A Creative Minority: A Distinct Moral Vision

Those who are coming out to small groups, the Snoqualmie group started last

week. If you missed the first meeting, it's okay. It's okay.

You can still go. Don't be stressed.

There will not be a quiz or anything like that. But just a great way to get to know one another.

We're going through John Mark Comer's community study. So just focusing in on

what does it mean to be a community?

Literally, community groups about community. It couldn't be more straightforward.

You can do it. The Issaquah group is starting tonight. We're meeting up at the

Jones's house. They're over here. You can talk to them. In Klahani. So which is this?

And so, yeah, if you're if you're on that side of the what is this?

The state forest on that side of the church, you can go ahead and be a part

of that group. It's going to be great.

We haven't met yet, so you won't won't have missed anything.

And that's tonight at six. So, yeah, great.

We're continuing on, continuing on this in this little series called A Creative

Minority. And I know it's kind of an artsy fartsy name, like whatever.

I feel judged. I feel bad about myself. I just call it something silly,

something straightforward.

But the idea of this series is that we're trying to highlight some essential

attributes of the church.

And really, I think at the heart of this is the simple idea,

and this is what's driving me to want to talk about this, is the simple idea

that when the church is leaning into,

its created intention, like what God made it to be, then that is when we're

also most missionally effective.

That is to say, when we lean into our nature, God's designed for the church,

the result is actually, in a surprising way, missional effectiveness.

You can't separate the nature of the church from its mission.

I think every time we've tried to do that in history, it doesn't end well.

It doesn't end well for the mission.

You can't effectively advance the mission of the church without the means of the church.

And the two are just inseparable. I've just become more and more convicted of

that. if you study church history, I think it becomes clear when the church

is leaning into what it really is supposed to be, its nature,

that is when it's missionally effective.

And that matters for us because, you know, we're replanting in downtown Snoqualmie,

we're moving locations, but also just like, just really focusing in and deciding

we're going to be what we're called to be as a church. And what I'm trying to

do is kind of define some of those things.

And there'll be, you know, we'll be talking about that more,

as Aaron mentioned, like,

this is our third to last sunday in this

building so that's really exciting there's a lot going to

be going on we're going to be talking a little bit more about that

but but suffice to say for now there's a

few things going on number one is we've we finished all the work required here

for the septic to get that replaced you can pray this we've we've submitted

our paperwork like the final thing to the county and they just have to just

go accept okay you just pray that someone is just compelled to just go.

Let's do that it'll be really exciting that's literally all we're waiting for

and it's a big deal because,

part of the sale of the building is that we had to,

we get all the money from the sale of the building once the septic is in and

we would like that it's kind of important,

because it is an expensive time with a move and everything like that so we're

praying for that and I really think it is just a formality at this point it's

already been inspected it's already been approved it's just a matter of.

I'm not going to do it because it's kind of weird. I feel weird.

I'm feeling very strange about myself today. I'm sorry. I'm judging myself.

You don't have to. Don't worry.

So we have that. And then the other thing that please pray for,

we have some work to do in the new building.

It's honestly not a lot of work. We're replacing some floors.

We're removing two walls and we're building two walls. Oh, three walls.

Removing three walls and building two walls. Like it's stuff that won't take a ton of time.

I mean, probably three to four weeks. but we do need permits for it.

And so we're just waiting for that. And so we pray for the town of Snoqualmie

that they would also approve the permits.

I feel like that's all they need to do. I don't know. Maybe it's probably more

complicated than that, but we're just praying that that would get done.

It's okay because we're planning this time as we come into November,

we're planning to number one, not have open services.

We're asking you not to invite your friends to church for once, just for one month.

And then in December, once everything's done, and then you can invite your friends, right?

So it's going to have sort of a kind of a, I'm not going to say it's a closed

service. If somebody just shows up, we'll let them come in, right?

But we're not making a big deal because we're not quite ready to have people

yet. But we'll still be in the building, and we'll be running things a little

bit differently than a normal Sunday service, and I'll talk more about that as we come up.

But all that is to say, this is a big move. It is a big move for us.

But the goal of this move isn't just to have a more visible location,

though honestly, that is a major part of it.

The goal of this move, in my mind, is to recover,

just some of the simplicity of being the church and how being the church in

a place that's visible, in a community, embedded in a community,

serving a community, can actually just be missionally effective.

That we can keep things simple as a church and actually be most effective when

we're focusing on the most important.

And I want to just think through this a little bit more with you guys and just

to highlight some of the ways, the ways in which we're slightly shifting our

approach, you know, to ministry. Because we're not going to change everything.

A lot of the nuts and bolts of what we do on a Sunday is going to be very similar.

But because of the new location and because of the new approach,

things are going to change.

And so I want to just talk through one thing. So there is, if you think about

a model for a church, like how does a church run?

How does it grow? How does it approach ministry?

There's a lot of different ways to approach ministry.

And I would say certainly before COVID, I-90 Community Church had a model of

church. And I mean, literally from like a playbook, there are books that explain this model.

