Slide 1
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain

Slide 2
“Why? How? What? This little idea explains why some organizations and some leaders are able to inspire where others aren’t. Let me define the terms really quickly. Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows WHAT they do, 100 percent. Some know HOW they do it… But very, very few people or organizations know WHY they do what they do. And by “why” I don’t mean “to make a profit.” That’s a result. It’s always a result. By “why,” I mean: What’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care?” – Simon Sinek

Slide 3
Love Extended. We are committed to love as a commandment and seek to demonstrate Christ’s love through compassionate service to others.

Slide 4
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God. Acts 16:25-34

Slide 5
Radical hospitality is the Christ-centered practice of generously and sacrificially welcoming others—especially the outsider, the stranger, and the marginalized—as if welcoming Christ Himself, regardless of whether they can repay or belong.

Slide 6
“The church is the church only when it exists for others… not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Slide 7
Greater Things Update!

Slide 8
In 1995, astronomer Bob Williams wanted to point the Hubble Space Telescope at a patch of sky filled with absolutely nothing remarkable. For 100 hours.

Slide 9
The Hubble Deep Field focused on a “blank” patch of sky just 1/30th the width of the full moon.

Slide 10
What looked like nothing was overflowing with over 3,000 galaxies.

Slide 11
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Psalm 19:1

Slide 12
A typical galaxy is estimated to have 100 billion stars.

Slide 13
We now estimate there to be 2 trillion galaxies.

Slide 14
200 sextillion stars
200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Slide 15
He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Psalm 147:4

Slide 16
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Psalm 8:3-4

So there’s a famous

Quote from Mark Twain that he never actually

Wrote or

Said. And it says this,

It says, the

Two most important days in your life are the day that you are born. And the day you find out

Why, why

I, I, I put that out

There. ’cause

We don’t know that Mark Twain actually said that. But if you find it on social media, his name is always

Attached to it. But the why

Why am I here? What is my purpose? We

Would say, as

Christians, your two most important days are the day that you’re born and the the day that you are born again. And the reason we’d say that

Is because the

Day that you are born again is

What helps you to find

Your why,

Your purpose. There’s

A famous author,

Speaker

Named Simon Sinek. He’s in the business world, and he had a famous

Ted Talk that he

Did now, probably 15, 20 years ago, that

He titled it Start With Your Why. He has a book titled the

Same Thing. And he came up with this thing called the Golden Circle, where in that circle it

Talks about the

What on the furthest of

The

Outside and then the how, and then the why. And he would explain that most people know what

They do.

As a matter of fact, even as individuals,

If you’re in a

Conversation with someone and they’re a total stranger, we tend to focus on the what. Hey, what is it

That you do? What do you like to

Do with your time? What are

Your hobbies? The what is easy? Oftentimes

We think that the

What

Is our identity, but one step

Further

Understanding a little bit more is how you do that thing. But the most important thing for us to understand is

The why.

He writes in his book in describing it this

Way, he says, why, how, what this little idea

Explains why some organizations and some leaders are able to inspire where others aren’t. Let me define the terms really quickly. Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows what they do. A hundred percent. Some know how

They do it, but

Very,

Very few people

Or organizations know why

They do

What they do. And by why I don’t mean to make a profit.

That’s a result. It’s always a result By why,

I mean, what’s your

Purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does

Your organization exist?

Why do

You get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care? And so if you think from a church standpoint that are, what if someone’s looking on the outside, they say, well,

Okay, you’re, what is it? You do

Songs and you do a message and you do programs.

The

How would maybe be the

Style of

How we’re doing it. We do it

In a specific

Fashion with a

Specific style

By choosing specific programs. But

The why

Is the most important thing. And the why comes back to

The gospel. For us, it’s all about Jesus.

That, that we’ve been in a sermon series where we’re looking at our

Church logo, talking about who we

Are and what we believe. And in that church logo,

There’s

These three different arrows

That

Up arrow represents our relationship with

God. That

The rhythm that we see

Jesus

Demonstrate over and over and over again

Is that he would break away from the crowds. He would go

Up onto the mountaintop. He would spend time in prayer and in worship. Then he would come down from the mountaintop. And that down arrow for us is community and discipleship.

