The Story of the Statues

That said, today I'm so excited because I I have so enjoyed this whole last three or four weeks of stories.

And I do want to take a moment and just give some some love to Madison Tompkins, our youth pastor.

Madison has been the one that's uh, yeah, we definitely woo for Madison.

Um he's the one that that's done all the interviewing and really put all of this together, and he's done just an absolutely phenomenal job with it.

And I will say quick quick moment um parents of preteens and teens, like the biggest priority that I have as a dad of students who are getting older is making sure that they are like weekly a part of the student stuff here in his hands.

And a lot of that has to do with with many different things.

Part of it is just a conviction.

You know, I don't know if you guys know this, I have a son who plays basketball, and um you know, there are a lot of tournaments where the championship is on Sunday, and we just have this rule that we don't miss a church for basketball.

And part of that is because I heard this years ago, and it's something that I just believe in, is I don't want to teach my kids that God always loses the tiebreaker.

And sometimes as parents we can do that, like God's stuff's important unless there's anything else going on.

And then God always loses the tie.

And that teaches our kids over time that, oh, he's just not that important because he's never as important as whatever else is going on.

So part of it's that amazingly, he's he's never really had to miss much.

It rarely happens that we have to say no to that.

Usually we can find a way to make it all work.

Um so part of it's that conviction, but a big part of it is actually the team.

It's Madison and the team that he's built, and how important it is for me as a father to have my kids connected to that group of people and all the students.

We have amazing students at this church.

You know, my son loves me, my oldest.

He doesn't really like me though.

Um because I'm his dad.

And he, you know, you get to that age where you don't like your parents.

And no matter how hard they try, and you know, parents, can anyone relate?

Like, you try really hard to get your kids to like you, and you're like, what have I done wrong?

They just don't.

It's just I don't know what happens.

But you know, he likes Madison.

Like he truly does.

And he listens to them, and I am happy, I am happy to have Madison's help in helping me raise my kids to love Jesus and to know Jesus and to have a deep relationship with God.

So I'm just saying, parents, it's been great having Madison on the screen so much.

And actually, today, not only is Madison gonna be doing the the the video that we're gonna watch, this story, but Madison's gonna come up afterwards and just share a few thoughts and to sort of wrap this whole series up.

So I'm excited about that.

Um, this story is especially especially it's super unique and cool.

Madison came to me a few months ago as we were planning all this out and he said, Hey, I want to do a story about the statues in front of our building.

And I was like, huh.

I I I know some of the details of that, they're pretty cool, but I realize I've never actually sat down and and really gone into the the details of all that went into those being part of our church, but they're such an iconic part of our church.

And it's weird, right?

Because we're we're not like a super religious place, but we have statues in front of our building.

It's an odd dynamic, and that's something that you're gonna hear about.

But this is a really amazing story and uh and and it's it's powerful.

We didn't order those on Amazon, that you can't find those.

If you're gonna search Jesus statue, it's not like something that was made.

This was something that was very special in its creation and very unique.

And I'm so excited to share this story with you because not only I I think is it gonna show us a lot about God, a lot about our our church specifically, it's gonna show us a lot about the heart of Jesus.

You know, and that that statue with his arms wide open, it's impacted so many of us in so many ways.

It's just not the Jesus maybe we grew up uh thinking about, but it's who he is.

And so I just can't wait to show you this story.

Take it in, learn from it, be excited about it, and then we'll come back together as Madison gives us a few thoughts.

So let's take a look at the story of the statues.

I have to say that that that call we got from your church changed the whole trajectory of our life.

Our church is unique for a whole bunch of reasons.

It used to be a Kmart, and actually the story of how it started is a really unique story in itself.

But I was struck by one of the more unique aspects of the church, which is sitting permanently out in front of the front doors, and that's the Jesus statue.

The Jesus statue is is really unique for a whole lot of reasons, and I wanted to discover the story of the statues, and along the way, I learned some things that surprised me, but I saw really honestly how cool Jesus is.

And so this is the story of the statues, and it all started by me calling the person who started our church Steve.

I just wanted to ask you kind of uh the story of the Jesus statue, um, and hear it from the person who decided to put statues in front of the church and hear your perspective on it.

