What Do You See – 42 Circles

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Today I'm so excited to close out the series that I've loved.

It's been a series on your vision.

Vision is God's picture for your life.

And the series is called What Do You See?

Week one, we said this.

We need to get our vision back.

So many of us walk through this life stumbling through.

Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, said in Proverbs 29, he says, if God's people can't see what he is up to, they'll stumble all over themselves.

And I don't want you to miss what God is doing.

So we talked about getting your vision back.

And then week two, I gave you permission to dream again.

It is amazing how so many of us, God will answer our prayers, and then somewhere along the way, life tends to happen, and life can be devastating, and we miss out on the dreams that God has for us.

Today I want to talk about something else, but to do this, you have to understand what happened to me yesterday.

I had one of the strangest, weirdest, honestly scariest experiences of my whole life.

My son Joey turned 15 this week.

He got his learner's permit, and yesterday we gave him his first driving lesson ever.

And I want you to think back.

If you're not, if you're older than 15, think back to that moment.

Um, it is horrifying.

And so we took Joey.

My wife's like, should we go to the mall parking lot?

And I'm like, no, there are cars there.

Those are expensive.

We found an empty large parking lot and we drove all over it.

And when I say Joey drove all over it, I literally mean he drove all over it.

Like, we'd be like, Oh, that's a crash.

Oh, you just killed somebody.

Oh, I can't do this.

Like, and it it was so funny watching because Joey, like, there was too much to take in.

It's like there's the rearview mirror, the side mirrors, there's all the gauges.

You're looking around.

At one point, I said, Joey, now step on the brakes.

And Joey literally was driving and he looked down underneath the steering wheel.

I'm like, no, don't do that.

Don't do that.

Gonna preach tomorrow.

Don't do that.

You know.

It's just interesting.

And what's funny is I left that conversation feeling like that's how many of us live our lives, isn't it?

There's just too much happening, too much distractions, too much pain, too much loss.

There's too much stuff happening in our lives.

And what tends to happen is we tend to just, if we're not careful, we drift or we get off the path.

I think probably the number one question I get as a pastor is what is God's will for my life?

What is his plan for my life?

And when people ask that question, here's what they're asking.

They're asking, what is the specific will of God?

The specific will of God is God's plan for you.

Ephesians chapter 1 says that before God laid the foundations of the earth, he knew what he had in store for you.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

God had a picture, a vision for your life.

It's for you, for you to do.

But here's the thing: so many Christians get tripped up over this, and then they don't really do this, or what I would call something even maybe more important than the specific will is the general will.

The specific will is unique to you.

The general will is God's will for all of us.

If you are a follower of Jesus, there is something specific that he invites all of us to do, and I don't want you to miss it.

It's called what Jesus called the Great Commission, co-mission.

It's something that we partner with Jesus to do.

It's found in all four of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and it's even found in the book of Acts, which is really the book about the start, the launching of the New Testament church.

I want to read it to you, then I want to talk about it today.

Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Jesus said, Therefore, go, that's the key word there, you go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.

He says, I want you to go everywhere, tell everyone about Jesus.

The book of Mark says it like this.

He said to them, Go, there it is again, go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.

And the book of Luke, it says it like this, Luke 24, with my authority, take this message.

Like go, don't hold on to it for yourself, but take this message of repentance to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem.

There is forgiveness of sins for those who turn to me.

It's important.

The book of John says it like this.

Jesus said, As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.

It's not just for you to hold on to, but you're to be sent out to use it.

In the book of Acts, the story of the launching of the church, Jesus said, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.

And what is the purpose of the power God has for us?

The result is you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, that was their city, Judea and Samaria, which was their region, so for us that's like America, and to the ends of the earth, that's reaching the world.

And this, everybody, this is the mission of the church, and this is the general will of God for all of us.

So let me be abundantly clear.

If you are a part of this church, we are going to be a church that lives on mission.

Okay, let me say to you what it looks like.