It's called it's basically sometimes called the seeker model or the attractional church model.

I have a little diagram, I think, just illustrating what goes on in the attractional church.

And this is not me judging this, by the way. And I don't actually think this

is worth judging. This works for a lot of churches in a lot of places.

A lot of churches can do this model of church really well.

It works. It can work. It has, like any model of church, some problems.

It can have some problems, things that you need to correct for,

things that you need to be careful for.

But essentially, the idea is that you find a large location and you want to

do things in this location to draw people from the region to,

from probably a half an hour in any direction, right? To your location.

And then you have a great Sunday experience. You have bounce houses,

you know? That's one tactic you could take. I, United Community Church, did that before.

We are known throughout the Valley as the bounce house church.

We haven't had bounce houses for five years.

But, you know, before COVID, that was the thing. We met in this big facility

out in Preston right next to a bounce house place.

And the kids' ministry was bounce houses. And that really worked.

A lot of people came because they said, there's stuff for my kids here.

My kids don't complain about going to church. That's a win, right?

So you get people in the door and then there's a great service and the gospel

is preached in a way that people can understand and people get saved, which is great.

And then ideally from that point in this model, people are attracted in,

they hear the gospel, they get saved and they get connected into community and

they get connected in discipleship, right?

That's the way the model is intended to work, the way the model is intended to work, and it can work.

I will say about this, and I think it's true, it's a lot of work.

It was a lot of work to put on the Bounce House Church every Sunday.

You guys were there. I wasn't there for that. But it was a whole lot of work to get that done, right?

But I'm not morally opposed to this model. It can work.

These are good things to aspire to. It's good that things should be appealing and attractive.

But my only thing about this model is that it doesn't necessarily put front

and center, I think, the most important things about church.

Like the things that make the church what it really ought to be.

Tim Chaley, he's kind of a blogger.

It doesn't matter if you've ever heard of him or not, but he gives a modest

critique of some of the risk of the attractional model. He says this.

He says, people being attracted to church is not in itself a bad thing,

but when attraction becomes the primary mission, you tend to use whatever works to attract them.

We'll do whatever it takes to get people in the door, I often hear pastors say.

We just want them to be able to hear the message of Jesus. The latter motivation

is wonderful, but the problem is that doing whatever it takes to get people

in the door can replace or undercut what we want them to be attracted to.

What you win people with is what you win them to.

And this doesn't have to be the way it works out in an attractional model of church.

But sometimes, if you look around, you'll kind of see this.

You tend to be discipling people into, well, I just go to this place,

and I get poured into, and then I go out in my life.

And there's not always, in the tractional church model, there's not always a

connection to a community.

There's not always these things that we talked about, like a covenant community,

a sense of sacredness about the love and unity and bond that we share in Jesus Christ.

You can work hard and you can make that happen, right? And there's not always

deep discipleship. There's not always connection.

A lot of it can go—I'm trying not to be critical because, honestly,

for those that can do this, I think it's great.

I'm just not sure if it's what we're called to right now. Because,

look, we talked last week. We talked about aspects of the church,

essential things, things that I think when the church is modeling these things, it's healthy.

And the first of those is the covenant community.

I think the challenge I think with this model is that it's like you're attracting

people on the basis of a great service which is good and we should have good

services and they should be beautiful and wonderful but I'm not sure if it's

always effective in getting people into deep covenant community,

into deep relationship it's always the challenge in church how do you go past

just the showing up on Sundays, going deeper.

It's important though, it's important that we be community the community is

not a secondary part of the church's mission I think it's really, it's in our nature.

Like we are a community. We're a community before we're anything else.

And our witness, I think, is tied up in our doing community,

doing life, loving one another.

Jesus talked about that in John 13, 34. He says, I give you a new commandment.

We talked about this two weeks ago.

Love one another just as I've loved you. You also are to love one another.

By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

How are people going to know that we follow Jesus?

It's not just what comes out of our mouths. It's not just the message that we say.

It's not just what we confess about Jesus. That's certainly a part of it.

But we demonstrate our love for the Lord by loving one another.

We demonstrate that we're disciples to Jesus by being in a covenantal community,

by caring about each other.

That's such an important part of who we are. It needs to be right at the nature.

I think it needs to be at the heart of the model of what we're trying to do.

Not only that, are we a covenant community? We have, like we talked about last

week, we have an alternative compelling story, another way of just saying the gospel.

We believe that the world is not just kind of a pick your own adventure.

We actually believe that there is a true story of the world.

It's God's creation. He created it with intention and purpose.

Sin has come into the world. It's broken. The whole thing, you,

me, everybody in it is impacted.

Creation is impacted by the futility of sin that has come into the world.

It's a major problem, and in that major problem, everyone is caught up within it.

And then we're also offered the same solution.

The same solution is Jesus Christ coming into the world, taking away sin,

offering a new life, bringing in the kingdom.

And we're told that we can come in, those who are broken by sin,

turn from sin, repent of sin, follow after Jesus, and find eternal life.

Life that is going beyond the end of things, the restoration of all things.

