"You've Heard It Said": A Sunday Conversation with Pastor Ross Stackhouse

Welcome to Heaven Earth Church.

My name is Ross Stackhouse.

I'm the founding pastor of Heaven Earth Church.

From the beginning, our heart was to be a church for people who

don't fit neatly into church.

Our heart is to meet people where they are, to learn their stories,

to honor their stories.

Because in every human story is God's story.

In this podcast, you'll hear more about the people who now call

Heaven Earth Church home.

Their stories, in many cases of misfits who are discovering or

rediscovering faith.

If you want to know more about us, you can go to heavenorthchurch.org

Otherwise, we invite you now into the story.

Hello, good people.

Brad Miller here, the producer of the Heaven Earth Church podcast.

One of the main benefits of being a part of the Heaven Earth

Church community is our Sunday morning conversations taught by founding

pastor Ross Stackhound.

You can watch and participate in the Sunday morning conversation

this Sunday morning, 9:30am Eastern time at YouTube.com heavenerthchurch.

The audio version of the Sunday morning conversation is available

here on the podcast, which you can find at Apple Podcasts, Spotify

and on the website, which is heavenarthchurch.org now here is

Heaven Earth Church Pastor Ross Stackhouse with the message

you've heard.

It was said.

Be our vision, Lord, awaken us.

Revive us in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

In a minute, I'm going to set the stage for what we're going to

talk about for the next really couple of months.

We have two series coming up.

That is not a picture that I took in Banff, though.

It looks wonderful.

So where I'm going to get to some pictures from where I was.

But I want to ask.

I'm going to make a statement.

I want to see if you agree with me or not.

As human beings, we tend to give what we receive.

We end up.

We tend.

We have a tendency or we end up giving in life what we have received.

Do you agree with that?

Okay.

Anybody disagree?

Ellie disagrees.

I like it.

Ellie, let's hear it.

Oh, you don't have to if you're like, no, no, I just disagree.

Ross.

Okay, Kara.

Okay, sure.

Yeah.

Okay, let me clarify.

Yes, Kara.

What I mean in this case is.

And then I'll ask you if you agree or disagree, if we have received

a lot of anger in our lives.

So we've been in an environment where we received a lot

of anger in a system where there was a lot of anger, and then

that's untreated, we will give out anger.

If we were in a system where we experience a lot of trauma and

it goes unhealed and untreated, we will tend to give out

trauma if we were in an environment of neglect.

And it goes untreated, unhealed, unprocessed.

Mm, mm, mm.

Simply in recovery, in the recovery rooms, they say we cannot

give away what we have not yet received.

That's what I mean.

Now, do you agree or disagree, Katie?

Yeah, yeah, so that's a good point.

Like road rage is a great example, a simple one.

If somebody raises a hand up to you and they tend to put down

four fingers and leave up one, you may have the tendency to offer

them the same gesture in return.

I'm not.

I know none of you sweet Christian people have done that.

I know someone very well who.

I've lived very closely with them.

Who.

Anyways, did you have something to say, Angela?

You had your hand up.

Oh, yes.

Yep.

Yes, yes.

So, for example, if you.

Angela said, for those of you online, sometimes, actually we will

give, perhaps we will open, overcompensate, perhaps, and give

in some ways the.

The inverse of what we receive.

So if we were in an environment with a lot of neglect,

we may become people pleasers in a way.

We are giving what we have received in a way still.

But, yes, other folks, you can.

In order to practice true humility, I have to give freely without

sort of having parameters on it.

Yeah, yeah, Yep, sure.

Yeah.

So my dad talked about his upbringing, and then someone he knows,

their upbringing, how that produced different results.

Here's what I'm going to.

We have a goal for the next really?

Couple of weeks.

Couple of weeks.

Couple of months.

I have a desire in my heart.

I have an agenda the next couple months.

I want to create a space for you to receive this wondrous love

of God again.

Or perhaps for the first time, there is a love that we have not

known yet, that I really want to create a space for you to receive,

to create a space for maybe grieving, healing, to open a door,

to receive this love again.

Because we are certainly enveloped and covered by this love.

There is no doubt about it.

This love has been given.

It is being given.

It will continue to be given, and we can receive it.

So that's my agenda.

Will you come with me to Canada?

Now, listen, I know this is somewhat unfair because part of this

is like, hey, Ross, tell us your privilege without telling us

your privilege.

Well, there it is.

Well, part of this is a product of my sister Joanna.

You've seen her.

My sister Joanna is an evangelist.

Okay.

I am more like, if you go apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd,

teaching, giftings from Ephesians 4.

If you're like, ross, did you speak a foreign language?

Don't worry about it.

We'll explain it another day.