Well, I will give it to you as uh best as I remember because it's been it's been a while.

You know, the idea of statues, I just I I just love the idea of having something out front without any words that expressed um who Jesus was, which was welcoming and loving.

What I quickly learned is that it's not super simple to order a life-sized statue of Jesus.

Um it's not like jumping up on Amazon typing in Jesus statue and just clicking order.

Uh, it's a involved project, and it actually took a lot of time to find the right kind of Jesus, which uh surprised me, but kind of makes sense.

I looked all over for uh a statue idea, and I just couldn't find one.

There most uh um most of the Jesus statues that have been made are you know either either he in anguish when he's on the cross.

You know, I mean it's it's kind of funny.

There's a big church in Dallas that it has a a statue and a fountain, and the statue is uh Jesus driving the money changers driving the money changers out of out of the temple.

And Steve is right, statues of Jesus are intense.

Once you start to look around, you realize that most of them are Jesus on the cross, and that was a pivotal aspect of the life and work of Jesus, but it's just one moment of his life.

Um, and some statues, if Jesus isn't on the cross, it kind of has that distant feeling where you could go up to him, and it might be something that you'd be like, okay, I could see how that person could bless me or you know teach me from up on the side of a hill, but it isn't the kind of person that would embrace you.

And so finally came across this wand that is in uh Cave Hill uh Cemetery in in Kentucky, and there's uh a family whose daughter was a missionary.

She would go to orphanage and work with kids, and um, and she died in a car accident, and her parents commissioned uh Tom to do a statue of um it's the Jesus statue we have.

We reached out, I think Susan called and got Marcy, who's Tom's wife.

I reached out too, and I also got Tom's wife, Marcy.

Hi Madison, how are you?

I'm good, how are you?

I'm good.

And I also got to speak with Tom.

Madison, how are you doing?

I'm doing and Tom and Marcy were so generous with their time, and it was really clear that they obviously loved Jesus.

So I asked them the question: how did this Jesus statue come about?

We became friends with this guy because they were at our church.

He had a lot of kids.

Our kids were, my daughter was a missionary, our daughter, their daughter was doing mission work.

But they what he wanted Tom to do carpentry for him.

He did buy one of the sculptures, the prodigal father, to give to his daughter for her birthday.

And so Tom and him started doing some just construction projects looking at things.

It turns out tragically, she was killed uh that year in a car accident.

So he came to Tom and asked him to do a portrait of her with bringing children to Christ because she was in Domissions, and so Tom, that's when Tom did the welcoming Christ.

That was his first sculpture of Christ, and he did him with her bringing four kids to Christ that is on her grave in uh Louisville, Kentucky.

Brittany's story is a testament to the love of Jesus and and how Jesus has continued to work in the life of her family and her community in the wake of her death.

And as I was looking around and researching and getting to know the story a little bit better, I found this that was written by our mom.

She'd say to me, Mom, what if I spend four years in college, walk out the door, and get hit by a bus?

What am I gonna tell Jesus?

So we decided to let her postpone college for a year and pursue mission work.

And then Glenna said, God has been awesome throughout this devastating loss, and he has continued to use Britney to bring people to Jesus.

And they talk about how even her gravesite where the Jesus statue sits is still leading people and encouraging people and showing people the love of Jesus.

Brittany was an amazing teenager that obviously loved Jesus, so it really clicked actually hearing this story that her story would be the inspiration behind this version of Jesus.

But I still wanted the specifics, and so I asked Tom, why that version of Jesus and how did you get there?

Well, yeah, that one definitely to me was more inspired by any other sculpture I've done.

Um mainly because you know, I know a friend commissioned me to do it, but thinking about his daughter coming to Christ, you know, and bringing children, it reminded me of how I would want, you know, even my worldly father with open arms, you know, when I run into him.

I think I think everybody does.

And so that one was so fired up in me, you know, it that one flowed so well.

And it it came out to work, you know, you can always tell them when people like something, you know, whether you're doing a sculpture or writing a book or a song or whatever, they they get the feedback is always so great.

And I immediately got such great feedback from the second price sculptor, and even all the other pieces I did with that one at timetable.