And if we don't do that, what we'll face is judgment.

Because Jesus is going to come back a second time. He's going to judge the world.

And whatever is found to be in rebellion, in sin, in that time,

Jesus is going to remove.

We just confess that we live in this story.

We proclaim a radical story that should reorient us.

And when we understand the gospel, what we do, like the impact of understanding

this alternative reality, this alternative compelling story is that because

we're in a new story, we become different kinds of people.

We care about different kinds of things because we believe that what's going

on in the world really matters.

So then our problems, like our lives, our hopes, and our ambitions,

they change in light of the story, in light of the gospel.

They change. They must change. That's part of the goal of discipleship is letting

the message of the gospel change every part of me.

It's a lifelong journey, but it's the journey we must be on.

The gospel will change the way you see the world.

But here's the thing, and this is right at the heart of like,

okay, what are we doing in replanting? Have you ever heard the phrase,

the medium is the message?

The medium is the message. So the means by which the message is communicated,

that actually ends up being the message. I think that's the way the church works.

The idea is that you can't extract the message, the gospel of Jesus Christ,

from how it's presented. It applies to the church so much.

The gospel, the alternative compelling story, is being proclaimed in and through

the living, breathing covenant community.

It is the best demonstration, the best illustration, the best explanation of

the world is when people hear it, believe it, and start to live into that reality.

It is better than any preacher ever could be the living, breathing community

of God built around the gospel.

The church is the medium through which the alternative compelling story,

the gospel, is being explained.

It's coming and being explained through the life of the church. It ought to be.

That is when the church is most thriving, most successful, most healthy.

Those two things go together. So the church as a covenant community lives by the gospel.

It is the message because what we are speaks clearly about whose we are,

what we decide to be, what we give our lives to and our hearts to and our attention to.

It screams out what is valuable to us and it demonstrates what is valuable to all people.

Life in the kingdom, life turning to Jesus is beautiful.

Makes us into people who are abounding with the fruits of the Spirit.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.

These things which are so coveted in the world and yet in such short supply.

Because they're not coming from us, but they're coming from us looking to Jesus,

believing what he says is true, and letting his confident word come into our

hearts and letting it change us.

Letting it change us to the point where we can lay down our idols and lay down

our desires and lean into a surer hope that he promises.

There's no better explanation of the gospel than a church, a community of people

covenanted, loving one another, and living in this alternative story.

And so what this move into downtown Snoqualmie means for us is that we can,

I think, lean further into those things, grow into those things,

because we need to grow into them.

I'm not saying we're doing such a great job at being in the covenant community

all the time. Let's go show everybody how great of a job we're doing.

I'm saying let's focus in on this time on doing the things that we say that

the church always claims to. Let's love one another.

Let's lean into the gospel and let's root ourselves in a place where we can

be simply focused on these essential things, focused on being disciples,

focused on loving one another.

And what we'll see is as we do that in a place where it's visible,

honestly, because location has something to do with it.

As we do that in a place where it's visible, we're going to find more,

I think, opportunities to just be a simple church that is doing what the church

has always done, living out a life with Christ.

So, look, I have a little picture of what this could look like,

a slightly different model.

In the simple church, we're just focusing on the essential things,

loving one another, being in a covenant community. We're living out the gospel.

We're going to be doing some other things that we'll talk about in the rest of the series, right?

But we're doing that. We're doing that in a way that where we're visible and present. And we have...

What we're going to find is that our highest level of impact is going to be

in the neighborhood right around our church.

Because you know what? What's going to happen is the community that we have

in our building on Sunday morning is going to spill out into the streets afterwards.

We're going to go to all the restaurants. I'm going to ask you guys to eat out a lot.

Darn it. I know, it's going to be hard.

We'll go to the restaurants. We'll go to the coffee shops afterwards.

Words. We'll be having this loving relationship, this community that we're trying

to invest into. And people will see that.

People will see that and just say, like, in the midst of a lonely world,

people notice when there's community.

One of the greatest outreach things we've done lately is mops,

right? We get all these moms of preschoolers coming in here.

They are hungry for community.

It's hard to find in the Seattle area. There's the Seattle freeze and all the

stuff that goes on here, right?

It's hard to find meaningful community. But community itself is attractive. It is attractional.

And it's attractional in the right ways. It's attractional in the way that the

New Testament community was attractive.

People just were like, oh, in the Roman world, the Roman world was a harsh, bitter, cold place.

And the church came in and like, oh, people loving each other,

people serving each other, people caring about each other.

That spoke volumes to the power of the gospel.

So to do that in a simple way, to create places for community,

you know, we eventually want to have a coffee shop in our building,

a place, a place where community can happen.

So a place where people can walk into and just like feel the love of Jesus.

Like how awesome would that be? And to understand, oh, this is actually like

connected to this church that's upstairs.

Like, you know, simple ways to build community in this new building.

Whereas There's also an opportunity for us to sacrificially serve,

to go out in the name of Jesus to the downtown Snoqualmie area and just say, we are here.

If downtown Snoqualmie has a problem, it's going to be our problem.

