What's Your Tribe? - Heaven Part 6

Now, I don't know about you guys, but I got a little bit of

a reminder as I came in here today.

Some of the stuff we're talking about today in the message, the

only answer that I could come up with is that I had no words.

But with God, you always have one word that you can always

give. And even when you have no

answers, when nothing makes sense, you always have praise

that you can offer your King. If you come away with any

reminder, let that be the reminder.

Man. Thank you so much for everyone

being in here in the house today.

Can you give it up for yourselves?

Can you get up for the online crew and go ahead and take 30

seconds, greet anybody and everybody that's around you?

Man, I hate to break up conversation, but you guys can

go ahead and take a seat. If you look up on the screen, we

have something called a connection card.

It's up here on the screen. You're going to find it on your

seat. If you're new here, this is for

you, but I'm going to ask you to fill out the top of this

connection card, not because we want something from you, but we

want something for you. We just want to get to know you.

We want you to come and introduce yourselves to us and

it filters everything that we do as a church filters through you.

You guys are our mission. Our mission as this church is to

see people discover their real life and purpose in Jesus.

This is what we pray about every week.

Every week that we have our message, we see hands raised and

people follow God. That is our win.

That is our North Star that guides.

So if you're new, go ahead and find that connection card, get

that filled out and please get it turned in because I'll just

reiterate, we really want to meet you.

That's why we do all that we do. And moving gears, I don't know

about you guys, but raise your hand in here.

If this series on heaven has been challenging for you, if

it's giving you the encouragement to look at life in

a different way, well, I'm going to the encouragement.

I've been working on a class right now.

I've been finishing a project on Acts and there's something that

I've never really noticed before or I haven't really put words to

it. But when you go through Acts and

you read Acts, something that sticks out is how different

everybody in the early church is from each other.

You have Jews, you have Greeks, the gentiles, you have the

intellectual elites in Athens, you have the blue collar workers

in live show. You have all these different

people from all walks of life from all different perspectives

with all different problems coming together and finding a

new identity, an identity in Jesus Christ and nothing else

alone. So as we get ready to jump into

this message with Barry, I'm going to give you guys the

encouragement and the challenge that what if thinking about

heaven, it changed not only the way you think about life, but

what if it changed the way you think about identity in the way

you pursued relationships in love?

Go ahead and give up. A real warm welcome for Barry

Hardy, who's bringing our message on.

Heaven, What's up real life? If I know it feels weird, you

should be calling me Dad, right? Always.

I've got, I've got a cousin. He never called his dad by.

He never said dad. He always called him Larry.

And I'm just like, man, it's just it's always weird.

So man, did you guys have a good week?

Man, I don't know about you guys, but if you were in a live

group this week, man, what a great start.

How many of you guys are in live groups?

You've got it for live groups, man Awesome man.

Thank you guys. Thank you Life Group leaders #1

for just giving some time and it's encouragement.

I kind of give you this courage, but if you haven't found your

life group, there was one for you.

You'll find a life group, man. It is life giving.

We say all the time, but we gather here at Real Life on

Sundays at at Kentucky Trail and this isn't where it stops, man.

We go throughout the week and the people that you get to meet

become your family. They honestly do.

They're the people you can call at 3:00 in the morning for

whatever. Start with Sean and then you can

move to me, but then go to your life group, right?

I called him at 7 the other night.

He didn't answer for me. So I think he was, I think he

wasn't feeling he's a little under the weather.

But man, my courage for you guys is find your life group, man.

They are where you find life. Other awesome thing you guys can

hear about a little bit more. We are doing a welcome party

today. So if you are new or newer, man,

our courage man is don't run out after this gathering.

Come hang out with us. We would love just to visit with

you hanging out. It's just right past the

bathrooms. You'll see the signs for it

again. You'll hear a little bit more.

I don't a little bit. So today is something a little

different in Kansas City than we normally have experienced in the

last several years. What's today?

You guys know Super Bowl, right? And you guys don't have the

passion that you guys have had the last couple years.

Why? I don't get it.

I don't understand. We'll be back next year.

I miss Tony or he he hope. Hope springs eternal with that

young man. It's a little different because

we're not involved, right man, I can, I'm going to give you a

confession time. Like when I grew up up to

probably in my mid 20s and life destroyed me a little bit just

from work and just stuff. I love sports.

Not only do I love sports, I live for sports.

I'm the guy that had the stats. I'm the guy that just knew every

player that was going to get drafted.

My son's a little bit like that now.

And here's the best thing. Here's what I really enjoyed

about sports. You could pick your team, right?

And in Kansas City, you know, there's a lot of different

places, you know, a lot of different teams we would fight

over. So there's some right and wrong

answers here. Are you guys MU or KUMU?

If you say K, you're wrong. K State's acceptable.

K State's acceptable. Enemy of my enemy is my friend,

right? You know who I was always You

know who I was always impressed with when I'd go to Arrowhead

and I'd see that one Raiders guy in the bottom Mike.

That guy's either the stupidest guy in the world or he's just

man, he's all in. He doesn't care where he's at.

He's going to represent. And I would see Chiefs fans do

the same thing where they're in Denver or wherever the Raiders

were were were playing at the time because they kept getting

kicked city to city, right. The best thing was just having

this identity, man. The, the, the I remember and

it's just like it happened yesterday, NCAA Final Four,

March Madness, and I live for it.

We would have, we used to bet in school, we bet our teachers,

we'd have pots going. I know that's not really

Christian, right? But that's what I we live for

it. And the one night that broke my

heart was when a Christian Leitner hit that turn around

because there's one team that I hate more than KU and it's a

Duke. And when they sunk that shot to

win, I was just devastated. So as I think about sports and

things like that, that's kind of gone for me a little bit, but I

still see how we all identify and we find our people.

