If There is Good, Find It

Thanks for listening to the His Hands Church podcast.

If you're using the His Hands Church mobile app, please turn off the auto lock on your phone's general settings so that you can listen to the message uninterrupted.

And thank you for being part of what God is doing at His Hands.

We do believe that, don't we?

I know we do because all of us are here.

It means that we know we need him more than an hour of sleep, which is uh which is good.

This is always a good morning because it lets us know that when we when we go to two services one day, if we ever do that, um, we know who to ask to come to the early one, and that would be you guys.

So there you go.

Don't worry, we're not we're not asking that this morning.

But uh, let's pray together.

Jesus, thank you so much that you are what we need.

And uh, and God, as small as something as an extra hour of sleep is, uh, it is precious to us, but we uh we need you more.

We need you more than than anything.

You you are the bread of life, you are everything, Jesus.

And we just ask this morning that you would speak to us through your word, that you would teach us to be like you, and that you would uh reveal to us what what our purpose is in this world for your kingdom.

And we ask this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

We've got a couple quick announcements.

Uh first of all, if if you have a teenager, I like to talk about the teens a lot because I work with that group and love them a ton, and we have a fantastic group of teenagers.

I talk about the high school group a good bit, I'm gonna talk about them in a couple weeks, but uh, I want to talk about our junior high students because we have an incredible group of junior high kids.

They meet every Sunday, they're they're over there right now while we are, and if you have a junior high student on April 11th, we have an all-nighter.

That's what we call it.

It's an all-night long worship, teaching, games, craziness, and it's it's awesome.

Last time we had 110 junior high kids from 8 p.m.

to 9 a.m.

Woo! And and this, you know, the crazy part is that we actually have people volunteer to help for that.

It's awesome, it's amazing.

And and we've had you know we've had kids get saved through it.

It's it's a really cool thing.

April 11th, it's five bucks, but if you've got a junior high student, I just encourage you to bring them because it's always exciting.

And uh, and and and you might think that a good percentage of them crash by about 6 a.m.

No.

No, not at all.

Not at all.

Uh there's maybe two out of a hundred that that fall asleep, so we have to be on our game.

And then all the volunteers go home and die.

That's what happens every year.

Um but April 11th, it's gonna be fantastic.

Uh I want to say a big thank you to everyone that's given financially.

It's doing so much, it's doing so much.

It's not just doing things here at his hands, it's doing things in this community.

We'll talk about that a little bit more this morning.

And I also want to give one more shout out to the nursery team.

This morning there will be some people at the Connect Desk that'll be uh taking sign-ups for the nursery team.

You can sign up for any team, any Sunday at the Connect Desk, but uh, we're kind of giving some attention to the nursery team because it's a strong team and it's a big team and they need as many people as they can.

And so every week I'm just kind of sharing something about working with kids and how important that is.

We love kids at his hands.

All you have to do is walk through the nursery, walk through our kids' area to tell that we value it.

It wasn't an afterthought.

And I had to start working with the first through fifth graders about four years ago.

I was actually really intimidated to do it because I didn't know how to really work with that age group.

And I would always kind of put myself with the fifth graders because they were the oldest, and I felt like I could at least engage with them a little bit easier.

And we would always do prayer requests.

I remember we would split up and take prayer requests, and you would expect kids to have the most trivial prayer requests, right?

Like I want to PS4, or you know, those, and they do have those, by the way, they have plenty of those.

But one day I'm I'm taking prayer requests for uh for all these fifth grade kids, and you know, the typical things are coming out, and then this one boy raises his hand and he says, uh, my dad's in jail, and he's supposed to be in jail until I'm 18, and I really miss him.

And so, can we pray that my dad gets out of jail before that?

And man, my heart just broke.

But but what it what it showed me was how important it is to love on kids and to invest time in them.

And that sometimes it's really easy to forget that the two hours that they're here on Sunday, they may not just be the most fun hours they have each week because they have a lot of fun.

But it's the two hours where they might be getting the attention that they don't get, the love that they absolutely need.

And we have the amazing privilege of being able to provide that.

So if if you're able, if you've been helping out or coming for a while and not helping out on a team, uh, and you'd like to help out in our kids' area, it's one Sunday a month and it makes a huge impact.

So feel free to go go sign up there.

Um, let's pray.

Jesus, just uh again, I want to ask that you speak through your word.

Uh, I know we already prayed, but two prayers can't hurt.

And Lord, I just specifically ask that you would you would lead us into a closer understanding of your love for us.

