Announcing the Good News - 10/04/26

Right.

In the last couple of weeks, we've been highlighting our uh life groups, which is the way we connect with one another outside of Sundays, worship, fellowship, learn together, minister to one another, and a place where we can invite people come in to come in and encounter the love and the power of God.

So we've been uh giving some opportunities for testimony.

So I'd like to ask John Jesse, Brother John, come forward.

And uh I'm leaning on the everlasting arms, brother.

So uh yeah, love to hear from you.

All right.

Um so Heather and I arrived here about 18 years ago.

Um, just gotten out of the military, uh, kind of an unexpected exit.

And when I arrived, I kind of felt like my identity had been stripped from me.

Um, no longer knowing who I was, coming into this church and sitting in the back of the church crying for about the first two years.

Um about seven years ago, we decided to join a um life group.

And when I say we decided to join, Heather suggested we join, and I kind of grudgingly went.

Um so a little very quick backdrop on that is that I've always had some pretty severe trust issues throughout most of my life.

It's a lot of trauma starting at roughly seven years old that did not let up until I was about 17.

Um other trauma mixed into that, different churches where I try to open up to people and I get my hands smacked, so to speak, uh invited to leave because I'm bringing up uncomfortable things.

You know, just bad situations, you know, uh being a little bit too raw, a little bit too honest.

Um so when I go into a home group, I'm not thinking I'm gonna open up and I'm gonna find people that I can trust.

I'm thinking protect yourself.

Um so, like I said, we've been in this home group for about seven years.

I only started opening up about a year ago.

Um there was a lot of trust that I felt like I could not share who I was because if I shared who I was, then I would be disinvited.

Um what I reached about a year ago was a point in my faith where I'd been carrying my own wounds for so long that I couldn't stand anymore.

And I needed to trust somebody to guide me to Jesus.

I've I've known Jesus in my entire life.

I'm not saying get saved.

I'm saying I needed somebody to show me that I could experience some trust.

So what God has shown me Thank you.

You know me well, Shawman.

Um what God has shown me is that you can't have ministry and you can't have feel faith, you can't have healing until you first have trust.

Um if I go to a doctor and I refuse to show the doctor the wound, how can I expect the doctor to heal that wound?

Um so I needed friends who were willing to lower me through the roof to meet Jesus.

And the trust that that takes that you're not gonna be dropped is rough.

Um I took that step about a year ago, and what I found is that the family that I never really had as a child I have in a home group.

And I have realized that with that life group, I've not only realized that I have family in the life group, but I have family in the church.

The ability to trust is being restored enough to where I feel like I can truly begin to experience relationship.

And without relationship, there is no healing.

So that's my testimony for Life Group, and that's what Life Group has done for me.

It sorry.

It takes a while to thank you.

It takes a while to get into relationships.

Relationships are not overnight, relationships are not within the first year within a church, but don't give up and keep falling at the cross and keep trusting others around you that God will lead you.

So thank you.

Can I pray for you?

Just reach out your hand towards John.

God, we bless the work in John's life.

We bless the um vulnerability, the openness, the trust, and the fruit.

And Lord, we bless the group that welcomed him in and loved him well.

And we ask, Lord, that you continue to bless John in this journey and everyone like John in this room who needs and wants to open up and is afraid.

God, would you bless them now with your love and your peace in Jesus' name?

Amen.

Thanks, John.

All right.

Don't know if you've noticed how many testimonies in the vineyard start with something like, and then I cried for five years.

It's a part of my testimony for sure.

Um, and I've said it a lot of times, I'll say it many other times.

Um This church runs on tears because tears mean love, and um that's what runs the church, the love of Jesus in us, uh about us, and through us.

Uh hey, my name's Randy.

Nice to see you this morning.

Um I'm sure someone in the room knows what famous Christian was celebrated yesterday in history.

Somebody just yell it out.

Saint Francis, said Randy's wife, Jane.

Proving she uh listens over breakfast.

Yesterday, uh exactly 800 years ago, yesterday, Saint Francis of Assisi died.