It means that we lay down our preferences because our preferences don't matter in light of what the mission is.

Here's what it means for our church.

Look around in this service.

Every week for the last few weeks, we have had standing room only.

We've been at capacity or in overflow.

And I've said, please help us move.

Please move.

Let's create more space for people.

And you won't stop inviting your friends.

It's awesome.

So here's some fun news.

If we're willing to do anything, it means that starting in just a few weeks, we're going to add a fourth service time to create more seats for people to know.

Jesus, can I get a good amen from someone about that?

So starting September 25th, it's like four Sundays from now, we're going to add an extra fourth service.

Here's the new times, and this is important because every service time is changing, so everybody's got to move.

We're going to start with an 8:30 a.m.

service.

And some of you are like, I didn't think Sunday started till 10.

8:30 a.m., that'll be a shorter 45 to 50 minute service.

9.30 a.m., 11 and 12.30 p.m.

Here's the point.

We are doing everything we can to make open seats for people to come know Jesus.

If you want to pray for your church that's on mission, let me tell you what else to pray for.

I believe we're going to add a fourth service and we're just going to fill it up over again.

So here's what you need to pray for.

Pray that God will give us a building in central to North Lakeland because we want to take everything we do.

We just want to do it again and again and again.

Why?

It's not about us.

It's about the Great Commission.

It's not about us or our egos.

It's about joining Jesus in what he cares about.

It's not about growing a church bigger.

It's not about that.

It's about making heaven a little more crowded and plundering the gates of hell.

That's what this is all about.

Here's the funny thing.

We don't like crowded things, do we?

We don't like crowded stuff.

We don't like going to crowded movie theaters.

We don't like uh when you're in an airplane and you get you get that seat and there's a seat in the middle that's empty next to you.

Come on, your prayer life gets better for a moment, doesn't it?

People are passing by, you're like, come on, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, right?

They're like, we'll be shutting the doors momentarily, and you're like, Jesus, I'll do anything you want.

I'll do anything you want.

Just don't let someone sit next to thank you, Jesus.

That's how we do, right?

Um, I go to a CrossFit gym, uh, obviously, and um that's like a clap moment, like a oh, it makes sense, not a laugh moment, but my therapist and I all worked that out.

And um a while ago, the gym was like amazing, and then it went through like an awkward hard time where there was some weeks where it was like me and one of my friends and like nobody else, and then and then like the last few weeks, people started coming and it's been awesome again.

But then on Friday, it instead of being two or four people, it was like 16 or 18 people.

We're bumping into each other and sweating on each other, and we don't like crowded stuff.

We we just don't, it's not my preference.

But if you're gonna be a part of a church that's on mission, crowded is the goal.

Why?

Because heaven and hell are realities and we are playing for keeps.

So today, I want to preach a different kind of message.

I'm gonna step all up on your toes, and you're gonna leave feeling so challenged today.

And my hope is that what happens in our hearts doesn't stay in this room, but it literally becomes like a wildfire that spreads all throughout our region.

Here's the point today.

If you miss everything, I'm gonna put the cookies on the bottom shelf and make it really easy.

Here it is, ready?

We cannot reach what we cannot see.

We cannot reach what we cannot see.

My prayer today is that God's gonna open our eyes because some of us can't see what God is doing.

We can't see the needs happening around us.

And to kind of understand this, let me kind of tell you a story from the book of John, chapter four.

One day Jesus and his disciples were traveling, and the disciples said to Jesus, Hey, we got to go into the city and we've got to get some, maybe some supplies or some food.

And Jesus said, You guys go on, I'm gonna keep going on my way.

And it says that Jesus separates from the disciples and he comes up onto a well.

Now, the well was such an important part of Jesus' day because it's where people drew water, and typically in Jesus' day, people would get water early in the morning or at dusk as the sun was setting because it wasn't as hot.

And typically people would travel together in groups for their own safety.

And so Jesus is walking and he comes upon a well, and there is sitting at the well a woman, and scripture gives us this interesting detail.