I'm more the apostle type, which I like to just go out to the

frontier and see what will happen.

Joanna is an evangelist, so she was organizing this bucket list

trip for my dad to Banff National Park.

And I was like, I don't have time to go.

I don't have space to go.

And then Joanna would show back up, like, hey.

So I was just thinking, what if you came for this part and did.

I can't.

I don't have time.

And then like a week later, she'd be like, hey, I was thinking.

And that's why you need a multitude of gifts around you.

You need a multitude of gifts in community.

Because if it were not for her, I would never have seen this,

perhaps not in my life.

And yet I did.

This is Brewster Creek.

It's some just.

I was just driving around.

I had a day to myself and stopped by this creek and just stayed

for an hour, put my hands in the brisk water, just enveloped by

the Canadian Rockies.

And my soul needed it.

Like, it's not a joke.

I wasn't just saying, in theory, this series.

We were just in, like, ruthlessly eliminating hurry.

I just was still here.

And Psalm 42 just rose up out of my soul.

It just talks about like a deer to the pool, like a deer craving

streams of water.

So my soul cries out for you.

But then it goes on to say, like, why is my soul so disquieted

within, like, hope again in God, for I will yet give praise?

It sounds something like that.

And things like this.

That's a real picture.

Can you believe it?

That peak on the left is called Mount Rundle, named after

a Methodist missionary who was there in the 1800s.

So this probably isn't true, but it was kind of like God was like

saying, see, I wanted you to be here.

Oh, and I forgot the picture as I flew in.

I have a phobia with flying, no joke.

As I flew in, the pilot says, look out your window.

And the northern lights were just covering the sky like an idiot.

I didn't put that picture up.

Yeah.

Let me see if I can do this from afar.

I doubt it.

It's so worth it that.

You know what?

Just sit tight for this awkward moment.

We'll see if we can make it happen.

Will it do it from afar?

It'll send it to Kara Baker Right now, but not that Mac Studio.

We'll get it later.

How are you gonna get it?

Okay.

Did I. Oh, that's right.

I sent it to you.

Emily.

Praise God.

These are the Vermillion Lakes.

There was this picture about how this was formed one time.

One time.

This was flat land.

You would look at this and it would all be flat millions of years

ago.

Then slowly, these tectonic plates pushed up these rocks.

Look what God can do.

And this was my trail one day.

And then.

This is no sound on this, but these are called the Takaka Falls.

I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

This is a real place on earth.

Highest falls in Canada.

Here's what I want to bring to us.

What I felt called to bring back to you.

As I walked through the woods by myself.

I like to do that.

It's a little bit scary because it's like there could be

a grizzly right around the corner.

But I'm okay with that because it's worth it.

Because slowly there was this.

There was a slow burn, a slow burn of an awakening that we are

enveloped by this love.

Like as these Douglas firs just towered over me and, like, kind

of watched over me as I walked the trail.

And the fragrance of the woods filled, like, my nostrils.

It's like my body was humming along with the grace of the mountains,

whispering to me, ross, have you forgotten how loved you are?

And the answer was yes.

And so I asked, what about you?

We tend to give out what we receive.

Have you received this love from God?

This impossible, wonderful, astounding love?

I mean, there's the northern lights.

Thank you, Emily.

It's like I started to come into Calgary.

I'm on the plane, white knuckling it for four hours.

Every bump, I'm like, oh, we're going down.

This is it.

And I don't know if it's true, guys.

Was it my mind?

Was it the Holy Spirit in my mind?

I don't know.

That's how I feel most of the time when I pray.

But when I saw that, it was like God saying, I haven't brought

you here to die.

I brought you here to live.

I brought you here to receive this love that you just keep forgetting.

Remember it.

Receive it.

Have you received this?

Have you?

I'll ask you this at the end.

Have you received it?

Are you receiving it?

Have you lost it?

Was it taken?

Let me say this now.

I said I want to create a space for healing.

If it was taken from you by some Traumatic experience, some church

hurt.

I'm sorry.

It shouldn't have happened that way.

If you've lost it, just.

I hope you'll believe me.

It can be found.

It shall be found again.

Jesus even says a parable.

He said, the kingdom of the heavens is like a treasure hidden

in a field.

A guy stumbled upon it, found it, sold everything he had and bought

the field.

All of Jesus.

So many of Jesus parables are about finding something.

I pray in the next weeks, you come to find it again.

And then part two of this series, it's like two volumes of

a book.

We're gonna have a series about, like, what we can then go

give because of it, what we have the opportunity to give with

our work.

This series is called because of this Love.

The next one is called Work and Rest.

So that's what we're doing for the next two months.

But first, what do I mean by this love?

