Formed Pt. 5 // Formed for His Mission // Luke Humbrecht

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.

Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.

Visit us online at the lookout.church.

Hey, if if you have your Bibles with you, go ahead and open up to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

1 Corinthians chapter 5.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

And uh if if you're just joining us today, we have been in this teaching series for the last several weeks called Formed.

How many of you guys have been around for some of the formed uh sermons?

And so you can always go online and listen to the rest of them.

But this is actually the last in that series, and they all kind of build on top of each other.

But I'm gonna recap a little bit before we jump into the scripture for this morning.

Um the big idea is this you are always being formed by something.

The question is not if, but by what and into whom.

And here's the reality: when you walk out of the room here today, we're not walking out into a neutral world that just allows you to do whatever you're going to do.

There are forces at play in our world that are shaping us into the kinds of people that we are.

Do you guys feel that?

And we feel that all around.

We feel it when the things we watch and the things that we listen to and kind of the cultural norms.

And so, so, so neutrality in this day and age is not an option.

We are always becoming a certain kind of person.

The question is, who are you becoming?

And do you know how that's happening in your life?

Right?

So, discipleship to Jesus is always about participating in his life, it's about participating and renewing our thinking.

Paul in Romans chapter 12 says, do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be uh but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And so there's part of our responsibility.

God does the transforming work.

We renew our minds and we live into a way of life that allows the love of God to remain the anchor of everything we do and everything we say.

We're always being formed, right?

Every generation of Christians globally has wrestled with the same question.

How do we live faithfully and grow in Christ-likeness within the temptations and the forces and the cultural pressures of our day?

Are you guys with me?

And so the way that we talk about this here at The Lookout, the way we talk about it in this season, is when we talk about our vision here, we our vision is not a plan, our vision isn't a project, our vision is a person, and that person is Jesus.

Here's how we say it our vision is Jesus.

Abiding in his presence, you can say it with me if you want, abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.

And so we're orienting our entire life around the life of Jesus.

We don't just honor him in the past, we receive him in the present, and ultimately he is our reward.

He is where we're headed.

You guys with me?

Jesus is where we're headed.

We're not headed somewhere else, we're headed towards him.

So he is the prize, he is the reward that we have on the horizon, right?

And so so over the last couple weeks, we've talked about a life of abiding in his presence and what are the practices that as a community we're holding to be attentive to God every day of our lives.

Last week we talked about growing in his family.

So we we know that here, this, this, this body of believers, this little community here, it's not just a crowd.

We're not just loosely connected as if you know we're we're Broncos fans will show up to cheer and then you know, and then and then hate on them the next day if they don't do what we you know what they were supposed to do.

We're a covenant community, right?

And so in the scripture, we call it we're a family.

We're no longer strangers and aliens, but we're members of the household of God, is what the word of God says.

So that means that we love each other, we we know each other, we seek to be in relationship with each other.

But the same is true.

Uh all Christ's likeness and discipleship isn't only for the sake of self-improvement, and it's not even just for the sake of community improvement, it's for the sake of God's mission in the world.

And anything he does in you, he wants to ultimately do through you.

To love the world the way that he has loved you.

Are you guys with me?

So today we're gonna talk a little bit about the mission of God and how we are living into the mission of God.

Now, let's quiet our hearts, let's read this passage together.

And just before we do, I just want to pray, God, I thank you today that we are recipients of such great love.

And as we open the scriptures today, God, as we talk about you, as we as we talk about how to live this out, God, I thank you that you have not left us alone to guess at that, but you've given us your very spirit.

So I just thank you for the resting of the Holy Spirit over every heart today.

We thank you, Holy Spirit, that you know exactly where to find us.

That you know how to get to us.

That's your specialty.

And so we receive you and your word in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So 1 Corinthians chapter 5, chapter 5.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

The screen might say chapter 15.

That was my mistake.

This is chapter 5, starting in verse 14, then we're gonna skip down.

Isaiah 5 · chapter mention

So this is Paul writing in one of his letters to the Corinthians.

He says, This, for the love of Christ controls us.

Because we have concluded this that one has died for all, therefore all have died.

And he died for all, that those who might live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

We'll go down to verse 18.

It says, and all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

That is, in Christ, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses, our trespasses, right?