So he would come

Down from the mountaintop and spend time with his

Disciples, with his followers.

But then over and over again, we

See that

He would be sending them out, out on mission, out with

A purpose. But that

Order is important because if we try and go out without understanding the up,

It doesn’t work, right? So we wanna be a church that has

Worship in the right

Priority. If we get our vertical relationship right, it overflows into all of

The horizontal relationships.

So if

We’re worshiping God, right, and we’re doing community

Biblical community

Together, that doesn’t mean that we’re just hanging out. It means that we have a purpose, that we’re aligned. We’re

We’re

Attempting to achieve

Together what God

Is calling us to do, and we’re trying to inspire

People towards that direction.

But then locked arm and arms, we want to take

God’s

Love and extend

It to the world

Around us. That’s what that out arrow represents.

Love extended

That we’re committed to

Love as

A commandment and deceit to demonstrate

Christ’s love through

Compassionate service

To others.

In John chapter 13, verse 35,

Jesus

Says, now, this is how they will know you are my disciples. And then I a pause for a second and imagine, Jesus

Says, Hey,

This is the thing.

If you wanna know

If someone loves Jesus,

If they follow Jesus, if

They’re following Jesus, Jesus himself said, now this

Is

The way that you’ll know.

He says, if they love

One another,

He doesn’t

Say if they know the most, if they’re the smartest, if they have the most of

The Bible

Versus memorized the most intellectual knowledge. Those are all important things. But the,

The

Fruit in our life,

If we love Jesus, should be

That we are extending that love

To others, that we

Are loving others

The way that Jesus

Has asked us to. If

You’ve got a Bible,

Turn with me to Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16. We’re gonna start in verse 25.

Last week we talked about Acts chapter two. We talked about the, the early church, the ideal of the early church. Of course. Then we flipped a few

Pages later and, and showed

That, well, hey, even the ideal fell apart pretty quickly because we are broken

And in community there’s gonna be some brokenness and there’s gonna be some sin. Now this week we’re gonna look

At a story that really has all three

Arrows happening simultaneously in this beautiful

Picture. So Acts

Chapter 16, we’re gonna start in verse 25, but here’s the context. And chapter 20 in verse 22,

We see that Paul and Silas, they get arrested.

They’ve been preaching and proclaiming the gospel. They’ve been doing some healings, and somebody was unhappy about it. They brought ’em to the authorities. The authorities then let the crowd rip their clothes off and beat them with rods. That’s what it says, that they were beaten with rods. Now they get thrown into prison. We pick up in verse 25, it says, about midnight. Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Now, pause for a second. ’cause There’s some profound things there. If you grew up in church, you’re probably familiar with this story. And we, we tend to just think of, oh, yeah, that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’ve been preaching the gospel and get thrown into prison. But everything about this response is totally abnormal. It’s not the way that you and I would respond in normal circumstances.

And here’s how I know that. Because in much less extreme circumstances, I don’t respond that way. Like when I’m in my car and I am driving and people wrong me, I don’t respond naturally through prayer and worship. That’s not my natural bent. I wish I did. Now, Paul. And so they were beaten with rods and they respond how? With prayer and worship, I, I am in my car and someone cuts me off and, and my natural response is vengeance, right? I mean, that’s, that’s what, like if I go to a parking lot and someone is parked on the line, I’m irritated that person. If someone is parked and they’re taking up all four spots, like I, I wish I could tow that person right now, at minimum, let’s park all of our cars around them and trap them in because this person is a jerk.

