Foundations | Week 3 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

Again, it's a made up story to illustrate kingdom values. As a Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho and he was attacked by bandits.

They stripped him of his clothes, they beat him up, and they left him half dead beside the road. By chance, a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and he passed him by.

But then a temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan

came along. And when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine, and he bandaged them. But when the man on his but then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he took care of him. The next day, he handed the innkeeper 2 silver coins telling him, take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time that I'm here. Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by the bandits?

Jesus tells the most logical story, the most simple answer, and then he's like, so which one would you say was the good neighbor? The people that ignored him or the one that actually did something for him? And the man replies in verse 37, the one who showed him mercy. And then Jesus says, yes. Now go.

Now go and do the same. Friends, I submit to us this morning that that that is the challenge that is before every single one of us, that the invitation of faith was not one to just a a logical processing.

See, Jesus' invitation is for you and I to go and do the same. And that we often forget that there's a missional component to the invitation of faith that we've been given in Jesus, that we have a responsibility

to go to go and to do the same. And I just, you know, again this morning, why should we care about people? Why why should we actually care about people who are lost and broken? Because the story that Jesus is is telling here is I think a perfect illustration

of what what the enemy wants to do to every single one of our lives. See, the Bible is clear that there is a real enemy that is out to kill, steal, and destroy every single one of our lives. John chapter 10 verse 10, it actually starts as Jesus saying that there's a thief that wants to kill, steal, and destroy.

Part of the reason why we as the people of God need to care about people who are far from God is because we know that there's a real spiritual enemy that's trying to destroy their lives.

And if you've been in a season where life has just kind of beaten you up because of whatever has happened in your life, the circumstances have left you, if you've ever been there, you know exactly what I'm talking about where you're just like, man, I feel like I'm on the side of the road. I feel like everything's been taken from me. And the truth is is I feel like most people just completely overlook me. And if there's a god,

he's completely forgotten that I exist.

There is an enemy. You and I have got to understand that that's the goal of his job for every single one of our lives. That that is what the enemy wants to do. He wants to destroy your marriage. He wants to destroy your integrity. He wants to destroy your finances. He wants to cause havoc in your life.

And there are people in your sphere of influence, whether you know it or not, where he's actually he's actually making a lot of ground.

And this is the temptation. This is kind of the the danger of the world that we live in. Right? We we see social media. And so we look at people's lives and go like, man, people people look like they're doing pretty good.

Their lives seem amazing. They're on vacation all the time. They post all these pictures. And what's amazing is maybe you know some people like this in your life. Like, we've got some friends that are close of ours. We've got some family members even that I know the inner working of their life.

I know the tension of their day to day existence in their marriage. And then I watch them on social media. And I'm like, make this make sense. Like, this thing is holding on by like a a shoestring. But if you go on Instagram, it looks like the greatest marriage in the history of the world.

And it it's it's what we are tempted to do is we show the world this image of ourselves, and sometimes we can be lulled into thinking that our our coworkers, our family members, the people that we're in community with, that, like, their lives are pretty good. But I promise you, their marriages are not doing that well.

There are addictions happening in the darkness that they're not advertising on social media.

There are struggles happening in those homes. There are disappointments that are happening. There are medical diagnosis that have taken place. I promise you, if you could peel back the the facade for two seconds, you and I would see a world that is broken and dying and desperate for the hope that can be found in Jesus.

Let us not forget that there's an enemy that wants to kill, steal, and destroy every single person's life, but I'm thankful that John chapter 10 verse 10 doesn't end

with just a promise that there's an enemy that's trying to destroy your life, but it actually ends with Jesus saying, but I have come that they may have life and life to the full.

That's the tension that we're caught in, that there's an enemy that wants to destroy your life. And some of you sitting here this morning, you you that's a that's an accurate depiction of your life. It feels like it's been destroyed. And I don't know exactly what it is,

but you know sitting there, man, you you can you can you can associate with the guy that feels like he's beat up and left on the side of the road. I'm here this morning to remind you that that's not the end of the story. The good news of the gospel is that there's always hope available to us in Jesus.

And here's what every single one of us this morning needs to remember, that people in our sphere of influence, they are desperate for this thing called hope. And I think hope's most basic definition when you look throughout the Bible is just a simple idea that, man, things can change.

And I promise you, people are looking at you, especially those of you who are who are vocal about your faith. People are looking to you going, man, is there actually hope available to me? Can things actually get better? And the beautiful invitation of Jesus is that you and I not not only get to have hope,

but we also get to be hope bearers and hope bringers to a world that is lost and dying, but it forces us to see people not as our our problem, but as our our purpose.

