Forward in Faith: Showing up missionally

Well, so I have some really great news.

This, this is a, it says it's not a permit.

It is an approval, approval of our septic design, which is the hard part. Yes, yes, thank you.

The permit is just a matter of writing a check at this point.

But yes, on Friday afternoon at 5 o'clock, we got this email approving our septic design.

Thankful for that. It only took 11 weeks, and we're thankful.

We're thankful that it's happened. And so thank you all for praying through

this process. It's been long, a long process.

And we obviously still have some work to do, but we are going to be like moving.

Straight on to the install stage. And we've already got some quotes and stuff.

And a lot of the people are not that busy yet, probably because the permits

are taking a little time. But I don't know.

So, but we will be moving on right away to installing these new septics,

which will make it so that we can just start to move forward, move forward in faith.

And we're going to be, most of you guys know, where you are in the process of

selling this building, contingent upon replacing these septic systems because it's time.

I think they might be original to the building.

And this is an older building. So we're doing that. And then that'll lead us

to purchase a new building in downtown Snoqualmie.

And so we are in this sermon series and we're just thinking about this big move.

It's called Forward in Faith. And if you missed last week, I would really encourage

you to go ahead and listen either on YouTube or on our podcast.

And I ask that because I think these four messages are kind of like an important

series because it's big conceptual stuff thinking about what's coming ahead for us.

Because what we're doing is, yeah, we're thinking about, okay,

what's it going to look like for us to move forward as a church?

Because we're doing a thing.

We're moving. We're moving from one place to another.

But this change, this move is going to be more than about location.

It's going to mean something for the church collectively.

It's going to mean something for the church in terms of the way we approach

mission and what we're doing as a church.

If we want to, as a church, make an impact in the new location,

which is the real motive, we want to reach people in our sphere and around us

who we can reach out to and care for and introduce them to Jesus.

If we want to do that, we have to make some shifts.

And so we're just in this series just thinking about the shifts,

shifts in thinking, shifts in acting.

And what we're doing is, as we go through the series, we're looking at Jesus'

words in Luke 14. So we're going to be back there again this week.

You can open up into Luke 14, verse 15.

Luke 14:15

And we're actually going to actually re-look at the same passage we looked at

last week, which is a parable,

because there's still some more in there, I think, that's important as we consider

what Jesus asks his disciples and what Jesus asks his church and sends them out to do.

And so we're going to talk about that passage again.

And so again, Luke 14, verse 15, and you can read along. I'll have them up here,

Luke 14:15

or you can read in your Bibles along, says this. This is a parable that he gave.

When one of those who reclined at the table with him heard these things,

he said to him, blessed is the one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.

And then Jesus told him, a man was giving a large banquet and he invited many.

At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who were invited,

come because everything is now ready.

But without exception, they all began to make excuses. The first one said to

him, well, I bought a field and I must go out and see it.

And I ask you to excuse me. And another said, well, I bought five yoke of oxen

and I'm going to try them out.

I ask you to excuse me. And another said, I just got married and therefore I'm unable to come.

And so the servant came back and reported these things to his master.

Then in anger, the master of the house told his servant, go out quickly into

the streets and the alleys of the city and bring in here the poor and the maimed

and the blind and the lame.

Master, the servant said, what you ordered has been done and there's still room.

And then the master told the servant, go out into the highways,

into the hedges and make them come in so that my house may be filled.

For I tell you, not one of those people who were invited will enjoy my banquet.

There's a lot going on in this parable, and it's called the parable of the large

banquet, and that's what it is.

I mean, it's about a host having a banquet and inviting many people in.

But one thing that's really unmissable, and this was my point last week and

where we started with, and I think it just runs through this whole series,

what Jesus makes really clear is that to be a part of what he's doing,

to be a part of the kingdom, and these are kingdom parables.

These are about Jesus explaining the dynamics of faith and following after him

and the dynamics of discipleship, to be a part of that, you have to show up.

This is the error that these people who were invited are making.

They're just not showing up. And I think this whole series can be boiled down

to that idea. You have to show up.

See, in this parable, I mean, Jesus, he's talking about what God is up to in the kingdom.

The kingdom of God is like God, the host, he's inviting people to be part of the banquet.

He starts by inviting those who kind of are in his circle, in his sphere,

people who he'd expect to be there, people who, and I think that we can kind

of blend this with Jesus's general ministry to his time.

We can understand that these are the people who kind of had their lives together,

who were religious people, who were hoping to see God move.