Like they really haven’t even wronged me. I just feel offended on behalf of all of humanity towards this person. Like that’s how we’re Ben. That’s our natural response. And yet they get wronged in this terrible manner, in this terrible way. They’re in prison, they’re clothes are torn, they’ve been beaten by rods, and they’re worshiping God. Two weeks ago, we talked about the difference between praise and worship. That praise is this outward expression oftentimes through song. But worship is a condition of our heart where we are surrendered and worship to God. And here’s the distinction about worship. Worship is not dependent upon my circumstance, their circumstance. It doesn’t make any sense for them to praise, to pray and to worship. Now, it, it would’ve been easier if they go into that city and the city throws ’em a party and they’re excited that they’re there and everybody’s giving them presence.

That natural response is praise. Well, God, thank you. This is wonderful. We’re gonna sing songs of praise and worship, but terrible circumstance, not what they hoped for, not what they were wanting. And yet the response is worship. Why? Because they were worshiping is a condition of their heart. Now, now notice it says that all the other prisoners take note that they’re paying attention. Why are they paying attention? Because Paul and Silas, what they’re doing makes no sense. Like if, if they’re in prison and they’re grumbling and complaining, probably the other prisoners don’t even pay attention to it. Why? Because everybody’s grumbling and complaining in prison, like, you’ve just been beat up by rods and now you’re in prison. And now you’re like, oh man, those guys, I’m so angry, I’m so frustrated. Like nobody would’ve even noticed. But the fact that they were praising and worshiping causes the other prisoners around them to say, what is going on over there?

And they probably weren’t a pretty sight. I mean, they’d just been beaten with rods. No one cleaned them up afterwards. So they, they got, I mean, probably blood all over ’em, bruises all over ’em. They weren’t a pretty sight, and yet they were spawning in worship. Verse 26. And suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. Earthquake happens. The doors fly open, the shackles that are on their hands and feet, they just fall off miraculously. And my human reaction would just be to jump up and say, woo-hoo, and just take off. It says, when the jailer woken saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, do not harm yourself for we are all here.

Then the first century, a Roman jailer was responsible for their prisoners. And if they lost a prisoner, if a prisoner escaped and got free, then they would forfeit their life. The punishment for that jailer would be that they would die. And so he comes in and an earthquake has thrown the doors open and all the shackles are off. And so he just assumes that his life is forfeit. And so he’s about to take his life. And Paul cries out, Hey, don’t do that. It leads you to understand why is it that Paul doesn’t leave? Why doesn’t Paul just say, all right, see you suckers. I’m outta here. I’m on my own. Clearly, God performed this miracle for me to escape. Now, he would’ve known that the jailer would’ve died, but there’s a human nature part of me that would be like, well, you deserve it.

God did this so that I could be free clearly. And you get the short end of the stick, but that’s not what Paul does. It says, and the jailer called for lights and rushed in and trembling with fear. He fell down before Paul and Salas, then he brought them out and said, SIRS, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus, and you’ll be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds. And he was baptized at once. He and his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them, and he rejoiced along with his entire household, and he had believed in God.

The, in this one story, we,

We see this beautiful picture where

Paul and

Silas, that their worship, that up arrow was right, that they were

Just worshiping in good circumstances. They

Were worshiping in

All circumstances.

And so that overflows into

That down arrow, that neither one of ’em is doing it by themselves.

That it’s Paul and Silas together

In in brotherly Christian community, walking together

Where God

Has called them to walk. And in the

Overflow of that is the out that they’re

Extending love

To the people

Around them,

The jailer. It’s

Interesting to see

What

Causes him to take note of

The gospel. What

Is that thing that causes

Him to say, Hey,

I want to know more.

It,

It wasn’t that Paul and Silas

Were

Just such amazing singers.

They, he, it doesn’t say that before the earthquake he goes over. It doesn’t say that he was just

Astounded

By their

Theology and how smart they were. No, it was the fact that

Despite they, despite the, the

Earthquake and, and them being free to

Escape the fact that they valued the life of the

Jailer enough to say, Hey, we’re not going anywhere.

It

Cost him to say, Hey, why,

Why would you do that? It was

Their actions.