And so uh many people around the world were celebrating the life and the death, I mean the life of Saint Francis.

As the life was commemorated and the and the death was remembered, also the people that gathered, specifically in Italy and around Assisi, were really celebrating peace.

And there was a uh committed call to peace, world peace in the raging conflicts around the world because they were celebrating the life legacy of St.

Francis of Assisi, who went to war in the Crusades, had uh bad experiences, violent experiences, came back and was touched by the love of God when he saw a leper on the road and was moved by God before he really knew the Lord to give everything he had to the leper.

And so the legacy of St.

Francis of Assisi for 800 years has been a life of love and then the call to peace.

Because that is the kingdom of God.

When Jesus came and he announced the good news of the kingdom, the active rule of God, it was the active rule of love in the world, Jesus incarnate as love, and the active rule of peace, Jesus being the way that we receive peace with God.

And so we're gonna talk this morning about evangelism.

I'm just gonna call it announcing the good news of the kingdom, because it's one of the calls of us as believers to live a life that models not just Saint Francis, that models Jesus, the incarnate one, the one who we live for.

There's a famous quote attributed to Saint Francis.

He said, preach the gospel at all times, if necessary, use words.

I looked it up, and trusty Google says, ah, he didn't actually say it.

And I'm kind of glad he didn't say it, because in my own humble opinion, that that attitude of preach the gospel always and only if necessary use words, I think it downplays the part of words and our testimony.

It is so important that we live our lives following Jesus.

But our lives are full of words, aren't they?

And so they go together.

And I want to talk this morning about the way that we announce the good news of the kingdom by our lips and by our lives.

See how those two start with the same thing?

So you'll remember that forever.

That we're called by Jesus, we're empowered by the Holy Spirit to announce the good news of the kingdom, the active rule and reign of God on earth that Jesus brought is continuing through us and will bring in its completion, that we do that with our lips and we do that with our lives.

Let's pray.

Holy Spirit, thank you that you are present here.

Present in the lives of the saints, present in the written word of God given to us, preserved by you, Holy Spirit.

Will you come and touch us and bring illumination to our minds and hearts and empower our spirits to walk in our bodies in faith, to proclaim the good news of the kingdom with our lips and with our lives.

Lord, we ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts would be pleasing to you, acceptable to you, O God, our rock and our redeemer.

Amen.

In uh Luke chapter ten, Jesus sends out the the seventy-two uh disciples, followers, to preach the good news of the kingdom, preaching that Jesus has come, so the kingdom of God is here, and that Jesus is speaking, proclaiming, and demonstrating that kingdom through his disciples.

So Luke chapter 10, verse 1.

Luke 10:1

The Lord now chose 72 other disciples, and he sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places he planned to visit.

That verse has long been striking to me that the Holy Spirit decided through Luke to say particularly, they were sent to the towns that Jesus was about to come to.

Because I see that as so reflective of the way that God works in and through our lives.

He sends his disciples, also known as you, also known as me, into the places that Jesus Himself is planning to visit.

Have you ever thought of your household or your neighborhood or your workplace or your playground or whatever it is that you do out in the world, have you ever thought of that place as a place that Jesus wants to visit?

A place that Jesus wants to walk into?

And many of you have, I've heard stories of what you do in the marketplace, not just what you say and preach, but the way you pray and the way you live your lives, and then the good news that comes through your lives.

If we were to just parade the people in this church right now across the stage and say, here's what I do, here's where I work, here's where I go to school, here's where I work out, here's where I shop, and here are some of the ways that Jesus has shown up, we would be shocked and amazed.

And I want to proclaim this morning that Jesus is doing that.

He's sending you, he has sent you.

If we can begin to imagine that these places that God has us are the places that God's called us.

And that one exhortation that the Lord would give this morning to us is to begin to pray even more fervently.

God, what are you doing here?

John 5.19, Jesus said, I can only do what I see the Father doing.

And so we like Jesus get to walk into our places and say, God, what are you doing here?