And no matter what we're talking about, no matter what it is we're focusing on, that our heart is for you.

And again, I just pray this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

See, I lost an hour of sleep last night too, so I forgot I already prayed.

But again, you just gotta roll with it sometimes.

You just gotta go.

Make it look like it was intentional.

I'm good at that.

Ask my wife.

So uh good morning, and and man, is it this is gonna be a great morning.

We're kicking off a new series this morning on the story of Noah.

Ken Kingston finished up our Strange Things That Jesus Said series last week.

I thought he did okay.

And it no, Ken, isn't it a pleasure to have Ken speak with us from time to time?

I love Ken so much.

He's gonna be back with us uh very soon, and he's actually speaking a lot this year, which I'm really looking forward to.

But but we finished up that series.

It was all about the things that Jesus taught us that are so counter-cultural and counterintuitive that we just have to think about it and process it a little bit more to understand what he's actually asking us to do.

And this morning we're we're going in a completely different direction.

We're going way back to the story of Noah.

It's funny because the story of Noah is one of those stories that gets labeled as a children's story almost exclusively.

In fact, I was online trying to find some extra materials just to read and study up and maybe get a different perspective on the story of Noah.

And I had my choice of pop-up books and cartoons and comic books and toys, but when it came to actually finding something that's intended for someone above the age of four, it was tough.

It was really hard.

In fact, Bill Thrasher, you know, helped me out and gave me a few books he had, because he's just that guy that has books for everything.

But but it was hard to find them.

It was hard because it gets viewed as a children's story, but ironically, it might be the most difficult story in all of Scripture for us to sort of look at and figure out how does that fit with Jesus?

Because we see God in the story of Noah and his decision to flood the earth, his decision to destroy everything, and we know from Scripture that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and we know from Scripture that Jesus is the exact reflection of God.

If we want to know what God is like, we look at Jesus.

But it's hard sometimes when you look at Jesus and then you look at the flood, and you're like, those don't, those don't seem like they fit, but they do, because God's character is always consistent.

It's gonna be a lot of fun to go through this together and explore it.

And it's an opportune time for us to do that because on March 28th, there's actually a big movie coming out called Noah.

Has anyone heard about the movie coming out?

Yeah.

It's uh it's a big budget thing, it's got a lot of big actors attached to it.

It's had ads on the on the Super Bowl, a lot of marketing behind it.

It's a big Hollywood blockbuster film.

And it doesn't happen very often that Hollywood spends a lot of money for something like a movie about the Bible.

And if you haven't seen the trailer for the movie, we actually have it this morning, so I'm gonna bring the lights down a little bit.

I'd like to show you the trailer, and then we'll come back and jump into uh what we're gonna talk about.

What did he say?

He's going to destroy the world.

Speaks to you.

I have made up my mind.

It's the exact casting job I would have done if I was in charge of that.

But it's interesting, it's always interesting when something like this happens, and it seems about every 10 years or so, there's there's something that happens in pop culture.

Something that's not coming from the church world, but just the the world in general, that's giving attention to God and attention to the Bible, and it always makes people uneasy.

And like I said, Hollywood doing this, it's a big risk because you're going to offend people.

There's there's not even the question of will you offend people, it's just a matter of how many people will you offend?

How offended will they be, and how long will they talk about how offended they are.

Those are the only questions.

People will be offended, and I can understand that.

I mean, God's word is sacred.

I cherish God's word.

I never want to put my own spin on it.

And so when we look at a trailer like that, what can happen?

This is what happened for me at least.

You know, at first I was like, wow, cool, this is awesome.

And I'm noticing all the things.

He gets the story of Noah pretty accurate as far as I can tell from the trailer.

I mean, mankind is doing some really wicked things, God decides to send a flood, Noah builds an ark, all the animals come in, the water comes from the sky on the ground, just as scripture says.

But but then if you look really carefully you're like, whoa, whoa, there's just who's that guy?

If you know the story, I don't remember, I don't remember that guy.

I don't remember this happening.

Oh no, are they gonna take liberties with the story?

And they absolutely are.

So the question, the question comes for us, and I believe this is a very important question.

I believe it's an important question for us as individuals in our faith.

I believe it's an important question for us as a body of believers, as a church.

That what do we do, how do we react to the world when it gives attention to God?

How do we react to the culture that we're part of when it expresses its opinions about the God that we serve?

You're gonna see a myriad of reactions.

This movie hasn't even come out yet.

There's already whole religious groups that are saying, don't see it, boycott it, ban it.