It was their hospitality towards the jailer

That made him say, Hey, I want to know more

About what’s

Different in your

Life. That’s who God

Is calling us to be,

Calling

Us to be individually as Christians, but

Also collectively as a church, that we wanna be a church, that that worships

God in the right way and then has Christian community where we’re loving one another in the right way. And then we wanna take

That love

And extend it out to the community around us that we want to demonstrate continually over and over again. Radical

Hospitality. What does radical hospitality look like? It’s the

Christ-Centered

Practice of

Generously and

Sacrificially

Welcoming others,

Especially the outsider,

The stranger and the marginalized, as if

Welcoming

Christ himself

Regardless of whether

They can repay

Or

Belong. We’re not just being nice to be nice. We’re being nice in order

To share the love of Jesus with the

World around us. And so many of the things that we try to

Do as a church are because of that.

We’re trying to demonstrate

The love of God. Dear World War ii,

There’s a German pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who became really famous, ultimately

Would give his life for the

Cause fighting against Nazi Germany. But

He

Was a pastor during the rise of Nazi Germany. And he’s looking at how Nazi Germany was treating the Jews and how they were treating special needs and how they were treating marginalized. And he starts speaking out against it.

He said, this

Is not

Okay.

And he

Has this beautiful quote where he says, the church

Is the church only when it exists for others, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others. That, that when Jesus says, Hey, it’s by this, that, that will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another. Then we see a Dietrich Bonhoeffer who is living that out. He’s demonstrating that, willing to even give his life to love the people around him. So as individuals, we need to, to mimic that same type of a lifestyle, but that’s who we should be as a church. And so many things that we’re trying to do as a church are because of that. We had vacation Bible school this week, had over 1200 kids, had over 300 volunteers. Why do we do VBS and why do we make VBS free for the community?

Can I give you a secret? VBS isn’t actually free like somebody’s paying for it, and it’s you, it’s me. It’s us. We are paying for it. Why do we do that? Because we’re trying to demonstrate love to the community around us. So many of those families that that came to our church for VBS, it, it’s their first time to get connected to our church. Why do we do it? Because we want them to know that Jesus loves them. That why do we have 300 volunteers that, that are willing to give free babysitting for an entire week? And, and I know the going rate, somebody that has kids that we have to hire babysitters, it’s 20 to $25 an hour. Like it’s crazy how much you gotta pay for a babysitter. We had 300 volunteers that did it for free, absolutely nothing. Why? Because we want to love families.

Well, we wanna care for them so that they might be introduced to Jesus. Yesterday, we had a whole team that went to the correctional facility down in Denver and did a worship service for the, the inmates in the prison there. Why? Because we, our church tries to do continual activities, engaged in the jails and the prisons around us to help them to know that they’re loved by God. They have value. We have teams of volunteers that every single week are in our jails and in our prisons. Why do we have manna? Our food pantry? Why do we have Manna Resource Center, our resource center that’s trying to help people climb out of poverty? We’re doing those things, not because, oh, we’re such great people that we’re doing those things because we serve and love a great God. And if we’re worshiping him the right way, the overflow of that should be that we are loving our neighbor exceedingly well next Sunday.

Why are we gonna have a horse on stage? Like, like that is the weirdest thing for someone that doesn’t understand what we’re doing. Like, that just sounds crazy. But here’s why we’re doing, because we wanna create intentional opportunities to invite, to be in invitational, to invite people into this place. And it’s much easier to invite next Sunday than it would’ve been for this Sunday. Why? Because I’m not nearly as cool of an invite. Hey, come here. My pastor, his name’s Kurt. So sometimes he’s funny, sort of maybe kinda like, it’s not a great invite, but, but next Sunday you can say, Hey, come with me to church. There’s gonna be a horse on stage. And they’re gonna say, what? There’s gonna be a horse on stage. And you’re gonna say, yes. I know it sounds weird and crazy, but just come check it out. And, and what Todd will do up here, I mean, it is an amazing gospel presentation through his interaction with the horse.