So um that one's been a been a you know a marker in my life.

But another thing for me, I was asking him because then he um didn't have that close relationship, and his dad wasn't a Christian when he was younger and had some alcohol, whatever problems.

And I said, How did you get that feeling from the Christ when you didn't experience that?

And he said, Because that's what I want from my heavenly father, and that's what I believe when we're talking about.

He said, you know, talks about the joy of the Lord is your strength.

And if you never see Christ joyful, how can that be a strength when you never see him smiling?

So he this is how he knows Christ.

And if his joy is your strength, you've gotta you gotta depict that because there's not very many depictions of that, yeah.

And yet you don't want to approach Christ thinking he's so mad at you or solemn, you know.

You want him to, yes, he's he's wise and discipling and he's a shepherd, but he's also loving and laughing.

When we think of Jesus, we have to remember that he was a person that kids could run to.

My son is two years old now, and I work at the church, and every single day it is it's like tears, it's a fight because he's like, I want to go see the statues.

He's like, Can we go see the statues?

And so I'm like, okay, yeah, we can like, and I feel like a horrible person.

Like, no, we're not gonna go spend time with Jesus today.

Um, but my my son is growing up with that that's his picture of Jesus, um, and that's like who he knows Jesus to be.

And so, like Marcy, you were just saying, like, if the joy of the Lord is our strength and we never see Jesus depicted joyfully, just I wanted to personally thank you guys because um my son won't know another Jesus, and part of that is because of that depiction of Jesus um.

Uh, you know, the Jesus statue, whenever I walk by him, I touch his hand.

And you know, you can kind of stand after church and people doing the same.

There's just something about that uh that uh it makes you want to uh kind of reach out and touch the uh the statue.

Our God is a really good God.

He's one that provides for us.

Uh he gives us what we need, maybe when we need it, even if it's not what we thought we needed.

Um and I had started to see that the Holy Spirit kind of had his hand in the uh work that Tom was starting to produce, even like down to the specifics of like inspiring him to make certain kinds of sculptures.

And this is how Tom put it.

You know, it's it's like people that write songs and and books and whatnot.

You're I mean, you're not always inspired on every you know, project you're on, but sometimes it just hits you in the studio or wherever you're working.

And uh you you know the difference between the flow, you know, the Holy Spirit, and you know, just like the ministers that do their messages for the Sunday, it comes to them.

You know, sometimes it may not, but it still doesn't matter.

You know, what I do, what I you know, we all we do in our business stands for the Lord, you know, and uh I feel you know, I feel it all the time.

You know, everything we do is uh inspired by God.

So I asked him, how does that happen?

And he goes, I don't know.

He said, if I wait on the Lord, I remember touching the clay, I remember being in there 15, 20 hours, but I don't know how it happens.

But if I don't wait on the Lord, nothing happens.

Yeah, I just have to wad it up.

We've been through so much uh trials through all this, you know, just with family and business and all that.

And God's still there.

He always brought the jobs and the art that we needed.

God gave Tom the inspiration, but he also gave him the opportunity.

Um professional art and professional sculpting wasn't always on the radar or always uh a realistic dream for them.

But I learned that God came through in a really cool way.

I had done a website for him and didn't have a call in three years.

But the only sculptures I had to show were that one and the other life size that he had, the Christ and whatever.

But these folks stayed with us with Google and they said, you know, for a week, and I fed them really well in the bed and breakfast.

They were at a seminar there.

And I finally just said, Why aren't we having any, you know, luck?

And so they just said, Well, here's five things you need to do that don't cost any money, nobody does them, and they'll put you on the first page.

And we're like, he said, they said, There's billions of people, you got to do this stuff, and I'm like, okay, so I cried and bald squalled and tried to learn it, and you know, just doing I'm not a techie, I just was doing but I did everything they said, and then the call from his hands church was the first call we got from that website being renovated.

I have to say that that that call we got from your church changed the whole trajectory of our life because before that, he did that sculpture from that person we met, but we still were working full-time, doing just trying to make it work.

We didn't know how to charge, we didn't know how to price, and we did that.

