Compelled By The Grace of Generosity

AI Transcript

Amen, amen, man. Out of the mouths of babes, you have ordained praise, Lord.

Well, it's a joy to be with you this morning. Thank you for just making this a priority to come out. And if you're visiting again, we're excited. You get to see some of what God is doing in our midst this morning. So last night, well, yesterday Rick texted me, hey, how are you feeling? I'm like, I feel great. I'm going to sleep fine. But I didn't. And at 2 o'clock, I woke up and...

I just felt like the Lord was saying this to me, so I was like, I've got to write this down. So I'm just going to read to you my 2 AM thoughts.

I have a fear that we might be a church that has the word compelled written on our t-shirts and on our banners and on our websites and on our series guides but for some of us maybe many of us compelled is not written on our hearts in our love and affection for our

for Jesus, for one another, for our neighbors and the nations. That compelled is not written on our hands and our acts of love and service. That compelled is not written on our minds. That the love of Christ doesn't consume our thoughts because we're too distracted and entertained by the lesser things of this world.

I fear that we might even be able to reach our financial goal and build this church building by giving to God only a portion of our leftovers because we are so abundantly wealthy that we don't feel the need to give sacrificially. That would be a great adventure in missing the point. That would be a tragedy. Lord, please do not let that happen. Compel us Lord to live by and for Christ's love.

That's why we're doing this. That's why we've gathered. That's where we've been for the last six weeks. So don't know how you come into this room this morning, whether it's excited or skeptical or fearful. And each week as I preach, know this, when I preach with zeal, it's because I'm preaching to myself.

Each week when I'm like, we got to do this is because I'm like, I got to do this. I'm first and foremost a church member before I'm your pastor. And so I'm with you in this as well. so, again, if I need some encouragement, excitement, I'll go to Doris in the front here. And Doris, few weeks ago, came up to me. I'm so excited for what God's doing. I'm like, tell me more about that. She's like, I can't wait to see what God's going to do. Yeah, tell me more. She's like, we're going to write scriptures on the wall. We're going to put a

Bible in the foundation. like that's an awesome idea. She's like I just I've never been a part of something like this. I'm like thank you I'm just gonna put you on speed dial whenever whenever I need that. Thank you Doris. But yeah you know

If you open up this word, and I fear that maybe part of our apprehension on even a day like this where we talk a lot about money, our apprehension comes from a couple different places. You've seen the clowns on television.

And then you project that on every other church and pastor like, oh, someone abused this once and therefore we don't have and that's a way to kind of deflect and shield our hearts. And the other thing is I fear that we don't know this word. You know, if you read this from cover to cover 500 times, you're to learn and read about what is faith. That's pretty important. What is faith? About 500 times you're to read about what does it mean to pray in faith?

Then 2,000 times you're gonna read about money But that's crazy, right? We don't talk about it like that You read Jesus's teachings at 25 % of his teachings. It's about money We're like, That just makes us feel uncomfortable from the get-go But why does he talk about money so much? Have you ever thought about that? Why did he put this in his his word for us?

Listen, it's not because Jesus is looking for donors. He's pursuing disciples. That's why he talks about money all the time. Jesus doesn't need donors for the kingdom of God. He doesn't need anything for the kingdom of God. He's inviting us to follow in His way. And He knows that the number one thing competing for your affection, competing for your worship.

is your money. just has this way. The Bible calls it mammon. When the good things of God come into our lives but they become God things, the Bible describes it as mammon. It's this spiritually dark demonic thing that wraps its hands around our hearts, begins to constrict our hearts, and we look to money for things that only God can give us.

We look to our money for our significance, our safety, our comfort, our future. And Jesus is like, don't do that. Don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. This is why Jesus talks about money all the time. He doesn't need your money. But he wants your heart. He wants our heart. The problem is...

We live between Solomon and Job. Solomon had everything. Like in today's standards, he's a trillionaire. He had and pursued everything. At the end of his life, he talks about, I went down all the roads you think lead to happiness. He had women. That's in the Bible.

hundreds and hundreds of women sexual experience. He says that's meaningless. He had all the money. He threw these parties, ragers, good parties, food and drink, wine, good parties. And at the end of the party, be like, it's not quite enough. But he had the means to just amp it up a little bit more next time and amp it up more next time. And people would sing his praise and he gets to the end of his life. He's like, that was meaningless.

And he goes through all these things that we think will bring us happiness in this life. And he gets to the end of it and he writes Ecclesiastes like all of that is meaningless apart from God. The problem is none of us are there. And all of us think, well, maybe Solomon was wrong. If I could just go down his roads, I would find happiness. That's just the way mammon trains our heart. Trust in me. Worship me.

And then on the other hand, have Job. Job's on the other. None of us are there as well. We all have pain and suffering in our life, but none of us have been stripped by everything of our health and our family and our wealth. Everything gets stripped from Job. at the end, he says, God is enough. God is more than enough. And so we live between the two. None of us want to go towards Job.

And all of us want to go towards Solomon. And we live in this kind of world in Parker, Colorado, where all of our homes are nice and our neighbors are nice and they're nice. And we just think this is normal. It's just normal. The Bible says, man, God has so much more for you. God has so much more for us as a church.

And so this morning as we come to our last week and our last passage, if you have a series guide, it's on page 64. If you have a Bible, we've been launching from 2 Corinthians 5 verse 14 each week into another passage in 2 Corinthians 5 14. writes to the church at Corinth. He says, for Christ's love compels us. Christ's love compels us. That means the whole

Motives operandi of our lives is the love of Christ and then he begins to unpack that and show that in the next several verses Different ways and at the end of our passage in 25 21 it says this God made him who had no sin to be sin for us So that in him we might become the righteousness of God Now

I say that verse all the time. But here's the reality. None of us can understand that verse really.

Think about what I just said. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. If that if we could wrap our hearts around just that reality, we would never complain. We would never say, God, why don't you give me this job? Why don't you give me more stuff? Why do I? Why don't you give me a spouse? Why don't you give me more kids? Like, have you understood every day that Jesus became sin in your place? You would praise God.

Every day it would be more than enough to fuel your praise. God made him to be sinned who had no sin. This coming Friday, our Good Friday service is probably my favorite service because it is the most contemplative focus on that verse that we do all year long.

we talk about and ponder. And again, we can't ever fully understand this. I don't even know that we will in eternity that Jesus on the cross takes our sin. He takes our unrighteousness. He takes our penalty. And then in that place, gospel is that He gave us perfect life. He gave us His righteousness and the eternal kingdom. If we understood that, we would live so much differently, right?

God wants something for us, not something from us in our generosity. He wants to unleash something in our lives. So our passage this week is a few chapters after 2 Corinthians 5 where Paul is continuing to apply by the Spirit of God to the Corinthian church and now to the church at Redemption Park. What does it look like to live compelled by the love of Christ?

And as I studied this passage chapters eight and nine even though the Bible says a lot I've already said it says a lot about our generosity about our money chapter eight and nine is the longest section continuous section where where this is dealt with. And in chapters eight and nine Paul is going to unpack some things for us. But as I studied this week and I've never preached this passage these chapters in 30 years of preaching.

And I also just realized, man, if the Lord saw fit to put that much in His Word, then I've done you a disservice for nine years when I've only really preached maybe two or three actual messages on God releasing generosity through our lives. And so I repent of that.

Because God actually has something for us in this. And as I studied this passage I was I was actually blown away. I learned things every week when I preach by the way I learned things. Again I'm a member I'm I'm in process. But but but what I learned this more this this week my prayers and Lord put this in our hearts because it changes everything. It gives us a radical new perspective on all all of our lives and all of our stuff.

So Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8. says, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace. And that word grace there is actually the key word in chapter 8. It's going to come up seven times. Chapter 9, it's going to come up five times. We're not going to get into all of it because we'd be here all day and we got to move on. But he says, I want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.

Paul writing to the Corinthian churches Corinth is probably the wealthiest church in all of the Roman Empire just by virtue of the economy that flowed through there and we'll see Macedonia was probably the poorest church in all of the Roman Empire and Paul writes he says I want you to look at the Macedonians

So much of our Christian maturity comes through others walking in that maturity, learning from them. Okay, so for example, you want to be a good husband? Surround yourselves with men who love their wives like Christ loves the church. And you'll grow in that way.

You want to be a good parent? Surround yourself with Christian community that others have gone before you and are pouring into their kids the gospel. Modeling Christianity is one of the ways that Christ grows us.

The other way is through his word and the model of his word. You know that the New Testament is written not to just make you feel good about yourself. It's not not about that. You know what all the letters of the epistles are written for? Your maturity.

That we would grow up and be like Christ in every area of our lives. And there's there's all these areas like Paul will say to the Romans, like if you've got this gift walk in it, if you got this gift walk in it, if it's leadership, if it's acts of service, if it's generosity walk in it. Why? Because we all need to see other people walking in maturity. So we learn what it looks like to walk in maturity in every area of our life. And the area that Jesus talks the most about

We don't. We don't tell each other about our finances. We don't share that. And maybe some of you are walking in amazing maturity, but we live in this culture where the enemy has lied to us and said, don't tell anyone about your generosity. And the church is poor spiritually because of that.