It's that she was a Samaritan woman.

Now, you need to understand, as a church, we fight hard for racial equality, we fight for justice, it matters.

And if you think there's challenges in our country, you have no idea what it would have been like in Jesus' day.

Jews and Samaritans despised each other.

They spat upon each other, they hated each other.

And so there was this woman, and she was Samaritan, and on top of that, she was a woman.

And again, in Jesus' day, men never spoke to women, it would have been seen as inappropriate or demasculating.

In Jesus' day, women were seen as lower class citizens.

And Jesus comes to the well and he sits with the woman and he smashes through all the tensions.

He smashes through the racial tensions, the social tensions, the gender tensions.

He smashes through all of it, which again, if you're looking for a reason to follow Jesus, there's a beautiful one.

And he sits down and he talks with her, and he shares with her who he is, and her eyes are opened in this moment.

And then there's this awkward moment.

It says this in verse 27, John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

Just then his disciples returned, and they were surprised him talking with a woman for all the reasons I just discussed.

Then there's this weird literary device that happens.

But no one asked.

It's kind of weird.

Like you, when you're writing, you don't write what no one does.

You write what people do.

But he says, but no one asked two things.

What do you want?

Or why are you talking with her?

In a sense, they almost dishonored Jesus.

No, he was the leader.

If you serve someone, like man, get up, serve them, ask what do you need?

What can I do?

How can I help you?

What can I get for you?

And no one does that.

And no one asks, why are you talking with her?

No one says, teach us in this moment.

They were just confused.

Now, why would he put these things that didn't happen in the story?

I think the reason these are in the story is because they regretted not doing it.

And I don't want you to miss it.

If the disciples missed it, I think it's possible for us to miss the point.

It says, then, leaving her water jar, and that was a big deal, because that was her source that got her the water, the woman went back to the town and she said to the people, Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.

I'm gonna call a quick time out here and say this.

This woman has an encounter with Jesus.

Is she theologically trained?

No.

Does she know everything about who he is?

No, not yet.

She's still learning.

But she does something that I'm gonna invite all of us to do.

She just says, Come and see.

I've experienced something or someone and he changed my life.

Just come and see.

Come experience what I've experienced.

Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Could this be the Christ, the one we've prayed for?

And it says they came out of the town and they made their way towards him.

Meanwhile, like the story turns again.

His disciples urged him, Rabbi, Jesus, eat something.

There was like a Burger King around the corner, like, eat something.

Get you one of those four for fours at Wendy's, like, eat something.

But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about.

Then his disciples said to each other, Could Could someone have brought him food?

Like, did someone slide him a granola bar, you know, one of those Nature's Valley?

Did someone get that for him?

Is that what happened?

There's no crumbs anywhere.

He didn't have a granola bar.

Like, what is happening?

Did he have food?

And Jesus says, You don't get it.

My food, he said, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

He says, You're thinking about the wrong thing.

You're seeing the wrong way.

You're seeing a stomach, a belly that's hungry, and I'm seeing the town.

You're seeing something that will satisfy you temporarily.

I'm seeing something that has the potential to change the eternity of all of these people.

And then Jesus reaches into culture and he pulls out an old colloquialism.

He says, Do you not say four months more and then the harvest?

And then he says this.

He says, I tell you, and here's the point of today's message: open your eyes.

I want you to see better.

I want you to see what God is all about.

I want you to see what he's up to.

Open your eyes and look at the fields.

They are ripe for harvest.

Jesus lays it on these people and he says, I don't want you to miss this moment.

I want you to open your eyes to see your thinking temporary.

I'm thinking about something eternal.

That there's a term that theologians have coined around this idea of thinking about the immediate stuff and not the big stuff that God's about.

It's called spiritual nearsightedness.

Some years ago, I was in my early 20s, my eyesight went from like really good to really bad, seemingly like in just a matter of a few weeks.

And I didn't know what to do.

Everything was kind of blurry out there for me, and I didn't know what to do.