Again, this is one of those things that like it sounds great on paper until you show up to the service that you go to every week and some new person is sitting in your seat. You're like, bro, that's my seat. I sit there every week. You're like, have the whole idea that people are our purpose. Like, not anymore. They're our problem now because he's in my seat. Right?

And the truth is is there's a lot of practical things that we've gotta just be faced with. Like, it it's costly. It's expensive. It's difficult. It's inconvenient, but people are our goal. And here's what you've gotta see every single time. Jesus is illustrating a kingdom principle in this parable this morning. K? This guy who was left on the side of the road beaten and and literally half dead,

notice who shows up three different times to his rescue. People. Two of them fail epically, but the solution is still a person. And here's what you will see throughout the scriptures every single time that God's people are his solution to his problem.

The the hope that your neighbor needs, the hope that your your community is desperate for, the solution to it is you. It's me. And I'm telling you, if I'm God, this is not the game plan. If I'm in charge, I'm not using a bunch of jacked up people to be the hope bearers to the world. Why? Because we're inconsistent.

We've got character for twenty minutes, and then we backslide and do the thing that we swore we would never do. We're passionate one day. We're apathetic the next day, and yet God has chosen you and I to be the instruments of hope into a world that is dark and dying. Not my plan but it's clear.

This is what god has chosen to be the instrument of change in the world. I said it last week. You you and I have to begin to understand that the qualification of being used by god is not is not pedigree. It's not degrees. It's not abilities. It's not affluence. It's not it's not wealth. It's not background. It's that you've been changed by god

And if you've been changed by god, let me tell you this morning, you are you are able to be used by god. What god is after is not the most qualified. He's after the most willing.

The question this morning is, are you are you willing? Have you ever wondered why the moment we give our lives to Jesus, we're not just beamed up to heaven? It would be an exciting moment inside of a church service if it happened that way. Right? Say yes to Jesus right now. Just just start getting beamed up to heaven. It'd be incredible.

It doesn't happen though. It's like the moment you say yes to Jesus, your eternal destiny is changed, but your job on Monday is the exact same. Your family dinner on Tuesday night looks the exact same, but you're now different. Here's what you and I as followers of Jesus need to remember. When you say yes to Jesus,

your eternal destiny changes. Yes and amen. But your purpose your purpose has now become defined. I wrote it down this way that heaven becomes our home, but people are our pursuit. They're our they're our purpose.

The reason that you and I are left here is because there's still people that are in your sphere of influence that God is also trying

to reach. God also is trying to save them from the the punishment of eternal separation from him. But it requires us to have a perspective change to begin to realize, okay, people people are our people are our pursuit.

Remember what Paul says in second Corinthians chapter five verse 20. He says that you and I, we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, come come back to god. Paul says that you and I are actually Christ's ambassadors.

An ambassador is somebody that literally you carry the full weight, the full authority, and the full influence of the kingdom that you represent.

Let us not forget on Monday morning when you walk into the office place and Monday morning when you are in a a school classroom that you are not just there randomly, that you are actually you are sent on assignment as an ambassador from the king of kings and the lord of lords. You've got a job. You've got authority.

You've got an assignment on your life and god is trying to make his decree to the world through you. He's trying to reach people with you and I.

Again, you go back to the story that Jesus is telling trying to answer the question, who actually is our neighbors? He says, okay. There's a guy. He's on this road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It's a real road that everybody would have known, and it was a road that was notorious for having bandits on it. Well, this guy, this Jewish man decides to make the journey, and lo and behold, he gets beat up by a bunch of thugs. He's left on the side of the road. They take his clothes, which is like, that's the next level humiliation. You beat him up and you leave the guy naked like that. That's next level humiliation. Right? But he says, as luck would have it, a priest shows up. A pastor shows up. And this is the temptation. I think the reason that Jesus tells the story is not a real story, but he's he's running after the notion that you and I will be tempted to believe.

That it's like, I'm just an electrician. I'm a plumber. I'm a stay at home mom. Like, Daniel, that's that's your job to reach people, bro. That's why we give money to the church so that you have a job to do what we ask you to do. Right? Like, that's the priest job. That's the pastor's job. But notice what the pastor

does. He shows up on the scene. He's got the skinny jeans on, full sleeve tattoos. He's got the Instagram following, the whole deal. Right? He sees the guy, and he's like, man, I got a sermon to write, bro. I can't be bothered by you. So he walks to the other side of the street and keeps going.