Paul doesn't do that. He says, want you to look at the Macedonian church. God has been pouring grace upon grace upon grace into that church. And I want it for you, Corinthians. I want it for you, Redemption Parker. This is I know, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. And then when he says next, just so doesn't make sense. It blows our minds how these things can be put together. Look what he says in the midst of a very

not just a trial, very severe trial. I don't know what that looks like. That sounds bad. If I'm in the midst of a very severe trial, what I think grace looks like is God taking me out of the very severe trial. That's what I'm praying for, right? Why wouldn't you? I don't think that's wrong. But listen what he says, in the midst of a very severe trial, there overflowing joy. What?

How do you have overflowing joy and severe trial? Well, it's not just that he says they're overflowing joy and their extreme poverty not just poverty Extreme poverty. This is like scraping by missing meals Just trying to survive to the next day kind of church Weld up in rich generosity what? What what do you mean?

We actually see this all the time because generosity shows up in our hearts long before it shows up in our hands. That those often that have the least have the most generous hearts. It just is. Maybe because they're not as tied to the things of this world. You can be greedy and poor, yes. But those that know Jesus, Paul says there's this grace that comes to us.

We don't think of our giving as God's grace to us. Here's the first truth. When we give, it's not only about a response to God's grace, as we often talk about, it is God's grace to us. When you give, it is God's grace to you. And if you've ever tasted the grace of God, genuinely, you want more of it.

And so that's the first thing that kind of blew my mind. This was God's grace. He says for I testify that they gave as much as they were able. And even beyond their ability. What? That's irresponsible. It feels irresponsible. Look at you have extreme poverty, affliction, persecution from the Roman government. You're barely getting by. And the church is like, got to give to the work of the Lord.

They have some some Christ likeness as we'll see that's why they're able to do it. Look what it says. They gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability entirely on their own.

They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in the service of the Lord's people. Imagine that conversation. Paul's just stopping by on his way back to Jerusalem. He's like Macedonian church I've heard about what's going on. just want to pray for you. Let's pray for God's abundant blessing to come in your life and like OK that's great. Yeah pray all that Paul but but we're going to take an offering. He's like no you don't take an offering. I see I see how you don't you're missing meals as it is. What do you mean take an offering.

I know Paul, you don't understand. Yeah, it's because we are so afflicted. It's because we're in such a severe trial that the grip of our hearts in this world has been released. We want to live for eternity. Do not rob us of this privilege to invest in eternity, Paul. And Paul's like, I can't argue with that. And he takes their offering.

It says, they urgently for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord's people. Why were they able to do this? It says, and they exceeded our expectations. They gave themselves, here's why, first of all to the Lord. They gave themselves first of all to the Lord. If we do that, we're good.

But like, imagine giving so generously that you like miss so many meals, you starve to death. And you wake up in heaven and you go, whoops.

Right?

They gave them all first of all to the Lord and then by the will of God also to us. So we urge Titus just as he had earlier made a beginning to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part Corinthians. The Corinthians had made a commitment. They said when you come back through we're going to give to the work of the Lord. And so he's sending Titus and he's like hey just to remember you made a commitment. Titus is coming but.

Think about the Macedonians and they says this, but since you excel in everything, you're growing and maturing as a church in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you. See that you also excel in this grace of giving.

The New Testament is calling us to mature and look like Jesus. And Paul's like, hey, you've got a lot of maturity, but you got a lot of ways to go. See that you excel in this grace of giving. This is not a suggestion, church. This is not, hey, if you get around to it, also mature in this area. Like, we gotta stop reading our Bibles like,

I'll do it out. This is the Lord's word. Do you believe that? Do believe this is commands from God for our joy? So the second truth that kind of blew my mind as I was just spending time in this is this, that what we give from is more important than what we give to.

What we give to is massively important. I'm not downplaying that at all. We've talked about we want to for the next generation for our neighbors and the nations to the 10th generation. Those are all things we're giving to. But Paul is showing something. What we give from from a heart radically transformed by the gospel is far more important than what we give to. This is what it means to be compelled by the love of Christ. That's why they did it because they gave first of all. But how because of the gospel. Look at verse nine.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that through His poverty you might become rich." This is the Gospel. This is Christmas. Right?

Jesus on His throne in glory looks down on His creation. Men and women made in His image living in rebellion and sin and under the just condemnation of God's wrath. And Jesus does not turn His eye and turn His back to us.

At just the right time he entered into our time and our space. He put on flesh. He's born to a penniless mother and father. He grows up in poverty. He grows up in obscurity. He goes public for three years to tell people about the kingdom of God. And then he goes to the cross. What we will observe this week. And he opens up his arms to show how much he loves the world. And his arms are nailed to the cross. And the one possession, his only earthly possession is then

Stripped from him his cloak so that he hangs naked to bear our shame on the cross he who was rich Became poor so that you and I could become rich forever Like this is why Jesus talks so much about money He's like listen live in such a way that you're living in light of your eternal future

Release the grip of this world to live for that world. I will give everything so that you can have an internal inheritance that you and I will be not only sons and daughters, kings and queens reigning and ruling forever. This is the gospel. This is the only way that we can have a heart transformed.

to reflect the kind of generosity Jesus gave us. Did you see the sequence? Do you see why it makes so much sense for the Macedonian church now to live and love and to give like this? Because they know it's God's grace. Again, we could go so much further. I don't have time for all that.

In a few moments, we're going to have a time of reflection before we make our commitments. But in chapter nine, maybe during that time, you can just read and reflect on verses six through the end of the chapter. But I'll just read the verses, just a few of them, six through eight. Paul writes this in chapter nine. Remember this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.

Whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your hearts to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver, a joyful giver. The word is Hilaron. He loves a hilarious giver. It should look crazy to the world. Our generosity. What are they? They're they're laughing. That looks like a cult.

They're laughing as they give away all their stuff.

You can argue with the text, that's what it says.

And then he says, and God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. Again, our radars go up, hey, prosperity gospel, twist this and makes this wrong. it says, listen, this is not a prosperity gospel church. Don't put that on us.

This is just saying God has entrusted us not for ourselves, but for the sake of eternal kingdom with so much live in light of that. You know, last week we talked about to the 10th generation where David brings Solomon forward and brings all of Israel and he charges him. Hey, you're going to build this temple, do the work, be courageous, press on. And then in chapter 29, the next chapter.

David goes first and he gives extremely generously. And he had the means to do so. But then the leaders, they go and they give extremely generously. And then the people of all of Israel are like, we want in on this. And they give extremely generously. In that moment, they could have patted themselves on the back. They could have said, hey, we're good. Look at us. Look how generous we are. And David in his prayer is just overwhelmed by this reality. says this.

In 1 Chronicles 29, 14 and 16. But who am I? And who are my people that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you and we have given you only what comes from your hand. Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your holy name comes from your hand and all of it belongs to you.

In a few moments when we drop our commitment cards in there, and God has blessed us differently and released generosity and different hearts, I get all that. But whatever number you put on there, know this, God gave that to you. God entrusted that to you. You didn't just come up with that.

God gave that to us. So how does God's grace flow to us through our generosity? Let me say there's probably 10,000 ways, but let me just give you a few examples. Because we no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died for us and was raised for us. That's God's grace to us. Because we realize that all we have is from God and for God and to God. That's God's grace to us. Because our generosity releases our grip on idols that promise security, control, and comfort that only God can give us.

Because we get to be a conduit of God's grace to others. We're not just redeemed, we are active participants in God's redemption in the world. That's God's grace to us. Because we get to invest in eternal things with a guaranteed return. This was all Jesus' whole point in Matthew chapter 6. A guaranteed return.

Because God's joy and gratitude flood our hearts and our minds when we give out of the overflow of God's love toward us in Christ. That is God's grace to us.

I want us to just reflect right now just on two questions. In light of these chapters, in light of the gospel, in light of being compelled by the love of Christ, the first one is this. Is my heart captured by the gospel? Is it captured by the gospel so that I can give with joy? Just think about that because it's going to come off. But is my heart captured by the gospel? Maybe you're like, I don't know if it is.

And that's where we pray that prayer that that man prayed to Jesus. Lord, I believe help my unbelief. I want to be there. I'm just not there. So Jesus will meet you in that spot. Is my heart captured by the gospel? And the second question is, do I trust God as the supplier of everything I have and everything I get? Like, no, no, no, I worked very hard for all this and I'm sure you did.

But you were born in the fourth century on a mountaintop in Nepal, how much would you have then? God has given you the circumstances of your life to bless you to be a blessing. So, do I trust God as the supplier of everything I have and everything I give? A few weeks ago, we had an incredible night.

It's called Advanced Commitment Night. In fact, I'm going to show a video here in just a second. Grant, you can go ahead and turn off the lights and drop that so they can actually see the people. But about 100 of us gathered over at the land to pray and to worship and to just go forward, just to spur one another on.

and it was an amazing night in our time. heard testimonies of people, what God was doing in their hearts, and so we wanted to encourage you with some of those testimonies, and so I'll let the video show you those.

The compelled initiative to us just means a place for us to call home. We've been searching for home and a place for our kids to feel at home. That's what Redemption Parker's been for us and we desire and long for the city of Parker to find home, a place where they belong and it's in God's kingdom.

Our commitment tonight just means that we're investing in Parker and our neighbors and our community. And we feel like our commitment is a way to be able to lean into our neighbors now and to the next generations. Being here tonight was really powerful, just being with everybody. And I got emotional at one point just thinking of the generations to come. Felt so full of faith and excitement of what the Lord is going to do for years to come.