So I went to a um, I went to an optometrist, but I made the mistake of going to the optometrist at Sam's Club.

Now, I'm gonna be honest, you probably shouldn't get your eyes checked or any medical advice from a place where you can get bulk frosted flakes and fruit loops, but it is what it is.

And so I go get my eyes checked, and none of my friends that wear glasses warned me.

They didn't tell me about any of the tests.

You walk in, they say, look at this, and they poof air in your eye.

They said it's a glaucoma test.

I'm like, well, warn a brother first.

What are you talking about, right?

Then they do that test.

Which one is clearer, A or B?

A or B?

I'm like, they look the same to me.

It makes no sense.

Then they put drops in your eye and it makes everything blurry, and I'm like, this is the opposite of helping.

What are you doing?

Right?

I'm not seeing any clearer, I'm not seeing any better.

And after the test, the doctor said to me and goes, Okay, Jason, here's the deal.

There's two issues with your eyes.

You have astigmatism, which means the shape of your eye has changed a little bit, making things blurry, and you're nearsighted.

And I said, No, no, no, no.

It's the far stuff that I can't see.

He goes, I know, but we call it nearsighted.

I'm like, that makes no sense at all.

It's the only medical profession in diagnosis where they diagnose what is right.

So it's like going to the doctor with a broken arm, and the doctor's like, your legs are perfect, right?

It makes no sense at all.

And without my glasses that they gave me, I could see everything in front of me perfectly fine.

See the hair on my arm, I could read the text of a book, it was the far stuff I couldn't see.

And I wonder how many of us that makes sense to how the condition of our soul is spiritually.

Everything around us is all we think about and it's all we pray about.

God help me, God help my health, God help my family, God meet this financial need.

God bless me, bless me, bless me.

It's me, me, me centered.

And we forget about the needs of the world around us.

Here's a spiritual litmus test.

If God answered all of my prayers, would it change the world or just change me?

You see, so many of us, we can't see.

We can't see.

Our eyes aren't open.

We're spiritually nearsighted.

I had this moment uh this summer.

The summer our church took a missions trip to Honduras.

It was an incredible trip.

We ministered to hundreds of kids from around the valley, it was this amazing mountain region around us, and it was awesome.

And then one day we we decided to go into like a community.

I used that term very loosely.

It was a few cobbled together houses, and we brought food, and when we brought food, we'd give it to them and we'd listen to them and we'd pray for them.

And I'm gonna be honest, I was in some weird headspace, kind of in a bad mood that day, and I spiritualized it.

I said, Gavin, this is about you, this isn't me.

So I pushed my son in and I kind of stepped to the back of the room, and I just tried to ignore the problems, nearsighted.

The last house we went to, there was this sweet little lady.

She couldn't have been taller than this, and she was so joyful and she was so happy.

And her house felt like it was falling apart, and we brought her food and she was so grateful for the food.

And someone through a translator asked her, What do you need, and how can we pray for you?

Come to find out, her husband was the pastor of the only little church for the whole region.

And she said, Um, we need God to do a financial miracle.

We're behind on our electric.

And if we don't pay our electric bill, they're gonna shut our power off and the power to our church off.

And I thought, okay, God's gonna do something, and I just I stood in the back of the room with my arms folded, and people prayed for her.

And when they prayed for her, for God to do a miracle, I saw little tears starting to stream down her face, and she looked up as they were praying and she scanned the room.

And her eyes met.

And when our eyes met, I knew I had seen something.

I saw her, and something had to be done.

We we left, and I knew immediately that I I was gonna invite people to be a part of it.

And if no one wanted to help, I had to do something because now that I saw her, I had to do something.

Now that my eyes were open to the situation, I had to do something about it.

Come to find out they needed like less than$600 for this for this massive life-altering problem to go away.

I said to the 30 or 40 people who were with us, hey, if any of you want to be involved in this, they gave over$1,800 like that.

We met the need, and then some, it was amazing in this moment.