And so he sends an invitation out, but the host finds that their lives are so

together and so full that there's no room for him in them, right?

There's so much going on. They've got a lot of commerce.

They've got a lot of life. They've got a lot of busyness. And so when the invitation

goes out, instead of saying, yeah, we'll be there, they send their excuses instead.

And I don't think the point here is that God has his feelings hurt or the host has his feelings hurt.

But the Lord knows that in order for us, in order for me, in order for you,

in order for disciples to enjoy the kingdom, to be a part of what God is doing

in the world, you have to show up.

You have to participate in it. Church is a participative thing.

And for us as a church in the season we're coming into, we have to show up.

And last week, I mean, we're looking at this through different lenses,

different angles. Last week, we just talked about showing up personally.

And that means showing up with your physical person in a physical place to be

around other people in the church. It could be on Sunday.

It could be in groups. It could be just in community and fellowship.

But I mean, it involves me being somewhere and being invested in a community

of people who are seeking the Lord together.

So we need to show up personally. But this week, we're going to look at this

a little bit more because I think there's clearly something else going on here

in this parable, and it's that we need to show up missionally.

You have to show up missionally.

We need to understand that God is not just a God who just likes being worshipped,

and oh, it would be smart for us to recognize who He is because,

well, He's God, and we're just us.

And so He's more powerful, and so we want to do all that.

God is on a mission. He is doing something.

He cares about people, and His love for His creation, and he has a purpose for

loving and reconciling people.

We have to understand that he calls people to be a part of his mission,

that he calls people, he calls his church, he calls people who know him to be

a part of what he's doing.

That's part of the invitation. When we turn to Jesus and we find that we get

invited to this big party that he's throwing, this party where there's love

and forgiveness and grace, we also get to be participants in the mission at that point.

See, in this parable, even as his friends, the host's friends,

send their regrets, the host is not deterred by that.

He sends his servants out. He says, okay, no, what we're going to do is we're going to go to plan B.

We're going to go quickly, and it says, quickly into the streets and the alleys

of the city and bring in here the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame.

And the servants go and they do that and they bring people back.

And he says, no, no, that's not enough.

He says, go out into the highways, into the hedges, make them come in.

So that my house may be filled. So the host is on a mission.

God is on a mission. He has the intention that his house would be filled.

He wants to see people partake in this celebration.

He's come to bring many into his household. He wants it full,

and it delights God to see people come in.

He just wants this open invitation.

And notice it's interesting the way this progresses, because it's very clear

that God has a place in his household with his people for busy,

successful people, people who are kind of maybe a little bit more together.

They have their lives a little bit more polished. They're paying maybe some

more attention to God. God, he has people, his plans for people like that,

who's really their main issue is that they end up just getting trapped in their

own plans and even in their own successes.

But God has a place and an invitation for people like that. But he also has

a place for people who have no business, like who seem to not really belong in his circle.

People who are like poor and maimed and blind.

He has a place for outcasts. He has an invitation for them. People who would

never, you would never think you'd invite to a table or into your home.

God says, no, I want those people a part of this too. Because God's mission

is that all would come and find their lives caught up in this big banquet.

It's the kingdom vision.

God is inviting all people. In Ephesians, Paul is talking about the expansiveness

of God's plan in his missions.

He says, I mean, I'm skipping a couple verses in the middle, just forgive me.

But he says this, Christ himself has brought us peace.

He's united Jews and Gentiles into one people when in his own body on the cross,

he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.

He brought this good news of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him

and peace to your Jews who were near.

And now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done.

That is the gospel message, the gospel proclamation, the missional view and

purview of the gospel is that all can come to the Father through the Holy Spirit

because of what Jesus Christ is doing.

And so it doesn't matter. People who are near, like they can come close.

People who have their lives together, who you might look on the outside and

just say, man, they really don't have a lot of problems. They don't have an issue.

God says, because of what Jesus Christ has done, his forgiving work on the cross,

which they very much need, though they may not appear to need it,

because of that, they can come in.

And these people who are far off, not interested in God, not knowing his laws,

not knowing what he calls us to, not knowing or caring much about him,

those two are receiving the invitation.

And so it's everybody. Every person you meet in your day-to-day life is someone who is a part of this.

All can come to the Father through, by the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done.

The gospel is good news for those who are far away and those who are near.

Those who have it together and those who don't.

All are adopted, can be adopted by faith into the household of God.