And today we're going to talk a little bit about tribes and

there's a lot of things we fight about and we and kind of it's

fun like sports. I know there was some car guys

in here, right? There's one at the back.

You guys like Ford or Chevy? Chevy got a Ford guy back here.

He loves his Mustangs, right? Or are you hiding?

You're supposed to be back there.

You couldn't give him a Cam or a Camaro.

Well, you might give it to me. You sell them and get a Mustang,

right? But man, I grew up Ford versus

Chevy there. What else do we fight about?

Stupid stuff, right? Toilet paper up, flipped up or

flipped down, right? There's a lot of silly things

like this. One of the things that I thought

about as Sean's been preaching, man, I've loved this series on

heaven. And the thing about heaven is

this is that we're going to spend eternity.

And we've looked at that, what it looks like, you know, are we

going to know each other? What are we going to be doing?

But I'm going to be spending eternity with you guys and all

those little simple, silly things that we kind of fought

about or just teased each other about, we know that those things

are going to disappear, right? But there's a lot of things that

we tend to divide over in this world, man, that are a little

held a little closer, right? And so as we go through today, I

want you guys to keep the idea of if, if we're going to spend

eternity with each other, if we're going to be in heaven.

Is there something that Jesus has to say about this time on

earth? He preached a lot about its

Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is coming and

is near and is at hand, and it is here.

And as Jesus gives us these these commands and Paul gives us

these, these, these exhortations, I'm challenged so

many times in my living the way that God has called me to live.

Because the things that really divide us, that we care about

and that we get upset about, a lot of times they come from our

values, things that we hold dear, things that we were raised

with, right? And then we see somebody else on

the other side and they're not in our tribe anymore because

they don't believe the way that we do or they don't live the way

that we want them to live. And there becomes this division

that I don't that I don't think God honors and God wants for us.

And so today with the viewpoint of heaven, I really want to get

into the to, to, to the, the nitty gritty, the real life of

how we move day in and day out, because what are some of those

things that that divide the world?

You guys are all have something on your mind right now.

And I'll list a few of them because they're probably the

ones that jump out at you. So many ways that we divide

ourselves. Some of the biggest ways is over

identification of what we look like, right?

It's black versus white, it's white versus Hispanic.

We have this idea of what race is and how it divides us and

who's in our crew, who's on our clan, who's in our tribe and

who's not. And as the world moves, we see

that happen across the world. It doesn't happen just in the

United States, right? You look at the the war between

Ukraine and Russia and they're basically, they're basically

brothers. They're cousins.

You look at the war in, in, in, in, in, in Israel between, in

Gaza, between between Israel and and the Palestinians, right?

These are things that divide us. What else divides us?

Here's a good one, left versus right politics, right.

Got a little more quiet on that one, didn't it?

How do you vote? Because I want to know.

Because if you tell me how you vote, who you voted for, I know

exactly who I'm dealing with right now.

I know how to size you up. I know what to think about you.

I know what you value. I really know what you're worth.

And that's what we do. And we're going to come back to

some of these male versus female, right?

Another great division point, the politics of how that breaks

out, whether it's college sports, who's in power, who we

allow it to be CEO, who he called to do different types of

jobs, right? These are things that have

divided this country for the last several 100 years.

And here's what I'm going to do today.

And here's what I want to do. I'm not here to give you an

opinion, my thoughts, my values, really my goal for you guys is

this. I want to challenge you through

God's Word to look at these issues, how Jesus sees them.

And I don't have to guess and you don't have to guess because

he plainly tells us how we should value things because how

we look at each other is the core of the church, right?

It's the core of the gospel. So we're going to go, I'm not

much of A preacher. I'm more of a teacher.

So we're going to we're going to, we're going to teach today

and we're going to learn together.

OK. And so we're going to start with

some verses. I'm going to give you guys a

couple verses and I'm going to have you guys read, you read

them with me. And then we're going to revisit

some of these issues and we're going to read them in the

context of these verses. And I'm going to tell you some

stories from from from the Gospels.

And I hope you guys tie this into how you guys move day in

and day out. So the first verse that I want

to give you guys is this. It's in Galatians, Galatians

328. So I want you guys to read with

me. Can you guys do that?

All right, together there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither

slave nor free or is there male and female for you are all one

in Christ Jesus. How many of you have heard that

verse? Can you raise your hands?

How many of you guys know what that verse means?

All right, we read those words in a lot of times.

We understand the, the, the just of Woody's what, what Paul's

getting at. But sometimes we miss the

context and, and, and what Logan was talking about was absolutely

true. I'll flesh this out a little bit

more in a minute, but these are the three main divisions of

people tribes that Paul would have been talking to.

These are how people split themselves apart in his society,

in his culture, in his day. First one, Jew versus Gentiles.

If you were Jew, you were what you were the covenant people of

God. You were the, you were the

people that the Old Testament was written to.

If you were a Gentile, you were outside of that.

Now, there were some Gentile believers that got pulled into

and into, into the Judaism, into into that faith.

But for the most part, there was a hard divide.

And when the church started, there was no Gentiles.

In fact, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was a very, very

alarming thing when Peter was called to bring the gospel to

the Gentiles and then Paul became the apostle to the

Gentiles. When that church started, that's

not what they thought was going to happen.

They thought this was the Messiah.

It was the Jewish Messiah. It was for them.

It wasn't for the rest of the world.

And so when Paul's reaching out and saying, hey, guys, I'm

writing to this church in Galatia, but it's for all the

churches. There's no more Jew.