But then Jesus says his luck would have it, a second person shows up. And he says it's a temple worker. Some of your translations will say a Levi.

This is like the super volunteer, the guy that was here at 05:00 this morning that will be here until 02:00. Like, he does it all. Everybody would agree. That's the that's the best leader of every single person at the church. He shows up, and what does he do? He's like, bro, I got planning center responses I gotta get back to. I got I'm busy. I got things to do. If you don't know what planning center is this morning, that means you are not on team here and you need to join a team in the name of Jesus. Okay?

He says, I've got I've got stuff to do. I'm busy. So what does he do? Does the exact same thing that the pastor does, goes to the other side of street and just continues on his life. And it's a sermon for another day, But here's the temptation that you and I have to be careful to avoid.

It's so easy to with today's day and age. And I know some of you, man, you have really important jobs, and you guys are like a really big deal. But if we're not careful, if I'm not careful, I will I will fill my calendar with important things, and I will miss the God things that are right in front of me.

I would venture to guess that the reason that many of us are missing the God opportunities that are right in front of us is because we're we're too busy and distracted doing what we would task as important things. I'm telling you, one of the markers of Jesus is that he was never too busy.

Somehow, the guy that was tasked with saving all of humanity built margin into his calendar and had time for people. I'm just saying that maybe maybe if we began to take serious the charge in the words of scripture that we would just begin to think about our interaction with the barista differently.

And I know servers can be frustrating when they don't refill your drink. Like, I hear you. You know? But maybe when you begin to realize that I'm here not as a as just a patron, but I'm here as an ambassador,

and God potentially wants to meet with these people, but he's gonna use me to do it, it begins to change how we see every single interaction throughout the day. But I'm telling you, it requires us to build margin into our schedule, not just for important things, but for the for the god things.

And then this is the moment. Jesus tells the priest and the Levite, the temple worker, they both forget about this guy and they keep going on. And it's really hard for me to even begin to articulate how charged

this next statement is that Jesus makes. Remember, he's speaking to a bunch of Jews. The man in the story is a Jewish man. And he says, the hero of the story is a Samaritan man.

The again, the only type of equivalency that we could have is like you go back to the height of the civil rights tension in our country. You go to the middle of the South as my alarm goes off at my house. Thank you, my wife.

I don't even know why we have an alarm. I'm like, it's only you that ever sets it off, but that's sermon for another day. Right? Go back to like the the height of the tension of the civil rights movement in our country.

This is the equivalent of Jesus walking into, like, a Black Panther's gathering and going, okay. A Ku Klux Klan member, he's the hero of the story. Every would there's no possibility.

And you've gotta realize that Jesus was constantly crossing every social and cultural boundary that was there. Why do you think he got himself crucified in three years? Because he he offended everybody. He was constantly pushing past the lines that we've drawn in society,

forcing us to reconcile with the the bitterness in places of bigotry that we all have in our hearts if we're honest.

Then he tells a bunch of Jews, the hero of the story, the only one that did something is the person that you all sitting here consider a half breed that is so beneath you that you won't even begin to have a conversation with him. He says it's a Samaritan man that actually goes, and he's the hero of the story. He's the one that did something about it that actually began to to change things. And then Jesus in the middle of just that tense moment, he's like, so who do you think was a good neighbor?

You could have heard a pin drop in the room. And the question again is what was Jesus doing? Again, I think he was setting up a lot of things. He was teaching a lot of kingdom values that are hard for us to understand, but I think what he was also primarily going after

was the thing that rises up in every single one of our hearts when somebody like me would have the audacity to stand on a stage and say that God wants to use your life because the thing that begins to overwhelm us is like all the reasons why God can't use somebody like us.

You go, Danny, you don't know my story. I'm still wrestling with this pornography addiction.

I literally use I was in jail at one point. I don't even know the bible. I I barely know I've been a Christian for six minutes and oftentimes when somebody says, wants to use you, we immediately go to all the reasons why God couldn't use somebody like me.

Yet Jesus is speaking to a Samaritan person that was overlooked and outcast going, you can be the hero of the story. If you begin to realize the story has nothing to do with you in the first place, then it's actually not about you. It's about a kingdom that's going to come one day.