Not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Let's say this together.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

We are reconciled to God.

Can I get an amen in the room?

This is good news for us.

This is why we're here.

Because God has done a great work in himself and that he entrusts us with a similar work, and it's not a small work.

When we come into Christ, we not only get his presence and his family, but he invites us into his mission.

It's not as if Jesus did something and then we just go on our lives while he continues to do something.

No, Jesus invites us to be a part of what he's doing on this planet and in time.

This is part of what it means to live on mission with God.

My question is, do you do you have what it takes to live on his mission?

Do you have what it takes to live on his mission?

Now, I came across this story I heard once, I can't verify it, but it's a really good story.

And uh it's a story there was an armed forces recruitment event at a college auditorium sometime in the 60s.

Now, anybody has anybody served in the armed forces in this room?

Raise your hand.

Come on, let's give it up for these guys here.

Thank you.

Thank you for your service.

Now, and this this armed forces recruitment in the 60s, there's thousands of students in this auditorium.

Just imagine that.

And four recruiters, one from each branch of the military, each gave a few minutes to make their call, their case of why the students should join their branch of the military.

So the the army came up first.

A man steps up and he starts talking about the merits of the GI Bill, and he says something to the effect of listen, your college is gonna be free, Uncle Sam's gonna pay for it, that's why you should sign up for the Army.

Then the next person came up, a woman from the Navy.

And she said, uh, she said to this room full of students, she said, You're gonna get job skills and career advancement opportunities.

That's why you want to sign up for the Navy.

And then she added, she takes a shot at a branch who hadn't yet spoken yet.

She said, The guy from the Air Force is probably gonna tell you you're gonna get to fly planes in the Air Force, but actually, you're gonna get to fly even more in the Navy, right?

So she's trying to one up the other.

Then the Air Force comes up, and of course, he has to find his thing.

So he says, you know, if you if you come join the Air Force, you're gonna learn to fly jets, work on engines, and you're gonna retire early, right?

You're gonna make tons of money with the skills that you learn.

So they're all bringing their features and benefits of why the students should join their branch of the military.

Really three good pitches, but every one of them asks the question the same question, what will this do for me?

Okay?

But then the fourth person came up, and he was from the Marines.

And uh and this guy apparently was scary looking.

Okay, he was scarred up, he was kind of ugly.

And he grabs the lectern, kind of like this, and he comes up and he leans forward and he says nothing for nearly a minute.

And he just scans the room and he looks at everybody in the eyes.

And he said something like this He said, ladies and gentlemen, I was asked today to come recruit potential Marines.

But from the looks of this audience, I think it is a waste of my time and yours.

I know that you expected me to tell you that if you join the Marines, you're gonna love it too.

You expected me to tell you about career advancement opportunities and early retirement, lots of job skills that you can put into practice in the private sector, but I'm not gonna tell you any of that because it's probably not going to be true if you join the Marines.

He said, if you join the Marines, you're going to hate it.

If you join the Marines, you'll curse the day you were born, and you'll be mad at God for making your mom, and you'll be mad at your mom for giving birth to you.

You'll go to bed hungry and cold and thirsty.

You'll be shot at.

Some of you will be hit by live ammunition, some of you will be killed in the line of duty because when you join the Marine Corps, you're the first ones in and you're the last ones out.

But I'm wasting your time.

And I'm wasting mine because I've looked over this crowd and I've made eye contact with every single one of you.

And from the looks of you, I don't see a single person who has what it takes to be in the United States of the Marine Corps.

Forgive me for wasting your time.

Good day.

And so then he closes his book and walks off the stage.

And there's a long silence.

Everyone's like, you're gonna hear pins dropping, right?

Then as the story goes, though, this whole assembly is over, and you have the tables around the room with the different branches of the military, and they all had a few table, you know, every table had a few people at the table, but the line for the marines stretched all the way out the room and outside of the building.

Why would that be?

Why would the line for the Marines be the longest one after a pitch like that?

Because here's here's here's what I think the story gets at, and this is true for you, this is true for me, that the core of the human heart is not craving for the easy button in life, but we, you and I, every human heart wants a mission that we can live for and that we can die for, and we want to live into a story that demands our very lives.