There's no more gentile, neither slave nor free.

What a division. We don't have slavery anymore.

But when you think of slavery here in this country, it's

chattel slavery. It was based on race.

It was based on bringing other people in to make them do work.

Well, in that time there was more of an indentured servitude,

but in in that society, you were a nobody.

If you were a slave, you had no rights, you had no power, you

had nothing. You couldn't vote.

You were less than the less right.

You read the stories of like the prodigal son coming back.

Hey, I want to come back and at least be a slave in in my dad's

household because at least they eat and that's the extent of

what they got right. Or if you want to read Philemon

in the story of Oneessimus and radically changed what the view

of a slave was going to be. But Can you imagine?

We don't have slavery necessarily here today, but we

have this division of economics in our country, right?

So I'd like to say this. So we have the haves and the

have nots, you have the rich, the poor.

And what often times happens is that you put yourself in

whatever category that you think you belong and you look down on

the other group, right? Run in circles where people have

done very, very well financially and they look at anybody else

around them. They're like, well, they're,

they're poor because of XY and Z and they look down on them.

But then I've seen the opposite. Because I work in concrete and I

work around the guys. Nobody's a millionaire's doing

what I do. And I work around a lot of guys

that have like this, this, this attitude of, of, of, of greed.

And they look up and they're like, those people don't deserve

it. I deserve it.

And if I had it, I would do better with those resources than

they do. So we split and we divide over

it. And then the last one is a is,

is just the idea of of, of of of, you know, the, the, the

politics, you know, all one in Christ and we'll and we'll visit

this when we take these divisions where there's male,

female, slave or free Jew or Gentile, and we allow these to

divide us. Paul saying you're missing the

point because what are we one in we one in this tribe or that

tribe? What does Paul, what does Paul

say that we're one in Christ Jesus, right?

But so many times we missed that point.

Second verse I want you guys read with me is in John, John

John 13 · chapter mention

chapter 13. This is 34 through 35.

Before we read it, I want to give you guys a little bit of

context of when this was happening.

This was at the Last Supper. This is one of the last things

that Jesus told his disciples. If you're getting ready to go

and die and be crucified, do you think you're sharing important

things or just like, Oh yeah, I forgot about this, Let me let

you know about it, right? That's not what Jesus was doing.

Jesus was saying, hey, this is on my heart.

This is important. And even in that moment, the

disciples, they missed it because you know what happens

right after this, this verse that we're going to read,

Peter's like, I'll go with you, I'll do anything.

And then Peter or Jesus predicts Peter's denial.

And so I want you guys to read with me because this is on

Jesus's heart, what he wants for us.

John 1334 read with me. You guys again, right?

A new command I give you love one another as I have loved you,

so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that

you are my disciples. If you love one another a new

command a lot of times how many guys that have siblings?

Very many of you guys, a lot of you do you guys ever get you

have to wear the buddy shirt? Did you ever get that?

You have to love your brother? You have to love your sister.

I'm like, I'll say it, I don't mean it, right?

And a lot of times I would I, I would have, you know,

conversation with my friends like man, I have to love my

brother, right? I don't really love him, but I

have to love him. And that's kind of how we would

take it. You know, that's my family,

that's my blood. I have to that's, that's the

family that I was given. It was the one I was born to.

It's not the one I chose, right? But the church is the one that

God chose. And I love how he frames this.

A new command. And you don't see Jesus giving

out very many commands, do you? He just doesn't do it.

He gives examples, he gives parables, he gives stories.

There's very few times that he gives us a command and this is

one of them. Love one another.

How you ever thought about how Jesus loved you and that we're

commanded to love each other the way that Jesus loves us?

How did Jesus love us? He loved us with everything.

And in this moment, he's getting ready to get crucified.

He's getting ready to give up heaven, who he was.

He's getting ready to get mocked, beaten, destroyed,

broken down, scourged, humiliated.

And that's how he loved us. And it's a challenge for me to

think about. Do I I not only love my real

life family the way that Jesus loves me, but do I love other

churches, other Christians, whether in this country or

across the world? Do I love them in a sacrificial

way that Jesus loves me? And in a moment of honesty, most

of the time I have to answer, I'm like, I don't know that I

do. I don't know that I live up to

that standard, but I recognize it as a standard, something that

God's called us to. And I love this other part.

We are living as a church before a watching world.

You guys ever feel like you're getting watched?

Yeah, for sure. Right.

How many times do we let down the world because we act like

they do? I'm not surprised when the world

gets in fights over politics or over over gender or over

economics. But when the church does the

same thing, I think it's a black eye.

And how can we keep the vision of what Pastor Sean's talked

about with heaven? How can we say that we believe

that and we're living for that. And that's what we're called to.

And that's what we're looking. That's our hope when we hold on

to the things of the earth. Man, growing up, I grew up in a

Baptist Church and I always heard if we ever talked about

heaven, we always heard it as a choice of of two, right?

You'd picked either what heaven or what?

That's not how Jesus frames it. Now, he talks a lot about hell,

but most of the time when he talks about choosing the Kingdom

of God in heaven, the alternative is earth or heaven.

Because he knew that it was easy for us to say that we wanted

heaven, but then we choose earthly things.

And so many of his stories, like the rich young ruler, it's not a

choice of heaven and hell, which ultimately it is, but it's a

choice of what do I put first? My wants, my needs, my identity,

who I am, how I'm valued. Because that's the idea of what

a tribe is, right? What is a tribe?

A tribe is people that look like me, that think like me, that

believe like me. And, and for so many ways that

you think that it is a very pragmatic way to do it.

