune from the psychology of disgust.

And awakening, we have to recognize that with each internal, external act of disgust, it actually shrinks our circle of who we can share the love of Jesus with.

Whether it's the bully down the hallway, whether it's the addict in your neighborhood, or whether it's the dysfunctional family member at Thanksgiving dinner.

And just remember, we are all someone's dysfunctional headache, right?

German pastor, theologian, Nazi resister Dietrich Bonhoeff, he states this all too often the church holds up a mirror, reflecting back the society around it, rather than a window.

Right?

Revealing a different Way.

Awakening.

We need to reveal a different way.

We need the way of Christ.

And so, how do we suspend our disgust and embrace anyone like Jesus modeled for us?

Well, actually, research in disgust psychology, they've noticed that individuals have the ability to suspend their disgust and lead with love towards family members.

It's what they call the kinship bond.

This is why Marty and Serena could pretty much swap gum pretty easily, right?

Because they're married.

Would they do that with me?

No.

All right, that's disgusting.

And some boundaries are good.

This is why I could change the diapers of all six of my kids.

Yeah.

But with my nephews and nieces, it was like, eh, disgust meter up, and you know, no, thank you.

And I didn't want to, you know, take that loving act away from their parents.

So we actually see the kinship bond displayed within the New Testament of the Pharisees.

They actually had three circles of purity.

They had the sanctuary, they had the home, and they actually had the table.

And with each inner layer, there was a higher degree of disgust as you moved more towards the center, having more of a disgust towards the outsider, because the table was considered the most intimate social setting.

It was where food consumption was reserved primarily for family.

And our creator, Jesus, he knew it was way easier for us to suspend disgust towards a family member at the table rather than a stranger or an enemy.

He challenged his followers in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

He says this He says, If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?

Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

And if you greet only your people, what are you doing more than others?

Do not even pagans do that.

And so for Jesus, leading with love over disgust to a family member or mutual friend, he says, you know what, that isn't a great demonstration of what the Christian faith is all about.

Because even those far from God do this, but but we are called to a revolutionary love, a love that moves us towards those people that we are most tempted to avoid, whether it's the grieving, whether it's the depressed, whether it's the angry, and to see them as a human being made in the image of God that demands and deserves dignity.

Again, for Jesus, everyone was family.

Anyone could sit at his table.

Anyone could sit at his table.

Before Jesus' death and resurrection, he actually had one final meal with some of his best friends.

In the New Testament, the book of Matthew, chapter 26, illustrates this large and inclusive circle of Jesus when he sits at the table with them.

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

Starts in verse 20.

It says, When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the twelve.

And while they were eating, he said, Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.

Then Judas, the one who betrayed him, said, Surely you don't mean me, Rabbi.

Jesus answered, You have said so.

This was a cryptic conversation just between Judas and Jesus.

No one else was getting it.

And pretty much Jesus meant by that.

What he meant by that is, hey, you know it, I know it.

Jesus knew Judas had already betrayed him.

The wheels were in motion for Jesus' captivity, for his torture, for his crucifixion.

And Jesus then, he actually has this disloyal deceiver sit at the table and he shares a meal with him.

Awakening our Creator, he calls us to lead out in this world with a vulnerable, risky, and a very costly love.

If we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus, modeling such radical love, there's one question I would love for us all to wrestle with this week.

It's this one right here.

Who is needing to sit at my table in the next several weeks that stretches my circle of who I will share the love of Jesus with?

Who's hard for you to love?

Who's the person you've been avoiding?

Who's the person you cut off?

Is it time to sit at the table with them?

Opening up your circle, expanding your table, guys, it isn't about trying to win them to Jesus.

It's just simply warming them with his love.

To be a person of genuine care and curiosity, to be a person of peace, to be just present, realizing that you are an extension of Christ in you.

British theologian John Stott, he's often illustrated our needed posture for situations like this.

Here's how the poem goes He says, not merely in the words you say, not only in your deeds confessed, but in the most unconscious way is Christ expect expressed.

Is it a beatific smile, a holy light upon your brow?

Oh no, I felt his presence when you laughed just now.

To me, 'twas not the truth you taught, to you so clear, to me still dim, but when you came, you brought a sense of him.

And from your eyes he beckons me, and from your heart his love is shed till I lose sight of you and see the Christ instead.

You see, when we expand our circles to share the love of Christ, it's actually creating a sacred space for him to show up in the most natural and unassuming ways.

It simply requires you to see the other, to see that they're made in the image of God, that they are family, and simply make an invitation for connection.

Now, with this one challenge I'm giving us, which is who is God wanting to have me sit at my table?

There's two reminders I want to give you.

The first one is this a sacrificial love doesn't mean a stupid love.

Yes, grace is scandalous.

That doesn't mean, though, that everyone should get a free pass into your life if they are not safe.

Guys, trust still needs to be earned with those that have deeply wounded you or others.

Therefore, wise and healthy boundaries are needed with those that have a track record of abuse.

The bottom line is you're not God.

Second, we can only make room at our table when we're reminded that God has made room at his table for us.

For many of us in this room, we know that that meal with Jesus and his disciples was a foreshadowing of what was to come.

Matthew 20, it continues, reading verse 26.

It says, while they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given that given thanks, he broke it and gave it to the disciples, saying, Take and eat, this is my body.

Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink from it all of you.

This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until the day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom.

Those disciples that surrounded Jesus at that table, they were a microcosm of all of humanity.

They were traitors, they were racists, they were thieves, they were men that struggled with anger and jealousy and pride and deceit, and yet Jesus wasn't repelled by them.

And he wasn't repelled by all of humanity's condition.

He didn't run from us.

He ran to us and onto the cross to take our deserved sin penalty so that we may be made whole and brought back into a relationship with our Creator.

With the promise of one day sitting around that great banquet table as one complete, unified family in our Father's kingdom.

And so we want to respond, we want to remind ourselves about the seat that we have at the table so that we can make room for that person that God is putting on our heart to put at our table.

One of the best ways we can do that is through communion.

Robbie and the team here, they're gonna lead us in several songs, but I encourage you to use this time to first ask God, God, who are you asking me to bring to the table?

And then as you approach the communion table, we have two up front, we have one in the back, gluten-free.

But as you go ahead and remind yourself that you have a seat at the table, ask yourself, who will have a seat at mine?

When I see crackers, sometimes I'm like, oh, crackers, I want bread, I want it to, you know, like all that.

There's something nice about the crackers and just dipping it.

You're gonna take the cracker, you're gonna dip it in the in the cup.

And there's something messy about that.

The juice just doesn't stick on it.

It just spills.

Reminding us of that spilled blood on our behalf.

It's it's not bread, it's not like, oh, this is nice soft bread.

No, it's it's a cracker.

It breaks.

You hear it, you feel it.

Let that remind you of the broken body on our behalf.

Undeserved love, infinite grace.

He's given us a seat.

Who's gonna have a seat at your table?

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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