This is what you were made for, and this is what I am made for.

All of us, we're not actually built for a life of convenience, we're not built for a life of consumerism and self-preference.

We were made to give ourselves to something bigger than us that can carry us, that can hold us, even if it costs us at the end of the day.

Come on.

And so this is essentially the message that Jesus calls in different words.

When Jesus walked this earth, when he walked with his disciples, he didn't say it in this kind of way, but he said it in other kinds of ways.

He said, He said, if any man will follow me, he must pick up his cross and come and die.

That was his sales pitch.

Come and die with me, and you'll enter into a new kind of life, right?

And somehow the line went out the door, even with Jesus, because Jesus knew, like, listen, if you live for what this world has to offer, if you live for a life of just comfortability, of just making everything about ease, and when you organize your life around yourself, it will not lead to the life that you want.

But if you enter into my life and enter into my death, that leads to resurrection life, I have a new kind of story prepared for you.

And this is what Paul is picking up on, even in the even when he's writing to the Corinthians, he says, listen, he said, it's the love of Christ that controls us.

And Jesus died and he raised, and so we no longer live for ourselves.

Now we live for the one who gave his very life to us.

But but for us, if that's true, we have to ask the question, how do we live a life that draws us out of the forces, that draws us into self-preference and inward focus, into a life that's actually about what God is doing in the world, which is transforming the world with his gospel, right?

So let me ask another question.

If you had to answer the question, what is the Bible about, what would you say?

So obviously we read a lot of scripture, we're a Bible church here, we love the scriptures, but if I were to ask you, or if somebody were to ask you, what is this book actually about, what would you say?

All right?

Now, when I was growing up in youth group, somebody came up with this really fancy acronym called Bible uh B-I-B-L-E, which stands for basic instructions before leaving earth, apparently.

That's apparently that's what that means, or unless they try to tell me that's what I mean.

Basic instructions before leaving earth.

And I always remember, I'm like, man, okay, if that's true, these aren't these aren't really clear instructions, right?

There's some parts that are clear, but if this is supposed to be an instruction manual, I'm looking for like a step one, step two, step three.

I'm not looking, I'm not seeing a lot of that.

Um, and so if it's if all it is is an instruction manual, it's like, oh man, there's something I'm not getting about this instruction manual, okay?

So in other people, when you when they look at look at the Bible, they read the Bible, they see it as a collection of stories with a moral point, kind of like a Christian Aesop's fables, you know?

So you can read a story about David and Goliath, and it's just a self-canting story, and I'm always David, and Goliath is always my boss, or you know, somebody else, or somebody I don't like, Goliath is whatever, circumstance.

And it's always just like you superimpose, we superimpose ourselves into the story as if it's just a story that has a metaphor that we live into.

But how many of you guys know the story?

The scriptures aren't just an instruction manual, and it's not just a bunch of disconnected disconnected moral fables, it's an overarching narrative that has a point to it, that has that that traces the work of God from start to finish.

And so if you had to look at what would be a thread that would pull us from Genesis all the way to Revelation, the creation, the fall, the law, the prophets, the coming of the Messiah, the expansion of the church, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and then eventually the restoration, a renewal of all things.

Here's what Philip Yancey said, uh, author Philip Yancey said, if you had to summarize it all into one phrase, he's he settled on this God gets his family back.

God gets his family back.

If you want to know what the Bible is, it's a story about how God gets his family back.

From the first book to the last book, tells us of the tortuous lengths to which God will go to reclaim wayward children.

And this is even many of Jesus' stories center on the theme of lostness, right?

So beautifully captured in the story, the prodigal son.

This brother of yours was dead and is alive again.

He was lost, and now he's found.

And then can you just appreciate the fact that when you get to the very end, the final scene of this story, it ends with a huge family reunion around a table with every tribe and tongue gathered back around the throne of God to celebrate him and to rejoice in all he has done forever and ever.

God gets his family back.

Come on.

And it's important to know that when we think about what is the mission of God, it's it's somewhere in the vein of God is looking to get his family back.

This is what we see in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve.

They were living in the presence of God, and then we know that they were deceived.

And they rebelled against God.

They they they disobeyed, they ate of a fruit they were told not to eat of because they were deceived.