We're going to make it our problem. We're going to work with the town.

We're going to work with the organizations that are down there to just own these problems.

We're going to be people who give in sacrificial service in a clear way because

we want to care about this place that we've been called to. We're being called to this place.

Downtown Snoqualmie. And that's not to the exclusion of the rest of the valley.

The valley is not that big of a place. If you don't live downtown,

you live on the ridge or if you live out in North Bend, it's still pretty darn close, okay?

You probably drive by downtown Snoqualmie all the time.

We're going to be doing sacrificial service. We're going to have the opportunity

for thoughtful public witness.

You know, like the thing is like we try to on our Sunday services,

we try to be thoughtful. We try to deal with the word and think through it together.

We're going to have more opportunities to do that. When we're visible, we can invite people in.

We can make the church the kind of a place where skeptical people,

people with questions, will know

that they can come and they can ask those questions and they can engage.

And one other thing I'm actually super excited about, and this might just be me.

Where we're at, downtown Snoqualmie, it's an artsy part of town.

What if we had Christian art and Christian musicians?

And what if we were going out there saying, hey, look, yeah,

you were created to love beauty.

Here's something beautiful that proclaims the gospel.

We're right there amongst people who are curious about this stuff.

And we can be meeting them in quite a natural way, serving them and engaging

with the gospel, with people in the downtown area.

So, you know, we put out this this message on Instagram and stuff and,

you know, with the new church name.

But the new church name is going to be downtown church. And that's like, you know, that's a name.

It's not a bad name. We were I-90 Community Church. That was a name.

I think that the like third week I got here, Sean, you were like,

when are we changing the name?

And I'm like, dude, I don't I just got here, man. I'm not going to change the name now.

But some people have been banging the drum. We got to change the name.

We got to change the name for a long time. and some of you guys are like,

well, I like the name just fine. And I'm like, I mean, the name is fine.

But you know what? We're not really on I-90 anymore. We're going down to downtown

Snoqualmie, so we're going to call it Downtown Church.

And I, you know, honestly, like, I'm going to, we brought like 20 names to the elder board.

20, maybe 30. I don't know. I wasn't counting. And like, but everyone,

everyone's like, and so if you're like, eh, Downtown Church, it's fine. It's fine.

It speaks to where we are, you know? And we, and this is the other thing, guys.

We're just going to be committed to the downtown area. And I know like not everybody

lives downtown Snoqualmie. You're like, well, I'd like to be that.

It's like, but here's the thing. If we focus on an area where we're making a

visible, meaningful impact, I think that is going to be missionally,

that's going to be missionally the most effective thing.

We're just like being in the church. We're caring about our community.

We're embedded in there. We're serving it. Even if we don't necessarily live

right next to it, there's going to be huge opportunities.

Okay, so that was a long intro when I knew it was going to be long. Sorry, honey.

So look like back back to back to the the third aspect

of the church that we need to hold on to so we're covenant community we have

an alternative compelling story and the the other

the next thing i want to talk about is that we have a distinct moral vision

and i think this is so important the church when

it has moved in power when it has been effectively reaching the world when it's

just been doing the stuff that the church is called to both in the new testament

like we see it very clearly but also at any point in the in the history of the

church when the church is making and impact it has done so while holding on

to a distinct moral vision,

an idea of right and wrong that is countercultural,

not in an arrogant way, but in just a simple like, hey, this is just, we believe in a reality,

an alternative compelling story. And so we have a distinct moral vision.

That's, I think, so clearly exhibited by the New Testament church as it grew

up in the midst of a pagan culture.

Tim Keller talks about the moral vision of the church this way, the early church.

He says the early church was strikingly different from the culture around it in this way.

The pagan society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its body.

A pagan gave nobody their money and practically gave everybody their body.

And Christians came along and gave practically nobody their body and they gave

practically everybody their money.

I love that succinct illustration. He points out, Keller points out,

what's actually really clear if you study history, if you read the New Testament,

the Christian community when it's on mission is distinct in particularly these two areas.

Two big areas of culture, sexual ethics and financial generosity.

It's not the only ways in which the church is distinct, but two very important

ways in which the church is distinct.

And I think it's really interesting to think about the situation that emerged

in the church, because the church's commitment, particularly to sexual ethics,

it was not a return to traditional values.

Because the Roman values were the traditional values. And the Roman values were,

if you study Roman culture around sexual ethics, it was really gross and very

exploitative and had no bounds around it.

This is not a return to traditional values.

The sexual and financial ethics of the church were actually unprecedented,

especially among the Gentiles, especially as the church moved out of Jerusalem,

because obviously the Jews had a lot of clear sexual ethics as well.

But Christians embraced a radically different moral vision because they believed

not, oh, we have to get back to tradition and roots and values.

They actually believe this simple reality that life is best lived according to the way of Jesus.

I am most joyful and most happy and most complete and most doing what I was

created to do when I am following Jesus in a way that demands something of my body and of my wallet.

I mean, Jesus said this in John 10, 7 through 9.

Jesus says, Truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn't listen to them.