This Compel campaign to me means that God is faithful to answer my prayer, to give me a glad and generous heart, and truly carry the Spirit of God into all areas of the world and into Parker. My Compel commitment means that I get to love the community I grew up in. Our Compel commitment means putting down roots where our kids and family will be known and loved and poured into, and getting to provide that opportunity for many more families to come.

Being here tonight has just been such a sweet time to just be with the body of believers here, people that have been here for days to weeks to months to years, and just see God's vision for the city of Parker, for this plot of land, for the neighbors around us, and just the opportunity to just to dig deep and to reach the lost that are just in the city around us.

This is just a step of faith that God will continue to provide for our needs while he uses RP to provide for so many people in this community. And that's where we're trusting God for through this. This compelled commitment means to us a place to know and be known, a place to establish roots for our children and their children and future generations. Being here tonight just meant so much. Being close to the land, lifting our voices together as a church family was just so beautiful.

and to get to have that vision cast into the future. I'm just so excited to be a part of this.

My family's compelled commitment means stepping into something bigger than ourselves, being a part of something bigger than ourselves. It is so exciting to think that if we all get together and we all use our resources, we all use our time, what is God gonna build out of that? That's one of the most exciting opportunities you could have with your money, with your time, with everything that everybody gives to this church. And in three or four or five years down the road, we're gonna look back and we're gonna be proud of what God built.

Being here tonight was an amazing experience, just being able to sing out in this beautiful creation, again, seeing mountains around us and snow around us, and just feeling God's presence. We're just like, this is where we belong. And so we feel compelled and are committed.

One year ago, almost to the exact date, we walked into RP not knowing what to expect and we were greeted with an amount of warmth and kindness that compelled us to come back. And standing here one year later, we have been compelled to give back to this church, hoping that future generations are able to feel the same way that we have felt for the past year.

Compelled For The 10th Generation

AI Transcript

I have been absolutely sharpened by the women and it's a gift. Like we are not called to be alone. We are called to community. We're called to spur one another on, to encourage one another in truth and faith. And sometimes we feel like we don't have that faith and so we borrow it from sisters. The friendships and the relationships that I have are so interwoven. These are the people we're doing life with and really

all because God used Redemption Parker for a platform for his purposes and his people. And so we give because he's given much and we show up for one another because he's called us to community. And I think if you sit long enough in that body and you show up and you're vulnerable, you taste that. You just don't turn away because where else shall we go? Because there are women before me that showed up to prod and to poke.

and to remind me of truth and God's Word. When I really didn't probably have that to stand on alone and reminded to cling to the cross and to show up and to pour out for women because there are so many who showed up and poured out for me. The women's ministry, I guess if I had to sum it up in a couple of words, would just be sisters supporting one another in Christ. And that's what we do. And sometimes it looks really messy.

but that's where God, I think, does the beautiful work of what he does.

The way that RP's made a big difference in our life, just as a husband, as a father, coming into this church, the men's ministry, and the way that the men have come around and just connected with each other and engaged with as a father, as a husband, and to be able to connect with them. What they're going through, what I'm going through, has just been such a unique experience of vulnerability. It's not just a Bible study where we're going and we're learning and doing that. We're actually

living life together and engaging with each other and immersing ourselves in each other's lives in a way that's been just super fruitful for me in many ways and for my marriage and for my ability to be a great dad. With what Men's Ministry has done for me in my life, I feel compelled to just engage in other men's life to be able to share as much of what God's given to me with them. As I look at Redemption Parker and the next two years in this compelled initiative, definitely convicted on how am I giving.

Am I giving sacrificially? Am I giving generously? You can I give more? And then I go to the place of can I give more of my time, more of my energy? You what does that look like? Stirred up some really great conversation with my wife and I, just how do we be more involved and engaged with what we're doing at RP and how do we dig in just deeper?

Amen. good morning. Morning. Welcome. And if you are new here, welcome. If you're just joining us, we are in week five of six of our compelled series, which really is just a launching point to what we believe God is calling us to for the next couple of years in discipleship to go deeper in our relationship with Christ, to go wider on our mission with Christ and to go forward into what God is calling us to. So if you

don't have a series guide, you can get one on your way out at the compelled table, but we are on page 60 of that today. If you're just now joining us, you can begin to turn there. I'd like to start a question. It's a question I like to ask people that I know, strangers. I asked the guy I was playing tennis with yesterday this question, and it's this, have you read any good books so far this year? What's the best book, or maybe if you're not a reader,

What's the best movie that you've seen so far this year or what's the best TV show? So, so I'm going to ask that of you. This is an all play. Anyone want to be bold enough to say what's the best book you've read so far in 2026? Anyone? What's that? That's mine too. I'll get to that in a second. Anyone else? Second, that one. I'm about the third, that one. But what else we got here? Okay. Bye.

Dallas Willard, good. What'd you like about it?

Amen. It's a good one. Anyone else? Any novels or anything? Yeah.

Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Yes. Let's just go Roman. What was that stat like? Men think about the Roman Empire every seven minutes or something like that? Yeah, Lucas. What do got?

Okay, you guys are too theological. Can we get more? That's a great one, by the way. I love it. How about some novels? I'm actually, I'm doing this whole thing with stories. That's where I'm going with this. How about stories? Any stories? Yeah.

the new PBS County Monte Cristo. Awesome. Who said Emma? Yes, I knew if you asked my wife, she would say, the unselected journals of Emma Lyons. Did I say it right? Yeah, I did not read it, but. And Ryan seconds that. I've heard about it and I'm like, I've got read that one, but she's rereading them. So I'll wake up at like three in the morning. She's just reading the book again. I'm like, what are you doing? All right. Well,

If I was Dancer, I would say Theo of Golden. I didn't know anything about it. I was on Amazon looking for another book and I said, what is this 4.8 stars with 60,000 reviews? I'm going to check that. That's not always a great indicator, but sometimes it is. And so I started to read the book and I was like, what is this? And I was amazed by it. I'm amazed by the story of the author, that in itself. He was 67 years old. It's his first novel.

What I loved about the book is it, more than many books that I know, most books that I know, it consistently elevates the imago de, the value of humanity in every person, regardless of socioeconomic, religious background, regardless of their successes and failures. Like this book consistently put before the reader the value of all people. And so,

I'm reading it and enjoying it and I'm like, hey, this is, I didn't cut onions. Why is my face leaking? What's going on here? I don't do this when I read it. It's a story, just a story. But there's something about stories that we were made for. Like we enter into stories. Stories actually help us see the world. They help us order the world. They help us tell us where we come from and where we are going. I'm always encouraging.

especially young pastors. like, hey, you're in seminary, you're going to read plenty of theology and you should, but you should read novels. You should enter into the experiences of others that you won't have to see through their eyes. It'll help you be a better pastor. And so I love stories for that reason, but I love it because we obviously are unique in all of creation because we are storytellers.

In the Latin, sometimes humans get described as homo sapiens or thinking or reasoning man. But then you look at the world and you're like, not everyone's a thinking or reasoning man. Maybe that's not the best description. But there is another one, homo nerons. We are storytelling men and women. is across time, across culture, across space. Wherever you find humans, you're going to find story. It's our attempt to try to make sense of our lives.

of the world and it makes sense because we are created by a storytelling God. We've said this throughout this series that that that God is telling a story. It's an eternal story and in this time and in this place we've been invited into the story. We've been invited to live a story in such a way that honors him. All of us all of us have stories. In fact God

is encourages his people. One of the gifts that he gave to his people through the Israelites is the spiritual discipline of remembering stories to be storytellers and story keepers. We see this throughout the history of God interaction with humanity. So, for example, whenever God does an amazing rescuing work, he'll have like a festival and a

feast set up so that every year the people will come back and remember it the Israelites the Jewish people have been trained from millennia past to thank generationally backward and forward not to live just for this their particular moment but to live in light of the story of God and so you have things like the Passover that are remembered every year

Another example in Joshua chapter three, as the Israelites are are gathered to go into the promised land there, they have to cross over the Jordan River a million strong. The problem is there's no bridges. And it's the time of the year in springtime where the snowmelt has run off. So it's in flood stage. It's a raging river. And God says to Joshua and to the people, you're going to cross the river, bring the the priest and the Ark of the Covenant.