And then shortly after this moment where sin is introduced into the picture and it fractured their relationship with God, their relationship with each other, they're blaming each other now.

Things are starting to fracture, fracture apart.

But the first question, we we hear the first question that God ever asks in the scriptures.

It's one of the most haunting questions that drives the rest of the Bible.

And it's this question in Genesis chapter 3 where are you?

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Where are you?

So sin entered, Adam and Eve hid because they were so ashamed.

And it was almost like it was confusing to God.

Like, I didn't create you to hide from me, I created you to know me and to know each other, and yet they started to pull apart, they started to fracture.

And he asked that question, just imagine that resounding question from the heart of God.

Where are you?

Where did you go?

I've been looking for you.

What's going on?

And that question just starts to drive every page of scripture.

Where are you?

Where are you?

Where are you?

God looking for his people, looking for those who are wayward to come outside, to come back into the fold.

And so when we say living on mission, what we're living in is the pursuit of the Father and the Son and the Spirit, seeking to find those who are lost, to bring them back home.

And sometimes you can be lost outside of the household of God.

Sometimes you can be lost inside of the household of God.

You can attend church your whole life and still be estranged from the love of the Father.

So God is looking, He is on this constant pursuit of those who are lost to be found.

And the lost being found is not just about getting people to say a prayer and getting into heaven later on.

It's about entering into the story of God themselves.

It's about them receiving the work of God.

This is why Jesus, when he prayed, he taught his disciples how to pray, he told them, after coming to the Father, he said, pray that the kingdom of God would come to earth as it is in heaven.

And so when we talk about the loss being found and entering into the mission of God, it's not just about life and after death, it's also about here and now.

Here's how Dallas Willard says it.

He says, Don't just try to get people into heaven.

Try to get heaven into people.

And if heaven gets inside a person now, then getting into heaven for eternity will take care of itself.

So part of our work is living and proclaiming what God has done and inviting people to respond.

So not just for what's later, but for what's here and now.

Do you know that you can respond to the love of God right now?

And some of you need to be reminded of that even today.

Like maybe you're here and you just need to know God's looking for you.

He's looking for you.

You he's never stopped.

Even when he finds us, he finds us again and again and again.

Because that's what he always does.

And so for Paul, this was what tied it all together in 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

1 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

He says, the love of Christ controls us.

So at the center of everything is the love of Christ.

He said, He said, One has died for all, therefore all have died.

And he died for all that those who might live might no longer live for themselves, but live for the for him who for their sake died and was raised.

So it's an interesting phrase.

The love of God controls us, right?

This word control is a weird phrase to put with love.

Because we know that love is not controlling, love is self-giving.

So you have to kind of dig into the original language a little bit.

And the word control actually is a combination of two words to mean to hold together.

The love of God holds us together.

To have a grip on, to press in from both sides.

Does that sound familiar?

As a potter would form a clay, a vessel.

Paul's saying, listen, the love of God is at work and he's holding us together.

He's shaping us from the inside out.

The love of Christ hems us in.

The love of Christ leaves us no other option.

The love of Christ is bear hugging us on every side.

And we know this because he gave himself for us.

The problem is, again, when we step out of the doors, when we enter back into our lives, the world that we're living in is not primarily motivated by the story of God or the mission of God or the love of God.

It's mother motivated by so many other things and so many other stories.

And for most of us, that's just our own story.

So many, so many people just living to just try to figure out what am I doing with my life?

And it's not necessarily a bad question, but a more interesting question is what does my life mean in light of the story that you have invited me into, God?

Your story matters, but not as a self-isolated thing.

It's part of a larger picture.

So but when we look at how we're being formed in the world, Paul says when we come into Christ, we're being formed by love.

But how many of you guys know when we step out those doors, so much of the way we're formed is not by love, it's by fear.

We're living in a time where the main operating system is not love, it's fear.

And fear is waiting for you.

Fear is waiting for us.

We're not daily reminded by the world by how loved we are.

We're reminded by how much we have to lose.

And if you don't, if you don't get that stock option today, you're you're done.

If you don't take advantage of this opportunity, it's over for you, right?

We're reminded that we're on our own.

We're reminded that we have no other choice but to look out for number one.