And if we're going to show up missionally, that good news needs to be something

that we proclaim, that we talk about, that we know about, and we understand

that we live in that experience of being adopted in to the family of God.

We need to be gospel people, people who consider what it means that Jesus forgives

and that he has his eyes set on all the brokenness and all the pain and all

the suffering people and all the people out laying out on the streets and all

the people who are just kind of wandering around life and all the people up

in the boardrooms and everything.

God has a plan and a heart and a care for all these people. We need to be gospel people.

People who talk about what it means that Jesus is Lord and that there's salvation by faith in him.

People who know that Jesus is the proof of God's great love for us.

Because that's what Bible tells us of what Jesus' ministry is all about.

Romans 5, 8, my favorite verse. God proves his own love for us in that while

we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

So everybody is in this category of while we were still sinners.

The far off, the near, Jesus Christ died for them all.

While we were enemies with God, it says in another place.

While we were still enemies with God, Jesus died for us.

And this is the gospel, which is just like the beating heart of the church.

It's the beating heart of mission.

His love demonstrated on the cross is the center point of mission.

And we all, like in all of our brokenness and all of our sin and all of our

distraction and all of our pain and all of our self-condemnation and all of

our addictions and all of our fears, we are, you are, everyone you meet is loved

by the God who created them.

And so we see the outward stuff. But if we've come to understand the truth as

Jesus proclaimed it, then we see the outward, but we know that that person,

wherever they're at, is desperately loved by God.

The God who created them. And he has this broad ministry of reconciliation that

he sent his church out to proclaim.

And there's no other way it goes out.

So we have to show up missionally. And to show up missionally,

I've got three points here, things that we need to do to show up missionally.

To show up missionally, we need to be people who talk about Jesus.

We need to be people who talk about Jesus. Let's think about that for a second.

I was watching some small group material. I was previewing some stuff that we

maybe want to use around church. And it was about sharing your faith.

And there was this woman, and she shared this little story that I thought was

so good and so illustrative of the challenge that we have in talking about Jesus.

So she had this interaction with a friend.

She made a new friend, I don't know, like in a workout group.

They became friends. And eventually this person found out that she was a Christian.

Her friend, who had some negative experiences with Christians,

like being really preachy, asked her this really important question.

It says, am I a person or am I a project?

Am I a person or am I a project? and I think that's like a really good question.

It's a really good question, right? Something we need to think about as we're

thinking about being people who talk about Jesus.

And I think it's something that we worry about.

To me personally, that's probably my biggest anxiety around talking about Jesus,

that people would feel like, I've just got a plan for them. I've got a wonderful plan for your life.

And, but like, I don't want to like, I used to be in sales. I don't like sales.

I don't want to be selling Jesus to people, you know?

But this woman, she had a good response. She said, she made it clear,

no, look, you're not a project to me. You're definitely a person.

And then this woman she was talking to, she said this, well,

it's okay. So if I'm that, then just don't talk to me about Jesus.

And the person, this lady thought for a minute, she stopped and she thought about it.

And she said, well, look, am I a person to you?

Because if I'm a person and I believe in Jesus, then you asking me to just like

not talk about this thing, which is extremely important to me,

like that's just as crazy and just as offensive,

as me treating you like a project.

And so I think that if we're going to be people who talk about Jesus,

we have to be really secure people.

You know, we have to be people who are not like trying to be,

you know, push things and steer a conversation and batter people on the head,

unless you are a gifted evangelist and that's your calling and the Holy Spirit

just goes with you into those places and God bless you,

keep doing it because you'll find success where others won't, right?

But if you're just like a normal human being, like maybe doesn't have that particular gifting,

like you also like, you don't want to be preachy, but you also like,

you don't want to act like you haven't met Jesus and that hasn't changed your life.

Like you are a whole person And when you show up in a relationship,

you have to be, you should be the whole person that you are.

And if Jesus has done something in your life, you should talk about it.

If you're spending your time meeting with Jesus every day,

like I hope we're doing, if you're spending time in his word,

and if it's really just like blowing your mind and your paradigms are being

shifted and you're repenting of your sin and you're looking at your life and

you're being so grateful for all his goodness,

like that should flow out of you and you shouldn't just put a filter on it. That's what I'm saying.

I'm saying if there is a wellspring of life coming out of you,

and then there are seasons where it doesn't feel that way.

But if there is, like Jesus is doing a work in you, like you should be willing

to just talk about it. Just talk about that, those things with people.

And I think it's hard in the suburbs.

The suburbs are places where everyone has agreed that there are certain rules

about how we interact with one another.