And if you and I would get over ourselves and we would lay down our pride, god could begin to write a crazy big story through your faithful obedience. I'm just thankful this morning as a guy that doesn't have much pedigree. I'm just thankful that God doesn't consult our pedigree to see if we have a purpose. I'm

here to tell you this morning that you have a purpose on your life. God wants to use you teenager right now. You are not just the future. You're not just the church of tomorrow. You're the church of right now.

There's a reason that every great awakening through our our country's history has always started with the young adults. The naive and the young enough to believe that God can do something different. I'm here to remind you divorcee that God can still use you despite what you see as the failure of your past marriage.

I'm here to tell you single mom, divorced people, like God wants to do incredible things to you if you will just trust him with your story. You'll begin to realize that God will take your greatest pain, your greatest misery, and he will turn it into purpose and ministry.

But you gotta trust him with it. You gotta give it to him and be willing to realize, okay, God, people, they're the purpose. They're the plan of this whole thing. So practically

practically, what do we what do we do? There's three things I wanna show you from this story that I think makes this thing really, really practical. If you go back to Luke chapter 10 verse 33, here's how the Samaritan person started. Then Jesus says, the despised Samaritan came along and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him.

The only one that did something was the person that looked at the person that was down and out and felt sympathy for him, that felt compassion towards him.

And we are living in a cultural moment that would tempt us to stop having compassion and sympathy towards people that don't look like us, don't vote like us, don't believe like us, don't behave like us. The cultural moment that we're in are saying, no. Get entrenched more. Pick a side.

Get get more convinced of your preconceived notions already. Don't have compassion for people on the other side of the aisle. And I'm sitting here this morning trying to remind us, friends, as followers of Jesus, there is no side to choose. Jesus was the side.

He's not on the left. He's not on the right. I'm telling you, Jesus is the side that we all have to figure out how to get on side with. How do we begin to be people who are led by compassion again? How do we, as the people of god, be marked by the thing that Jesus was marked with?

Compassion towards people that were different than us. I say all that to say, I think that you and I need to remember that people deserve our compassion. People deserve us seeing them the way that God sees them. Even when they vote for the person that you swear is like the next version of the devil,

even when they land on an issue completely polar opposite than you, it doesn't mean we have to agree with everything to have compassion towards them. And I'm telling you right now, if you're sitting here and there's, like, bitterness and frustration in your heart towards some random group of people out there, let me just remind you that that is not a marker of the spirit of God that's in you.

The scriptures say that the spirit is supposed to produce fruit out of our life. Bitterness, frustration, and anger, they're nowhere in there. Gentleness, self control, compassion,

these are the markers of a follower of Jesus. And if you're struggling with having compassion towards some group of people, let me just remind you that maybe you need to start praying for those people. Why do you think Jesus encouraged us to pray for our enemies? It has nothing to do with our enemies.

He was trying to get you to get over the thing in your heart that is holding you back from being able to be used by god.

And I'm telling you, you can't reach a group of people until you have compassion for them. I love in Matthew chapter nine, we see this is the motivation of Jesus. It says that when he saw the crowds again, this is Jesus.

Anytime you see the word crowd in the New Testament, it it's not a reference to just a group of people. The crowd is always a reference to a people group that were not in the church. K. These were not people that were going to church. These were these were those people, bad people. Whatever your group of bad people is, it was them. And notice what Jesus does. He says he had compassion on them because they were confused

and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. I think we, as the followers of Jesus, need to go back to the simple things and ask God to break our heart for the things that his heart breaks for. God, would you help us see people as lost and dying and broken and not not angrily

approach people groups, because I'm telling you, you you can't change people that you're you're angry at. But I love that it doesn't just stop with a feeling, but the compassion that the Samaritan man feels, it leads him to do something. Look at Luke chapter 10 verse 34.

Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine, and he bandaged them. Again, it's a side point, but anytime there's a problem, wine helps the a solution. K? It's just it's it's in the bible. It's not my idea. It's God's.

Some of you are gonna send me an email. I was a joke. Okay? You don't need to send me an email.

Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he where he took care of him. This is the modern day equivalent of saying that he saw a person on the side of the road that was that was beat up, that was homeless, that was smelly, looked like he hadn't bathed in two months. And you pulled over in your Mercedes, and you put him in the back of your car bloody nasty, and you drove him to a hotel, and you said, I'm willing to I'm willing to do what this guy needs.

Jesus is saying it's not enough to just have compassion towards people. If that if that compassion, if that sympathy, if that empathy doesn't actually lead you to action, it's not helpful. People don't just deserve our compassion, they also deserve our action.