And that sculpture, but when we got the call from your church after setting up the website, and we talked about price and what all they wanted, and you know, I quoted them a scary price to me, and they said, Oh, good, that's 10,000 less than we thought.

And we're we're like, What?

But when we got the deposit check from that first piece, and y'all had never met us, you know, you never met us, and Tom was able to create all those new sculptures, and someone trusted him enough based on the price sculpture to give him the work.

It changed our thought.

We thought maybe God's gonna let us make a living out of this.

If people that are strangers can see it and trust it and would actually send you money, which it was shocking to us, you know.

So it did.

It changed our thought pattern that maybe we're gonna get to do this for a living.

I just thought it was such a God story because this wasn't the normal path.

We didn't have the education, we didn't have the representation, we didn't have the gallery representation, he didn't have the training, we had God.

And that's why, you know, enough.

That's still a good testimony for Dr.

Say for the struggling artists is you know, just uh just hang on, you know, this is what God's calling you to do.

You know, you'll open the gates, you know, he'll answer your prayers.

It was amazing to see what God was up to in the in the shaping of this version of Jesus, and it's it was really encouraging, honestly.

But this next part of the conversation is something that surprised me and I didn't expect to learn.

Um, and it has to do with the other statues.

So we commissioned another uh casting of Jesus, and then the other statues on the walk, and those were all custom commissioned for his hands.

We're like, yeah, the price could be recast.

So he created the five new sculptures for your church.

You see, the other statues weren't just like random molds lying around that were like, okay, those fit the purpose, let's just throw those there.

Those were custom commissioned by Stephen Susan uh for a very specific purpose and to communicate a very specific message.

Woodstock was not the most diverse um area.

And so we wanted just to kind of make a statement about Jesus' love and how he welcomes everybody.

And it was really meant to represent a type that might not automatically feel embraced.

And I wanted them to know that we embraced, you know, Jesus for sure does, but that we embraced uh them.

So that's why it it was uh um African American and his son.

There's a Hispanic woman.

The same with a teenage girl, uh, you know, maybe with a daughter.

You know, so so say it's a single mom teenage girl that's got tattoos and piercings.

You know, that might at the time might not have felt comfortable at many churches.

That was really the point, was just to um express that Jesus loves everybody, but then as a church, we welcome everybody.

So here's what I learned.

The story of the statues is obviously a story about Jesus, and it's a story about how he provides for us, how he offers us a gift, and sometimes that gift comes in ways we wouldn't expect, um, even a form that we wouldn't expect, of Jesus kneeling down with his arms stretched open.

But it's also the story of his church, of all of us working together, regardless of our different backgrounds or our different histories or our different situations, working together because we are all moving toward Jesus.

And there's Jesus.

Uh he's not on the cross anymore.

He's got his arms stretched open, uh, waiting for the people that he loves me.

Well, well, good morning, everybody.

How's everyone doing?

I yeah, thank you.

I just want to say a huge thank you first to anyone that was on camera and sharing your story on camera.

I know how intimidating that can be.

Um so thank you for sharing your story that way.

And then many of you have emailed your story in online, and I just want to say a huge thank you.

We have been reading those, and it has been uh really amazing to see how God has worked in the lives of his church.

And so thank you if you've been vulnerable and sharing that.

Um know that those have been read.

I've been praying for you guys as I'm reading those, so so thanks for sharing.

Uh there are a few things as I've been able to do this process, and there's a few things from our conversation with Tom and Marcy that didn't necessarily make it into the video, didn't make sense to make into the video, that I felt were um important enough to share this morning.

And the first is uh to honor God with your work.

This is the story.

Uh Tom and Marcy, they're making bronze, pretty gigantic statues.

It's an expensive process, um, and it's also like an expensive and really kind of like niche thing to order a statue.

And so they get kinds of commissions from from all over.

And um, she shared a story, and uh actually shared multiple stories, some of which were so crazy that I don't even feel like it would be appropriate to repeat up here.

But people ask for odd statues.

Um they're like, Can you do a statue of this?

And they're like, Absolutely not.

Um it it was weird.

Um, but uh a couple of them uh sort of crossed the line uh when it came to honoring Jesus with with their work.