And it’s a beautiful thing if you were here in September. It is powerful. It’s a lot of work to do that. We will put thousands of pounds of dirt on this stage. Why do we do that? Because we want to reach people for the gospel. We want people that don’t know Jesus to be able to experience Jesus. And we wanna be doing things and extending love to do that. Back in October, we did our greater Things campaign. Let me give you an update on greater things. So, so where we are is that we back, if you weren’t here back in October, we did a giving campaign for a missions building. We are going to build a, a missions building that that’s in our parking lot out by our compound area. And it’s a $6 million campaign that, that we funded. And so about 5 million of that will go towards that missions building and about a million dollars of renovations to our kids area and our kids suite.

And right now they have, they, they went through the competitive bidding process. They’ve landed on a commercial contractor that will, will do the building portion. They’re still going through all of just all the different steps. And so there’s the mechanical and there’s the plumbing and there’s an easement out there. And so that’s all the stuff with the county that kind of moves stuff around. And of course, permitting takes a little bit but most likely around September is where we’re looking ahead as a groundbreaking. Of course that could change, but most likely September is when we’ll break ground on that. But why would our church be willing to give that much money for a building that’s not gonna probably directly impact you? Because we want to extend the love of God to the community that exists around us. That’s what that out arrow is all about.

But, but here’s the warning on the out arrow that sometimes if we get too focused on the out arrow and not enough on the up arrow, we can get out of whack. And it doesn’t work. Like if I am just serving for my own benefit, like I’m such a great person. I’m so nice, I’m so kind. So I’m gonna show God’s love to other people and I’m gonna volunteer and I’m gonna help with the food pinching and do all these things. If I do it on my own string, there is value in that. The, the scientific data would say there’s value in that. But, but can I just tell you it’s eventually gonna exhaust me and tire me out. But if it comes out of the overflow of that vertical arrow being Ryan, that if I am worshiping God in spirit, in and in truth with all of who I am, and then that overflows into the community, that I’m surrounded by other people that we’re locked arm in arm, trying together to love Jesus more

Deeply, to pursue

His calling for us as individuals and as a church, then

The overflow

Of that is

That we start to love

Our neighbor well, because when our,

Our vertical is right, then it helps to fix all of the

Horizontal.

It starts with our why is that it starts with

Worshiping God

The right and

Proper way. And in order to do that, we have to understand how great, how majestic, how infinite, how amazing he is. In 1995 that there was an astronomer named Bob Williams. Bob Williams worked for

The Hubble Telescope Project.

And if you go back in time to 1995, at that point,

The Hubble telescope from a public

Perception was a failure because it, it cost so much money at that point, it hadn’t accomplished very much when they first launched the thing and got it up there in a space, it didn’t work. They had to send a rescue mission to go fix some things. And so 1995, it’s kind of fully

Operational

For the first time. The

Public

Really doesn’t like it very much. And so they’re trying to choose

Projects that the public will say, oh, wow, it was worth all the taxpayers

Money that we, we sent towards this thing. So Bob Williams is one of the

Directors of the Hubble telescope. He

Gets about 10% of the time that they’re shooting that telescope someplace

He gets to choose with

His 10% where they’re going to shoot

The telescope.

Now, they all thought, okay, we need to be aiming at things that that are sure things. And then Bob

Had this crazy

Idea that he wanted to aim the

Hubble telescope at a blank spot

In the sky for a hundred hours.

It, it, the Hubble

Telescopes, it’s not like a camera that you just like snap in, we’re done. Like

It takes

A hundred hours

To get

That one image.

And so his colleagues are like, Hey,

This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I’m not sure that we should do it. Now, Bob says in the interview, he

Says that he, he really thought

That if it didn’t work out

That, that he’d end up resigning or, or getting fired. I mean, it didn’t make sense to look at

All this guy,

All the different things and then point in a spot where nothing exists and take a picture. And it’s called the,

The Hubble, Hubble Deep Field was the picture that he, he took.

And it takes

A

Blank patch in the sky

That’s roughly

About one 30th

Of the, the size

Of a full moon. So to put

It in perspective,

Like imagine that you go outside tonight and

Just space is everywhere,

All around you, and you took a pen and you held it up at arm’s length. The

Spot in the sky that they took a picture of would be the equivalent of about the size

Of the pen head. If you had a ball point pen, the ball point at the top of that pen, that’s about as big

Of a spot

In space that

They took a picture of.