Well, I want to give you a little preview of this love.

I'm stealing from this verse.

This is Ephesians 1:3:6.

We're going to be hanging out in mostly two verses or passages

for this series.

One is from Ephesians.

This is the introduction of the letter.

A guy by the name of Paul wrote to a group of people living

in Ephesus who are trying to follow Jesus in a time when it was

hostile to do so.

He says, bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing that

comes from heaven.

Let me say it again.

He has blessed us in Christ with.

He has blessed us in Christ.

Just say the next word when I stop.

He has blessed us in Christ with every.

It was just the next word.

It's okay.

Just the next word this time.

Okay, Just one more word from you.

He has blessed us in Christ with.

There we go.

Every.

Every.

Right here.

It's a picture of.

It's repeated throughout the Bible.

This God who is wild about sharing power, glory and love.

From the core of God's being is a desire to share.

Psalm 8 says, like, look at all these things you have made.

We sang a song.

How majestic is your name.

Is that the song we sang?

Isn't it?

Yes.

Thank you.

And then it's like all these wonders you've made in the earth,

but then there's this one.

Human beings.

You created them.

You crowned them with glory and grandeur, such that they're like

almost like angels.

From the core of God's heart is to share power and glory and love,

so that we walk in it all of our days, God chose us in Christ

to be holy and blameless in God's presence.

Before the creation of the world, before God got to the Big

Bang or anything, God had this plan to do something mysterious and

wonderful with each of us.

But this is it right here.

God destined us to be adopted children through Jesus Christ.

Can you just say the next phrase?

Go to the period.

God destined us to be adopted children through Jesus Christ.

One more time.

God destined us to be adopted children through Jesus Christ.

The reason this series is called because of this love is because

of that.

What if all this exists because of his love?

Because of this love.

This was according to his goodwill and plan.

And to honor his glorious grace.

To honor his glorious grace.

There's a video from the Bible Project.

Go look it up.

We watched it in Discovery 2.

Just go to Bibleproject and search Grace.

You'll find this video that talks about how grace throughout

the Bible is defined this way that God grants favor out of delight.

The way I described it.

Is this so much in our culture, we think of earning stuff.

It is in our bones every minute of every day.

We're scripted in what some call a meritocracy.

You get what you earn.

And we just can't help but think of God and God's love and everything

through that lens.

But when I think about what I do with my daughter or my son or

my little Juni when I give them things, I don't stop and think

to myself, did she earn it or not?

I do it because I delight in them.

To honor his glorious grace, to honor his own heart that he delights

in you and wants to give you favor based on delight he has given

to us freely through the Son whom He loves.

Praise God.

I want to help you receive that again.

We have a whole belief statement that our church has.

You can go find it on our website.

It's on the about page.

At the end of the day, it's quite simple.

Just like the earliest church, we believe here that Jesus is Lord.

He is the Son of God and is through Him, God has given us every

grace, every love that we need to be whole again to be saved.

I want to help you receive this love again.

If it was taken from you or lost or you've forgotten it, I want

to help you be enveloped by it again.

Here's the other verse that I want to illustrate this love with.

Okay, actually, let's go here.

I want to show you a phrase that shows up one time in the entire

New Testament.

Are you with me still?

Yeah, okay, I already said that.

We already said that.

From the very beginning, God creates out of a core of love and

desire to share glory and power with us.

This is First Peter, another letter in the New Testament.

Most of the New Testament is just letters, people writing other

people to help them stay the course with Jesus because they lived

in a world where this love tends to get taken from you.

You forget it, you lose it.

And so they wrote all these letters to help people remember it,

reclaim it, live by it.

And so in first Peter 4, 8, in the common English version, it says,

above all, show sincere love to each other, because love brings

about the forgiveness of many sins.

There's one version above all, show sincere love.

That's the phrase that gets used one time, that.

Not the love word.

The word there for love is agape.

Maybe you've heard of it.

It's a certain kind of love for another day.

We'll talk about it.

It's the adjective before it shows up one time in the entire New

Testament.

And everybody's like, what do we do with this phrase?

Here's the new international version.

Above all, love each other deeply.

That's what they do with it deeply.

Because love covers a multitude of sins.

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly.

Since love covers a multitude of sins.

And this is the message most of all.

Eugene says.

Eugene Peterson wrote this.

Paraphrase it.

He's awesome.

Was awesome.

Rest in peace.

Love each other as if your life depended on it.

Love makes up for practically everything.

When we're talking about.

When I'm talking about this love, this Peter guy writes to.

He says, basically the word in the Greek means something like an

intense love, an earnest love, a fierce love.

That adjective shows up one time in the New Testament.

Yes, but there's a verb that sounds a lot like it.