And I find that suburban people have a lot more trouble.

Talking honestly about their experiences with Jesus than people who are in places

that are maybe a little bit more overlapping and there's a little bit more sense

that you're gonna run into a lot of different types of people.

So, I mean, we're a suburban church. Here we are on the East side, right?

My challenge to you guys is to be people who talk about Jesus,

but like, just be who you are.

Like, if God has done something great, Number one, let that continue to happen

in your life, and then just be honest about what God is doing in your life.

That's, I think, the number one way in which we can show up missionally.

Second thing, to show up missionally, we need to live in the pattern of mission.

And that is not a familiar phrase to you yet. I'm going to explain what I mean by that.

Let's think for a minute about the gospel, right?

Because there's a lot of ways, probably depending on your church tradition,

You think about the, if you grew up in church, right?

If you didn't, that's actually quite awesome. You don't have all the baggage.

If you think about your church tradition, like the gospel is a really well-defined concept.

But I just wanted to say, like, think about what it looks like.

What's the pattern of the gospel? What does it look like?

It's a simple message, right? I mean, Jesus went around proclaiming the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

He went around inviting people, much like this invitation goes out into the

world, inviting people to be a part of the life of God through faith in him

by repentance, which is not some moral performance.

But it's actually just like having your eyes opened and your mind aware of the

reality that God himself has come in the flesh, died for you so that you might have eternal life,

fellowship, relationship with him.

So it's not, we're not, this is the thing is, we're not going around telling

people, oh, change your ways, change your behaviors.

We're telling people the kingdom is here, God is here,

he's inviting people in, and

the qualification is simply to hear and respond to the message in faith.

I like Daryl Johnson. He's a writer. He has a really good book on the Trinity,

and he thinks about the gospel in terms of the Trinity, and I really like what

he says. I'm going to say this. I think this will help us get to this pattern that I'm talking about.

He says, the living God is not a solitary God.

The living God is not a lonely God. The living God is the Trinitarian God.

From all eternity, the living God has existed in community as community,

in fellowship as fellowship, in relationship as relationship.

From all eternity, the living God has existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

From all eternity, the living God has been able to speak of himself as we and us and are.

And here's the incredibly good, good news.

We human beings were brought into being to participate with God in that us-ness.

It's almost too good to be true. When we say yes, we come home.

Look, the gospel is this thing, is that through Jesus Christ,

we have a relationship with God.

And so what Daryl Johnson explains is like this Trinitarian theology.

And if you know a little bit about Christian theology, it's that God is three in one, right?

So eternally, he has existed as like a fellowship.

So God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Okay, so we think of three points on

the triangle, you know, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

So he's existed eternally like that in community and in fellowship.

And like a lot of medieval theologians, they do a lot of work on thinking about

the Trinity and they think about just this, it's this circle of love.

The Father's loving the Son, the Son's loving the Father, the Spirit's loving,

and it's all bound together in love.

And there's a community of the Godhead happening here.

But think about what Colossians 3, 3 through 4 says. as it says,

you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ who is your life appears, then you will appear with him in glory.

Christians understand this is that what has happened is that God in his community

and fellowship of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has made it so that there's an opening in Christ.

We can walk into the holiest of holies and we can find ourselves,

our life hidden with Christ in God.

And so now we have a relationship that is not, I don't want to say it's entirely

like, I don't have like this mystical vision, but we have fellowship with the Father,

the Son, and the Holy Spirit by virtue of our coming into a faith relationship with Jesus.

And so it's like there's an invitation brought in and you get to step in and

you get to be part of this celebration, the life of God.

And the way we come in and the way that good news is proclaimed in the world

is Jesus takes on flesh, dwells among us.

He sits with people at tables like he's doing here in this parable.

He lives a life with them. And it's an absurd idea that God himself would come

down and just have a relationship with with dirty,

ugly, sinful people, even that he would have conversations and be patient with

people who are dead set on killing him and who end up succeeding in doing that.

But what Jesus says is the missional pattern is, I'm just going to come,

I'm going to open my life to people, and they're going to see and behold what

I'm like, who I'm like, what it's like to have a relationship with me.

And I think we think about talking about Jesus and sharing Jesus with the people.

We think, well, there's a script that I need to read.

And it's fair because there's content to the gospel.

Like everything is not true. Something is true.

We have the truth proclaimed in the word of God. And so we can share the word

of God and we can share people that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ.

We have all that content and that clarity, but how do we really proclaim that

effectively? We do like Jesus did.