I had an uncle that he loved Native American history, man.

He would just take me to places and we would read books and I

would read about Sitting Bull and I would read about Geronimo

and I would read about how these tribes identified and, and how

they warred against each other. And some were peaceful and some,

some were more warlike if they all had an identity, right, that

you were the Apache or Lakota or Cherokee.

And it was interesting to see how these tribes worked.

But by nature, a lot of humanity is tribe, tribal.

And so when we identify, we do it because we want to hold the

other people out because they can't be trusted.

We can't love them because they're not like us, right?

And whatever we use as a division, whatever uses a tribe

to separate and hold each other out.

And that's not what Jesus has called us to.

That's not what Jesus has called this church to or the church

universal. And so I've shared with you guys

2 verses. I want to share with you guys

three quick stories from from the life of Jesus.

One's a story that he told, and two are examples of how he

lived. And I want you guys to think of

the things that divide you guys. Maybe you have a divided family.

Maybe you have a divided workplace, maybe you have a

division, maybe even within the walls of this of, of real life

of how you see the world different than they do.

And then as you read these stories, I want you to let

Jesus's words in his example. I want you to let that feed into

your heart and let us as as as as a church grow together in

what God's called us to. So race is one of the first

things I mentioned. And honestly, if you read

Genesis, I don't think race is a real thing.

I think it's a construct. When God created humans, who do

you create? Adam and Eve.

Now, how we all changed over time.

We still have the same parents, we're all still the same people.

We are one human race. But for us, how we look, how

we're shaped, how we're built, we divide over that because,

well, they look that way. So they go to that church or

they go to this society. In fact, one of the most famous

quotes is do you guys know what the most segregated hour in

America has historically been church hour Sunday morning.

Why some of us just because our communities who we just tend to

be around, but some of its culture.

But to me, I don't know that it's always the best thing.

I know it's not the best thing, but how we navigate that is

that's just that's kind of a growing thing.

That's how how, how, how Christ missed the church, right?

But when we look at race, I think a lot of times we we miss

it and we don't understand what's really going on.

I'm going to tell a story of one of my kids.

I probably shouldn't do this, but you guys are going to like

it. You guys remember the movie Lone

Survivor Marcus Luttrell, right? I think that's his name.

Great movie. I had AI had a little bit of a

moral dilemma when it came out. My two boys, I think Coleman was

8 and Logan would have been like 8 or 9 and and Logan would have

been 10/11/12 somewhere in there.

So I've tried to raise my kids and protect them from things

that hurt them, but I want to expose them to things of how the

world really is. So I remember talking to Christy

and some of our friends. I had some other friends I was

going to church with, like, hey, I'm going to take my kids and

show them this movie, not to glorify war, but show them how

war really is. Because the promos were is like,

you know, this is how things are actually happened and what's

going on. And I'm like, all right, are

they too young? I don't know.

And I made the decision to go ahead and take the boys.

And so if you've seen the movie, if you've, you know how violent

it is, what everything that he went through as he was getting

pursued and, and, and, and almost taken.

And you get to the end of the movie, if you haven't seen it,

I'll just kind of set up the last little scene.

So the guy's trying to get out. He's got a village where they've

protected him. And the Taliban's coming.

This is in Afghanistan. So they are completely

surrounded. They're outnumbered, and the

Taliban's overrunning this village, right?

And it's full of drama, full of tents, you know, just, it's just

just, it's just, oh, man, what's going to happen?

And all of a sudden, what happens?

You see these gunships come in the Apaches, right?

And then the AC130 gunships, and they come in and they just

decimate the Taliban army. And they get Marcus out.

And everybody's like, oh, yeah, it's a great ending.

So we get done and we come out. And so I'm asking the boys.

I'm trying to see if I traumatize them.

Right. I said, Logan, what'd you think

about the movie? He's like, man, he goes, I

can't, man. I didn't realize anybody would

ever have to go through that. I'm like, yeah, war's war's

ugly. He's like, yeah, he goes, I

don't think I could have made that.

And I'm like, that's good, you know, to realize that, you know,

life is short. Life's brief and violent

sometimes, and that's not how we were meant to live.

So look at Coleman. I'm like, Coleman.

What did you think about the movie?

And if you know Coleman at all, Coleman's, Coleman's Coleman, if

he's in here, he's going to shoot me.

So he thinks about it for a minute, and then he looks at me.

He's like, he goes, He goes. Remember when those when those

gunships came? I'm like, yeah, he goes, I

really liked it when he killed all those Mexicans.

Like what? What I'm like, where did that

come from? I'm like, all right, I screwed

up. I shouldn't have brought this

one. He didn't know the difference

between Afghanis and Mexicans. I'm like, come on.

And what's funny is he speaks more Spanish now than anybody in

our family and he just moves in that culture very easily.

But I tell you to tell you tell you that story to tell you this

is that in the same way that cold didn't know the difference

between a Mexican and and somebody from Afghanistan.

A lot of times we screw race up. We don't get it right.

We mess this up. We have these these ideas of

what it is. And, and, and and and I don't

think it's helpful. I don't think it's really what

we're called to to have in the church.

I wish I was blind in the same way that he was where we don't

always see race and and and cultures in in that way as

something outside of who we are. And one of my favorite stories,

the story I'll share you with this is the story of the Good

Samaritan. And if you know this story,

Jesus had just been asked what are what are the two most

important things? What are the two most important

laws because the Jews had over 600 laws they had to follow and

Jesus distilled it down to two love God with all your heart,

all your soul and all your mind. And the second is like this, I

love your neighbor as yourself. So what's the follow up

question? Who is my neighbor?