I'll read you some of what those instances mean.

Are you with me still or have I lost you?

Because we have worse attention span than a goldfish.

Remember that from the last series.

Do I still got your attention?

I think you want to hear this, because I want you to remember this.

Love.

The verb, it sounds.

It's the same root, means to stretch out.

So here's what it sounds like in the verb form.

Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.

Matthew 8:3, Matthew 12:13.

Matthew 8:3 Matthew 12:13

Then he said to the man, stretch out your hand.

And the man stretched it out, and it was restored.

Sound like the other.

Matthew 12:49.

Matthew 12:49

And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, look,

here are my mothers and brothers.

Immediately, Jesus reached out Matthew 14, he reached out his hand,

took hold of him and said, oh, you of little faith, why did you

doubt?

Matthew 26:51.

Matthew 26:51

But one of those, with Jesus stretched out his hand, drew his

sword and struck the slave of a high priest.

And then right after that, Jesus said, whoa, whoa, no, we don't

stretch out like that.

We don't do that.

If you live by the sword, you die by it.

When we stretch out, we heal.

We don't do violence.

When we stretch out, we heal.

So this love is about a God who stretches out to heal.

This love is a.

It's a desire to see others be free and flourish, to stretch out

to do that.

It's a willingness, even earnest, earnestness to eagerness,

to give generously to others so that they shine with the same

brilliance that makes God shine.

It's an earnest hope to crown someone else.

We talked about that in a series.

In the fall, we wore Burger King crowns, if you remember.

You're like, I do remember that.

I do not remember, for the love of God, what you talked about,

Ross, but I remember wearing a Burger King crown.

Because Paul described people in Philippians as his joy and crown.

Paul stretched out to the Philippians to show them this intense,

fierce love that's rooted at the core of God's heart.

It's a love that's expressed in a willingness to empty yourself

and make great sacrifices to raise someone.

You go down, you stretch down to make them higher.

All the good news about our lives, all the good news of Jesus,

is because of that love.

He emptied himself.

Though he was divine, he did not consider it something to be exploited.

He emptied himself.

He became obedient.

Obedient to the point of death.

Death on a cross such that at his name every knee will bow and

tongue confess that he is Lord.

Through him, every blessing has come to us.

So I ask you again, this is basically where we start today with

this series.

That love.

Have you received it?

Did you receive it once, maybe, and lose it?

Did you receive it and maybe it was taken?

God's desire is that you would see that it covers everything.

This love covers everything.

Let's see.

There, right there, that word above all, keep loving one another

fiercely intensely.

Keep this intense love amongst you.

Is more what it says, since love.

Can you say the next word?

Since love.

So just like me walking through the woods, and slowly, like

a slow burn, I remembered this.

Love covers everything.

Every created thing has the DNA of its creator in it, this DNA

of love.

So I ask you today to close, we're just getting this started.

It's just an introduction.

What do you need to receive this love of Christ deeply in your

heart?

The same love out of which all things were made, the same love through

which everything will be saved?

What do you need to receive it again fully?

What do you need?

Do you need healing?

Do you need guidance?

I don't know what you need, but as I close today, I ask you to

offer that prayer up to God in silence.

Go ahead and pray that now.

Pray to God and ask that he would give you whatever you need

to receive this love.

This intense, fierce, stretching out to heal kind of love

through which all things were made and through which all things

will be saved.

Offer that up to God now.

God, thank you for the sound of children in the back.

Help us to remember that we are your children.

Help us to experience again that your name is holy.

Your name means life.

The same power that runs heaven, the same power that rules

heaven is coming here.

Let it be.

Hear our prayers for what we need.

Give us what we need.

God have mercy on us and forgive us as we forgive others.

Help us to be people of mercy, not a vengeance.

Help us when we're in the midst of trials and deliver us from

the snares of evil.

In the powerful name of Jesus.

Amen.

Thank you for participating in the conversation happening at Heaven

Earth Church.

Your next opportunity to do so live is this Sunday morning, 9:30am

Eastern time either at the main campus at 309 East Main in Whiteland,

Indiana or online at YouTube Live.

That'[email protected] the audio podcast is always available at Apple

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by going to Apple Podcast and or Spotify and leaving a five star

rating and your review.

Instructions on how to do just that and links are in the show notes.

You can always find out more by going to the church website heavenearthchurch.org

we.

Want to thank you for spending time with us today.

My name is Ross Stackhouse, the pastor to Heaven Earth Church

and you may think out there that your story is over, but in fact

your faith story may just be beginning.

If you want more information about our church or you're interested

in the next step, you can go to heavenorthchurch.org otherwise

we look forward to being with you next time at the Heaven Earth

Church Podcast.