And when you step into the river, I will stop it. but but they they it's just rushing and they have to take a step of faith into a rushing river. And in the moment they step onto the water, it stops. And the Israelites cross over the Jordan, not unlike what happened at the Red Sea. And they cross over. And as they as the waters all piling up, God tells Joshua, go take 12 stones from the center of

river and take those to this town called Gilgal and then stack them up, stack them high so that when your children come and they see this stack they say, what is that? Let me tell you the story because God wants us to remember stories and he says and then those children should tell their children, those children should tell their children for generations remember this event and in Joshua chapter 4 it says this, he did this so that

all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful so that you might always fear the Lord our God. God wants us to remember and to hope. Remember what he's done and to remember what he's promised. There's a backward looking thing through generations and a forward looking thing to generations. There's remembering and hope. And so all of our lives

telling a story. And like Theo of Golden, I'm just reminded that every person here who bears the image of God, you come in here in the midst of a story. Your life has experiences, successes and failures, sins and triumphs. Like you have a story and the stories matter to God because people matter to God. Every person here has a story. And now you've

joined with us for a time, maybe for years, hopefully for decades, but your story will continue after my time with you. But I want to recognize that you have a story and God's not done with your story. And the question is, the question is, is it a good story? Is your life a good story? If your life was on display, on a movie, and at this point in your life, the crowd is watching the story of your life,

Are they cheering for you or against you? Right? Like what is the audience saying to you if they're in the crowd watching your story? Like, come on, get on with it. Or like, hey, go ask the girl or go do the thing. Like, what are you waiting for? What is the story of your life and how do you live in light of the story? God is inviting us into to change, not change, but

but to exchange the story of our lives just being the center point to enter into His eternal story. So we tell stories. We tell stories with our lives. We tell stories with our family. Your family has a story and our faith family has a story. We're journeying together to try to tell the story of God through Redemption Parker in this time and in this place. And today,

our series, if you look at chapter 60, we are looking at this idea that we are compelled by the love of Christ, this is 2nd Corinthians 5 14, we are compelled by the love of Christ to live a story such that ten generations from now those faith siblings and sons and daughters will be blessed by what we do in this moment. Because if you watch a movie and read a book, not all parts of the movie and not all parts of the book

are equal. are inflection points, right? There are moments where it's make or break and God has called us to an inflection point. This has been brewing for several years but a few years ago I was talking to a friend. He's an Axe 29 pastor up in Lafayette, Colorado. His name is Brad Edwards and unlike you and me, I promise you none of us know who are

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to the 10th generation. And when you study American history and you see actually those prayers were effective. Amazing lineage of doctors and pastors and a vice president and all these things come from Jonathan Edwards all the way through 10 generations. But on the 11th generation, Brad's dad wants nothing to do with the Lord. Rejected the Lord, didn't want to follow in any of that.

And Brad was the same but he was in college. He was a skeptic and an atheist and he liked to make fun of Christians but the Lord rescued and redeemed him. And now he's a church planter up in Lafayette and he says I'm praying now to the 10th generation. To which my daughters are like why don't you just pray for more generations that. My 10 is pretty good. 10 is pretty good. And today we're looking at that. What does it mean to live for the 10th generation. It's all.

launching from this passage, 2nd Corinthians 5, for Christ's love compels us. This is the fuel for all of our Christian's life or should be. then he begins to unpack various ways that that love should compel the way we live. And in 2nd Corinthians 5, 15, says, he Christ died for all that those who live or this is speaking spiritually, that those have been rescued and redeemed have

are no longer spiritually dead but are alive. Those that have entered into the story of God. That those who live should no longer live for themselves. The story should not be about themselves. We shouldn't be the main characters in the story. Should no longer live for themselves but for Him. His story. For the story of Jesus who died for them and was raised again. This is what it means to be a Christian.

We don't live for ourselves. We live for the story of God. And in this case, we live to the 10th generation. So if you have your series guide, you can turn over a couple of pages to page 62. And the passage we're going to go a little deeper in is at 1 Chronicles chapter 28. Let me set the scene a little bit for you on this a little bit before we see what's happening here. In 2 Samuel chapter 7,

David King David is coming towards the end of his life with with triumphs and tragedies in his life. But overall a man who's been just absolutely compelled by who God is. But at the end of his life he's he's in his palace in Jerusalem and he's looking out and his palace is nice. He's got his abundantly blessed him. He's looking at the the cedar planks in his palace and and in second Samuel chapter seven or I'm sorry.

What did I say? Second Samuel 7 to. He looks out and he sees the tabernacle. The tabernacle was given to the people of God at the time of Moses as they were wandering around the wilderness and it was the place where God's manifest presence would come down at the Ark of the Covenant. And it was a place where where people could could meet with God. Prayers could be offered. Sacrifices could be offered. But but now it's hundreds of years later and the tabernacle.

It is still there, but it's it looks shabby compared to King David's palace. David says, Who am I that I live in a palace with cedar walls and God has a tent. And so he has this idea and he goes to the prophet Nathan and he says, I want to build a temple. And Nathan's like, that sounds like a great idea. Go for it. But that night, Nathan has a dream and and God comes to Nathanials.

Is it Nathan or Nathan? Nathan, sorry. Nathan. I'm thinking of a different story. It comes to Nathan and says, David wants to build a house for me. don't live in a house built by human hands, but I understand the impulse. He's not going to build my house. I'm going to build his house. And in it, we get what's called the divinic covenant where God says, on the throne of David, I will

Set my ruler forever. We know that's the Messiah. We know it's King Jesus gets eventually fulfills that role and so eventually Nathan comes and tells David that hey you think you're gonna bless God God's gonna bless you but your heart and your impulse is right, but Given your history you have blood on your hands Nathan David. You're not the guy to build the temple. It'll be your son Solomon

And so for the rest of his life and the rest of his days we see David leveraging himself and his country and his people and his own resources such that he's going to bless the people of God to the 10th generation. He gets all the designs for the temple he begins to make plans for it but he knows that it's Solomon that's going to do that. And so he calls Solomon to him and all of Israel. And this is where we pick up.

the scene in first Chronicles 28 verse eight. says So now I charge you in the sight of all of Israel and in the assembly of the Lord and in the hearing of our God. He doesn't just call Solomon into his private chambers and say hey son you should probably do this that would really honor the Lord. No there is a inflection moment in the life of Israel. There's.

There's some weight to this moment. And so he calls Solomon to stand before him. He calls every Israelite, the massive crowd, to come stand before him. It says God is there. There's weight on not just Solomon's shoulders here, but all of Israel will see that there's weight on them. Will they meet the moment that God has called them to? And he says this, be careful to follow all the commands of the Lord your God, that you may possess this good land.

It's an echo of last week Deuteronomy 6. Be careful to follow the commands. The commands are not for restricting your joy, but they are pathways for your joy. So be careful. This matters. He says that you may possess this good land and pass it on as an inheritance to your descendants forever. Like live in such a way that you're going to bless.

generation after generation after generation to come. And then in verse nine he says, you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your fathers. But like be Godward facing. Have what the reformers called the sense of quorum Deo. Live before the face of God as if God is looking at, and he is.

at all of your lives and all of your thoughts and intentions and desires. And he says this, acknowledge the God of your father, serve him with wholehearted devotion, with a willing mind. For the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you. But if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. Again, it's a echo of Deuteronomy 6, the Shema, love the Lord your God with all your heart.

with all your mind and with all your soul. But here's the thing. That is true for all. That command is true for all of us. But it doesn't just happen. Like the spiritual entropy of our lives is not to move more towards a wholehearted devotion to the Lord. It's not to want to go deep in our knowledge of who God is. It is not to love our neighbors of ourselves. No, that's not how...

this fallen world is. Like if you just think this is going to happen, it's never just going to happen. This is why through the ages, God's people have said, no, we're not going to be led by our hearts. We're going to lead our hearts. We're not going to just allow the culture around us to determine what's true. We're going to study what's true. We're going to enter into some spiritual disciplines. We're going to organize our lives so that we do love God with our whole hearts.

that we do know who God is in this study, that there is some discipline in our lives. Again, not to rob us of joy, but to lead us on a pathway to deeper joy in who God is. And so he commands, he charges Solomon. This whole thing begins with our relationship with God and our hearts. He says this, verse 10, consider now, feel the weight of this moment, consider now for the Lord

has chosen you. is no small thing Solomon. This is no small thing Israel that that you would build a space where people will meet with the living God of the universe. That this will be a space where where prayers will be offered up by the priests. This will be a space where sacrifices will be made for sin. This will be a space where the nations will come and learn that there is a

living God in the universe. So don't take this lightly. Consider now for the Lord has chosen you to build a house as the sanctuary.

Again, this is an inflection point in the story of God's people. What will they do? He says, be strong and do the work. Be strong and do the work. Like the easy thing is always to punt the work, right? For anything in our life, anything worth having, the easy thing is like, I'll get to it later. Or, yeah, I know that's important. Maybe someone after me will be faithful and do that, but I'm just going to kind of coast.

Again, that's what our natural cells want. But he's charging like, this is an important moment. Be strong, do the work. then drop down into verse 20, he repeats himself. David also said to Solomon his son, be strong and courageous and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged. He just repeat because he knows this is going to be difficult. He knows on so many levels this is going to be difficult spiritually.

This is going to be difficult relationally. This is going to be difficult financially. In every way this is going to be hard. There's going to be opposition. And so he's just saying don't worry. Be strong. Be courageous. Don't be afraid. Don't be discouraged. And then he gives them the ultimate reason that Solomon and all of Israel can have hope. The ultimate reason that you and I can have hope today. He says this for the Lord God. My God is with you.

This is, again,

Because David knows the story of God, he knows that this is true. How can we be strong and courageous? How can we know that we can be successful, not in our own strength and our own wisdom and our own resources, but because God is with us. This is the promise of God for the people of God. Immanuel, God with us. And so he knows this. He knows the story. He knows what Moses wrote about Abram.

and the faithfulness of God in his life. He knows what happened to Joseph in a prison cell in Egypt, and God was faithful. He knows about Moses and God leading the people out of slavery in Egypt across the Red Sea. He knows about Joshua conquering the promised land. He knows not just of the story, he knows by experience. Do you know by experience that God is with you?

David knew. David knew that as a young boy, someone came and put oil on his head and said, you're going to be king over Israel. And then one day he finds himself in the middle of a field with armies on both sides and a giant standing before him. And he's got a sling and some stones. And he knows from experience that God is with him. David knows that even as his life progressed and enemies were always

seeking his life, always trying to take him out. God was with him. David even knows that when he was faithless, God was faithful. When he sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah and all of Israel and against his God, God was with him. God was faithful. And so when David says, be strong and courageous for the Lord, my God is with you, he speaks from personal experience.