I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and he'll come in and

he'll go out and find pasture.

A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. But I have come so that they

may have life and have it in abundance.

The church heard the message of the gospel in the midst of a dark culture.

And they didn't say, oh, well, we just like we were afraid of going to hell.

No. So we got to like obey Jesus. They said, no, Jesus has called us to this

great thing. He's opened the gate by his blood, by his sacrifice.

He's forgiven us of our sin. And so it's not that we want to stay on the inside of the gate.

It's that, wow, we've been opened up into this good pasture where life,

where we're fully made alive.

So we're trusting Jesus and we're finding joy and we're finding peace.

And the Christian community in pursuit of that life that Jesus opened up and

invited them into lived a radically different way.

They accepted the limitations on their desires, on their sexual appetites,

knowing that that was actually for their good.

To say no to their wants was actually for their good.

And similarly, they rejected the stinginess of Roman culture.

They refused to partake in the exploitation of the poor, and they gave with radical generosity.

I mean, Jesus talks about how we should give to anyone who asks of us,

and boy, that is really serious.

And they did so, again, not because they were afraid, but because they wanted

to walk into the way of Jesus.

They believed that that was the way in which they were going to be most fully

alive, most fully human, like most fully living according to how God had invited them to live.

And my friends, we still believe these same things today. The gospel message,

the invitation to life in Jesus hasn't changed. It's all by grace.

We don't perform our way or obey our way into the kingdom. We're here because Jesus forgives us.

But what he invites us into is to walk through the gate, the gate which he opened

all on his own. You didn't have the key.

He opened it up and you only said, well, I'll walk into this gate.

But once you walk into the gate, you find that the world is different.

You're living in an alternative story.

And so I can finally say to myself, I know I want certain things.

I know that I have like a drive to have more money and more security.

And I know I have a drive to satisfy my appetites, whatever those are.

But I've accepted that if Jesus is Lord, if he's called me into this pasture

and he's overseeing me and he has something to say about the way I'm living

my life, I'm actually going to accept that obedience is a better way.

That obedience is actually the way in which I actually get what I want the most

in a counter cultural kind of way, in a surprising kind of way,

in the context of this gospel message.

By obeying Jesus, I am actually getting the things that I want the most because

he is exposing to the world and to me what is false and what will never satisfy

and what is true and what will ultimately satisfy.

We're to seek first the kingdom and his righteousness.

That will satisfy.

Eventually, it's not always satisfying along the way. Sometimes it's really

hard and it's really difficult, right?

But Jesus promises us that if we persist in doing good, we shouldn't grow weary

because in due course, we will reap a harvest of righteousness.

Jesus kept it simple. He said in John 14, 15, if you love me,

you will keep my commandments.

And so we obey not for fear, but for love of Jesus that he's opened up a way

and we have a new life in him. And how good is that? How good is that?

It's the goodness of God. It's his kindness that leads us to repentance.

It's the invitation that he has in the gospel that we can be forgiven and set

free and have life in abundance as we trust in him.

It's for those things that we come in and we follow after Jesus and we accept limitations.

We accept an alternative moral vision.

And that's true of sexuality, right? But it's also true of money.

We can just like we can treat sexuality

and particularly in our day and age treat sexuality as a

source of identity as a source of security like

which the bible says it's not it never will

be you can try to make it those things it will always leave you unsatisfied

all idols do that we can do that with our sexuality we can also do that do that

with with money uh with status with wealth we can take a good thing that god

has created because god created us in bodies and he gave us bodies and he gave

us desires. And these are not necessarily bad, right?

But we're called to do something with them, to tend them in light of his direction, right?

Adam and Eve, they had babies, right?

But they were created in union, in marriage.

And so we take these things and that is the appropriate context for sexual expression.

We understand that, right? So we are directed both in our finances and in the way we use our bodies.

I'll just remind you of Romans 12, one through two.

It says, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God,

because God is so good, because he's so gracious, because he's forgiven, because he's merciful,

I urge you, present your bodies as living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true worship.

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your

minds so that you may discern what is good and pleasing and the perfect will of God.

As Christians, we're people who just say, yeah, we know what the world says

about sexuality. We know the world says about money.

We know what the world says about power.

I mean, because Jesus had a lot to say about those things.

We know that what the world says is good. And we just say, we're not going to

be conformed to this age.

We're actually going to take on, we're going to take Jesus at his word,

that what he calls us to is right and good.

And we're going to treat our bodies, not as the venue for the expression of

our desires and our identities and living out our greatest vision of what our

life could be, but actually as a place where we just say,

oh, no, no, I'm going to submit my body to Jesus.

I'm going to submit my finances to Jesus. And I'm going to understand that as

I do that in light of his mercies,

He's going to be transforming me into what he's called me to be.

Moral transformation is really at the heart of the gospel.

And it's not like something we're boastful about. It's not coming from you.

You are not transforming yourself into a living sacrifice, but you're just coming

at the invitation of Jesus and you're bowing into his feet. You're loving him.

You're keeping his commandments.