Some groups are encouraging people to go see it, they're promoting it.

We're not really doing either.

We're just saying, hey, it it opens up an interesting conversation.

How do we respond to the culture that we live in when it gives attention to God?

I believe in the church world there's this fear, and I do believe it's a palpable fear, that it's the depiction of God that our culture gives, that the most prominent people in our society, whether that's celebrities or or something in a movie or something like that, that that is the is the thing that's gonna influence people's opinions about God the most.

A lot of people believe that.

So when something like this comes out and there's worries that maybe it's gonna take some liberties here and there, there's a lot of fight.

Because there's a fear that this is going to change people's opinions about God.

So, for example, back in 2006, there was a movie that came out called the Da Vinci Code.

It was based on a best-selling book, and the premise of the book was that the church had kept this secret for centuries that Jesus had had an illegitimate child with Mary Magdalene.

And it was a fictitious book and a fictitious movie, but obviously it ruffled a lot of people's feathers.

A lot of people got angry, and there were boycotts, and there was a lot of outrage, and all that kind of did was give that movie free press.

And there was this fear, a palpable fear in the in the church world.

I remember feeling that and seeing that in a lot of different people's reactions, and then the movie came out and it wasn't even good.

And by the way, if that's your favorite movie, I'm sorry, but RottenTomatoes.com gives it a 25%.

So that's a researched opinion.

But it wasn't it wasn't a big deal.

It came and it went, and until I said that that movie's name just now, you probably forgot it existed.

So here's the thing: a movie, something like that, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter.

It might generate a little bit of buzz today, but it'll be forgotten about tomorrow.

But it does bring up that question: how do we engage the culture that we live in?

See, Jesus tells us something very specifically.

He tells us that it's not the opinions of the most prominent people in this world that shape how the world sees Jesus.

It's not our culture and it's understanding of God that influences how everyone views Jesus.

It's us.

It's how we react.

In fact, in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says, You are the light of the world, like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket.

Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house in the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.

In other words, Jesus says the world is watching us more than it's watching movies.

So, what influences the way that this world we live in sees Jesus the most?

It's how we act, and it's how we react.

So, how do we do it?

Well, back in the summer, uh Tommy Newberry was here and he did this really great series on joy.

There's a book called 40 Days to a Joy-Filled Life.

We still have copies of it in the source.

It's a great book if you've never checked it out.

And it was all based on Philippians 4:8, which says, and now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing: fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable.

Philippians 4:8

Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

And I like to paraphrase things sometimes, and so obviously this is my paraphrase, but I think you could sum this entire verse up by just saying this.

Um if there is good, find it.

If there is good, find it.

One of the things that I learned as a father, thanks to my amazing four-year-old boy, is that children have this uncanny and innate ability that if there is something in a room that is capable of creating a mess, they are drawn to that.

And it's not even intentional.

It's not, it does not matter if I have a cup and I put it on a table or I put it on the floor or wherever I put it, and my son is playing in that room, there's a 95% chance it will get knocked over.

And I know those of you with kids know that.

We moved into a new house a month ago.

And the very first thing we did, the very first thing we did as a family in this house was have a little picnic in our family room.

We hadn't unpacked our plates or anything like that.

So we got Chick-fil-A on the way to move into our house.

The boxes were already in there, but nothing had been unpacked.

So we go in and we're having this picnic.

Megan's got our newborn girl.

I'm getting all the food out for her, myself, our son, and I'm kind of setting things out on the floor.

And I pull out something that's very dear to us at Chick-fil-A, which is Polynesian sauce.

And it's awesome.

So I pull out the Polynesian sauce and I just set it behind me for a second, and I'm not I'm not exaggerating.

This is a literal, a literal thing.

Ten seconds.

Ten seconds later, I hear this loud pop.

And I knew exactly what it was.

It's a very distinct sound.

Is that my son, I had felt him breeze by me just a moment before.

And his foot had stepped on this packet of Polynesian sauce, and the pressure that that created, because it was an open, caused it to explode.

It was this loud pop.

Now, this is the thing.

We haven't lived in this house for 10 minutes.

Ten minutes.

And already we have beautiful deep crimson red Polynesian sauce all over our carpet.

I told Megan, and her response is, why did you put Polynesian sauce on the carpet?

I'm like, I don't know, that's not the point.

Okay?

The point is that it's it's that small.

And yet somehow in this giant room, his foot is there.

How is that possible?

And it's without fail.

Children are just drawn to any, it's like a tractor beam that pulls them in, anything that can create a mess.