Jesus, who are you about to visit?

Who are you visiting right now that needs to hear the good news of the kingdom?

Jesus is sending us to announce his kingdom that he's here and that the king and the kingdom are coming with our lips and with our lives, because we are his sent ones.

When that word that says Jesus sent them, the word is apostello.

It just it's it just means to send off.

It's like, you know, think of post office.

We send, if we ever, does anyone ever send letters anymore?

Or just bills?

Yeah, I think pretty much.

Way to go, letters.

Awesome.

Way to go.

It's all the young people that are sending letters.

We're sent ones.

We're we're letters from God to the world.

We're we're love letters into the world to demonstrate here's what's happening in the kingdom.

So we're sent as sent ones to speak with our lips, to literally announce the kingdom of God.

So that when the people that God is working on, when the people that Jesus is visiting begin to ask questions, you begin to see what's happening in their lives, and just take notice.

Maybe just name.

Hey, I notice you're you're looking kind of down.

I I notice that there's, you know, you're you don't seem to be very lively.

I notice you cried you were crying when you walked in.

People out there in the workplace, they they're ashamed of tears.

If we can name, notice, and validate tears, people can then say, oh, I'm loved, I'm seen, I'm cared for.

Sometimes it is actually ours to pronounce the good news of the kingdom, the good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

That is good news for the world.

The invitation that Jesus gave, I have to believe in Luke 4 when Jesus said, The kingdom is here, repent and believe the good news.

He said it with a smile on his face.

I can't imagine an angry Jesus.

Repent and believe.

You bunch of bozos.

There's no Greek word for bozo, as far as I know.

I gotta imagine that the the the the visage, the the the face of Jesus was, hey, the kingdom is here.

Repent, turn around, reorient your life, and believe the good news because it's good news and the call to follow him.

The invitation to be a part of God's kingdom is really not all that complicated, is it?

It we we can make it complicated.

It's as simple as God's been writing a story from eternity.

He created you, he loves you.

He you may have been wayward, but the king of all creation is calling you back, and he's actually made a way for you to have peace with God.

And that way is the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus.

And that Jesus who proclaimed good news to the poor, freedom for the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, the the favorable year of the Lord, the good news year of the Lord, wants you to come to Him.

And you simply can say, Jesus, save me.

I want to be yours.

It's really not complicated to express the good news of the kingdom.

When people are ready to hear, Jesus says, you know, no one can come to the Father, and uh no one can come to me unless the Father draws them.

Well, the Father is drawing people.

God has never stopped drawing people to himself, and he's doing it in the places where we live and move and have our being.

And when they have those questions, we get to announce the good news and invite them into that.

It's um one of the places where I think uh our testimony is really important.

Not just our testimony of how we first met Jesus, though that is awesome.

What we're really saying is here's how the kingdom, here's how the kingdom of God has shown up in my life.

Here's what it looked like when I was first introduced to King Jesus.

Here's where my life was, here's what happened, here's where my life is.

Not perfect, but not alone because God is with me.

The way we walk out our lives gives us an opportunity to speak the good news of the kingdom.

I mean, you don't know the impact of the way you live.

Um, Jane and I were recently in another city, and in this city there was a big church, and I love big churches.

I love sacred spaces.

And so I wanted to walk in and look at the church, and Jane is more comfortable outside in the elements, and so Jane stayed outside.

It so happened that outside of this church there was a prayer labyrinth.

Cue the picture, prayer labyrinth.

So if you've ever seen, or if you've never seen, a prayer labyrinth, it's an ancient way to pray about 800 years ago.

Maybe Francis did it.

No, he didn't.

Uh, an ancient way to pray with your feet.

And so you step into the labyrinth and sort of as you're walking in the labyrinth, you're giving things to God that you need to give.

As you stand in the middle, you receive from God what he wants to give you.

And as you walk back out, you think, God, how do I walk this out in the world?

It's a labyrinth, by the way, teaching point.

A labyrinth, not a maze.

The enemy does mazes.