And one of them was uh a Buddhist statue that was um commissioned after seeing the Jesus statue.

They were so moved by the Jesus statue said, Hey, uh, could you uh make a Buddhist statue for us?

And then another one was like uh high up in uh a government in the Middle East wanted a giant ten foot statue for fountains, um, but it was of uh gods that uh were worshipped there.

And Marcy just said, I'm so sorry, but we serve a living God, and we don't want to do anything to offend the living God.

Which I thought was powerful.

It's powerful.

They didn't cross the line when it came to dishonoring God.

They wanted their work to honor God because the statue is going to be around long after they're gone.

And to say, like, hey, we're going to honor God the best we can in our work.

And so for all of us, I think the lesson is to honor God with our work.

But very few of us are going to be asked to make a statue that honors a God of another religion.

Very few of us are going to be asked to cross the line in that kind of sort, sort of an explicit way like that.

But our work creates so many situations where we can choose to cross that line, to dishonor God, or to stay on the right side of it and bring him honor no matter what the situation.

Colossians 3, 23 and 24 says, Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.

Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance at your reward, and that the master you are serving is Christ.

We are serving Christ as we go about in our everyday work.

And in this room, the diversity of what we do is probably very, very different.

Some of you are business owners.

You have plenty of employees beneath you.

Some of us, the employees beneath you are like your children.

You're like, I am at home working on these kids the best that I can possibly do.

And there are moments where you can cross the line there and dishonor God by the way we go about ourselves.

Some of us have clients that are difficult to please.

Sometimes we might be alone much of the time in our job.

We might be on job sites.

There's a whole diversity of situations.

And I just want to encourage all of us to pre-decide, to decide beforehand to honor God with your work.

Because honoring God with your work, oddly enough, is how you prepare for what Jesus has for you.

To say, like my nine to five is going to honor God, it's much easier to hear God's voice in the midst of that.

John the Baptist, as he was getting ready the people for Jesus, he's paving the way for Jesus, preparing them for Jesus' mission and for Jesus' work, he uh preached a lesson of repentance, saying, rethink the way you live your life.

And people are like, okay, like, but what are we supposed to do?

And this is what this is what John says.

Uh the crowds asked, What should we do?

John replied, If you have two shirts, give one to the poor.

If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.

Even corrupt tax collectors came to be baptized and asked, Teacher, what should we do?

He replied, Collect no more taxes than the government requires.

What should we do?

Some soldiers asked.

John replied, Don't extort money or make false accusations, and be content with your pay.

Everyone was expecting the Messiah to come soon, and they were eager to know whether John might be the Messiah.

You see, he had that spiritual lesson to repent, to rethink, but then he answered it on the very practical level when it came to soldiers and tax collectors.

And I'm sure if we were in the crowd, we would have been able to like, what prepares me for the Messiah?

What should I do?

And he'd be able to speak to that.

Because Satan does not honor our nine to five.

Like, he's not like, they're busy, they're stressed, I'll leave them alone until they get home to bring the temptations their way.

Like, he's just not going to honor that.

So there are plenty of opportunities to cross the line.

Even the job we have might be this thing that just uh holds us back.

Might be like the job we have may take advantage of struggling people, and we need to wrestle with that and bring that to the Lord and look for ways to honor him in that.

It might be time time to move.

It might be those clients that I mentioned that are really difficult to please.

How can you please them without dishonoring the Lord?

It might be trying to stay on your boss's good side.

And let me just be honest, like, your boss is gonna ask you to do plenty of things that you don't want to do.

Like, that's a job.

Like you're that's you're paid to do that.

Um but just because your boss asked doesn't mean you need to cross that line in your heart, heart and dishonor Jesus.

And so look for ways to decide beforehand that you're not gonna cross that line.

And it might be the way you handle relationships at your job, it might be that you are tempted to fudge the numbers.

Unless, I mean, be real, that the temptation to uh paint yourself in a different light than is actually real when it comes to your job performance, to lie to your boss, to uh use whispers and gossip for your own gain.

There are plenty of ways we can cross the line at our workplaces and in our roles, but we need to decide beforehand that we are going to prepare our hearts for what Jesus has for us by honoring him at our workplaces.