And and it's as funny as that is, I really wish that I was drawn, just naturally drawn to finding the good in things.

I wish that just the way I was wired, whatever happened, I was just naturally pulled toward the best possible outcome.

Toward finding the good in it.

But I'm not.

I'm just not.

If I'm gonna find the good in something, 90% of the time, it's a conscious choice.

It's gonna take a lot of effort.

But if we're gonna be followers of Jesus, if there's good, we have to find it.

Because that is who Jesus is.

You see that with the way that Jesus interacts with people.

If there was good in someone, Jesus found it.

And often it seems he had to look kind of hard.

But he did countless times.

He he comes across people that are obvious sinners.

They're not even good at hiding it.

Some of us are really good at hiding it.

These people aren't.

They've stopped trying.

And all these things that Jesus could hone in on, all of these obvious flaws and sins, these scandalous things, and he just seems to look past it and draw out the one thing in these people that's worthy of praise.

So a great example of that is another story that traditionally gets looked at as a kid story.

It's the story of Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus is a tax collector.

And if you know much about the culture of that time, there were no people more despised than tax collectors.

Yeah, it's not that different.

Tax collectors, what they were were people that had betrayed their own people by working for the Roman government.

And they collected the taxes for that government, but then they took a little extra for themselves.

And if you resisted that, they just have you thrown in jail.

So they were the definition of extortionists.

They didn't have a lot of fans in their communities, but they made a lot of money.

And sometimes we can look at that and sort of glaze over it, but you got to think about the fact that these are people that are working to survive, they're working to feed their children.

And this is at a time when in the Jewish culture, in the first century, the average family could afford to eat meat one time a week.

One meal a day was normal, and they're taking extra from these people.

That means these people have to go home and look at their children hungry.

That's the level of sin that this man takes part in every single day.

And so he hears Jesus is coming to town.

And he goes.

And he climbs a tree, and Jesus sees him and he brings him down, and Jesus has the audacity not to not to expose him in front of all these people, not to set him straight, but to invite himself over Zacchaeus' house to be an honored guest.

And people did not like that.

And this isn't an isolated incident with Jesus.

In fact, the tax collector thing came up a lot.

One of the things that religion loves to do, Jesus never did this by the way, but religion loves to rank sins.

And there's always different groups of people that find themselves in the top spot in certain times.

And in this particular time, it was tax collectors.

And so we see this example of it in Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

It says, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guest, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners.

There were many people of this kind among Jesus' followers.

But when the teachers of religious law, who were Pharisees, saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, Why does he eat with such scum?

You look at this, it's not tax collectors and it's not sinners, it's tax collectors and other sinners.

I mean, they had their own category.

That's how that's how they were viewed in the community.

And Jesus invites himself over to be the honored guest of this man.

I mean, what's going on here?

Obviously, he doesn't condone his behavior.

Obviously, he recognized the extent that this man is hurting other people, but it's like Jesus looked at him and saw the one thing, the one.

Thing worthy of praise, which just so happened to be that this man was so interested in Jesus he was willing to climb a tree.

Jesus saw that hunger that he had for something.

Jesus saw that longing that he had, and Jesus drew that out of him.

He focused on that thing and it changed.

It changed Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus ends up giving his life to God and he pays back every single thing that he had taken from everyone with interest.

But it's because Jesus saw the good, and that's what he focused on.

If there's good, find it.

Several years ago I read a book called Wide Awake by a man named Erwin McManus, and it's uh it's a really good book.

Uh don't remember most of what it said, but I do remember this one thing.

It wasn't the main point of the book, it wasn't even the main point of one of the chapters, but there was this quote that he had in it, and it blew me away.

And the quote was, I've come to a place where I see everyone as pre-great.

I remember thinking about that, going, man.

Is that how I see people?

Is that how I see my spouse?

Is that how I see my family?

My friends, my boss, my coworkers?

Do I see people as pre-great, or do I see all the flaws?

Do I focus first on all the things that annoy me?

I mean, Megan and I never annoy each other, but in normal marriages, people do.

And so, do you focus on those things?

Or do you focus on the fact that these are children of God, that these people have qualities that God put into them, that they're pre-great.

Some people you might see as pre-pre-great.

But it doesn't matter how many pre's you put on in front of it, if you can just see that, that they're on their way to being the great individuals that God created them to be, it changes your perspective.

That is how Jesus saw people.

That's the only way to explain how he recruited people as his followers.

Either he was crazy or he saw them as pre-great.

If there's good, find it.