One of the markers of the followers of God is that we're the people that are willing to go first. We're the willing to step into the messes that nobody else is willing to step into. It's who we've always supposed to have been. It was always part of the charge

of being a follower of Jesus is that we don't just talk about it, but we are we're about it. We we live that life, and we're willing to step into the mess where nobody else is willing to go. When circumstances are are are hairy and things are ugly, we're willing to step in. And, again, we've gotta be careful because here's the here's the tension of the world that we live in today. Because I understand that every single day on Instagram, we're gonna see 12 different GoFundMe's, and there's there's needs galore.

And and and, again, part of the the challenge that we're in is because the need is so enormous. Sometimes it's easy to just go, like, I can't solve everything. And what we unintentionally do is we just because it's so enormous and we can't solve everything, we don't solve anything.

And I'm not saying that we have to solve everything, but here's what I promise you will happen,

As you as you begin to pray and ask God to help you see this world the way that he sees it, your heart will break for things that other people's hearts don't break for. You will look at circumstances that other people have seen and did nothing about, yet God will drive you to action. We can't do everything, but we have to do something.

The question is is what is the something that God is asking you to do?

And it's not just talk. It's not just a post on social media. It's that we've gotta we've gotta do something. We gotta be willing to to step in to people's mess. The the famous missionary David Livingston has a quote that I wanna share with you. He says that sympathy is no substitute for action.

Why do people deserve our action? Why should we as followers of Jesus care about this? Because remember what Jesus said, Matthew chapter five verse 14. You, friends, sitting here this morning, you are the light of the world.

You are the light into an otherwise dark world. A town that's been built on a hill that cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl and so they put it on a stand. It gives light to everybody in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others. Here it is. So they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.

Your and I's actions done to the glory of god, they point people back to the savior that ransomed us

and our good deeds actually bring glory back to who our who our god is. It's not we do it's not that we do actions because we're trying to to get the glory ourselves. It's that, no. The scriptures literally say part of how we preach the gospel to a lost and dying world is by stepping in and living the countercultural

life that we've been invited in into. And when we are willing to do the things that nobody else is willing to do, people see who our our god is. And we've gotta start to remember. I know so often when we think about sin,

all we think about is the things in our life that we need to stop doing. And those things are those sins are a barrier between us and God. But I would also submit to us this morning that maybe

maybe the reason why your relationship with God feels so stale is because the divide that you're feeling in your life between you and God, It's not it's not a divide because of sin of things you need to stop doing.

It's actually because there's things that you know that god has asked you to start doing that you've been unwilling to do. James chapter four verse 17, this is what he's talking about. He says, remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.

It's not just sin to do the things you know you're not supposed to do. It's actually sin to know that you are the hands and feet of God, that God wants to use your life, that you are an ambassador from Christ, but then you sit back, you walk out of these doors, and you go, ma. Somebody else will figure it out.

Somebody else will step in and fill the gap. Somebody else will do it. I'm telling you, it's not just unwise. It's actually the scriptures go so far as to say that it's it's sin, and you gotta realize sin always sin always separates.

Today is the first day of the four weeks of Advent as we begin to prepare our hearts for the coming of our savior, Jesus, when he was born on this earth and he became one of us. And I I couldn't think of a more a more fitting way for us to begin to turn our hearts back to God this holiday season than to ask God, God, where in my life have you encouraged me to step in and to meet a practical need that I've been unwilling to do it?

God, how can I leverage my resources, my my time, my talent, and my treasures to expand your your kingdom? I'm telling you, ask the question and watch what begin God will begin to do. People deserve our compassion. They deserve our our action. And then here's the here's the last thing, and this is where some of you are gonna get offended at me, so you might wanna tune out. So just fair warning. K?

Last verse in the story, Luke chapter 10 verse 35. The next day, the Samaritan man, he handed the innkeeper 2 silver coins, and he told him, take care of this man. If the bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time that I'm here.

Theologians have debated how much those 2 silver coins were worth, but we know for sure on the low end, it was about two weeks worth of wages. On the high end, potentially two months worth of wages.

Again, it's a fake story. It's not real. Jesus is making the whole story trying to articulate and communicate for the next thousands of years what the kingdom of God is like. And he says, people deserve our our compassion. People deserve our our action, but people also deserve our investment.

This was an expensive investment for the Samaritan man to make. He not only muddied the Mercedes, he also takes him to a hotel, and he says, I'll pay whatever it takes. And you and I are like, man, I'm willing to do something. I'm willing to invest as long as it's a number that's convenient and easy for me.