My God is with you. I know God is able to do far more abundantly than we can think, ask or imagine. God is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. I know it's going to be hard, Solomon. I know it's going to be expensive. I know it's going to be dangerous. I know there's going to be opposition. know that the enemy hates this, but God is with you. God will not forsake you. He will not fail you.

and to all the work of the service of the temple of the Lord is finished. Redemption Parker, God is with us. We know because we have the Bible, we have this story, but we also know from experience of nine years as a faith family, God has constantly met us in these spaces. so borrowing on those things, we know He will also be with us in the future. So we're at this inflection point.

Again, all of our lives is telling a story and every story says something about what we believe. Your story is communicating something. Your family is communicating something. But not just that. Did you know the spaces we build tell stories, right? I could go into any one of your homes without you being there and I could learn something of you and your story just by the way that you decorate. I could look and see,

This is what they value. is how they arrange their home. This is how they arrange their office. This is what's on their walls. This is what's in their kitchen. We all have a theology of place. And you guys have great theologies of place. I've been in your homes. You're telling a story. Why? Because you know that space matters. know, gathering isn't just gathering, but that space matters. And so even as a faith family, we want to tell...

a We want to tell a true story. We want our space to reflect what we believe. This is why we're actually so grateful that we get to build from the ground up and begin to tell a story. What is the story we want to tell? We want to tell a story that is consistent with what we believe about God, what's distinct about us.

what our values are. And so we value the welcome of Christ. And so how do you in your architecture design the welcome of Christ? you design a hospitable place, a place where people will come in, where there's natural light, people can have conversations, where you design places so that when moms and dads take their kids to the kids room, they say, this church cares about the children. They've been intentional about their

space. We want a place that promotes authentic community because that's one of our values. And so you can go on our website and go to Compel and look at the building. There's a courtyard and there's a kitchen and we'll share meals together. We want a space that lifts our eyes in worship. We've designed the sanctuary such that it is full of natural light. Why? That's intentional.

We could build a box in some churches. That's what they want. They want to control the environment. But we are the people of light. And so we want to see each other. We want to see image bearers worshiping God because they've been rescued and redeemed. Like everything is intentional. We have classrooms. Why? Because we believe in going deeper, knowing God with our heart, soul, mind and strength so that our Redemption Institute can have a...

programs and classes and even certificates so that we are a church that is disciplined in our pursuit of God. Everything is intentional. God is with us. Do the work. When I graduated from seminary a month after graduating we moved with our six month old to Japan to do military ministry and it was on base but also off base.

We were in this building, I have a picture. This was a few years into it. We've got three of our kids here.

And so we would go to this. This is our church and connected to it was our house. And we had another house behind that that like interns and others would stay and we have dinner every every Friday night and we would have coffee and worship and Bible said all these things. And then I got to just have a front row seat for the work of God in young military men and women and their families and their children just.

for 10 years. I got to learn how to preach and they put up with me and I got to see so many people give their life to Christ. I got to baptize so many men and women. Like it was just a privilege, privilege, privilege. Every week we gathered in this space. It's because in the 1950s, 75 years ago, there were some Christians, missionaries that were like, hey, we want to reach military families.

We want to share the gospel and our lives with military people. And so they sacrificed. They sacrificed greatly. They ran the numbers if you were to account for inflation, inflation. They on the island of Okinawa went to other military people and they gathered together. They went to the chapel. They went to the Navy Seabees to help them build this. They raised about four point five million dollars, actually, if you run the numbers.

And they built this space. And every week we I gather now generations later and even now that I'm gone for the last 10 years there's still many of the people that are leading this place. And every week people come into a space and hear the gospel and people are being rescued and redeemed every week. It's because of a generation that was before them that they never met and never knew. And they were the recipients of that blessing. Church that's all I'm asking us to do.

Let us be for others what others have been for us. You know, for the first six years of Redemption Parker, I wasn't paid by you guys at all. You know who paid my salary? Other people that supported us as missionaries. Because they wanted to bless you even though you don't know it. Because those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died and gave Himself up for. This is where we're at. So.

I have two requests this week. Next week is our commitment Sunday where we will culminate and as God's people celebrate and come together and say this is what the Lord has called us to do, where we will make our commitments. Our goal is 100 % engagement. Whatever the Lord has for you, whatever it is that you would come and do two things. You would show up, pray up and show up. This is an important moment.

in the life and the story of our church. So would you pray? Would you just ask the Lord to show you what is your role in the story of God in this moment and the story of God at Redemption Park? Just pray about it. But not just for yourself. Would you pray about for our whole church? Would you pray for others? Would you ask the Lord to move in them in such a way that there is a joyful unreleasing so that we can bless the 10th generation?

And then next week, would you just show up excited and expectant for God to meet us in this space so that 10 generations from now, people will look back and say, that was a moment where God's people blessed us. Amen. Let me pray for us to that end.

Compelled for the Next Generation

We have every week an average of 102 kids from birth to fifth grade check in to our children's ministry. Our mission is to partner with parents to make disciples of their children for the glory of God and the joy of all people. And so that looks like specific classes for kids on Sunday mornings where we are intentionally teaching them scripture and who God is and what community looks like.

and then coming alongside parents and supporting them as they disciple their children. They are amazing. They are energetic. They're fun. They're curious. They have amazing questions, and that has been one of my favorite parts. I am compelled to continue to invest in Redemption Parker because of the impact I've already seen it make in the lives of its members and also children specifically. Investing in the next generation,

by different means such as a building will help us meet the needs of children more specifically. Things like having appropriately sized chairs for them to sit in, things that we can't do now in the space that we have, we will be able to really help children belong in a new building.

spiritually significant moment within the youth. We just had our youth retreat and it was wonderful. We spent so much time together. It was freezing outside, but we still played games outside. We worshipped. We had multiple leaders who spoke. We had lots of breakout time. Probably the most moving piece of that is before we dismissed everyone to go home.

We had everyone wait in the chapel and we called each kid out one by one and a leader would just ask them, how are you doing? How can I pray for you? And then we just spent probably about an hour praying for kids as they came out. There is so much spiritual hunger and there are gonna be a lot of voices telling them which way that they should take that spiritual hunger and so I'm excited to, with the rest of the leaders, point them back to truth and to the Lord. What excites me about the future of RP and this compel specifically for our youth is that

You can point to pretty much any person who is a believer and say that at some point someone decided to invest in them. This is a place where you can be seen, known, and loved, and at the same time we're pointing them back to the truth and the goodness of the gospel.

So we've had seasons where we're the recipients of other people's mentoring and prayer and support and counsel, and then seasons that we're able to offer that. And that is a culture that's really promoted at redemption. And there's something really powerful about just sitting down and asking questions and hearing the pain points, the difficulties, the struggles and the sufferings of those around us as they try to raise kids or as they try to...

deal with the blocks that are between them and their marriage. In the time that we've been at RP, there is a depth of community, which is a gift to a world that is just drowning in loneliness and drowning in disconnection. And so the thought that that community impact could be greater with possibly a building that we can use seven days a week and just more impact and more events that we can reach people. I think we have this treasure of community and everywhere I go.

In our town, I see lonely, disconnected people and kind of feel like I'm eating at a feast and there's all these hungry people and so we have a feast of community that excites me the most about our culture at Redemption. I'm compelled and driven by the need to build a Christian kingdom and community that the next generation can be excited.

Deuteronomy 6 page 58. In this series, our hope is, as we are at this crossroads moment in the life of our church, is we're pressing on to what God is calling us to. We are pressing on, fueled by, compelled by the love of Christ. And so that the aim and the goal is that everyone that would in any way, shape or form call Redemption Park or their church home, or that's the church I go to, that there would be

100 % engagement that you would lean in into this moment and be a part of what God is calling this church too. So that's our main goal. Our secondary goal is to move forward in faith and in providing to go deeper, wider and forward to build a building. Our goal is $4.5 million for that. I just wanted to say that last week on Sunday night when the weather was much, much better than this, we had our

Advanced Commitment Night. And so about a hundred of you went out there and we prayed at the land, we worshiped, we thanked God for what He was doing. And then just in an incredible way, those that went first really went first sacrificially. I just want to say, because we want 100 % engagement, we're not telling any numbers yet, because that'll be on March 29th when all of us can make our commitments. But those that led out first...

have led out in a tremendous way. You should be encouraged as you think about making your engagement on March 29th. So, yeah, just wanted to give you a quick update on that. We know that in the Bible that Jesus loves the little children. He has a particular affection for the youngest image bearers. You can read about this in Matthew 18, Matthew 25, and other places.

And as we looked at this compelled initiative, we looked at this particular week and this particular message and the reason for this week that we are compelled for the next generation as probably the major catalyst for what we feel God is calling us to do, to be a church that is compelled to reach one more, one more generation. When I was in seminary, I studied in addition just the general pastoral ministry, I studied

missiology. That's just the theology of mission. How does the gospel spread across language and culture and nations and generations? And so when you do that, you kind of, you go into a place and you try to figure out what are the idols of that culture and then also what are the pathways or keys that unlock the gospel in that culture. So,

First went overseas to Japan, but I was working with American military, and so I had to learn military language. It really is their own language, their own culture, their own values, and then I could begin to do ministry among the military. When we moved to the Czech Republic, I had to learn Czech culture and language and history and learn what are the pathways to bring the gospel there. For example, as a man trying to reach other men in the Czech Republic, I learned

that I needed to learn how to enjoy having a good beer. So I would hang out at the pub and that's where Czechs will talk about spiritual things. For the youth, it might be at a dodgeball game, but for Czechs, it's at the pub. When we moved back here to Parker, Colorado, the idea was we would probably be moving overseas again soon, but it didn't take long to realize that...