But see, this doesn't just apply to people, it applies to our culture as a whole, to the world that we live in.

I don't know about you guys, but it's much easier for me as a follower of Jesus to see the good in individual people than it is for me to see the good in society as a whole sometimes.

Because the world we live in loves to focus on everything going wrong.

You don't have to watch the news for very long to find out the worst thing that happened in America today.

A lot of people have a belief that I can't believe in God because of all the bad things that happen.

That's one of the things in 40 Days to a Joy-Filled Life that I love, this little quote that he had in there that says, How could you not believe in God with all the good things that happen?

But we're very fixated sometimes on the negative in religion, religion is like the biggest culprit, right?

Religion has this tendency to look at everything going wrong in the world, and the viewpoint is that the world is just going down the tubes.

Everything is falling apart.

It's just getting worse and worse.

And 50 years ago, it was so much better.

And 50 years before that, it was so much better.

And 50 years before that, it was the Civil War.

So we'll ignore that.

And 50 years before that, it was this.

And the truth is, it wasn't better 50 years ago.

Yeah, certain things might have been.

Leave it to Beaver was the number one show on TV or something, great.

But it wasn't, it wasn't like everything was wonderful.

We put this gloss through religion on past times and look at the world we live in now and say, oh, it's it's terrible, it's falling apart.

But is that the way?

Is that the way that Jesus intends for us to look at the culture we live in?

The Apostle Paul found his way to Athens, Greece in Acts chapter 17.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

And if you think that America has some moral issues, you should go back to first century Athens because man, that place was messed up.

So, for example, uh not only in first century Greece was it socially acceptable for a man to have a mistress and to go to brothels, it was socially encouraged.

And you had a lot of people, very prominent people, ironically, who happen to be men, that said that men cannot be expected to just be with their wives.

And so the whole society with marriage and how relationships work was actually built on a system of how to have a mistress the right way.

That was the culture that Paul finds himself in.

The divorce rate in that culture dwarfs America's divorce rate today.

So Paul shows up and he is deeply troubled by what he sees.

He's in Athens, Greece, and he looks at all these things going on.

The thing that troubles him the most, though, is the idol worship, because the Greeks had a God for everything.

And they worship all these different gods at all these different temples.

And here Paul is, knowing the one true God, knowing Jesus, and he looks around and he sees all these things, and it just bothers him.

In fact, they had so many gods that they even had a temple for an unknown God.

Like their mentality was just in case we missed one, we went ahead and built this.

So if that God happens to be real and shows up, we're like, hey, we're sorry we forgot your name, but we have a temple for you.

So we'll just change the name and it's yours.

You know, that was their mentality.

And Paul shows up and he's just absolutely mortified by this.

And a little bit later he has an opportunity to speak to the High Council of Athens, the most influential people in Athens, Greece.

And this is what he says.

It's amazing.

Acts 17, it says, So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows Men of Athens, I noticed that you are very religious in every way.

For as I was walking along, I saw your many shrines, and one of your altars had this inscription on it, to an unknown God.

This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I'm telling you about.

He's the God who made the world and everything in it.

Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn't live in man-made temples.

And human hands can't serve his needs, for he has no needs.

He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.

From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth.

He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.

His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him, though he is not far from any of us.

For in him we live and move and exist.

As some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring.

And since this is true, we we shouldn't think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.

God overlooked people's ignorance about this, about these things in earlier times.

But now he commands everyone, everywhere, to repent of their sins and turn to him.

For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man who he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.

This is a good message.

I give messages.

This is a good one.

Okay?

I would love to have this as my own.

I don't, it's a good message.

Here's what's interesting about this, though.

None of those things that deeply troubled Paul, he doesn't mention those.

He doesn't condemn them, he doesn't focus on those.

In fact, he takes one of the things that troubled him the most, all these idols that they worshiped, and he actually incorporates that at the beginning and says, Hey, good news.

That unknown God you've been worshiping, I know his name.

It's Jesus.

And then he goes on, and in this entire message that he gives to the most important people in Athens, the most influential people, several of whom, by the way, got saved that day and started following Jesus.

He quotes no scripture, which is interesting.

None.

If I ever had a message and I finished it, I'm like, ah, I don't have any Bible verses.

I would just go back in and put one in just to do it.

It's never happened to me because I would be lost without it, but I'm saying you just can't, you don't do that.

You're not supposed to do that.

I don't know if there's a rule book or whatever, but I'm sure if there is, that's in there.

You have to have at least one.

But he quotes no scripture.