And what he's doing is he's transforming your desires and he's doing all this

amazing work within you, like you are being worked on in your life.

And, you know, having the clarity of a moral vision, a distinct moral vision,

like helps us to just keep walking this road with Jesus.

Because in the American church, we're really good at saying,

okay, how do you get into trusting Jesus?

But we're not always great at saying, so what do you do after that?

What do you do on the discipleship side?

How do you see his transforming work playing out in your life?

But we have a really distinct moral vision, one that enables us to trust God

with our future and with our desires and with our whole selves,

and one that teaches us to trust.

The trust and faith and obedience in Jesus is actually our surest hope,

more so than anything that I want or desire or could lay hold of that might

feel like it could satisfy. but I know it won't.

And we're called to lay hold of that above everything else.

But I think it's worth, okay, so clarity on that.

And like, I mean, we put this out there, you know, as a church and as we were

starting to work on a new website, right?

For our new church name and stuff like that.

We're not changing a ton, but we are putting actually some of our.

Moral distinctives more front and center. They're actually pretty front and

center right now. If you go to our about us page, there's like quite a bit in there.

We're going to push it really, really, really even more forward. We just want to be clear.

We just want to be clear what we really believe is true about the gospel.

And you know, this is like, this is important for us, number one,

because we're moving down to, have you been to downtown Snoqualmie? You walked around?

There's a lot of flags of various types, right?

And a lot of flags that celebrate things that we just say like,

ah, this isn't really like, this is kind of making an idolatry of sex,

sexuality, gender, like stuff

that are not the basis upon which we can build a life and an identity.

And so we're going to be showing up in a distinct way, right? In that area.

So the question is, how do we as Christians like have the posture?

How do we show up as people who are clear on our convictions,

missionally effective, and doing all the things that we're called to do?

Because this is the hard thing. That's why this is called a creative minority

because the church was in its earliest days, it was a minority in culture.

It was a minority in terms of its values. Not a lot of people held on to these

values. It took about 300 years for the gospel to go out into Rome.

And then Rome becomes actually like a very Christian place all of a sudden through various means.

You don't need to talk about that, right? But for most of its early existence,

the church is just like, they are distinctly,

have a distinctly moral vision, a distinctly alternative picture of what reality

is, and they stand out in the church.

And let's think for a minute about what it looks like for us.

Because we live in Washington State, and we live in western Washington,

and we live in the suburbs of a city called Seattle.

You know, the east side, but still. Right.

We live in a place in which to hold on to distinct moral vision puts us out

of step with culture. And that's okay.

That's okay. Number one, we

can just say that. We can just say that's okay. But how do we express it?

Okay, actually, I want to pull out 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 13.

Okay, so this is Paul addressing some issues about how does the church handle

particularly sexuality issues, right? We talked about money,

but we're just going to lean into this for a second. How do we show up as the church?

Okay, so this is a very interesting passage, and you might not be prepared for it, but here we go.

Paul is writing to the Corinthian church. It's actually, it's funny,

it's in 1 Corinthians, but he references an earlier letter.

So there's zero Corinthians that we don't have. We don't have the zero Corinthians

letter, the one that came before the first letter, but he references.

He says, I wrote to you a letter not to associate with sexually immoral people,

And I did not mean the immoral people of this world Or the greedy and swindlers

or idolaters Otherwise you would have to leave the world.

Actually, I wrote you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother

or sister and is sexually immoral and greedy and idolatry, an idolater or verbally

abusive, a drunkard or a swindler.

Don't even eat with such a person. For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders?

Don't you judge those who are inside?

God judges outsiders. So interesting, like getting ourselves into the mind of

Paul. Paul, like the missionary to the Gentiles, forming this church in Corinth,

discipling them around issues of sex, sexuality.

How do they show up in the world? How do they interact with people outside?

How do they interact around these issues with people inside?

And we get a lot of insights here and just want to make two quick observations.

The first is that Paul makes it clear Christians are called to this distinct moral vision.

It's just like you cannot he's so

clear on this language that we we do not judge ourselves or our own tribe on

a curve right which which when tribalism we always have the tendency to want

to squint at our own people's problems right but paul says don't you dare do

that like he is saying hey, in the church,

we need to take care.

Jesus says, don't judge, but Paul says, judge. We have to judge each other. Why?

Because we know we're going to stand before Jesus one day. We know we're going to be held to account.

We have knowledge that outsiders don't have. And so by that knowledge, we ought to live.

And we ought to care about one another enough to call each other to what is

true and what is good and what is beautiful in the world.

We are called, in fact, to hold one another, if in the church,

accountable around these issues, around sexual immorality.

But not only around that, he also says greed, idolatry, verbal abuse,

drunkenness, swindling.

He says within the church, not only should those things just be pointed out,

not in a rude way, But in a way that we would be honest about them, right?

But to be dealt with because we're called to something better.

We're called to something more beautiful. We're called to living a life with Jesus.

And if we turn away from him, if we disobey him, if we're not interested in

following after him, then what hope is there for us?