Dead end, at dead end, at dead end, be afraid.

The Lord gives us a life as a labyrinth.

There's a path, and that path leads to the center to God's presence.

Anyway, off on the teaching of labyrinth.

So outside, while I'm inside crying about old things, Jane is outside living her life.

And um, so there was a labyrinth there, and there were a bunch of people sort of sitting around the labyrinth in a courtyard.

So Jane decides, I'm gonna walk the labyrinth.

I'm gonna pray.

I mean, it's public, it's out there.

So Jane starts to walk the labyrinth, and she's she's just praying, you know.

She's not screaming or yelling, or she doesn't have a bullhorn or anything.

She's just praying the labyrinth.

And she gets around a certain part and there's this woman there, and this woman says, Hey, what are you doing?

And Jane says, I'm I'm walking and I'm praying the labyrinth.

And she's like, What's that all about?

What's a labyrinth?

So Jane says, Well, it's a way to pray.

And she explains it.

As you're walking in, you give those things to God that are burdening you, or those sins, or those issues.

And when you get to the center, you ask God to speak to you.

What is what does he want to give you?

And then on your way out, you pray about how you might walk that out.

And so the lady says, God speaks to you?

And Jane says, Yes.

She says, Well, what did he say to you?

And in a moment of vulnerability, as is about to happen in front of 180 people for Jane.

Jane says, He said self-acceptance.

And the woman says, He said that?

Jane said, Yes.

And and the woman says, Maybe there's something to this.

In in a in a a public moment where Jane just decides to literally follow Jesus to pray in public with her life, with her feet, with the tenderness that Jane is and she carries, this woman is intrigued.

And the question comes, what are you doing?

Does God really speak?

And then all of a sudden, some woman is out there right now saying, Maybe there's something to this.

Maybe there is a God.

Maybe we can interact with him.

Maybe there is a king on earth.

Maybe the king speaks.

Maybe the king could speak to me.

So our lives are an opportunity for our lips to speak, simply the testimony of God in our own lives.

And I'll just point out vulnerability is a part of that testimony.

You know, it's not like, man, I really struggled with um eating too many Snickers bars, and then God saved me, and now I never eat Snicker bars, you know?

No, it's more like I was in a pit, like most of us were, and Jesus found me in the pit, and he invited me out, and he saved me, and now I'm helping others get out of a pit.

We announce the gospel with our lips, and we announce the gospel with our lives, because the life of the messenger has to match the words of the messenger.

The fancy word for that is integrity.

It's what Jesus calls us to wholeness.

Integrity is our lives matching up with our lips.

What we say is true and what we live are the same thing.

Wholeness.

It's just the same inside and out.

And I'll tell you the world needs to see followers of Jesus who are living what they're speaking.

I don't think I need to say any more about that.

The world needs to see that.

The world needs an apologetic of integrity.

And personally, in our lives, the good news that we preach with our lips in our lives has to be good news to us.

So maybe a question for us this morning is: is the gospel of God's active rule and reign actually good news to me?

Not have I been saved, but am I really living in the good news of the kingdom?

Am I living out the reality that Jesus reigns and rules and invites me into his kingdom?

I don't mean by that, am I living perfectly?

I certainly don't mean, am I pretending that all the horrible things in my life don't exist and I'm just gonna praise the Lord faithy, you know, through everything.

Praising the Lord in faith is good while recognizing the reality of suffering, difficulty, and mystery in our lives.

So announcing the good news with our lives means living the good news in our lives.

Receiving every day, oh yeah, Jesus, you're here in the midst of my cancer or my struggle with finances or my relationships that are broken or breaking, that Jesus, you're here.

And I'm gonna walk with confidence and joy that you're present and I can trust you.

That's what I mean by believing that the good news is good news for us.

Is the gospel to you now the good news of love and peace?

And that's a question you get to take out into your own time with God.

God, am I really believing the good news?

Is the gospel good news to me today?

Or maybe you need to hear the gospel again.

You need to preach the gospel to yourself again.