But what if we do cross the line?

Because we we have all crossed the line.

What if we do?

What if we do dishonor God?

It's never too late to start honoring him there.

Zacchaeus, uh, you might know the story from Luke 19.

Uh Zacchaeus is a tax collector and he meets Jesus.

And uh Luke 19, 5.

When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name.

Zacchaeus, quick, come down.

I must be a guest in your house today.

Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house with great excitement and joy.

And the people were displeased.

He's gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner.

And then there's kind of like a gap where some conversation happened, uh, whether they had dinner, whether they just had a conversation, whether they were looking out over the, you know, the beautiful landscape and had this conversation heart to heart.

But something happens between verse 7 and verse 8 with Jesus and Zacchaeus.

Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I've cheated anyone on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much.

Jesus responded, Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham, for the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.

It is never too late to make things right.

It is never too late to make things right.

And that might mean you have some soul searching between you and God, and you confess that sin to God first.

It's that repentance, rethinking things.

It might be that making things right means that you have a conversation with your spouse or with your kids about what the future looks like and what happened.

It might mean that you have a conversation with your employees and you ask for forgiveness with your boss where you ask for forgiveness.

And as scary as those conversations might seem, know that there is freedom and there is forgiveness and there is joy on the other side of an encounter with Jesus.

When you honor God, there is freedom and joy and forgiveness.

So don't be don't be afraid to do it.

Honor God with your work.

Then uh another thing that I that I kind of learned during this whole process, which was really hard for me to learn, is to listen carefully.

Listen carefully.

I I love talking.

Like, seriously.

Like my voice is the favor my favorite voice.

Like the sound of my voice is my favorite.

I love it too much.

Um and during this process, uh the glory of video editing is that I can like edit out the parts where I was saying something stupid and just keep the part where like someone was like sharing an awesome story.

Um but like I love my voice so much that I will bulldoze a conversation.

You could probably describe my listening more as like patience.

It's like I'm just waiting for you to be done talking so that I can say the thing that I thought of three minutes ago and have tuned out whatever you've been like, come on, like give me a gap in the conversation so I can jump back in.

That's that's what listening has been has been for me.

But I have some friends even in the room right now that are amazing listeners.

Uh Steven, we heard his story a couple weeks ago.

But Steven, you're an amazing listener.

Oh, there you are.

Hey Steven.

You're a great listener.

I love Garbon Lunch with Stephen because uh he just asks the right questions.

I can tell that he's engaged with what I'm actually saying.

Uh Curtis, if Curtis is in the room, I don't know, I don't know if he is, but Curtis is like a really great listener.

I shared a table with him at Men's Group, and I was almost intimidated by how much he was listening to what I was saying.

And I was and I was the one talking.

Like, did anybody else have that friend that's like, this person is gonna give a little bit too much eye contact?

They're definitely gonna bring something up I said.

Like, I have a friend named Turner Turner that's like that.

What if we uh carefully considered the words of others, like as carefully as we could possibly stand?

What would happen?

I believe that we'd connect more easily.

I also believe that we'd be able to see what God is up to a little bit more.

Uh Revelation 12, this is kind of what this series has been about.

It's been about sharing your story.

It says uh that they were able to defeat Satan by the blood of the Lamb and by the power of their testimony.

And so when we listen to what God is doing in the other people's lives, we get to see what he's up to and see the conquering of evil just even in the lives of others.

When we listen to others, we see what God is up to.

But we definitely, definitely need to listen to him.

Matthew 11, 15.

Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.

Jesus starts so many of his teachings, so many of his parables with that word.

Listen.

Listen here.

Listen.

It's a call to carefully consider what's being said.

It's a call to respond to it as uh faithfully as we can.

And at the end of the day, he is the person that if we listen to him, our lives will be transformed, our lives will be reshaped.

I was so like excited to see, okay, uh, realistically, I was actually kind of nervous.

I was nervous calling Tom and Marcy because I didn't want them to just be like money-grabbing people who just like made a Jesus statue to like make some benefit, you know what I mean?

Like, here's the Jesus statue, haha.

Um, so to hear that part of Tom's process as he makes and creates is to say, like, hey, I wait on the Lord.