And if anyone's gonna get the job done, it's gotta be me, right?

So fear has a way of shaping our thoughts, shaping our feelings, shaping the way that we go about life.

But you gotta understand that fear always curves inward on itself.

It will never lead you to give your life away.

The life formed by fear will never lead you to give your, to live for the sake of others.

Your only option is to protect number one.

And we heal, and so fear drives everything.

This is when we experience the news today.

What is it marked?

It's fear based on, let's say, political division.

We feel that, right?

In any political season, it's like you feel like, oh my gosh, this is hostile, this is volatile.

But underneath all the messaging is what?

That's the enemy.

They're the ones you're against.

There's an againstness that marks our day.

And you need to know who the enemy is because you need to set yourself against them.

Underneath all that is fear.

If you don't overcome them, you will be overcome yourself.

We feel fear and economic uncertainty, right?

Just the fear of running out of money, retirement, just basic security.

We we live just with a sense of not how do I participate in this larger story of what God's doing.

But so much we're we're led to just constantly be concerned of am I going to have enough for me?

And when we live chronically in that way, it shapes the kind of person that we become at the end of the day.

You can't live on mission with God if we're always only concerned with ourselves.

We feel in relational anxiety.

Will I will I ever meet somebody who will love me?

Or can I find community or friends that I can build my life with, right?

And these are all these none of these are actually bad questions in and themselves, but it has to do with what's driving from the inside out.

We're either going to be motivated by love or we're going to be motivated by fear.

And we we have to keep checking back in with ourselves and with God as it relates to how we make decisions, the habits of our life, the things that occupy us from the inside out.

And just and always bring that back to me.

God, am I being motivated by love or be being motivated by fear?

Because perfect love casts out fear.

Perfect love casts out fear.

So we have to practice the love of God.

We have to practice being shaped, not only receiving the love of God, as we've talked about, we have to practice getting the love of God out of us and actually overflowing it into the world.

That has to be practiced.

We have to habituate a life of, I've got to stop myself in my tracks and actually pour out everything God has poured into me, right?

Instead of turning in on ourselves.

So this is what Paul was saying.

Jesus didn't just die for your sins in a strange way, a mysterious way.

We died with him, is what he said.

We actually died with him and we were raised with him.

That means we no longer have to live a life to preserve and protect and looking out for number one.

But our night, our life is now this given to his purpose as motive by his love.

We no longer live for ourselves but for him.

That's why God is never this optional add-on on your life.

He is the source of your being when you come into Christ.

And if you let him get to you at the core of who you are, it transforms the story that you're living into, right?

Paul continues, he says, all this is from God who reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

So just catch the flow.

He starts with the love of God being the primary operating system in our life because of what God's done.

And because of that, our identity now shifts.

If the love of God controls us, that means we're given a new assignment.

And what does he call it?

A ministry of reconciliation.

That means you have a ministry.

I talk to people all the time who he talk about, I want to go into ministry.

Awesome.

Go.

You've been given a ministry.

Like ministry isn't something else over there.

Ministry, the ministry of reconciliation, is a call and identity and assignment he's given to every single one of us that come into Christ who are motivated by his love.

And he continues in verse 20.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, making his appeal through us.

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

So in all of this, here's what I want you to hear.

When the love of God is at the center and not fear, that means that we get to live with an identity as ministers of reconciliation and ambassadors for Christ.

And we've been given a message that sounds something like this come back to God.

Come back to God.

And God's after your heart.

And so, if that's true, then to be people of love and not fear, we have to keep practicing how to keep love moving out.

So when we talk about the presence of God, it's a life with God.

The family of God is life together, but mission is life for the world.

And over the last few weeks we showed you this trellis image, and it's a life built on values and practices that allow the life of God to flow.

And so if the love of God is actually at the center of everything that we do, then that shapes, you know, we've already talked about presence and family and mission, but if we get even further into the practices that we hold together that allow the love of God to remain central, we've talked about scripture and prayer and Sabbath keeping around being attentive to God in all of our life.

We've talked about community and generosity and service as it relates to how we, the way of life we give ourselves to as a family.

But the mission of God, there's a few other practices I want to highlight here together.

One is vocation, another is hospitality, another one is witness.