Other needs were met by other incredible families in our church.

And I just had this moment, this moment of realization of I can pretend that I didn't see, or I can acknowledge the fact that my eyes were open and I saw.

To make it practical, um, you ever been driving in really bad traffic and you want to merge, but nobody will let you in, and you're stuck, and it's like when there's one foot of space, you kind of inch your car in hoping someone will let you in.

You even wave, you do the thing, and they pretend you don't even exist.

They look the other way, they keep driving.

Whenever there's one foot of space, they inch up and they fill that one foot of space so you can't get in.

What happens?

How do you get in?

It's when you're able to look at them and you're able to make eye contact, right?

This week um I was on one of the little side streets in the Dixieland area here in Lakeland where they did what's called the road diet.

Have you seen this part of town?

And it was like the busiest part of the lunch hour, and cars were bumper to bumper, and ain't nobody would let me in.

Nobody.

I'd inch my car out in the traffic and no one would let me in.

It wasn't until I kind of thunk, thunk, tapped my horn, and looked, and I did this to a person, and they they finally.

Because up until that moment I was just a car in their way, but when they saw me, they realized that I was a person.

You understand this, right?

Jesus invites us to take our eyes to a different perspective, to see the people around us.

According to a most recent study, there's 7.97 billion people in the world.

Any day now, we will cross the 8 billion person mark in the world.

According to the most recent studies, around 2.5 billion would consider themselves to be some sort of a Christian.

Let's give them all credit.

Let's say they're all right, they're all in relationship with Jesus, and they're all saved and going to heaven.

That leaves roughly 5.5 billion people who, if they were to die today, they would spend eternity away from God in hell.

And I said that, and nobody freaked out.

No one screams, no one's crying, we're not passing tissues out because that number is too big to understand.

But but I want you, I want you to see this.

Can I can I get some help?

Greg, will you help me real quick?

Jason, will you help me?

Would you run up here real quick?

Merle, can you help me too?

Come up here real quick.

Um, I want you to see this.

I want you to see this number.

Okay, um, on September 11th, 2000, 2001, planes flew into the World Trade Center and 2,996 people were killed.

Do me a favor, come here, guys, get close to me.

Turn and face that way.

I want you to line up straight.

Merle back up as close as you can, uh, heels to toe, just like that, as close as you can get, okay?

Imagine this.

If 2,996 people lined up, toe to heel, heel to toe, in a single file line, this would stretch roughly six-tenths of a mile.

We'd leave this stage, go out the building, turn right on South Florida Avenue, and we get to a round Chick-fil-A.

Imagine driving slowly past them and seeing the faces of all of these people.

On December 26, 2004, a tsunami crushed Sri Lanka, killing estimated 250,000 people.

If we were to set, put 250,000 people in a single file line, toe to heel, heel to toe, all the way across, we would leave this auditorium, get on the Polk Parkway and go west towards Tampa.

We'd make it all the way to the Tampa Airport, single file line.

That's that how many that many people is.

5.5 billion people.

I want you to see this.

If we were to get 5.5 billion people in a line, toe to heel.

Heel toe, single file line.

How long do you think the line would go?

Guys, thank you so much.

You can be seated.

I want you to see it.

How long do you think the line would be for 5.5 billion people?

Imagine this.

You'd get on I-4, you'd leave here, go up the parkway, get on I-4, and you'd just start going east.

And you'd get to the Atlantic Ocean, and the line would keep going.

And you'd have to build a bridge across the Atlantic somehow.

And you'd get yourself into Portugal and Spain, across the Mediterranean, get a piece of pizza in Italy and keep going.

You'd go through Ukraine, Russia, through Asia, you'd get through all the different Stan countries, you'd get into India, China, Japan.

And then the line wouldn't stop.

You'd have to build another bridge across the Pacific.

You'd cross over Hawaii, back, land in California, and then Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, and the line that we started right here, there'd be another person next to you.

And it would go out the door and around the earth again.