I, I mean, imagine just how massive everything is. And you can take a

Picture of exactly that. So they

Point this thing at nothing for a hundred hours. And then this is the image that came up

As a result. It’s called the Hubble Deep Feel.

And it just

Blew everybody away because they, they took a picture of

Just black nothingness, and then they got

This

Back. And what they found is that

That

Black spot of nothingness was overflowing

With over

3000

Galaxies.

So to understand this picture

It,

Each one of those dots, those are not stars. Each one of those dots

Is a galaxy. And so, so to,

To put it in perspective our son is a single star in the Milky Way

Galaxy. There are

Billions of stars in our

Galaxy.

Each one of those dots is a different galaxy. When you look up into the darkness of space from a single pin drop and absolutely nothing is

There.

And yet, what does it say in Psalm 19? One, it

Says that the

Heavens declare

The glory of

God and the sky

Above

Proclaims his handiwork. Then when we look up the infiniteness of space, God is proclaiming his

Glory to us if we would just

Pay attention and understand. And

So, so if

You just start doing the math of this one spot, this tiny spot up in the sky when

The

Sky’s all around us, and there’s also sky on the other side of the

Earth. So if you start

Doing the math, here’s what

Their

Best estimate is. Now, is that,

That there are about

2 trillion

Galaxies,

Which trillion is a number that’s really hard for us to even comprehend or understand. But, but imagine that each one of those galaxies has on average about a hundred billion stars.

And so if

You, you do the math, then with 2 trillion galaxies, each one with about a hundred billion stars, that means that there are 200 sextillion stars. So, so that, that number all the way across that screen, that’s the number of stars

That exist

In the universe.

The way to say it

Is 200 billion trillion like that. That’s a, a number that we can put up there and try and comprehend, but really, your mind, my mind really don’t grasp

That. So

There’s, there’s really only two takeaways. I think when you really get that in perspective. One

Takeaway is this idea that, hey,

You and I are far, far smaller

Than

We could ever comprehend, infinitely smaller than we tend to think of

Ourselves

Now. Now, the

Positive of that is

That my problems, your problems, our stresses, our anxieties in comparison to

All of that are

Really not as big of

A deal

As we tend to make ’em out to be. I remember as a fifth grader failing into math test, and I thought my world

Was over.

And if I could go back in time and help my fifth grade self understand, hey, compared to all of that, you’re gonna be just fine. Not that big of a deal. But there’s a second part when we really comprehend and understand the bigness of everything, that it helps us to understand how big God is, that we are infinitely smaller than we could comprehend, but God is infinitely greater than we could ever imagine or comprehend. Psalm 1 47, verse four says, he, God determines the number of stars he gives to all of them their names. So God didn’t just put the stars into the sky. He gave each and everyone a name, 200 billion trillion. And that God, the creator of all of that, wants a personal relationship with you and with me. Psalm eight, verses three and four says, when I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in a place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him?

Scripture teaches that God, he doesn’t just know you and know me and want to have a relationship with us, that he knows us by name. He knows the number of hairs on each and every one of our heads. That, that God, that God of all of that wants a personal relationship with us. And if we get our why, right? And our why is that, that God, the creator of all of that, wants a personal relationship with me and loves me enough and you enough to send Jesus to dying the cross for us, that the overflow of that should be, I have to tell everyone that I could ever meet how amazing and how great our God is, and that God wants to know them personally and that that God loves them.