And that's what the Pharisees were asking, who's my neighbor?

That's what the disciples were asking.

Who's my neighbor? Who do I have to love?

Because do I really have to love somebody outside of my tribe,

somebody that doesn't look like me?

And Jesus tells this beautiful story of the Good Samaritan.

And the short version is this is there's a guy that gets beaten

up on on a journey and he gets thrown in a ditch and you have

two religious real leaders walk by and they don't help because

it would defile them or it would detain them.

And they had some place they needed to be.

And this was Jewish guy in the ditch.

So who is the person that stopped to help the Jewish guy?

A Samaritan. And if you don't know what a

Samaritan is, a Samaritan was considered, this sounds rude,

but they were considered to be 1/2 breed.

They weren't worthy of going to the temple to worship God.

They weren't worthy of even being talked to.

They were below the Jew. They were a nobody.

And so when Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, he

wrecks their worldview. He wrecks the narrative.

And when he gets done the telling the story, Jesus asked a

simple question. So let me ask you this.

Who was the neighbor to the man in the ditch?

And they had no choice to but to answer the it's the Samaritan.

It's the one that helped. Jesus tells this story to break

down these racial divides that we put in because they're not

real. We are one.

We are a human race, Paul says, neither Jew nor Gentile.

And in the church, the moment that we let race divide us,

we've let the enemy win. Race is a division that we don't

have in heaven. You go to Revelation every

tongue, every time tribe, every people, every nation are going

to be represented. We're going to spend eternity

worship within with people that don't look like us.

And guess what, it's a beautiful thing.

And if it's true in heaven tomorrow and in eternity, Paul

calls us to live that way today. The second division that often

times divides and hurts our church is, is one of and, and

we're not the same way that Paul dealt with, but I see, I still

see the division between male and female.

Well, you're not qualified to do this.

I'm stronger. Or we throw men away or we throw

women away. And that's not, that's not how

the church is. Because I am so blessed to be in

a church where I get to serve alongside men and women that are

so gifted in so many ways. And they do things that I can

never, ever do. And it's not defined by their

sex. It's not defined by their

gender, right? So many times I still see, I

still see this attitude of like, well, they're not qualified to

do that. I grew up in a church where if

you were a female, you weren't qualified to be up here.

And I think it's so many times where there was so many women

that raised me in Sunday school that has so much wisdom that

they got from the scriptures. They probably prayed more than

anybody else in that church and yet they weren't qualified in

somebody else's eyes. And I'm so glad that I I'm in a

community where we don't do that.

But it is still a temptation for the church as a whole to divide

over that issue, to not see to see everybody as as as a child

of God, somebody that is worthy to worship their king.

And the story that I'm going to share with you.

And, and I think Sean preached about it not that long ago.

The woman at the well, and if you know the story about the

woman with the well, Jesus in the is, is at the well in the

middle of the day. And this woman shows up at a

time where she shouldn't have been there because most women

would come either in the early morning or in the evening where

it was nice and cool, right? So this woman was there for a

reason, because she was ostracized and she was a

Samaritan. We already talked about

Samaritans. She had so many strikes against

her. She was less than a nobody.

Even in her own society, she was a nobody, a less than.

And so Jesus initiates this conversation with her and and

she's amazed. She's like, why are you even

talking to me? You're a Jew, you're a man.

And Jesus lays out for the truth of what he knows about her life.

And it cuts her to the heart. And she goes, I perceive that

you're a prophet. And she goes, I know that.

I know the Jews talk about this Messiah that's coming, the

savior of Israel. And the greatest part of that

story is this is that Jesus reveals to her and she's the

first person that he reveals that he's the Messiah, a less

than a nobody in so many ways in that culture.

And when Paul talks about there's neither male nor female

in that world, there was still that major division.

And Paul is wrecking those divisions.

He's erasing them. He said in this church, in this

body, this distinction, though it is real, it doesn't mean

anything anymore in the eyes of God because we all stand on

equal footing in front of the cross in this church, in the

eyes of Jesus, we all have the same standing before God.

And so I love the idea of how Jesus and Paul wrecked that

division that was so important then in some way still divides a

church today. The last, the last Division I

want to share with you and Pastor Sean.

If I make somebody mad and they charge the stage, you got to

come up here and protect me, right?

Politics, right, politics and economics.

And what I'm going to share with you isn't from a position of

authority. It's hopefully from a position

of, of experience. I'm the type of person, and

especially in this world, I, I, I like to learn from other

people's mistakes, right? I didn't do drugs because I saw

what it did to people. I don't need that in my life.

But when it comes to this and might have Jason play me some

funeral music here in a minute. When it came to this issue, I

had to learn hard, hard lessons. I had to learn from my own

mistakes, from my own experiences of how I screwed up.

Because I'm just going to lay my cards on the table so you know

where I stand or where where I've been and who I am or where

I was from. I was raised in a very, very,

very conservative family, right? Anybody else like here like

that? In my family, if you voted

right, you were right. If you voted left, you were

wrong. And that's how it was.

I mean, if you voted, I remember the very first election that I

could vote in was Bill Clinton. And, and when I remember having

a family member that said that he was voting for him and he got

ostracized, he got yelled at, he got demeaned.

And I was like, yeah, go get him, grandma.

Show him who's boss. But here's what I noticed.

I had a lot of friends that I consider to be very, very strong

Christians. And they were raised in families

that were completely different than mine.

They were the other side. They voted the other way.