And again and again and again and again.

10 times, 15, 20.

And I'm talking about the widest part of the earth.

The equator is 24,901 miles long.

Each person representing one foot of linear space.

The line would go around the earth 42 times.

Okay, are you getting it?

Imagine getting in your car and driving the roads and seeing the people, and you look them in the eyes, and it's your friends and it's your kids' t-ball coach, it's your teacher that you adore, it's that neighbor that kind of annoys you a little bit, and the other neighbor who's like a gem sent from heaven to you.

It's that barista who knows your order at Starbucks.

It's the people in your life 42 times around the earth.

I'm gonna be honest, for some of us, even that number is too big to get our minds around.

So let me make it even more practical.

The city of Lakeland, according to the most recent study, if you include not just the city limits, but people who would call the greater Lakeland area home, it's 358,000 people.

Statistically, 19.9% of those people have some sort of relationship with God in church, leaving 80.1%, which means 289,980 people have no connection in our city, in our backyards, in your neighborhoods, in your life, in your circle of influence, 289,980 people have no connection with God.

See it with me, toe to heel, heel to toe.

This line would start here on the stage, go out the door.

It would go up the Polk Parkway, get on I-4 and go east.

And it would go all the way to the Amway Center where the Orlando Magic play basketball in downtown Orlando, 55.1 miles of distance, with each person taking up one foot of linear space.

See it with me.

Get in your car today, and as you drive, drive slowly and imagine your family members and your friends and your coworkers lined up, single file, as you drive.

Imagine them turning and looking you in the eye.

And Jesus says, open your eyes.

What do you see?

What do you see around you?

If we're gonna be people who change the world and change our city and make a difference that is indelibly felt for generations to come, we have to care about what God cares about.

So what do we do?

Number one is this we have to open our eyes to where they are.

Now, this is important.

I'm not talking about geography.

I'm talking about where people are spiritually.

We've got to care about the stuff that they care about.

Um, that there are people in my life that I've just, I just, I've struggled so hard connecting with.

And it's interesting, I'll ask them about any anything imaginable, any good TV shows you're watching, anything happening.

But if I ask them about their family, it's like their family opens their heart for some reason.

Tell me how's your kid?

How's college going for him?

How's your husband?

How's his job?

You ask these kinds of questions and people will open up.

Why does it matter if they open up?

When people open up, it gives you an opportunity to speak to the heart of who they actually are.

You see, you need to start praying differently about your life.

You need to start praying that God will open up divine moments of opportunity for you to share your faith.

If you think your life is all about you and earning a paycheck and watching the same TV shows and eating the same kind of meals over and over and over again, let me declare, you are spiritually nearsighted.

It's all about you.

But if you're willing to care about what God cares about, you start praying for moments of divine opportunity.

Uh David says in the book of Psalms, Psalm chapter 37, he says, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.

Psalms 37 · chapter mention

In the next book, the book of Proverbs, Solomon says, In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.

Man plans their calendar, but it is God who plans these moments of divine intervention for us.

So we've got to care.

We've got to listen.

People don't care what you know until they know that you care about them.

So here's the point to change the world, we need to connect before we correct.

There's a lot of people who want to make a point.

They want to correct people.

Making a point is easy.

Making a difference is challenging.

We need to connect, love them before we ever have a voice of opportunity to correct them.

Second thing we need to do is we need to open our eyes to who they are.

Who are the people that God has placed in your life?

And let me get all up in your business for a second and say.

The people in your life are there on purpose and for a purpose.

It is not a coincidence, it is not a divine accident that those people are in your life.

God placed them there, and let me take it farther.

You're responsible for them.

You are responsible for the people in your life.

You're responsible for those in your circle of influence.

Who are they?

Who are they?

Here's the funny thing.

Let's be honest.

People can be really annoying sometimes.

Can I hear somebody say amen to that?

Like this week, like every other week, there was big news.

The government passed something that made some people really happy, made some people really upset.

Did you see people complaining on both sides of it this week?