Actually, from a missiological perspective, there was a massive need in our community that 67 % of our neighbors marked on the census that they have no religion whatsoever, that less than 5 % of our neighbors are connected in any way to a gospel preaching church. And then you start to think, okay, well, what is the pathway to unlock the gospel here? And this question...

came to my mind as I was preparing this week and it was this, what if the most important thing about our lives and about our church is not what we do, but who we raise? I'll say it again, what if the most important thing we do in our lives and our church is not what we do or let me say that again, what if the most important thing about our lives and about our church is not what we do, but who we raise? I do think it is

pathway to the gospel for so many of our neighbors. People love their children here. They might love their children out of order and when you have disordered loves, when you love your children out of order, then they become idols and you crush them or they crush you. They make terrible gods, but they love their children. So how do we come alongside them and help them? How do we come alongside one another and help one another? See, there is a promise

and there is a curse in our community. And the promise of Parker, Colorado is come to Parker and you and your family, especially your kids, can have it all. There's all sorts of sports. You can play baseball and soccer and basketball. There's all sorts of travel teams and there's all sorts of other clubs and dance and gymnastics and chess clubs and mathletes and private schools and good public schools and charter schools.

And homeschools, you can do it all. You can send them to early college. You can do it all here. And that seems like a promise, but it turns into a curse because the curse is not only can you do it all, there's a cultural pressure on our neighbors and on ourselves because we breathe the same air. There's a cultural pressure that says this, make sure you do do it all. Make sure you provide everything for your kids.

Make sure that they get every opportunity. And then there's just pressure upon pressure and pressure because there's so much. And what we find in this disordered love kind of culture we live in, that that kids are being worshiped instead of discipled. We give it all. We lay down our lives. We're constantly moving across town like taxi drivers to get them from one place to the other. I love this quote. I've been saying this quote a lot.

people during this compelled initiative. One of my favorite philosophers and theologians, an Irish guy by the name of Oz Guinness, he says this, the trouble is that as modern people we have too much to live with and too little to live for. And I thought that captures Parker Colorado. We have too much to live with. There's so much and not enough to live for.

We feel like we're juggling all the balls. Juggle the balls, juggle the sports and the activities and the academics and make sure you go to the right school so you can get the right job and make the right money and marry the right people and do the right sports and travel to the right things. And you're juggling all these balls. And again, this is the cultural air we breathe. So we feel this pressure as well. But maybe there's even more because in our mindset, maybe you come in here, you're juggling the balls and you're like, we got to make...

because we got to make sure we get our kids fully complete. We got to throw one more ball in there. Make sure they have the God ball so you can throw God and sports and academics and all the activities and play dates and all that stuff. And it just is overwhelming. And eventually you feel like you're just going to drop the ball. The good news is that God is not just another ball to juggle today. Today's passage is

It's going to be challenging, but I hope ultimately freeing. It's challenging because it resets a whole paradigm for our church. It's going to say, stop juggling the balls. Stop going after all the things. And it's going to be freeing because ultimately if we can arrive to what God's Word has us today, we'll feel like, there's some pressure that's off. That's my hope. My hope is that you would be encouraged today, especially

if you feel that pressure, if you feel like you can't keep the balls all in the air. Well, if you have your Bible, it's Deuteronomy chapter six, one of the most famous passages in all of the Old Testament. In it, it has a prayer that observant Jews today will still pray twice a day. Some say it's the most prayed prayer in the history of humanity. We'll pick it up in verse one. It says,

These are the commands decrees and laws the lord your god directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you're crossing the jordan to possess. So let me give you some context. This is deuteronomy the deuteronomy that's that that means twice or or second law. It's the second giving of the law. So after israel comes out of egypt and they wander that they get the the law given to him the ten commandments and others in in exodus 20

They are faithless and so God does not let them go into the promised land and that generation now has passed away and now they are standing on the edge of the promised land the land that we'll see is flowing with milk and honey this land of blessing and opportunity of promise from God as they're standing on the the precipice of that land God has Moses give a second law that's Deuteronomy the second law to give it to the new generation

So that's the context. then it says in verse two, so that so observe these so that you your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you may may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you and so that you may enjoy long life. He gives them these

these laws not to oppress them or to hold them back with but he gives them this command from one generation to the next generation to the next generation. You see that in the text. So again I said this thought this this week faith is not something that just happens to you. Faith is something that should happen through you. Okay so again faith is not something that just happens to you but should happen through you.

Now we get this in almost every area, but in our ultra postmodern or even post postmodern world, sometimes you'll hear people say, well, I'm not going to force my faith on any of my kids. I'm just going to let them grow up and choose for themselves, which is dumb because here's why it's dumb. You wouldn't do that with any other area of your life. like, well, I'm not going to force math on my daughter. I'm going to grow up and when she's older, she can decide what math is for her. I'm not going to...

I'm not going to teach my kids how to read because I don't want to force my privilege on them. No, of course not. If it's true, you are meant to be a conduit, not a cul-de-sac of faith, just like we talked about a few weeks ago. Love should not stop with us, but flow through us, and it flows to our children. So, says, make sure you pass this on. Make sure you prioritize the next generation as you go from one.

to the next, to the next with these laws. And he says, here Israel, and be careful to obey. Why? So that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors promised you. Again, this is the whole point of the law. The law is not to

constrict our joy and our flourishing but to lay out a pathway from God for our joy and for our flourishing. You have to stop thinking that God doesn't have your best in mind. He designed us and He designed us to flourish and His law was meant to lay out for them flourishing so that they go well with you, that you may flourish and increase greatly in the land flowing with milk and honey. And then He comes to

most famous prayer in the Old Testament at least, says this, hear, O Israel. That word hear there doesn't just mean listen up. It has this implication hear and obey. Apply this to your life. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one. Now that phrase there is not merely a proof text for monotheism. That's not all it's doing there.

there's one God. We know that there is one God, but what it actually translates to is the Lord. Yahweh, our God, the Yahweh is one. What is he saying? He's saying that the Lord is not just one of many things that you should add to your life, one of the balls. It's not even just saying that the Lord is one as if the Lord should be the number one priority in your life. That's not what it's saying. It's saying the Lord is total, complete, comprehensive.

The Lord is the paper that your priorities go on. It is all encompassing. When you understand this, now you can begin to understand how to reorder your lives. This passage, this message is not so much a parenting message as much as a priorities message. Is the Lord one? Is He all encompassing? Is it the filter by which you judge and decide everything else in your life and your

If that sounds familiar, because Jesus quotes it in all of the Gospels. He says the entire law is summed up in this, that you love

Lord your guard with all your heart soul mind and strength and then he quotes Leviticus 19 and your neighbor as yourself if you do these things you are walking rightly before the Lord Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength but then he says impress them on your children or the ESV says teach them diligently again we are commanded to pass on the faith to be a

conduit of the faith to the next generation. This is impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk on the road. He says there's there's only two places where you need to really talk to your kids about the Lord inside the house and outside the house. So wherever you're at there if you're in one of those two places this is a moment for you to impress

upon your children the truth of God. And then he says there's only two times where you need to do this as well. When you lie down and when you get up when it's daylight and when it's dark outside check yourself and be like oh now is the time. Is it light outside? Yes. Then impress these things about your kids. Is it dark? Yes. Now is the time. Do you see it's supposed to be the the air of your of the culture of your home is one that you talk about and celebrate.

the things of God, the truth of God, who God is. You have conversations and those conversations look different depending on the age of your kids. But there is an intentionality here. And that again looks different at different seasons, but there's a constancy, an intentionality that goes with this. says, tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

Today, all Orthodox Jews will have the teflon on their wrists and on their foreheads. But you can think of it more like, well, remember the book of Revelation, the mark on the hand and the mark on the head. What did it teach? what you do and what you think about. The law of the Lord should be worked out in our lives and what we do and how we think. Just this constant kind of focus. Again, the Lord once...

his people to flourish in the land flowing with milk and honey and to do so with so much cultural pressure from all the Canaanite gods that surround them that they would have to be ultra focused and shouldn't we as well? It says write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. It is not easy passing on the faith of the next generation.

And by the way, your kids are not saved by your faith, but God delights to use means for ends. And one of the means that God delights to use across time and space is the faith of the family passing on from one generation to the next. God wants our faith to be like setting up kindling around their hearts so that when the Holy Spirit comes and sparks a flame, it lights on fire. This is

our role. So, compelled by Christ's love, how should we, as a church and as parents, make disciples of the next generation? I think this passage calls us to consider the priorities of our home. Is God the one thing? Is a relationship with God the one thing, the paper where all the other priorities go on? Or

is God the one thing until something cooler comes along. God's the one thing, but what really matters is that you do really, really well in school.

See, I think we can betray ourselves by our actions and betray our words. We can tell our kids, hey, you God's the most important, but you know what's really important is that you become a professional baseball player. And so we're going to reorganize our whole lives around that. And so let's just talk about that for a moment. Your son's not becoming a professional baseball player. Rick tells me this all the time, and he coaches baseball and he was almost one.

but only 0.03 % of high school athletes will become professionals. But let's just say you do all the things, you travel to all the places. He's awesome. He does become, in fact, becomes an all-star, becomes the greatest of all time.