And here's what he does that's even crazier.

Even though he quotes no scripture, several times he quotes philosophers in Greece.

There was a man named Seneca.

Seneca was a contemporary, he was a very well-known Greek philosopher.

He was not a moral man.

In fact, his his hypocrisy and his greed and his political aspirations ended up having the emperor ordering his execution in his life.

So everyone knew about Seneca, but his philosophy was very well respected.

And in Athens, philosophers were like rock stars.

Athens, Greece, was the center of Greek philosophy.

And Paul knew that.

And so, for example, when Paul says in verse 24, God does not live in temples built by human hands, that might seem like a quote from the Old Testament, but it's not.

It's a direct quote from Seneca, something he had said.

And Paul does that at least three or four other times.

And then Paul says, Hey, as your own poets have said.

And he quotes a poet named Eretus.

He was a popular poet of that day.

That would be like giving a message to a huge group of people.

And instead of using Bible verses, quoting a few celebrities and saying, Hey, here's some lyrics from a pop song that I think really speak to who God is.

That just wouldn't be accepted by religion.

And I'm not saying that that's the approach we should go.

What I'm saying is Paul displays something really amazing here.

He has all of these things he can look at, all of these things in their culture he could condemn.

But it's like he's looking, going, What can I find that's good?

Is there anything that they believe in?

Is there anything that they know that I can find just a shred of good in and use that to show them who Jesus is?

Because I know if I focus on all the things that are wrong, they're just going to ignore me.

But if I can find anything good and I can start there, I can just start there, maybe, maybe they'll see Jesus.

He focused on what was good.

If there was good, he found it and it was effective.

There are so many good things, so many good things in our culture that religion wants to just look past and focus on what's what's wrong.

But we have an obligation as Jesus' followers to be the best, honestly, to be the people that are in the best moods in the world.

I really believe that.

I mean, religion is easily offended, right?

Easily angered.

But if we really believe the core of Jesus' message, that we're forgiven of everything, and I've said this before, I really believe this.

We should be the hardest people on earth to offend.

That conception that if you're a Christian, it's easy to offend you, it shouldn't exist.

I used to work in a restaurant, worked at Chili's for several years, uh, and and this is true, the Sunday afternoon crowd was by far the worst.

By far.

No one wanted that shift.

It was busy, people were impatient, they complained, they didn't tip well.

I had several servers that I worked with that would get tracks instead of tips.

Oh yeah.

Some that even looked like money, which is a great idea.

And man, shouldn't it be the opposite?

Shouldn't it be that if you're a server in a restaurant, you're fighting for the Sunday afternoon shift, they just be like, man, those people, you can spill water on them.

They don't care.

They leave incredibly generous tips.

They're in such an amazing mood.

It's because they know they know that they're God's children.

They know that they're forgiven.

You can't offend them.

If there's good, we have to find it.

That's that's who we're called to be.

And it's only through the Holy Spirit that we can be that.

It's only through the Holy Spirit we can see those things in our culture.

I'll give you an example.

Uh, in February, this this last month, a statistic came out that the abortion rate in America is the lowest it's been in 40 years.

Okay?

That's cool.

But but here's here's some interesting things with that, because it's hard for us sometimes to visualize that.

What does that mean?

Uh 20 years ago, 20 years ago, there were 2,200 abortion clinics in America.

Today there are less than 600.

Okay?

20 years ago, there were only about 700 crisis pregnancy ministries in America.

Today, there's 2,200.

And so this like complete and total switch has happened.

One of those ministries, by the way, is the Hope Center that we support here at His Hands.

They're one of the ministries that we give a a good portion.

Thanks to you guys and your generosity, we were able to give them$33,000 last year, which is awesome.

And so, which is good.

So it's it's definitely worth worth our investment.

And so I was, I was emailing one of their directors back and forth this week, and she shared this really cool statistic with me that they they they gave four 549 positive pregnancy tests this last year to girls in the local area, to girls that were in a crisis pregnancy situation, girls that thought they were pregnant, went and got tested, and yes, you're pregnant.

She said specifically there were 123 girls that came and their initial reaction was to have an abortion.

And they changed their mind because of that ministry.

That's 123 children born.

I think it's well worth$33,000.

Okay.

And it said that it said that of the 549 girls that got tested, 83% decided to carry to full term.

And it's interesting because their approach is exactly what we're talking about.

If there's good, find it.

Their approach isn't to sit the girls down and tell them about all the horrors of abortion.

Their approach is very simple.

They provide a free ultrasound.