The good news of God's love and his peace.

Adam said in a previous message that every kingdom has a predominant ethic.

And that he said the predominant ethic of the kingdom is love.

That means that the undergirding ethic of the kingdom of God is love, and the overriding ethic of the kingdom of God is love.

Dallas Willard defines salvation, sort of entrance and life in the kingdom, like this.

Your life is taken over in every aspect by the spirit of, and he quotes 2 Timothy here, by the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Every aspect of our lives taken over by that spirit of power, that spirit of love and a sound mind.

In other words, shalom, wholeness.

He says every part of it, home, work, school, play, all of your life is permeated with, and then he goes to the fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.

That life preaches the good news of the kingdom to the world.

That life announces the good news of Jesus.

That life shows what the power of the Holy Spirit looks like in a human.

And Paul says the greatest of these is love.

And so our announcement of the good news of God's kingdom with our lips and with our lives is a message of love.

When Francis, after being in the Crusades, comes back and meets Jesus, then starts to speak to Muslims, he does it from a place of love, not anger.

And he does it a place with a place of compassion and kindness rather than the sword.

And I'll just say that is the gospel of peace that preaches good news to the world.

Because the good news of the kingdom of God is the love of God and the peace of God are present and available.

Luke 10, Jesus says, Whenever you enter someone's home, first say, May God's peace be on this house.

If those who live there are peaceful, in other words, they're prepared to receive peace, the blessing will stand.

If they're not, the blessing will return to you.

I think what Jesus is saying is two things.

We're missionaries of peace.

The gospel is a gospel of peace, but we don't force peace.

You know, does that make sense to you?

We're not like God's peace to you.

I said, God's peace to you.

God can force peace.

We don't have to do that part.

We can just be peace.

We can just communicate peace to the world.

We're missionaries of peace.

It doesn't mean that there isn't time for boldness or even confrontation with truth.

That's not the point.

The point is that the undergirding ethic is one of love and comes forth with peace.

In Ephesians 6, Paul says, you know, he's talking about the armor of God, and he says, and your feet shod with the gospel of peace.

Like, what do you walk in?

I walk in the good news of God's peace.

Life in the kingdom of God means an invitation to peace with the king.

It's an invitation to switch sides in the battle, right?

I don't mean the battle for public policy or structure.

I mean the battle that the enemy is waging against the souls of people.

The kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light, when we walk in love and in peace, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom with our lips and our lives, people are invited to change sides.

They get to come from the losing side, kingdom of darkness, into the winning side, the kingdom of God's beloved Son.

So what does our announcement of the kingdom look like?

For Jesus, it looked like good news to the poor and sight to the blind and recovery for the lame and the good year, the year of the Lord's favor.

What does it look like for you to announce that kingdom in your life?

Very personally, what will that look like to announce the good news of the kingdom when Jane and I and our and our kids drive to my hometown this coming weekend?

And we sit with my parents.

My dad, who's had bladder cancer and strokes, and heart attack and stage four kidney disease, and my mom who's struggling to figure out how to how to deal with them and how to manage life in their home.

I'm not telling a story that's just mine, right?

Every single one of you has heard that story.

Some of you are living that story too.

What does it look like for us to announce the good news of the kingdom to them?

I don't know the answer yet.

Like we'll be praying on the way to find out.

How do we announce to them Jesus is present?

Jesus can heal.

If Jesus doesn't heal physically, Jesus is present and you can trust him with very difficult decisions.

And you can trust him with your emotions, and you can trust him with your pain and your sorrow and the mystery.

What does it look like for us to announce the kingdom of God, the love of God and the peace of God to that situation?

And what does it look like for you?

Because every one of you has something in your life where you're seeing it out there where there is that challenge to give the good news of the kingdom in the reality of real difficulty.

I'm hoping that we can be incarnate love.

I'm hoping that those fruits of the Holy Spirit will come out of us.

I'm hoping we can love my parents practically, humbly, confidently, and sacrificially.

So today, is there someone in your life that needs to hear and see that message of love and peace?