And let me just say it to you like this: each one of these is actually a way to resist the way of the world and enter back into the story of God.

And we're going to talk about all three of these.

So through vocation, we become a community of purposeful stewardship in a culture of toil.

I'll explain that in a second.

A community of purposeful stewardship and a culture of toil.

Through hospitality, we become a community of welcome in a culture of hostility.

And through witness, we become a community of gospel proclamation in a culture of timidity.

Come on.

And as we give ourselves to ways of life that keep the love of God flowing, something happens to us on the inside.

Let's talk about vocation for a second.

This word vocation actually means calling.

And so many Christians, we separate our spiritual lives from the rest of our lives.

We call church our spiritual lives.

We call our whatever groups or Bible studies, that's our spiritual life.

When we look at our work, oftentimes it's our job.

It's my job, right?

And you pay attention to how we talk about our nine to five jobs.

And it's like it's always about grinding it out, right?

Like getting through to get to the weekend, to get to the vocation.

But that's not how the scriptures talk about vocation.

See, in a world of fear, your work is grinding it out because it the only purpose is securing wealth for a good retirement.

But in the love of God, your work is about bringing the kingdom of God through purposeful stewardship and creative participation.

That means no matter what you do, it's actually holy unto God, which means that your work is just as sacred as the rest of your life.

And so the work and your vocation, it looks, it comprises of a lot of different things.

It's not just your paid work, but it's also your spiritual gifts.

It's about your expertise or your experience, it's about your resources and how they come to bear on other people.

This is a life of stewardship.

The scripture says that God has created us for good works that we may walk in them, right?

So all of us have been given good work to do.

And this is so important that actually in a few weeks we're gonna start a teaching series just on the theology of vocation and work and creative participation uh on earth with the things that He's actually called us to do.

But for this morning, here's a question to ask.

When you wake up and you go to work, do you pray over your day?

Do you surrender your work to God?

And and for some of you, your work looks a lot of different ways.

Some of you are, you know, your work is you're a caretaker in the season of life for somebody who can't take care of themselves.

Maybe for some of you, your work is you are raising your kids full time or you're homeschooling, and that's that's good work.

It's holy work.

Some of you actually have office jobs or remote work, or some of you are on your laptop, or you, it just looks a lot of different ways, right?

But what however it looks, do you have the ability every morning to surrender your to surrender your day to God and say, God, in all of my conversations and all of my labor and all the things that you've given me to do, would you show me how to be available to your glory and your presence and everything that I do, that everything I touch is marked by your love.

I'm shocked at sometimes how how little that happens, even for those of us in the church.

We don't see our work as like this.

Is part of our participation with God.

And he's given us a calling, he's given us um the ability to make much of his name in the places that he sends us.

You guys with me?

So vocation is purposeful stewardship in a culture of toil.

Now, that word toil, you might recognize that from Genesis.

Because God gave Adam and Eve work before sin entered.

You guys do remember that in the Bible?

He gave them good work.

He said, Be fruitful, multiply, and cultivate the land.

But it was only after sin entered their work, their labor, which was good and holy, became toil, which was just hard and sweaty, and it depleted them at every part of their being.

And that's why I believe when we come into Christ, he renews our imagination to how to work without it being toil.

Now it's creative participation in the life of God for the flourishing of the kingdom of God until every square inch of earth is filled with heaven.

Come on.

How about that for a vision of your Monday through Friday?

We got to work at that because nobody will reinforce that message.

But when you come to Jesus, he says, let the love of God control you in everything you do.

Come on.

But then we also give ourselves the hospitality.

Hospitality is is is creating a culture of welcome in a community of welcome in a culture of hostility.

Here's what's really interesting: this word hospitality, when you when you open this up, the word hostess is the word enemy, and the word hospice is guests, and they come from the same root meaning, which is stranger.

So the stranger at your door is either a guest or an enemy.

You decide.

I'm not saying there's not enemies that we need to be aware of from time to time.

But in a world that is primarily motivated by againstness, with the way we counterform into the image of Christ, is we always leave room open in our hearts and a sea open at our table.

That doesn't mean we agree with everybody all the time.

It doesn't mean it's all honky-dory and just we're all just, you know, uh there's times, there's there's times you have to actually have disagreement or conflict.