And it was hard for me to understand how could they be a

Christian and vote like that? Because when I was raised, like,

if you believe the Bible and you follow Jesus, you had to vote

this way, right? And it was very, very well

founded in the sense of like, hey, here's a verse, here's a

verse, here's a verse. And a lot of those values I

still hold. I'm not going to tell you that I

don't. But what I often did, and here's

my mistake, is I would take somebody from the other side and

I would say at best you're wrong and at worst, maybe you're not

even really a Christian. You know what?

I'd have the discussions really more like debates or fights.

They would, they would look at me the same way that I was

looking at them. And there was never this

connection. There was never this unity that

I see in Paul and in Jesus. And it took me so long to figure

out this is a trap. This is alive from the enemy.

And I'm not telling you, here's what I don't want you guys to

hear me say. I'm not telling you not to have

values. I'm not telling you not to vote.

I'm not telling you not to vote your conscience.

I think you guys should and I think you really should derive

your values from what God's word tells you.

Here's what I am telling you in this church, in this body, what

God has called us to is something bigger than a politic,

something bigger than an economic system almost.

There's I'm going to nerd out on you guys a little bit, right?

I love, love studying history, philosophy, theology, and I

heard, I heard a pastor tell me one time he goes, every form of

government that sets themselves above the church, it's really a

cult because what they're trying to do is they're trying to

promise you if you get the right laws and you vote for the right

person, you're going to have heaven on earth.

And this guy was pretty far right.

He goes, I'm going to tell you right now, that's a lie from

Satan. You will never vote heaven into

the United States in this world anywhere He was, as much as you

might like a candidate, that's not their role.

That's not what God's called them to do.

God's given a role for the government to restrain evil and

enact justice if they do it very imperfectly.

Think about the hot button issues of today.

This is where I might get in trouble.

I'm not going to take a stand on either one of them, but

everybody in this room probably has a position that they care

about deeply. You think about the issues of

Jeffrey Epstein. Who was he really involved with?

Which side can I tell you it was both?

Both sides are dirty and both sides are corrupt.

What about economics? Whose fault was it?

The government shut down again and it wasn't as long this time.

But who holds your your economic futures with this much power?

And they don't really consider what you what you, it's good for

you. And you're going to get in a

fight about like, well, if we would vote this person and they

would do this. No, no, no, no, we should vote

this person and they're going to do that.

We make this mistake that they're going to fix our

problems. We're the biggest hot button

today, right now is immigration and ICE, right?

My friend Scott, we talked about this one time in a small group.

He said I'd live on the line and I live very dangerously.

So it's OK. I like to live a little

dangerously. Do the do the gospels inform

that situation? Absolutely.

But here's what breaks my heart is that I peruse Facebook or

TikTok or Instagram or even random conversations here or

other places and we find somebody that doesn't look at

the world exactly the way that we do.

And then I put them in another tribe and I cast them away and I

say they're less than and they're not worthy.

But then I come back to the words of Jesus.

I want you guys to read this with me again.

Let's actually start with the words of of Paul.

Is that as I look at the issues, does this verse inform my heart?

Is it inform who I am? Galatians 328.

Can you throw that back up there one more time?

There's neither Jew nor Gentile, there's neither slave nor free,

nor is there a male or female. For you are all one.

You are all one in Christ Jesus, one.

What is a tribe is a place where we find identity.

What is identity? Identity is how we look at

ourselves. It's how we value ourselves.

That's what we think that other people find valuable in US and

that's why we fight. That's why I take this position

and I can't be budged. Can I tell you that I've had

some of the most awesome learning experiences talking to

people that that that I don't agree with.

They've given me something that I've missed.

Sometimes now I may not even change my position, but I'm

like, OK, now I see. Now I know where you're coming

from. We're not coming from a position

of evil. We just disagree on on how we

should interpret this. And I think that makes this

church stronger when we have differences, that we still find

a bond in the unity of being one in Christ.

Because my identity isn't who I am.

It's not what I look like, It's not even what I believe.

It's what Jesus says about me. Your identity is what Jesus says

about you. Our identity as a church.

It's how we do this. John, One more time, 1334, a new

command I give you love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

And by this everyone will know that you are my disciples.

If what if you love one another? Here's my check.

Here's where I learned. And here's my courage for you.

If you feel like I've been kicking your teeth, it's not my

intention. My intention is to call you to

something that is greater, something that is bigger,

something that is beautiful. This vision of heaven begins

with a following of Jesus. There's two choices in this

world, and we haven't talked much about hell yet, but I love

this quote from CS Lewis. Hell is a prison that's locked

from the inside, and when we choose anything other than

identity in Christ or our love for each other, we may be

thinking that we're going to bring heaven to earth.

But we unleash hell because the division, the hate, the anger,

these aren't the fruits of the Spirit.

These aren't the things that Jesus called us to.

These aren't the things that Paul have called us to.

And how these things work out, man, that's the rub, right?

I was at a funeral on Saturday and there was a huge fight in

the family, even in the moment of burying somebody.

And I had the conversation with my cousin and she said families

are messy. There's probably not a more true

statement. And if that's true of a physical

family of blood, it can be true of a spiritual family in a

church. But I love you guys and I hope

you guys love each other. And the application for this is

to move forward and examine your lives.

How would you change how you move in this world?

Who you have conflict with when you have these two verses at the

forefront, Who you are in Christ and how do we live?

We love one another. Because for me, I went from

leaving post on Facebook about how stupid somebody was picking

up a phone. Can you help me understand?

Because I love you. I don't think you're a bad

person. But I'm missing something here,

man. I've had some great

conversations because not only did I put Christ first, they put

Christ first. Not only did I love them, they

loved me. And here's where I'll leave you

guys with If as a church we can live these two simple verses,

there's going to be something so radically different about us

that the world can't help but to see that there's something

different. Whether it's the school district

that lets us use this building or whether it's the people that

we serve in a life group or are the homeless, or throughout this

week of somebody that shows up randomly in this door, how do we

treat them? Because we'll be different.