But you have not made the one thing the one thing. And Jesus says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his soul? That would be a tragedy. To have your son in the Hall of Fame, but not in heaven with you. Again, we don't control the faith and there are plenty of believing Christian athletes. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it would be very, very difficult if the priorities of our home are not the one thing. It's hard.

There's no joy and no pain like raising children. So the second thing are you, you know, as we consider the priorities, are we partnering with the church to reach the next generation? We need to partner with the church, our student, our student volunteers and our youth leaders and the Sunday school teachers, they can speak into your children's hearts in ways that you can't.

Some of you are like, no, no, my kid will tell me everything and anything. Like, no, they won't. Let me ask you this. Did you tell your parents anything and everything? Well, no, because they were dorks. I'm like, well, you're the dork now. And they don't want to talk to you about these things. But we have people that love them and will talk to them. So the first one is priorities. Second one is the rhythms of your home. Are the rhythms of your home such that that that

The things of God are talked about that Jesus is celebrated. And again, that can look different for all sorts of different people. There are useful and helpful tools out there for some people like devotions and stuff like that that you could read. I never did that. I was a terrible devotion guy for several reasons. I was like, these are poorly written in my opinion. I have too much theology classes in from seminary. I'm like, no, that's heresy or

My kid will say something like that's heretical. We have a heretic in our home, Jennifer. Can we deal with this? But we but we did make it a rhythm, just a conversation of our home. Like it was a constant. What do you think about that? What do you know about that? And of course, as they get older, it becomes less didactic and more just like, let me ask you a question. and then biting your tongue when they say something crazy, that's OK. That's OK, because there's just

conversation that is flowing in the home. It said in our text, it says, talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk on the road. We don't spend a lot of time walking on the road now, but you probably do spend a lot of time in your car. Is that a place where the Lord can begin to work and have conversation? My wife loved to drive my daughters to school in high school before they got their license because she loved to talk to them and to...

And I was like, should ride their bike to school. And they're like, no one rides their bike to school. I was like, I rode my bike to school. You can ride your bike to school. But Jennifer took advantage of that and talked to them and prayed with them in the road. You spend a lot of time with your kid in the road. We actually, one time we did a road trip and we were driving down to Florida and all the whole East Coast. And we had on repeat Shyland's lyrical theology.

Christian rap and and if you don't know the album, it's great because it's systematic theology in each song be like, okay kids Let me talk to you about the active obedience of Christ and what that means and how that is credited to your account And they learned systematic theology in the car. I'm just giving you some ideas here It says when you lie down and when you get up when my kids were little I a lot of my ministry was on base in Japan and

But they were homeschooled so they could stay up late and I'd come home and I would put them down probably the greatest for me the greatest time with my children and discipleship was just reading to them and I took advantage of their selfish little hearts that are like we don't want to go to sleep so read more theology to us dad let me ask you a thousand questions like it was just it would flow into these conversations and it started with like the Jesus storybook Bible or

or another age appropriate. went through Narnia and the Wingfeather series and we went through The Hobbit. So many books. I read Harry Potter to them. So some of you can leave now if you like. But we had conversations like, what do you think about this witchcraft? And then we talked about that and what was the worldview of that? And there was just conversations that came out of that. remember

There are age-appropriate systematic theologies. I remember going through one and just teaching about God's omnipresence, that God is everywhere. And then my three-year-old Zoe is like, you mean like God's in this room? I'm like, yeah, he's in this room. God's in our whole house? I'm like, yeah, he's in the whole house. And she goes.

He's a big boy. That's right. He is a big boy. That's right. That was the age appropriate. Right. Like it was just trying to pass on from one generation to the next generation to the next generation. Lastly, I would just say this. says this here. Israel doesn't say here. parents with kids ages zero to 18. This was an all play for the people of God. We all have a role, whether you're an empty nester.

You're single. You're a single mom. You don't have kids. You can be an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent. Like you have a role for the people of God to pass on faith to the next generation. This is not, oh, I went to Sunday and there was some sermon about kids and I don't have kids so I don't have to deal with it. No, this is you have a role to play. You can pray for the next generation. You can serve the next generation. You can...

join the youth or student ministry and help build up the next generation. So, RP, let's commit because we're compelled by the love of Christ to do whatever it takes to reach the next generation. And again, the most effective way to make disciples, study after study shows, is to reach the next generation. I read this week 72 % of Christians come to faith

before the age of 18. 72%. We should probably leverage 72 % of our energy and effort towards that just because it bears the most fruit. Here's another thing, parents. I read 95 % of the time that you will spend with your kids will be before the age of 18. That's where parents are like, know that the days are long, but the years are short.

The days are long, but the years are short. You have a window of opportunity to speak these truths into them. Matthew 18, Jesus says, brings children before him and he says, this is what it's like to enter the kingdom of heaven. If anyone will become like one of these little ones with faith like these little ones, they can enter the kingdom of heaven. But then he says this in verse six, he says, if anyone

causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea. That's serious. She's like, do not cause the little ones to stumble. So she would ask, we should ask, how do we cause them to stumble? How do we cause the little ones in our homes to stumble? Again, part of it may be the priorities of our homes.

How do we cause little ones to stumble in our church? Well, for example, if we don't have enough strategic servants, we don't have enough space, we don't have the right facilities to disciple the kids God has brought to us to entrust to us. In the Christmas story, we read about there's no room for the inn, and that's a quaint little story. But when you tell a mama

who's coming to find God, hey, there's no room in the kids ministry. And we are very, close to that just because of safety and security. We're going to have to start turning parents away. Then we're causing little ones to stumble. We should do whatever it takes, compelled by the love of Christ to reach the next generation. This is why compelled is so important to us. This is why there's

urgency here. This is why we're asking you, would you please pray about your role on March 29th on our Commitment Sunday? Because what if the most important thing about our lives and about our church is not what we do, but who we raise? Amen. Let me pray for us to that end.

Compelled For Our Time And Our Place

AI Transcript

Hey, well welcome. Welcome to Redemption Park. you're new here, we're glad you're here. You're here at a good time. As Jen mentioned, we're week three of our series that is launching us for the next couple years into where God has us. We do have a series guide. If you weren't here the first couple weeks, Pastor Rick will pass that out. Just raise your hand and we'll get that to you if anyone needs that. No one needs that. Okay, you're good. If you're afraid to raise your hand, you can get one on your way out as well.

at the table. Well, yeah, in honor of Pastor Rick today, I'm wearing my Memento Mori shirt. Memento Mori means remember death from Psalm 90 verse 12. Teach us to number our days, Lord, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Unlike Pastor Rick, I don't have the tattoo Memento Mori. I don't have any tattoos because I'm a Christian, but I...

I don't have that one. And unlike Pastor Rick, I don't have skulls in my office. He's got these skulls in his office that loom down look down on him as he's writing his sermons. I don't have any of that, but it's a good reminder. And throughout church history, Christians have said this to be like, hey, let's not waste our lives. Let's take advantage of the moment. I don't have that, but I have something else in my office that I've shared with

with you guys before, it serves a similar purpose. From as young as I can remember, when I'd go visit my grandma and grandpa Oshman on the farm in Kansas, my grandma Oshman would tell me the story. Tell me the story about my grandfather who was part of the 5th Marines during World War II. And he, if you know the 5th Marines story, you know that they were

the force that landed on the beaches of Iwo Jima. And as they came onto Iwo Jima, it was a very costly, very strategic battle. He spent the first five days on his face in the sand, crawling from the front lines to the orders in the back and back and forth, just bullets constantly flying over his head. Well, on day five of the...

landing on Iwo Jima, he was shot by a Japanese soldier about 15 yards away as the story is told to me. then the soldier jumped out of his foxhole and like a scene out of a movie runs full speed at my grandfather with his rifle high and his bayonet raised. And as he's over my grandfather, my grandfather's friend and fellow Marine shoots the Japanese soldier dead.

And I think about that often as I look at the Purple Heart that a few years ago my dad gave me to keep in my office. And I ponder that moment and that life. as I ponder this, the first time I got this, I was looking at this and I was like, man, there's a lot of history behind this. And even as I was looking at it, I was interested, I pulled up the cotton and underneath the cotton is the Japanese bullet that

went into my grandfather's shoulder, made its way towards his heart, hit some bone along the way, and by millimeters missed ventricle in his heart. He was taken to the hospital on the ship and very carefully they took this bullet out. And I think about that often because I think about how millimeters is the difference between me being in existence.

dad, my well, Redemption Parker being in existence. And I think about if we could see the world and our lives as God sees the world and our lives in history, 10 million times, this is all of our story. So somewhere along the line that there were moments where you should not be here. We shouldn't be alive. And yet in God's providence, we find ourselves in this moment. And when I look at that box and I think of

of that providence of God and I look at my life I'm like man I don't want to waste my life scrolling social media I don't want to waste my life on frivolous things I want to enter in this moment that is so precious right here right now. Again I think this is all of our story. A years ago I read a book by James K. Smith he wrote it was entitled How to Inhabit Time. How to inhabit time.

And you're like, well, that's weird. Like, what do mean? How do I inhabit time? Well, he says, well, in the secular West, we actually are very poor at inhabiting time because in the secular worldview, there's, in America, we don't have any sense of where we came from and really no sense of where we're going. It's all about what he would call presentism. Like we think only this moment matters. And so in a kind of cultural colloquial way, you might hear YOLO.