It's like we've been invited into the pasture, but we don't want to come in.

And so he tells the church That it

is very important For them to care about sexual immorality And to the point

where he says Don't even associate with people within the church People who

call themselves brothers or sisters Who are just unrepentant In these areas

When they ought to be repentant Right? Notice like.

And I think from context, we get this point. He's not saying if anyone struggles

with these things, genuinely struggles with them and is like hanging in there and working through it.

He doesn't say to get rid of that person. He's talking about unrepentant people.

I want to just remind you of what John says in 1 John 1, 8 through 9.

He says, if we say we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves.

And the truth is not in us.

But if we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Your hope is not how great you are at following Jesus. Your hope is in the mercy

of God that when we walk in the light, which is not, again, doing everything

perfectly, it's saying to Jesus, when we mess up, when we struggle with things.

Like, which I'm sure that everyone could say on that list of,

what, five or six things, probably everybody has struggled with those at one point in time.

What we just say is we're not trying to say, oh, I'm fine, I'm fine.

No, I don't have any trouble. I'm not having any issues.

I'm totally good. What we say is, when it's pointed out to us,

we say, you know what? Yeah, some things here, some challenges here.

I'm going to confess it. I'm going to be honest about what it is.

I'm going to bring it into the light and I'm going to be confident that Jesus

forgives me and cleansed me of those things.

I think there's plenty of room for us to grow into maturity around this distinct moral vision.

We're called to that. But of course, that just requires us to care enough,

to care enough about sin, to care enough about our own sin, to care enough about one another's sin.

Like if we are in error in these things, like I would want someone to tell me

these things if I'm blind to it. I would want someone to tell me these things.

The church as a covenant community that cares about one another and loves one

another is called to this kind of thing.

This kind of cleansing and caring and ministering the gospel,

ministering forgiveness, ministering renewal and transformation to one another.

We're called to those things. So that's internally how we posture ourselves.

But I think Paul also makes something really clear. He draws a distinction about

posture between insiders and outsiders.

Insiders, like, wait, we say, if you're people opting into this life with Jesus,

then you are really committed to the distinct moral vision and you're going

to have accountability around that. But then he's also saying outsiders –.

I love this. He basically says, yeah, you're going to be spending relational

time with people who are not following Jesus, who are not obeying Jesus in these things.

He seems to present that actually as a good thing. He's like,

you're in the world. You're having conversations.

How else are people going to hear about Jesus if we're not out among them?

How else are people who don't not only don't know, don't believe the gospel,

but couldn't even understand why it would make any sense? How else are those

people going to hear about the invitation that Jesus has if we're not going out among them?

If we're not being living examples of the gospel, right?

Being people who are talking about what Jesus has done, is doing among us.

And he says this, he says, God is going to judge, right?

So this is, we talked about last week, you know, like this alternative story

that we live in, right? It ends in the ultimate destination for this world is

like what we see in Revelation, the end of the book of Revelation,

where Jesus has come back.

He set up this eternal new Jerusalem.

This earth that we live in gets renewed and restored.

Sin is dealt with. It's finally removed. The futility that marked creation because

of sin up to that point is gone.

Life is as it ought to be. the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem comes not, we don't go up to heaven.

Heaven comes down onto the earth and Jesus is there ruling and reigning eternally

with his people and all is well.

And in the book of Revelation says every knee, no, no, sorry.

Every tear is wiped away. Like at that point, like, like all the brokenness in the world is gone.

That is the ultimate destiny. But just before that is that Jesus comes back

and he judges wickedness, right?

And, you know, this is the thing, like the posture.

Are we to be people who are going around with big signs that say,

Jesus judges you people? I don't think so.

But we are also this, like, we're not to be back hiding, hiding what we believe.

You can love people and be in a relationship with them and be honest with them

about what you think is true and ultimately good.

And we need to be people who are preparing ourselves to just have real kind,

open conversations with people where we're not trying to soft pedal what Jesus

says is true about the world.

Because the thing is, yes, God is going to judge people.

Everybody's going to judge. But right now, we are living until Jesus comes back

in a moment where God's mercy is on offer for everybody.

The gospel is that. It's that Jesus so loves you and so demonstrates his love

and his kindness for you that he died on your behalf so that you don't have

to trick yourself into thinking you need to earn your way into heaven.

It is a gift of grace.

And it's his love that calls us to repentance. So we can be the sorts of people

who show up in that way, honest about what we believe, honest about the distinct

moral code that we call ourselves to and that we think is true for all people, right?

But who are not doing the work of judgment? Because that's it.

We're not called to judge.

God is called to judge. We're not supposed to hold back.

God is going to do all that eventually, right? But we need to just be upfront

and plain spoken about that.

And so that's, you know, as we get ready to situate ourselves downtown,

like we're just going to be clear, not in your face, not rude,

but like we're not going to hold back about who we are.

And then we're going to prove the love that God has for people by what we do,

by how we live, by the community that we have.

Church, the worship team is

going to come up. I'm just going to leave you—this is really interesting.

I'm going to leave you with a little excerpt. It's from a second-century letter.