We won't look like the world anymore.

And maybe, just maybe, the light that God gave us in our hearts

will shine out to a broken, lost, hurting world and they'll

have the hope of of Jesus. They'll have the hope of heaven

that that Pastor Sean has just preached on so beautifully.

My prayer for you guys is to hold these two truths so close

that you are that light that can't be hid.

Would you guys pray with me? Father, we come before you, God

in a moment of thinking about the things that have divided

this world and the things that as a church we've allowed to

divide ourselves. God, I pray for just a humility

to hold our identity only in you.

So God, I want to pray for two groups of people.

The first group I want to pray for this church for Christians

in here then maybe have allowed things to divide them and hurt

their heart and in a taking a stand against something that

they disagree with, which is OK. And maybe they maybe they

destroyed a relationship. Maybe they destroyed another

person. So if that's you today, there's

nothing past in our past and anything that we have done that

can't be they can't be fixed. They can't be brought underneath

the authority of the cross. And so my challenge for you, if

you're a Christian here today, if you're a follower of Christ,

if you're my brother and sister, just to hold the truths that

Jesus has given you so beautifully today.

His words love one another, hold the truths of Paul.

And there's no division that is important.

Not one of race, not one of economics, not one of gender,

but we are A1 in Christ. So Jesus, I pray for the your

church today. Got to pray that we that we live

lives that are worthy of the callings you have on us.

Now. I pray that we're a light into

the darkness. That I love the fact that you

said that the gates of hell won't prevail against the

church. The church is an offensive

machine that you've called to redeem this world, this

creation. Want to pray for one more group?

Maybe you're here today. You walked in, You don't know

why you're here and you're not part of the family of God.

Jesus has never been anything to you.

You've never called on his name. You're not part of the family of

God, but something in this moment, something in your life,

you know, is missing. And and you feel there's there's

something that that that you've been called to.

We talked about as a church. We're on a mission to see people

far from God, discover the real life on purpose.

And you're here today without purpose, without meaning.

And you've taken the fights of the world and you've taken a

righteous stand, and you still feel empty.

You don't have to stay in that spot today.

Is there anybody in the house today that has never named the

name of Jesus? Can I pray for you?

If you would raise your hand, I would love to pray for you if

you're in the house today. And that's you, and you're ready

to be part of a family, to be part of the only tribe that

really counts, and that's the family of God.

I'm going to encourage you to pray a prayer along with me.

Now, this prayer isn't magic. It doesn't save you.

But what it does is it reveals your heart before the creator of

the universe that you're going to line your will with his.

And so if that's you today and you want to be a part of

something that will secure your forever, your eternity and also

your today, pray something along this lines with me.

Father, I've walked in here today, lost, broken, hopeless.

God have taken the cares of the world and I fought for him.

And they don't mean anything. Ultimately, I haven't fixed

anything. So God, today I come before you,

I want to give my life to you Jesus, because I can't fix my

life. I've sinned, I've come short and

I can't fix this world. And God, I give both of those

awesome responsibilities back to you.

So God accept me where I'm at today.

God call me and make me a part of the family of God in Jesus

name, Amen. Man, can we give up?

For anybody that prayed that prayer, whether online or in

person today, I want you guys to know ultimately that as a church

we are going someplace through the generosity in the building

fund. I don't know what God's got for

us next, but here's what I do know, that for the enemy to win,

all he has to do is hurt us. And the best way that he hurts

us is to divide us. And moving forward, we close

ranks under the banner of what God's called us to do.

And man, I can't wait just to continue to be in a body that

continually to love each other. And I can't wait to see what God

does through your guys's dedication and your love for

Him. Amen.

Well, man, what just an amazing Sunday this morning, man, I love

that. Just reframing and living our

life on the truth that Jesus calls us to live in the way that

he has set that example for us in the Bible, man, really to

shine the light of Jesus through us out into the world today.

Awesome job this morning, Barry. And hey, maybe some of you

recognize this morning that you need Jesus in your life, that

you've maybe been living in division and disunity and all

the things that separate us from God.

And you recognize that this morning and you prayed that

prayer and you accepted Jesus this morning.

Man, if that is you, we are so excited for you as you take

these next steps with Jesus. And we would love to walk

alongside you to resource you as you take these next steps.

So if you would grab that connection card that is on your

seat, you can fill out the information there on the top,

but make sure and check that box that says I committed my life to

Jesus. And you can drop that in the

giving buckets as they pass here in just a few minutes.

Just by doing that allows us to get you a free book in the mail

this week. It's a short read, but man, it

really is packed full of some goodness.

It's called begin. I really will help you give you

some resources on what it looks like to walk out this journey

with Jesus. And hey, if you're in the house

this morning and you prayed that prayer as you exit the worship

center, there is a table with some red bags inside.

It's a free Bible and a few other resources just for you.

So please grab that as well as you leave.

And hey, this is for those of you who are newer with us today.

I mean, we're so glad that you chose to spend your morning with

us. Maybe this is even your first

time here. Thank you so much for coming.

And we hope you heard from God this morning that you felt

welcome. And we don't want anything from

you today except for this. And it's just simply to

introduce yourself to us. And you could do that simply

just by grabbing that same card, filling out your information

there on the top and then check that first time here box.

You can take that with you as you exit the worship center.

Just to your right, there's a new here booth.

Somebody would be there, love to take that card from you, say hi,

get you a free gift and we would love to see you back with us

right here next week. And man, last Sunday was such a

big Sunday. It was our life groups kick off

and tailgate party. Did you guys enjoy that?