That’s our why. Our why is all of that. The creator of everything wants to use me and wants to use you for his glory and for his kingdom. See, here’s the challenge. The challenge is we live in a culture that everything becomes exclusive. We value things to be exclusive. You think of golf, the, the most exclusive golf courses are the most expensive golf courses, the ones that everybody wants to get in. And, and we create a barrier like, Hey, no, in order to get into this golf course, you have to get on a waiting list and you have to pay big bucks. And maybe someday you might get in. And every area, we tend to do things. We like that word. Hey, this is an exclusive dinner. This is an exclusive party. This is an exclusive invitation. Even silly things like Costco are exclusive. Like it makes no sense to me that you have to pay money to shop somewhere. But that’s how the model works. You today try and go into Costco without a membership and they will stop you at that door, say, Hey, no, I’m sorry, this is for members only an exclusive

Group of us get to shop in this

Establishment.

And so what do you do? You pay

For a membership, you

Pay a fee to get a little card with your picture

On it in order to then pay them more money to buy stuff. And you, here’s the

Crazy part. It works.

You go into Costco or sometimes I go with my wife

And it,

It is like a madhouse.

Like

If you had no perspective in life except

For your experience

In Costco, you would think that the world is about to end at any moment. <Laugh>. I mean, people are running around. They’re, they’re getting giant gallon sized peanut butter sticking it. I mean, it’s just cra like, just nonstop.

It’s like, it’s like World War

III happening in that space.

So something about

It being exclusive works to make us think, oh, I want that. I need that because nobody else

Gets to

Do that. And if we’re not careful, that that feeling of exclusiveness, that tends to just permeate everywhere. We can let that

Overflow into the church,

But all of a sudden we can start acting and function in a way that that makes us sound exclusive. Like, oh, hey,

Well, hey, you gotta

Get your stuff in order, in order to come into this place. Hey, hey, first you need to clean up your act and look a certain way in order to come into this place. And then even in our small groups and our connect groups, like, well,

Hey, hey, we,

We just can naturally kind of congregate towards the

People

That we like and that we know. And hey, we’ve kind of so formed a clique.

We’re a little bit exclusive to everybody else.

And now, now pause for a second and help understand what I mean by inclusive versus

Exclusive.

I, I’m not saying that in any way, shape or form, we change our view of

Scripture. That

We are always underneath the

Authority of God’s scripture.

And the best way to love someone is to help them understand that the best life for them is to live a life according to

God’s word.

But that happens after

Salvation. That

Happens as a work

Of the Holy Spirit. Once they

Already know

Jesus. Our, our job is before that,

Is to demonstrate such exceptional love to

The world around us, that the world

Would look and take note and they say something different

Is

Happening there.

That

They’re so inclusive and loving of

Everybody, that there’s this radical hospitality that they

Demonstrate as individuals and they demonstrate

Collectively as a church, how do we do that? We do that

When we get our

Vertical right,

That if we can really

Live life with the perspective of how great

An infinite God

Is,

Then that changes everything about how we interact in community and treat the world around

Us. How

Was it that Paul and Silas could be in prison, beaten their

Toes, clo their clothes torn

And singing praise and singing praise

And worship

And praying to God?

How could they have that perspective? It’s because they understood

How amazing God is, and

They had that as a priority

In their life. And when that is right, the natural

Overflow of that

Is that even in difficult circumstances, they

Could praise God because they say, Hey, this is silly, but

Being beaten, being in prison, that circumstance, maybe that seems hard, but not, not in comparison to this, not in comparison to him. And, and then when the earthquake happens and the doors open up and they could run free, they say, well, no. Hey,

We’re gonna show radical hospitality to

This jailer. We’re gonna

Value his life above ours because

We want him to know

The God

That we already know. Because we know that that relationship changes everything. What would it look

Like

If we individually started living that way and then we

Collectively as a church started

Living that way?

It starts with Jesus

Being our

Why. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father,

God, I just thank you so much that you are a God that is so much bigger

Than we could

Ever comprehend. And if you were a

God that

We could comprehend that you wouldn’t in fact

Be God

And I, I pray that that, that you would become our why. That personally, individually,

Collectively

As a community, God, that we would make you

The worship of you, the heartbeat of who we are

That would overflow into how we do community together, that we would love one another in community,

Seek you

Together in community, and then that we would love the community around us in such a way that

It

Would cause them to take note and want to know you.

We

Pray all this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.