We open up our lives to people.

And we just let it overflow. We let this love that we're sharing,

that God is pouring out into our hearts in faith.

And we just let it overflow into people.

And I think that the one mistake that we do particularly is that we don't treat

everyone as if they have a spiritual life.

Everyone you've ever met is loved by God. They are the object of God's love.

They're invited in and they have a spiritual life. If they have the capacity

to commune with God, it's on the back burner. It's ignored. It's neglected.

But I think that we have to understand that we're inviting people to be a part

of this relationship with God with us.

And so we can do spiritual things with people who don't know anything about

Jesus. People want you to pray for them.

Because people are feeling so alone. Like this world feels so alone.

Even people who have it get together, they have it together.

They look like they have it together.

People are just like desperate for relationship. They're desperate for friendship

because they were created for this relationship with God.

And there's nothing in this world that can give you that.

So they're spiritually starving and we can just invite people into our lives

and share our spiritual lives with them, even if they're not Christians.

And I think a lot of times we think we're being polite by not pushing that on people.

That is not true You're not being polite I think you are withholding something

good From someone when you do that And there's no point in feeling bad about

it Just go and do Just change Just do differently, it's okay,

Okay, and the final point,

I'm doing all right. The final point is that to show up missionally,

we need to be, so those were kind of personal applications.

This is a church application. We need to be a church where healing happens.

That sort of church where healing can happen.

I'm going to have a lot more to say about this in the future.

We're going to do a whole series on this.

I want to share you this little quote by a guy named Ed Corey,

who I was not familiar with until recently.

It says this, We're all apprentices to joy and healing and are each somewhere

in the process of allowing Jesus to initiate,

renew, and continually remove the hindrances that keep us from experiencing

the full measure of his relational joy.

This is our mission and the mission of the church. As we learn to lay down our

claims of strength, power, and perfection, and learn to acknowledge and respond

tenderly to our own weaknesses, as well as the weaknesses of others,

the fears that can make a church unsafe and hinder healing will diminish.

When we share in the joy of Jesus and the wisdom of the generations around us

and allow his peace to rule in all situations,

healing thrives, lives change, and invitations to joy spread contagiously to

others outside the walls of the church.

This is our call. This is our hope. And this is the mandate that many of us

are beginning to see fulfilled.

Joy and healing are our birthright, our commission, and our ministry.

You know, we're like, we teach from the scriptures, we value Bible study,

and like these are all really good and important things.

But we can, I think we, sometimes we can get our heads down into the word,

and we fail to look up and look around us and look at saying,

okay, we failed to do this math. What does this mean to that person?

And what part do I have in taking this and doing the work of ministry,

which is looking at that person's need and their pain and the thing that Jesus wants to heal,

the thing that Jesus wants to take away so that they might have this abounding joy.

Like we don't do that math or we, alternatively, we don't do that to ourselves.

Like we learn a lot about the word. We don't take this step of,

okay, seeking Jesus for like this, like renewal of the mind,

this transforming of myself,

this getting over myself and moving past where I've been at and my hangups and my hurts.

I got together, I told you guys about this last week.

I got together recently with a guy from the Union Gospel Mission.

We were just talking about their ministry strategy, and I just really loved hearing about it.

Because he summed up their strategy at Union Gospel Mission.

He says, okay, so it's like, I'm trying to get his words right.

It's like basically he's like homelessness is a symptom of broken relationships,

broken relationships with people and broken relationships with God.

And so they treat that, not the symptom.

They treat the broken relationships. And the way they do that,

he says, what we try to do is to create a place where we can give people replacement experiences.

So if they had broken relationships, try to give them healthy relationships.

If they've been betrayed and abused by a male figure, someone in their lives,

then we give them a male figure who is going to be kind and faithful.

If they've been cast out in whatever situation,

He's like, what we're trying to do is we're trying to preach the gospel and

to bring about healing by giving people an experience of what goodness looks

like and what grace looks like and what kindness looks like.

And so they're building their whole program around that idea.

And that is what the church should be doing.

You know, I'm talking about showing up. And I talked last week about how,

you know, like the reason that we want to show up, it's not not for all these

things, but it's really because like the community and the fellowship and these

kind of healing relationships can't happen unless we're present.

I mean, frankly, frankly, I know that because probably my greatest insecurity,

let's talk about it, is not feeling like I'm not feeling like people are interested in me.

And I'm sure that comes back from some childhood wound or whatever.