It's called the letter to Diognetus.

Okay, so this is like in the mid-100s, probably, and 80, obviously.

After Jesus has come back. The church is growing in the Roman Empire,

still very much a minority, but growing in size, growing in no disability in the culture.

And there's a guy named Diognetus. He writes to the author of this letter and

he has some questions about Christians.

He basically wants to know what's up with these people because he can't quite.

These Christians don't fit in any of Diognetus' boxes of what sort of people

they are and what they're about.

And so the person who's writing the letter, we don't know their name, right?

But someone who is of authority, probably someone in a church somewhere,

probably a bishop or overseer.

And he writes this letter kind of explaining what Christians are about to Diognetus, okay?

And he says this about Christians, right? And this is, I mean,

I think a really good illustration of the sort of posture that we are invited

into. He says, they, the Christians, live in their own countries,

but they do so as those who are just passing through.

As citizens, they participate in everything with others, yet they endure everything

as if they were foreigners.

Every foreign land is like a homeland to them, and every land of their birth

is like a land of strangers.

They marry like everybody else, and they have children, but they do not destroy

their offspring, a common practice in Roman culture.

They share a common table, but not a common bed. They exist in the flesh,

but they do not live by the flesh.

They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.

They obey the prescribed laws, all the while surpassing the laws by their lives.

They love all men and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned.

They are put to death and restored to life. They are poor, yet they make many rich.

They lack everything, and yet they overflow in everything.

They are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor, they are glorified.

They are spoken ill of, and yet are justified.

They are reviled, but blessed. They are insulted, and repay the insult with honor.

They do good, yet are punished as evildoers. When punished, they rejoice,

as if raised from the dead.

Now, I know Roman culture and the world in which, I mean, this is the midst

of persecution, right, in the church, right?

We don't have those kind of extreme situations, but I just love thinking about

this vision of their posture in the world, their posture in the world.

You know, probably we won't be celebrated.

But what joy Christians have is that we are listening to the words of the Lord,

and we are hoping to hear his affirmation, well done, good and faithful servant,

when we end up meeting him in that day.

You know, and there's so much that we desire in life.

But like, I think part of maturity and part of just going through the world

that we live in is really just creating this desire, developing this desire

that we would love Jesus more than we would love anything else.

And that is difficult. And it takes bravery. It takes courage.

It takes a lot of just like looking at the world and just saying,

well, we're going to be doing something entirely different.

We're going to be leaning into something totally different, something that's coming from heaven.

Like we're receiving the invitations of God and the life that he's given us

in a way that it's like, yeah, we get that it's weird and we get that it's different,

but we believe that we have life in it.

So we can rejoice when we're punished. We can bless people when they insult us.

We can be dishonored and yet we can trust that our honor is going to come from

heaven. We are going to continue to trust in Jesus above all things.

So as we step out here, we're going to worship. I have gone way long. One song? Is that okay?

Is that? All right. Sorry. Sorry, guys. I thought maybe that would happen.

Too many announcements.

No, not Aaron's announcement. No, no, no. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

No, because I had announcements within the thing. And I'm just, I, will you forgive me?

You're good. Okay, you're good. You did. You did. You did do good.

You did great. Sorry. Sorry. That is...

Jesus.

You're good. Lord, you know...

Living in our flesh, like we experience constantly our desires.

We experience constantly these things that get us off track and distracted from you.

Lord, and we just ask for your grace.

Lord, as we are stepping into a new season, Lord, we come with all of our failings.

Lord, we come confessing, I come confessing, like that I oftentimes would prefer

self-control over trust.

Lord, I would prefer getting what I want over getting what you want.

Lord, I would prefer managing my own life according to my own design instead

of trusting your calling and your invitation in my life.

And so, Lord, I just say all that. It's true. It's true of me.

I'm sure it's true of many here.

So, Lord, we just come in confession of what's true. We say we're broken.

We don't stand, though, on our performance, Lord, but we stand by your grace.

And so we want to renew our fixed gaze upon you, Lord. We want to get our eyes back on you.

We want to look to you, Jesus, and ask you, Lord, as we go into this news place

as a church, Lord, would you establish us?

Would you make us as individuals, people who are seeking your kingdom first?

Lord, would you teach us to just do the simple things, the simple things of

just wanting to honor you with our lives, with our words, with our actions,

with the way that we show up in the world.

Lord, would you make us not prideful, Lord, but humble in your presence.

God, teach us your humility that says your way is better than ours.

Your glory and your beauty is worth anything that we could ever achieve or hold

on to in life. Lord, we want all of you, Lord Jesus.

And so, Holy Spirit, would you come into us?

Lord, would you minister your gospel? Would you remind us that we stand on your

grace and that your joy and your glory and your kindness is enough for us,

Lord? We want it to be enough.

Lord, we want always, whatever's in a way, Lord, we want those things taken away.

And, Lord, we can't even put our finger on them sometimes.

But you're gracious and you're kind. So, Lord, would you build us up?

Would you establish us as a church in this new place in our lives.