If you're prone to being, hey, my life speaks the gospel, I don't have to say anything, maybe Jesus is lovingly saying, Why don't you use your words?

And if you're one for whom it's easier to just speak it out, proclaim it, and maybe there's some stuff going on that you're not willing to talk about, maybe the the Lord Jesus is inviting you to pray and to consider what's happening in your own life so that you can allow the good news of the kingdom to have impact there.

Some will receive our message.

You know, in 2 Corinthians 3, Paul says, you know, we are the aroma of Christ, both to those who are perishing and to those who are being saved.

To the ones being saved, we're the smell of life.

We're the aroma of life.

And to the ones who are perishing, we're the smell of death.

In other words, our message won't always be received.

Luke 10, Jesus says, Behold, like, hey, warning, I'm sending you out as sheep amongst wolves.

Just a reminder that our gospel proclamation of good news of love and life and peace will not always be received in kind.

For some people, our lives are going to smell like life.

And for some people, our lives are going to smell like death.

And we don't have to control the way people respond to our lives.

We're responsible for the content of our words and the motivation of our hearts.

We're not responsible for the outcome of our witness.

God gets to do that.

God gets to do the drawing.

We get to do the living.

And so whether people smell life or death from us, we follow Jesus, who spoke life and eternal life and love and peace, and he did it boldly.

So I think a part of our call this morning is to boldness, is to wake up and look around.

What's God doing?

And how do I get to be a part of God announcing his kingdom through me?

I'm not sure why I'm in a Franciscan theme today, but Elia Delio, I read something from her recently.

She's a Franciscan nun and a professor at Villanova.

She says, Life in God can be a daring adventure of love, a continuous putting aside of securities to enter more profoundly into the uncharted depths of God.

Our challenge today is to stay the course of love in a world that resists love, fears love, and rejects the cost of love.

I think it's put well.

That's the world we live in, and that's the call we have.

A daring adventure of love.

Isn't that a great way to see life in the midst of all that is that life constitutes?

And so maybe some questions for us to end with.

Can I love when love is resisted?

Can I love when my love is feared by others?

Can I love even when my love is rejected?

I think that's the hard one.

Can I keep loving when my love is rejected?

By my spouse, by my child, by my coworker.

By my best friend.

And deeper, is there any place in me that's resisting, fearing, or rejecting love?

Is there any place in my life where I am just not hearing the good news of Jesus' kingdom as good news?

Let's stand.

And I asked the ministry team to come forward.

There might be some here this morning that need to, not just want to, but need to respond to this message of announcing the good news of the kingdom.

Maybe one of those questions pierced you and you felt that.

Maybe you recognize the call to see out there in the world a place to speak or a place to live.

So the ministry team is here to pray for you, to agree with what God's doing in your life, to hear your need, and not to counsel you or give you advice, but just to cooperate with what the Holy Spirit's doing.

So I'm going to pray, and as I pray and after I pray, I invite you, if you would like someone to pray for you, to come forward.

I also think I have this sense, I think it may be from God, that something specific that the Lord wants to do is to uh minister to ears.

And I don't think this is just spiritual, let him who has ears hear.

I think physically, if you've got a physical issue with your ears, I think the Lord wants to heal ears.

So if that's you, you've got an issue with hearing or ears, I invite you to come forward.

The ministry team wants to pray and to bless what's happening.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you for bringing your kingdom.

Thank you for bringing your active rule to this earth.

I thank you for the places through lives that I've talked about in many, many lives, where we see the kingdom coming in healing, in life, in joy, salvation.

Jesus, speak to us, your people this morning.

I ask that you speak to us individually, and where you're inviting us to be a part of announcing the good news of your kingdom.

Let us hear.

Not just with thoughts, but with action.

Holy Spirit, come and do your work among us.

We trust you to do that, and we pray these things in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

If you'd like someone to pray for you, please come forward.

We'd love to do that.

Otherwise, uh greet one another with love and peace and go into the world with God's good news.

Amen.