And I don't have time to go into that. You can ask me later. I give you permission.

But stuff like that is never going to heal outside of like seeing something else.

And I think ministry is this. It's when we come out and we understand ourselves

and the church collectively and our whole purpose to be agents of Christ's love.

It's people who are just saying, people hurt you, sin broke you, like people abused you.

Okay, here are people who know what it is to hurt others and yet have found

forgiveness and have been called to righteousness and a new way of living.

And so we're gonna live faithfully and we're gonna model that love of God that

we've experienced. We're gonna live that out.

We're gonna be agents of that love.

And that leads people to Jesus.

Inviting people into that way, people who have been hurt, unloved,

left behind, discarded, to give those people experiences of love and safety

and hope and acceptance in Christ, that changes people.

That changes people.

And we need to be this sort of church that's willing to go there.

And it's not like, oh, well, let's just raise the bar of performance.

But I am just saying this. I'm just saying like, like we have to get that vision

in mind to be a place where healing happens.

We have to like pursue Jesus, like to deal with our own stuff.

And we have to be a place where we can talk about that together.

And honestly, like as far as churches go, we do pretty good.

Honestly, like you guys are pretty vulnerable with one another.

I think we just take it to the next level. I just got to take it to the next

level because what we're going to see.

So we're going to move to Snoqualmie and, you know, we'll get ourselves together

and then we'll actually like launch a website and tell people that we are there. Right.

And then people are going to come in and some are going to be just like looking

for the next, the flavor of the week. And I don't want to be that.

Some people are going to be coming in, they're going to be like,

I'm just desperate for somebody to treat me,

with the kindness that they say their God has, the love that they say their

God has. And we have to be ready for that.

That's a lot of work. That's a lot of time. That takes a lot of attention.

But we need to be ready for that. I want to leave you just with one,

worship team can come up here.

I want to leave you this one quote. but there's a writer named Jack Deere.

He's written a lot of books on the Holy Spirit. I really like his books.

I just recently read his memoir, and it is brutal.

He was a guy who had just a really rough upbringing.

His life, even as he became sort of a celebrity and wrote books,

or Christian celebrity, wrote a bunch of books and did a lot of stuff,

his life was still full of pain.

Pain and brokenness from other people and his own pain and brokenness.

And in this memoir, he just lays it out really honestly about all his own pain

and all his own failures and everything like that.

But at the conclusion of this book, he says this, and I got the quote up here.

It seems like everybody had a better story than mine. And then my story got worse.

God took away just about everything I used to fuel my self-esteem until there

was nothing left except his love. And for the first time I felt his love Apart

from anything I could offer him And then I no longer needed a better story,

When people start to show up to a church and it's a new thing and an interesting

thing, they're going to be looking for a better story.

They're going to be looking for a church that scratches whatever itch they think they have.

But we have to know that they have an itch they're not even aware of.

They have an itch for the love of God. They need to know that they are created

and cared for and that God has a plan, an eternal plan for them.

Love that is apart from anything they could ever do.

And so, I just want to invite us into that, into that kind of ministry and into

being that kind of a church.

So, I'm just going to pray, and then we're going to worship,

and that'll be that. Okay? Yeah, it'd be wonderful.

So, Lord, we want to hear from you the invitation, the invitation that we have

to be people of love, the invitation that we have to be people who have known,

tasted, and seen your goodness, Lord, and then who are just letting that goodness

and that fellowship and that work of the Holy Spirit just overflow from us into the world.

And God, there are many things in the way.

There are many things in the way. Lord, some of that is just personal stuff

that's within our control, Lord.

We need to show up, Lord. But so much of that is, it's just not within our control, Lord.

But we have our own hurts, and so we bring you those, Jesus.

We have our own lack of trust, and so we bring you that, Lord.

We have our own pain and resentment and the difficulties, intellectual difficulties, doubts.

Lord, we bring you all these things.

And God we know that when we're not competent you

are infinitely competent and when we're not good you're

infinitely good and when we don't know how to forgive ourselves

Lord you forgive Lord we hang our.

Music.

Hats we set our hopes upon your

forgiveness and your grace and your mercy Jesus Lord let that abiding sense

of your love Lord overflow from us and let us be a church where we are being

agents of that love, God.

Whatever that looks like, Lord, Lord, would you call each of us,

commission us to that purpose, Lord, and give us vision to see people who are

hurting and give us like a conviction and a nudge to be a part of that, Lord.

Show us how to do that, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen. Hey, let's...