And they just say, hey, look at your baby.

Just see your baby.

See the heartbeat.

If it's far enough along, see its body, see its face.

Just look at your baby.

And that is good, and it works.

If there is good, we find it.

There is good in this world that we live in.

Jesus goes on to say that we're the salt of the earth.

The purpose of salt is to bring out the good flavors in food, not to expose everything that's wrong with it.

And that's our calling, is to be that salt.

If there's good, find it.

So I know something like a movie about a story in the Bible is a small and insignificant thing.

And we're not the kind of church that gets up in arms about things.

But I think it's an amazing opportunity.

It's an amazing opportunity for us to evaluate what our calling in this culture is.

How do we respond?

What happens?

I don't know, this movie could be the greatest thing in the world.

It could be inspired, people could get saved, who knows?

It might not be.

Has it come out yet?

I don't know.

I'm excited to see it because I haven't seen a movie with real people in it for like two years.

Everything I see has talking cars, and I'm just, I'm so excited.

Human beings.

But but but what if what if it's just blasphemous?

What if it just completely gets it wrong and it's its conclusion about God is so far off?

What do we do?

Do we do we scream out?

Do we yell?

And the answer is no, because you know what the world's gonna hear when we do that?

Blah, blah, blah.

That's all they hear.

It's just noise.

But if we see the good, if we see, hey, wow, for a short period of time, there's gonna be people that would normally not be interested in talking about God.

But they went and saw that movie last night.

Let's talk.

Let's talk about it.

Let's see where that conversation goes.

I wonder if the Holy Spirit has the power to direct that to Jesus.

I think he might.

Absolutely.

To see the opportunity that Hollywood has spent millions and millions and millions of dollars to give us a conversation starter about Jesus.

I'll be thankful for that.

Maybe God likes the attention.

So one little thing, one little thing before we wrap up that uh that I just love to add.

And this is kind of a it's kind of an addendum, I guess.

That's a fancy word I don't use often, but it's an addendum to this whole if there's good, find it thing.

And it's actually a resistance to a temptation.

And it's a very real temptation, it's the temptation of religion, and it's the temptation to nitpick.

Okay, if we're gonna have an if there's good, find it mentality, we have to have a very strict policy as believers, and that policy is no nitpicking.

No nitpicking.

Don't do it.

There's a temptation to nitpick, to look and go, oh, they got that part wrong and that part wrong.

And here's the truth: story of Noah is a great example.

If you want to make a movie about Noah that is 100% accurate with the Bible story, you need to find an actor that it's got to be Jim Carrey or someone, someone that can just not speak but show everything with their face because Noah doesn't even talk until after the flood in that story.

It would just be Noah nodding his head, building a boat.

Okay, get in the boat.

Look really, look really scared.

Noah, the water's coming, it's run, but you can't say a word.

Okay.

But sometimes religion just wants to nitpick.

One of the things we say here at his hands is that we're not a religious church.

And that can be confusing sometimes.

It doesn't mean that we don't love God and want to worship him and honor him.

It means that we're not nitpickers.

I never want to be viewed as a nitpicker.

Because nitpicking, that spirit of religion that causes us to do that, it just robs us of the joy of any situation, of the ability to see good.

Several years ago, I was I was engaged to Megan.

We hadn't gotten married yet, and I took her to Taco Bell because I know how to treat my lady.

And the reason that I remember this specific trip to Taco Bell, because you can probably tell by looking at me, I've had several, um, is the guy working the counter paid a lot of attention to Megan.

Like a lot.

And I thought it was pretty obvious that we were a couple by the way my arms were wrapped around her, you know, and I was staring at the guy.

This is my girl.

But he was giving her a lot of attention.

And I don't know if he just recognized that she's way out of my league and he thought he had a chance, or if he didn't care, because he was just focused on Megan, and there was just obvious flirtation going on.

So we finished our meal, and Megan wanted dessert, and yes, they have dessert at Taco Bell.

And so she ordered, she went up and ordered a caramel apple empanada.

Okay?

And about two minutes later, this guy comes to our table with a tray, and he sets the tray right in front of Megan, ignores me, looks right at her, and it's interesting because there wasn't one empanada on the tray.

There were two.

And you might think he was being nice to me and giving me an empanada, but no, no.

He looks at Megan, and in this very flirtatious, slightly creepy voice, he just looks at her and goes, Looks like somebody got an extra empanada.

And I'll be honest, I was tempted to nitpick.

I was tempted to go, I am right here.

I am sitting here holding her hand.