There we go. That's right.

It was, it was a blast. Maybe we had some good food,

some great conversation. I saw so many conversations and

connections happening here in right here in the worship

center. And it was just such an awesome

time. I mean, when I think through

life groups and community, man, I'm actually thinking of the

opposite of that. That kind of we live in this

culture where independence is celebrated.

Like I can do this by myself. I'm strong, me, myself, and I

like we got this, but independence, it feels safe.

I feel like it feels safe. It feels strong.

I mean, on the opposite of that is isolation.

And in isolation truly is where your faith weakens.

When there's nobody around to challenge you, to encourage you,

to lift you up, It almost becomes this echo chamber where

it's just you. And isolation does feel safe

until life gets heavy and there's nobody there to call at

3:00 AM when things are just kind of going wrong, when life

is lifing. Maybe you're in a season where

you need to borrow the faith of somebody around you and there's

nobody there. And so God doesn't call us to

maturity in isolation. He calls us to maturity together

in relationships. And that's truly where community

and life groups comes into play. We have the people that are

around you that you can call, like Barry said at 3:00 AM, when

something, when there's something you need or people

that can encourage you and just walk alongside you through this.

And so that is just my encouragement for you is to take

that step. Maybe you're living this life of

independence where it's just you and you're strong and you are

strong and you feel like you've got it together.

But God doesn't call us to relationship just on our own,

but in community with other people.

And so take that step today. Love to see you in a life group.

There's so many. They meet all over the city, all

different types of groups as well.

We also are doing something new this semester and offering the

way groups. So if you're looking for

something a little bit more, maybe to dive a little bit

deeper into your walk with God, we would love to have you in one

of those. Our leaders are so excited to

lead these groups and would love to have you join as well.

So you can scan that QR code and check them all out.

You can see them out in the hub as well on the Lifegrove swab,

but we would love to have you get connected that way.

And hey, this Sunday is a special Sunday as well.

It is our welcome party today right after this gathering.

As you exit, it's actually we're meeting in a room just past the

bathrooms. You'll see some signage out

there. But if maybe you've been

attending real life for the last few months, this is for you.

We would love to have you come and hang out with us.

It's a casual 30 minute gathering.

It's pretty relaxed. We'll have some food, some

drinks, some snacks. Your kiddos, if you have kids,

are welcome to hang out in Real Life Kids while we gather there.

But I mean, this is an awesome opportunity to really hear who

we are, who is Real Life Church, where'd we come from, kind of

where we're going, the vision for the future there, meet some

of our leadership and ultimately just get connected and find some

people here at Real Life Church to call your church family.

And so we would love for you to hang out with us once again.

It's just right after this gathering, just down the hall

past the bathrooms. We would love to hang out with

you there. I mean, I'm thinking about

community When I think about giving here, it's so much more

than just giving without a return on investment.

When I think about that, where else can I give where there

truly is an eternal return on investment, where people week in

and week out are accepting Jesus, are coming to a saving

faith through Jesus Christ. And they take that step from

living in isolation and living a life of independence into a life

of true freedom and into a life of community.

And so when you give here, I mean, it truly is to see more

soul saved, to know Jesus, more people stepping into community

to do life together where their faith is strengthened.

And so if you call real life church home, and we would love

for you to partner with us on mission with that.

There are so many ways you can do that.

You can check out the screen there.

You can scan the QR for text to give.

You can drop cash or check in the giving buckets as they pass

here in just a few minutes. There's also a giving box in the

back you can drop cash or check in as well if that's more

convenient for you. And as always, if you or your

family, you find yourself in some kind of immediate need this

week, it's food or shelter or clothing or just whatever that

looks like for you as these buckets pass in just a minute or

two. Would you please reach in there,

grab any loose cash that you see?

We really do want to be a blessing to you and your family

this week. Let's pray, Father, thank you,

God, you're so good to us. And so, Father, I pray that you

would just, God, help us to live our life through the truth of

who you are. God, that you call us to unity

and not division. God, that you call us to truth

and to shine your light through us to the world that needs you

so desperately. And so God, I just pray that

you, Father, would you bless what's given today?

God, would you bless it to move beyond these four walls, God,

into the community so that more people can come to know you.

And God, ultimately, we give the rest of this day back to you,

God, it's all for your glory. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

Amen. What a good day, right?

Super strong message, super challenging message.

I want to give you guys an encouragement before we get on

out of here to keep your mind focused on heaven.

Philippians says our citizenship is in heaven and we are eagerly

await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.

That should be a reminder in your lives every single day.

That should be the shoreline that you're swimming to.

It should affect how you think about life, how you think about

your identity and how you think about relationships and that's a

shameless plug. Transition to Real life Youth is

going to be having a Valentine Valentine's party this upcoming

Wednesday and we are going to want any.

If you have any students in here, 6th or 12th grade, that

would be awesome for you to send them out that QR code.

That's not a registration necessarily.

That's just the information what we're going to be doing.

We're going to be doing some karaoke challenges.

We're going to have a candy bar to be a good time.

If you have AU student, please send them on out here.

Remember guys, as you get out of here, keep your mind on heaven.

Think about how that changes the way you view your identity and

how you view your relationships, and just let the sacrifice of

Jesus permeate every aspect of your life.

If you need prayer or somebody to talk to, we'll have somebody

down here for you. And otherwise, I'll see you all

again next year, next week at 9:00 or 10:45.

Please come back before the next year and remember, whoever finds

Jesus discovers real life and purpose.

See you guys next week. This is the end of this podcast.

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