That's why we do the emotionally healthy relationships course, by the way.

There's times you actually have to do that, but it means a posture of hospitality, hospitality means there's an openness in your heart to somebody that others would call other or stranger, the people that others have told you to stay away from.

And there's a way of being with people and being present and welcome to others.

Why?

Because that's what Christ did for us.

When we were strangers, he welcomed us in.

Right?

And he calls us to do the same thing, to open up our hearts.

And so in the early church, hospitality wasn't just a dinner party.

It was like, it was actually just a way of life.

They'd often have guest houses for this particular purpose.

And even for early Christians, this is where the word hospital came from.

Hospitality.

They were the early Christians were the first ones to open hospitals to care for those who were in need of being welcomed in.

And so all of us get to actually practice hospitality in our lives, which means who are the people that God's actually given me to?

And am I putting a 10-foot pole in between me and somebody else, or am I creating room for them to encounter the love and the welcome of God as I offer it to them?

This is the work of hospitality, right?

And the third one, this one's kind of fun, is the third, is witness.

And this is a community of gospel proclamation and a culture of timidity, okay?

Second Timothy chapter one, Paul writes to his spiritual son Timothy and said, For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control.

You guys catch that?

For God gave us not a spirit of, but of power and self-control.

And Paul is saying, Listen, those two spirits do not interact with each other.

You're going to be motivated by fear, or you're going to be motivated by love and power, self-control.

Therefore, he says, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me as his prisoner, but share in the suffering for the gospel by the power of God.

Okay?

So his thing is, listen, if that's true, if you're motivated by love, don't be ashamed of sharing what God has done in your life.

Don't hide it.

Don't be sucked into this culture of timidity where everything is just kind of.

No, if God has done something in your life, do not hide it.

You have a message.

You've been given a message of reconciliation.

God has welcomed you home.

You get to call others back home.

And this looks so many different ways.

It's a teacher who cares for her kid in her classroom as if they were Jesus himself.

This is a contractor who holds his words and who holds to his word, doesn't cut corners and prays over his job site.

This is a real estate agent who doesn't just try to move homes but is praying for the right home for the people they're trying to sell homes to.

This works for everybody.

I found a clip this even works for meteorologists, apparently.

Let me just show you this clip of what it looks like to be a witness as a meteorologist.

You look at the time of day, and there are just a lot of people that would be traveling in this area, traveling home for the evening, traveling to work.

St.

Hedwig, China Grove, right over Highway 87, right at 1604.

Number of motorists here.

So, Lord, I pray for protection.

God, your sovereignty is what we lean into in moments like this.

That drivers stay aware, stay alert, that you give them wisdom.

Bless these drivers with wisdom.

Keep them safe.

Put angels around them of protection as they travel.

Thank you, Lord.

We just gonna get you home safely.

This will be lasting for another 30 minutes at least, it looks like.

And you look at the time.

That's a good meteorologist right there.

Come on.

How cool is that?

No, we don't know if he lost his job after that.

We don't know what happened to this guy.

Did he get fired?

I don't know.

He didn't, I have a feeling though, he doesn't care.

I have a feeling that the love of Christ is what controls him.

And he's not gonna do what he ought to do.

And he, you know, you can tell he's a good meteorologist.

He's gonna give you the weather, but listen, man, he's got a shot to pray for you.

Listen, and I don't know what this looks like for you and your world or your line of work, but I'm just saying, when it comes to living a life of boldness, of living a life of vocation, living a life where the love of God is moving out, we have an opportunity to give ourselves to ways and practices.

And again, we're gonna be talking about these things for months to come.

For this this whole next year, we're gonna be talking about how do we live and build our lives into creating a trellis, a rule of life, a way of life that's not just good ideas, but it's a life where the love of God is what we're organizing around.

And so here's what I want to invite us to do today as we're coming into close, just across the room.

If you just join me, just let's just close our eyes for a minute.

And we're gonna invite the Holy Spirit to speak to us.

I've I've spoken a lot.

Now we get to listen to Jesus, who is our teacher.

So we invite you, Holy Spirit, across the room to speak to us.

You know where we are.

And maybe for some of us here in the room, you're very well aware that at the core of your being you feel more fear than love.