But I'm not gonna nitpick, you know why?

Because it would have it would have caused me to miss the good.

I got a free empanada.

Okay.

And I'll tell you this, I'm 30 years old.

I have never gotten free food on account of my good looks, and I don't expect to anytime soon.

And so if I'm not a nitpicker, if I get free food on account of Megan's, I'll take it.

I don't have any shame.

Fine, bring it on.

I'm not gonna nitpick that stuff.

And I know that's a joke, but man, religion loves to nitpick, loves to point out all the little things that get under its skin.

And Jesus is the opposite of religion.

Religion is what stood in opposition to Jesus.

Jesus one time healed a man who had a hand that was deformed.

And this was likely a man that needed a work, so healing that hand gave him back his livelihood.

But the Pharisees and the religious people, they didn't like that because Jesus did it on a Saturday and that was their Sabbath.

So they got upset because Jesus healed a man and it was Saturday.

There were times when when Jesus would teach.

They had a front row seat to hear God teach them about God.

Guys, if Jesus was five miles away from now teaching, I would just tell you to leave.

Just go.

Don't be here, go.

He's God.

He knows more about God than anyone does, right?

They are they had a front row seat to hear God talk about God.

And they missed it because in their minds, all they're doing the whole time is going, how can I trip him up?

What question can we ask that's gonna get them in trouble?

And the whole time, here's God telling you who he is, and it's just going right over their heads, and that was religion, and it caused them to miss it.

Religion just misses the point of everything.

Here's where this is really cool, I think.

It's not just a discussion about how we react to our culture when there's movies and stuff like that.

We don't nitpick.

If there's good, we find it.

It's also a conversation about us because I'm telling you, I'm thankful for the fact that Jesus doesn't nitpick with me.

And I often challenge his opinion because I don't have to look hard to find a lot of issues.

And if he nitpicks me like I nitpick me, I'm in a lot of trouble.

And I know God wants to change us, and I'm not saying that he just looks past all the stuff that needs work and just ignores it.

That's not what a good parent does.

But he works on us in his time and in his way, and it's always, always through the context of passionate love.

And he doesn't nitpick.

And if you're here this morning and you feel like God just must look at you and just go, oh my God.

He doesn't.

He loves you, he adores you.

There is good, he will find it.

That's how he views us.

If you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus, you need to.

Because he will pull out everything about you, everything about you that is good.

And he'll expand it.

And he'll work on that other stuff, but it won't feel like nitpicking, it won't feel like someone just going over all the stuff that you've got going wrong.

It'll feel like love, it'll feel like help.

Because he loves you.

I'd encourage you if you make that decision this morning, to turn to Jesus, to talk to someone about it.

We don't we don't make you raise your hand or anything like that.

I don't like doing that because everyone always says close your eyes, but no one closes their eyes.

So we don't just we just don't pretend.

Just go talk to someone in the prayer room after church.

Just say, hey, I want Jesus.

And they will they will walk you through that, they will pray with you, and they'll get you started with support and with love.

I think we have an opportunity, and I I love that we're already good at this as a church.

I do think this is part of our culture, but it's good to be reminded of it.

Next week we're gonna start digging into the actual story of Noah.

It's gonna be really interesting.

I can't wait.

But I think it's important to set that up and to explain our calling and who we're supposed to be in this community and this world.

And I think it would just be amazing, personally, if we were known as the least nitpicky group of Christians in the world.

I would I would view that as a badge of honor.

I believe that's what Jesus calls us to.

If there is good, find it.

And that's really what the story of Noah is about.

Because God looks at the world and there's not a lot of good.

And it's so bad, actually, that pulling the plug is a viable option.

I don't think we can even really grasp, we'll talk about this a little bit next week, but the full extent of how wicked the people of that time were.

But if there was good, if there was one man, one man that God saw some hope in and said, Hey, you know what?

I'm gonna rescue him.

And by rescuing him, by the way, he was rescuing the entire human race.

If there was good, God found it.

That is the story of Noah.

It's gonna be a lot of fun going through that next week.

Let's pray together.

Jesus, thank you so much for digging deep enough to find the good.

Lord Jesus, we love you so much.

You are you are good.

You are always good.

I just pray this morning that you would remind us of how important and how crucial our reaction to the world that we live in is, and how many people are watching, and how many people do see who you are through us.

Lord Jesus, I just pray in your name that you would bless us with incredible weeks, fill us with love, and let us pour that love out to our families, to our friends, to everyone we come in contact with.

You are so good.

We love you, Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.