If I were to go look, man. God wants to do something big in your life. Here's what I need from you. I need your paycheck from the last two weeks. You'd be like, I'm out. Go so far to say, I need two months of your salary.

Here's why. Because here's the need that we're going to meet. So many of us would self select out, and I'm telling you, part of the reason why some of our relationships with God have completely stalled out is because our resources are the thing that God has been trying to get for a long time.

And I just say this as a guy that was living in sin when it came to my resources for a long time. I had no idea what God actually wanted for me to experience.

See, I thought the idea of trusting God with my resources just meant that I was gonna have less. And and what it invited me into was an entirely different way of understanding my relationship with God. And I'm telling you, you cannot separate

a relationship with Jesus, walking in the fullness of your calling as a son or daughter of the most high God and an understanding of your resources here on earth. You can't separate them. At some point, we gotta realize, man, people need our investments.

And a lot of us living in the cultural moment that we have found ourselves in sitting here in the East Valley Of Arizona, we have resources.

And the question is is what are what are we doing with them? And, again, I I don't know exactly what it is. If you're like, dude, I'm not giving money to Echo's church. Give it somewhere. Trust god with your resources somewhere. Begin to see a need that you can meet and give it to something.

And, again, I would submit to you. I think that one of the best ROIs on kingdom investment would be here at Echoes right now. But if that's your holdup, man, go find it somewhere. But stop keeping the very thing that god is trying to bring blessing into your life with by just holding on to it.

Again, the whole story is made up. Jesus is trying to show us what a life of truly following him looks like. Man, people deserve our compassion, but they also deserve action, and then it also requires investment. It's costly. Following Jesus is without a doubt the most expensive you will ever make.

But I promise you, there's no investment that's more worth it than this one. And there are blessings that God is trying to bring into your life. There are things that God wants to begin to use you to do

that will far surpass anything that you could you could buy on this earth. Tony, I gotta watch it. Last last time we did baptisms, there's a guy in our church that had a friend that he'd been praying for that he had, you know, leveraged time and treasure and resources to get this person to be here. And then he watched God begin to transform his life, and he got to sit up here on the stage while that person he was once praying for was now getting baptized. And he was like, dude, I I get it. I got to be a part of it. All of sudden, everything changes.

My hope and my prayer is that every single one of us would get to experience that moment

because God loves the people in your community, in your family, and in your neighborhoods. I wanna make this really simple for us. Again, we're getting ready to do seven services for Christmas, and I promise you it's not because I wanna preach seven services. Alright?

I'm pretty sure you die after preaching seven services. But here's why we're going all out for Christmas, because we know that one of the most simple things that we can do to get lost people to come to church and begin to hear about the hope that could be found only in Jesus is to go, look. We're doing a Christmas service.

And I I promise you, if you take some of these our ushers are gonna be passing them out on your way out of church today. If you take these and don't just don't just hand them out haphazardly. I would encourage you to stop this week. We've got a few weeks before Christmas services are here.

And really stop and pray and just go, god, who is it that I can intentionally pursue with an invitation this Christmas season?

I'm telling you, don't don't discount what god can do with just a simple invitation from one person that's willing to say, hey, would you come to service with me? We will make room. We will figure it out. But what we're asking you to do is to reach into your sphere of influence that we will never have access to, but you do.

And watch what God will begin to do in your heart this Christmas season as you watch,

as you watch god reach into the people's hearts and lives that you thought were were never never gonna know who they are in Christ. Friends, I promise you, people, as much as they feel like they're a pain, as much as they feel like they're our problem, they are not. They're not. They're the mission.

They're the purpose, and people have to be our pursuits. Amen? So, father, I thank you. God, thank you for every single person that's here today. And, god, I thank you that we are only here because at some point, somebody pursued us. And, father, most of us are here in this room because somebody invited us.

And, father, I just pray that you would give us a heart to bring people with us. And, father, for the person that's here today that is desperate for hope, that feels like the person that is left on the side of the road beat up, abandoned, wondering if there's anything in store for their future.

Jesus, I just pray that you would remind them right now how much you love them and that you brought them here in this room because they matter to you. And, I just pray that you would fill their hearts with joy, that you would begin to fill their soul with purpose and meaning again, and you would begin to illuminate

the message of Jesus to their hearts, and that you would give them the courage to make you lord of their lives again. It's in Jesus' holy and mighty name all god's people said. Amen and amen.