And fear has been running rampant in the stories that you tell and the thoughts that you're thinking, and it's suspicion and uncertainty and the people in your life feel that from you too.

And I just believe that the invitation from for God for you today is come into the love of God.

Come and know the love of God that goes to any length to find you, to change you from the inside out.

The invitation is for you.

You do not have to settle for fear as an operating system.

He has given you not a spirit of fear, but of power and love.

And in a moment here, maybe that's the most important thing you can do today is say, I am stepping away from fear.

I'm responding to the love of God that's available for free today to anybody who calls on his name.

Maybe for some of us you just think like maybe you wouldn't call it fear, but you've noticed that parts of your life have really just turned inward.

They've curved inward.

And every everything is thinking about only self-preference.

And I think there's an invitation from God.

It's like, listen, would you join me to expand your vision?

Come see what I'm doing across the earth.

Come see what I'm doing across Boulder County.

Come see what I'm doing.

Let me open your eyes to join me in my story, my mission, to love the world, to call sons and daughters back home.

As we talked about vocation and your work, for some of you, you've only seen your career as a way to make money.

There's nothing wrong with making money, but it's not going to satisfy you at the end of the day.

And maybe today your invitation has to do with a shift from accumulation into stewardship.

To change the way that you think, even about what you do.

It's resurrendering your work to God.

For some of you, it's opening up your table to a stranger.

Maybe you live with a sense of suspicion, especially with those Democrats, especially with those Republicans, whatever.

Especially with those guys.

God's saying, hey, what would it- what if you opened a table as a way of life?

And certainly this last one where does God want you to speak up to not live with in timidity, but to share your story with boldness, without fear?

There's all these ways that God might be speaking to us today.

And so, Jesus, I ask that you would have the final word here.

Our prayer today, God, is that you would help us to order our lives around your love, that we could say together, may it be said of us that the love of Christ controls us.

The love of Christ informs us.

The love of Christ is our source, that holds us together, that hems us in, that it's the engine of our life.

In a moment we're gonna sing and just return our attention to God.

But I just want to read one last passage.

This is 1 Peter.

This is Peter, and he's writing about this, and he says, but 1 Peter 2.9, he says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

He has done a great work.

Why?

That we may proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into light.

Can I just ask this morning, who has who here has been called out of darkness into light?

Come on, that deserves a little bit more than that.

Who's been called out of darkness and into light today?

Come on.

This is what we've been given.

It's not a work of our own.

It's not because you did anything to deserve it, it's because he was after you before you even knew who he was.

Before you ever opened your eyes, he was after you.

And he's after you today.

Let's stand together.

We're gonna sing.

The reign of darkness now has ended.

And he reigns above it all.

We're participating with God in this story.

We open the service with this song.

We're gonna sing it again.

And let's sing to God who invites us into his story and his mission together.

Yes, God, you reign above it all.

We thank you, Father.

Even today we get to enter into your kingdom and your story and your mission and what you're doing in us.

You're not just doing for us, but through us in this world, God.

So as we as we leave this place, we're not leaving empty-handed, we're leaving in the power of your spirit, God.

Just put your hand over your heart this morning.

We want to pray for us.

And as we as when we end the service, our ministry team, our prayer team is gonna be around the room.

And if there's anything coming up for you in your life that you need prayer for today, we want to encourage you to go to the sides of the room.

But we're praying over us, Holy Spirit, fill us with your power, fill us with your resource, fill us with your words and your love.

As we go from this place, God, remind us of who we are, that we are not people of fear.

We are people that are hemmed in by love on all sides.

I thank you, Lord Jesus, this is our identity because of what you've done for us.

We no longer live for ourselves, but we live for you.

And so I thank you, Lord God, to send us out in your peace and your power and your love until the whole earth is transformed by your love, Jesus.

And it's in your name we pray together.

Come on, everybody, say it.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's give uh let's give praise to God in this place.

So good.

So good.

Thanks for spending the morning, guys.

And listen, as we as we end the service here today, you're gonna see a sign in the back.

If you are a guest, we'd love to get to know you in the back.

And uh, and if you have kids, you can go pick them up from lookout kids.

Um, but as we go, may you love well, light up and look out to the people God sends you to.

Amen.

All right, love you guys.