Did anybody else see this?

And people do this.

And what we tend to do as a culture currently is we tend to polarize.

It's my side or it's your side.

It's me versus you.

Can I show you what Jesus did?

Look at what Jesus did.

The book of Matthew says this.

Matthew 9.

He says, when he saw the crowds, crowds, groups of people, some that liked him, some that didn't like him, some that believed like him, some that didn't believe like him, he had compassion on them.

Like he loved first.

He cared first.

Like he saw past the politics, he saw past the places of disagreement.

He saw a child of God, someone to be loved.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

He understood that there was a reason that they were the way that they were.

So if we're going to be people who change the world, we need to understand this.

We don't have to be like them, but we do have to like them.

It's so simple.

If one were to audit your life, your thoughts, your social media, what would we see?

Like if you're going to change the world, you have to like the people around you.

Number three, and this one is uh, this is a I'm gonna step all upon your toes for a moment.

Number three, we need to care and open our eyes to what they need.

To what they need.

So here's the question.

What are the people who are in our lives, who are in that long line, what do they need?

Now there's two different schools of thoughts in church.

Some of you, I've I I know this to be true because some of you have complained about our church for one reason or another, and it usually centers around this question: which is more important, truth or grace?

Truth or grace?

Now, here's if you don't understand this, there's two different kinds of camps when it comes to how we reach people.

The truth people are the people who are out there saying, You're wrong, you're sinning, you're going to hell, you're going to hell in a handbasket, you need to turn or you're gonna burn.

Repent or die, repent or pay the consequences.

The funny thing is, I actually think they're right.

I think they're correct.

I think that heaven and hell are realities.

I think that there is truth, there is an absolute truth to this world.

But if you do that and scream into the wind, all you're ever doing is making a point, but you're never making a difference.

These truth people, these people that are like thumping the Bible and all up in your face, it's like no one's listening to them but they're right.

And then on the other extreme is this grace crowd of people.

And I'm all about grace.

Grace is God's unmerited favor, it is his blessing, it is forgiveness in our life.

And there are some people who go to the exact other extreme, which is like you can't do anything that God's not gonna forgive.

And you, it's all forgiven, God loves you.

It doesn't matter what you do, it doesn't matter what you did last night, it doesn't matter what you do tomorrow, it's grace, it's all covered, it's all forgiven.

Well, which one is it?

And let me clear this up: where does access stand on truth or grace?

You ready for it?

Here it is.

Truth without grace is mean.

Grace without truth is meaningless, but together they are medicine.

It's not truth or grace, it's truth and grace.

In fact, the order of them actually matters.

Look what John says about Jesus.

John chapter 1, he says the word, talking about Jesus, became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

John 1 · chapter mention

We have seen his glory of the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father full of grace and truth.

I actually think the order of this matters.

It matters that we offer grace first.

I love you, I care about you, I want to be in your life.

God is a God of love, he is a God of forgiveness, but we don't stop there, we bring the truth too.

Think about the moments in Jesus' life where Jesus is traveling one day and there's this tax collector, this evil, terrible person, Zacchaeus.

Jesus sees him, and here's what he doesn't do: Jesus doesn't say, You sinner, you're going to hell.

Would have been truth.

He says, Come down.

Let's have lunch.

I wish we had a transcript of the conversation, but we don't.

He offers grace first.

And then we know there had to be truth because what happens when Zacchaeus comes out of lunch?

He says, I want to change my life, I want to repay the debts that I owe people, and I want to give them back four times what I stole from them.

Grace and truth.

Think about the moment when Jesus is teaching, and a woman trembling in fear, clutching to a blanket or whatever she could get her hands on to cover her nakedness, is thrown at the feet of Jesus.

And they say, Jesus, we caught this woman in the act of adultery.

She should be stoned, put to death for her sin.

Truth.

What do we do?

Trying to catch Jesus and trick him.

And Jesus says, Let you without sin.

You be the first one to throw a stone.