I I wait for him.

And if I don't wait on him, if I force it, I kind of have to just ball it up and start over.

But if I wait on him, he he gives me something.

And so listen carefully, listen carefully to others and listen carefully to the Lord.

And then the last point that I I just was really blown away by was that everyone is welcome.

Everyone's welcome.

Um when Steve started talking about the mission of the other statues, I started to sweat a little bit.

I was like, okay, is it gonna what direction are we going in?

Because he starts talking basically about diversity.

And diversity has become like a hot button.

Um you either love it or you hate it, and people are like, it doesn't matter, or it matters entirely.

And I think we uh don't have to have such a strong stance on diversity, but we have to have a very intentional and very strong stance on unity because it's underneath Jesus and it's following Jesus that we can be united.

And so we can't elevate diversity.

We we really can't, because there is too much that that holds us in common.

The the big one, the elephant in the room, uh, Romans 3, 23.

For everyone has sinned, we all fall short of God's glorious standard.

We've all got one thing in common, and it's what we talked about earlier.

We have all crossed the line.

We've all dishonored God in one way or another.

So we can't dismiss or we can't elevate diversity because we share too much in common, but we can't also just dismiss it because let's be real, we have stories that will add something, will bring something to the table.

We have different skill sets, we have different backgrounds that few outside of us, like few outside of like our individual experience can understand unless we're willing to bring that difference to the table and help people move toward Jesus.

This is the classic one.

1 Corinthians 12, 12 says the human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body.

So it is with the body of Christ.

We don't have unity by dismissing our differences because then we're holding out something that we can bring to the table, something that could be helpful to building up the body of Christ.

And we can't just elevate it because there's so much more that unites us than our differences.

No one but Jesus could bring together a religious revolutionary like Simon the zealot and a religious traitor like uh Matthew the tax collector.

No one could unite those two people except for the fact that they are moving toward Jesus, that they're laying everything else behind, using their skill set and their personality and their culture and their context to move toward Jesus to glorify him.

Jesus welcomes everyone.

And so wherever you are, whoever you are, know that you are welcomed by Jesus, whatever you've done.

And seriously, whatever you've done.

Your age doesn't hold you back from Jesus, your gender, your wealth, your position, your family.

None of that holds you back from following Jesus.

He welcomes everyone.

And in that unity, because of that, we are actually given the same gift.

I said what unites us is our sin, and that's kind of like a cheap shot, because what unites us in Jesus is so much powerful than our sin.

So much powerful.

That verse from 1 Corinthians goes on to say, some of us are Jews, some are not, some are Gentiles, some of us are slaves and some are free, but we have all been baptized into one body by one spirit, and we all share the same spirit.

I mean, what more can you ask for?

And so, if you've not accepted that, if you want to know God personally, if you want to be part of something that's uh bigger than yourself, if you want to move towards something that's good and loving and kind, just like all those statues, they're moving toward Jesus, no matter how different they are.

If you want to be part of that, all you have to do is say yes.

Say yes to Jesus in a personal and private moment of prayer, and then respond by being baptized.

It's in that baptism that we receive his spirit.

And so we are saved, just like Zacchaeus is saved.

We've prepared the way just like John did.

And what will Jesus do with us if we honor him, if we listen to him carefully, and if we spread that to everyone we know?

And what's really cool is that we get to share in that this morning as we have three people going all in with Jesus.

Yeah.

And so I'm gonna pray.

They'll come out here, we'll hear hear from them a little bit, but thank you guys for being here.

I love y'all so much.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you for your goodness.

And like we saying earlier, thank you for the cross.

Thank you for giving everything to us, um, creating no barrier between what we've done and and you.

That your love can surpass anything that we've done.

And so, for everyone in here, I just pray that we would let go of that past and move forward with you.

That you would show us how to go, show us the conversations we do need to have.

And don't let this just be a moment of conviction that we leave behind, but it's a moment where we take action.

And so, whatever action we need to take, whether it is just sitting and listening a little bit more, whether it is having that that conversation at our workplace, or whether it is just responding to you, I pray that we would take that action today.

Lord, we love you so much, and it's in your name Jesus that we pray.

Amen.