Now just imagine it cinematically.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

One by uh one by one the stones fall as people drop them to their sides and walk out in disbelief.

Pretty soon no one was there except for Jesus and the woman.

And Jesus asked her this question where are those who condemned you?

Grace.

Neither do I condemn you.

Grace.

And then what does he say?

Now go leave your life of sin behind.

Truth.

It's not one or the other, it's both end.

If we're gonna be effective in this world, if you're gonna live a life that crowds heaven a little bit more and plunders the gates of hell, if you're going to get live a kind of life that makes the line 42 times around the earth a little bit shorter, you need to understand this.

If we're gonna change the world, we need to show people the same kind of love that God showed us: unconditional love.

So, what would it look like if all of us today left here making this decision?

I'm going to allow Jesus to open my eyes, to see what he sees, to care about what he cares about, to realize that there are people in my life, and it was not some cosmic accident that people landed in my neighborhood or landed in my relational circle.

All of it was on purpose by a master artisan who dreamed up the world, Ephesians 1 says, in advance, knowing you would be here in this moment for it.

Okay, so who are the people in your life that are currently in that line?

Who are the people in your life that you just you need to see it with your spiritual eyes?

You need to get whatever spiritual nearsightedness healed in your life so you can see beyond your own needs and your own self and you can see the world.

Who are the people in your life?

And just imagine today when you get in your car and you start your car up and you leave the parking lot, maybe drive a little slow.

And imagine those people standing in line.

Truth, the line to hell, the line away from God.

Imagine those people and listen to me.

You can do something about it.

I can do something about it.

So here's my challenge to each and every one of us.

My challenge is that over the next 30 days, 30 days, that you will share your faith with at least one person.

You know, I'm not Jew.

I don't have a doctrine.

I don't know all the right words.

What if they ask a question?

Okay.

Say what the woman, the Samaritan woman at the well, is like, just come and see.

I don't have all the answers, but Jesus has changed my life.

Just come experience what I've experienced.

I challenge each and every one of you to share your faith at least one time over the next 30 days.

And I also challenge you to have one Sunday in the next 30 days where you bring a person who would currently be standing in that figurative line.

Bring one person and have them come experience this with you.

Well, why does it matter?

There's a reason we do church the way we do church.

There's a reason that church should be celebratory and fun.

It's because the darkness of this world is heavy enough for every single person.

There's a reason that we lead with a lot of humor and a lot of fun.

It's because the scripture teaches that the world is heavy and we need to laugh.

Laughter is a good medicine.

There's a reason that we worship passionately, and there's a reason that the messages build you up and don't beat you up.

And the reason is people need to be encouraged.

And there's a reason we lead with grace.

And then we offer truth, and we're not a Bible-thumping congregation of people.

Some people are wrong.

It's grace and truth.

And what if all of us made this decision?

That if over these next 30 days we're going to start a habit that will revolutionize our life, we're going to make the line just a little shorter.

And we're going to leverage our lives.

We're going to push back against spiritual nearsightedness.

And what we're going to do is we're going to see what God can do through a life fully surrendered to Him.

Will you bow your head and close your eyes all across this room with me?

Why don't you take a moment and ask God, reveal to me who's in the line that's in my life.

So God, today we pray for moments of divine opportunity.

Do what only you can do.

Open the doors to spiritual conversations.

Give us moments of clarity to step in when a person is vulnerable and shares what's happening in their hearts.

God, my prayer is that you'll use us to reach more and more people.

God, the truth is this makes some things a little bit less convenient for us.

Maybe the church felt a little different when it was smaller for us, and we we kind of liked that.

God, it's not about us.

We're on mission with you.

God, I pray for our church.

May our church be a beacon of light to this great city.

God, I pray that you'll open the door for us as we do more services.

I pray you'll open locations for us.

Because it's not about us, it's not about me.

It's about our church being effective for you.

So, God, our declaration is we want to be on mission with you.

We love you.

We need you.

We thank you for it.