This is is YOLO. You only live once. Only this moment matters. But he argues that Christians above all people should should should know how to inhabit time best because we are part of a bigger story like this is our moment. We there's something that came before us. There's there's much that will come after us. But in this place and in this time this is where God has you and me. If you came in the lobby.

You saw our timeline and it says God's story, our turn. And in the timeline, it's just a story of redemption Parker over the last nine years, but that timeline has arrows on each side that go for eternity past and eternity future. But in this time and this place, this is where God has us. Do you ever think about that? Like it's no accident that you're here in Parker, Colorado in 2026, whether you want to be or not.

This is where God has you. And the question is, will you inhabit time well? Will you understand that you've come from somewhere, you're going somewhere? Because the secular worldview doesn't think about the past and really the future. As Americans, we're optimistic and that's good. But it's a baseless optimism on human progression if it's not founded in God. And so this is what they'll say.

We're just going to progress as humanity into a glorious future. This in spite of the fact that the last 150 years have had the most tragedies in the human history. And you can go onto the news today and see we're not really progressing. There's no utopia around the corner, at least not in that worldview. But the Christian understands there's a bigger story. The story kind of goes like this, creation, fall.

promise, redemption, renewal. And you see this and it goes, this is the part of the story that we find ourselves in. And if we were to zoom into the story, we would find ourselves between redemption and renewal, between the cross, burial and resurrection and Jesus is coming again. And if we could zoom really close into there, we would see Redemption Parker. And this is our moment. This is our time. This is our place. So the question for us is, will we be faithful in it?

Will we be found faithful in our time and our place like so many of our brothers and sisters throughout the ages and across the world? See, if we had this timeline in our mind, so many of our problems would fade away, right? We're stressed and anxious, but if we understood that God's providence, so we understand God's sovereign, He is in control of all things, but providence is a subcategory of sovereignty. It is His good working for you.

for his glory. So it's his goodness in your life. Have we understood God's providence that he's for you, that he's got a good plan for you? Man, how much of our stress and anxiety would kind of melt away? We are overburdened and materialistic. But if we understood that this life right here and right now is not all there is, how much more free would we be? We are distracted and disconnected. But what if we lived purposely?

in this moment for this time in this place we are insecure and self self-focused but if we understood that we stand between redemption and renewal that we are in Christ how how secure would we be if all of our hope was in him right we are Christians that that means we are Christ followers that means we are to constantly remind ourselves of who Christ is that he stepped off his throne in glory and entered into

the time and the space that he spoke into existence. It'd be like Shakespeare writing a play and then going up on stage. He controls the whole narrative, right? He was never stressed or anxious. He was never overburdened or materialistic. He was never distracted or disconnected, never insecure or self-focused. He was completely walking in shalom.

And that's what he invites us to. And so again the question is in our time and our place will we be found faithful. If you have your series guide you can turn to page 51. We are in week three of the series and each week we are launching from this this text in Second Corinthians five where the apostle Paul writes for Christ's love compels us. It is the fuel for our Christian lives. It's Christ's love. Consider his love that he

died for us, that he rose for us. Christ's love compels us. And then he unpacks that in various ways over the next several verses. And down on verse 20, it says this about our time and our place. He says, we are therefore Christ's ambassadors. As though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.

Christ's love compels us and because he's given us, like we saw last week, the ministry of reconciliation, we are given a title. We are ambassadors. There are so many implications to our lives if we understood what it means to be an ambassador. If you're a follower of Christ, you are an ambassador. That is someone sent by a king to represent a king and his kingdom. That's what we are here.

in 2026, Parker, Colorado, there's massive implications. It's a great honor to be an ambassador, to be sent by a great king to represent a great kingdom. But we also understand as ambassadors, this is not our true home. No matter how long you've lived in Colorado or Parker or in your home, it really is just a stopping point along the way. It's an outpost. Don't get too comfortable. As ambassadors, we speak with

delegated authority, not our own authority. We speak on behalf of the King, and we represent His interests and not our own. That's what ambassadors do. As ambassadors, we're respectful students of the culture, but we do not assimilate to the culture around. It's not who we are. As ambassadors, we represent the reign of Christ inside a world still in rebellion to Christ.

As ambassadors, we have authority. Says as though God were making his appeal through us and we have urgency. We implore people to be reconciled to God. Do you live as an ambassador as ambassadors when the world turns against us? They're actually not turning against us when the world rejects our message. They're actually not rejecting our message. They're rejecting the king and his kingdom and he can handle it.

He can handle it. So as ambassadors we speak faithfully on behalf of the King. The story of Christian history is Christians to various degrees representing Christ in the long chain of Christianity. Some have done it well others not so much. But I want to look at this scene if you turn to page 53 so you got a place for notes and then.

You've got Acts chapter four. I want to look at some of very first chains in the story of Christianity. I want to look at them and see what does it look like to be ambassadors in a particular time and a particular place. So we pick up the story in the book of Acts which is the story of the early church in chapter four and it starts like this in verse one. says the priest and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking.

to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people proclaiming Jesus in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. Now you may know this that the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection and so when they hear about all this resurrection talk they get upset. The stupidest thing you can remember about the Sadducees is they were Sadducee because they didn't believe in the resurrection.

You'll remember that for the next rest of your life in some Bible study. You'll be like, you know why they're sad? OK. It's not in my notes. So they don't believe in the resurrection. Peter and John are preaching about the resurrection, and so they're disturbed. It says they seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. Again, don't read your Bible too quickly. How many times have you spent a night in jail because of your faith in Jesus?

I'm guessing no one in here but we do have brothers and sisters around the world and throughout history and even right now that are doing this just because of Jesus because they're ambassadors. They're spending a night in jail. Well verse four but many who heard the message believed. So the number of men who believed had grown to about five thousand. So if you were here last week and you're running the numbers on the early church where.

We're two services in and we're running about eight thousand for our services. Right. So the next day the rulers the elders of the teacher of the law met in Jerusalem and as the high priest was there and so was Caiaphas John Alexander and others of the high priestly family. If those names seem familiar to you because you can go it's because you can go back to the Book of Acts or all the gospels and you can see these are the very people that just a few weeks before this condemned Jesus to death.

by torture on a cross. So these are guys with real power real terror in their hands. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them by what power or what name did you do this. Then Peter filled with the Holy Spirit. Now whenever in the book of Acts you see this phrase filled with the Holy Spirit buckle up. There's about to be an unleashing of spiritual power.

by God through someone or some people. So now Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit says rulers and elders of the people if if we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and being asked how he was healed. Let me just pause right there. So in that series guide you don't have to ask chapter three but let me just set up the scene. So at this point in Acts three there's about three thousand people that are followers of Jesus and we're told that.

The church would gather in homes in small groups to do life together and then they would gather corporately together to worship and learn from the apostles. And so that they had their gathering in a large place and then in small places. But one day Peter and John are headed to the temple because the temple courts were massive and it was the only place you could have three thousand people gather and teach in that moment. So they're.

all going there. Peter and John in Acts chapter 3 are walking into the temple and as they're going through this gate called the beautiful gate that there's a man there that has been set there. From birth we learn that he has been paralyzed. He's lame the Bible says. He cannot walk and so his friends or his family every day come and set him right by the gate so as people are coming in for the worship of God he's got his hands out and he's receiving alms.

It's a good place to be because people want to feel good about going into the temple worshiping God and showing kindness. And so that's how he earned his living. Well it says Peter and John were walking in and they saw this man and they got his attention. And it says he thought they were going to give him some money. And he said and Peter says silver and gold we do not have. You know I said that because he's a preacher silver and gold we do not have but.

What we do have, we'll give you in the name of Jesus. And I'm sure this guy, we know from the context, he's over 40 years old, he's like, what, you're gonna give me some advice? Great. He says, no, in the name of Jesus, I pray that you would get up and walk. That's a bold prayer. But Peter and John are walking in step with the Spirit. That's a bold prayer, honestly. I mean, I...

I pray for people healing all the time, but like to just be like, yeah, you're going to get up and walk. But then it says that it wasn't until Peter goes to the man, picks the man up, then his legs are healed. So not only is he praying boldly, but he's walking in bold faith in that moment. And as the man stands up, his legs are healed. And apparently all the muscle that he hasn't developed for 40 years is there and he is overjoyed.

He's literally jumping up and down, praising God. And the people, the 3,000 that are there, they know this guy because he's been there every day for over 40 years. And they start shouting and praising God. And then there's thousands of other people that have just come to worship in the temple. And they're like, what's going on over there? And so this crowd just kind of goes over to what's going on. Peter...

He loves it. Throughout the book of Acts he's like, oh, there's a crowd. Let me preach a sermon. And he's got one sermon. I love it because people you say I only have one sermon. He's got one sermon and he preaches the sermon. And that's where these five thousand are like, we're in. We're in too. And the word gets to the leaders. They're like, what's going on there? It's something about Jesus. Jesus, I don't even remember. That was like five weeks ago, Jesus or something. Yeah. What is this? And so that's where the context is.

And so Peter says to the leaders who have just put Jesus to death, he says, if you're bringing us here because of kindness showed to a man, let me tell you how and why we did that. Verse 10. Says, then know this, you and all the people of Israel, it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from.

the dead. This man stands before you healed. Jesus is the stone you builders rejected. You leaders of Israel who should know better. You leaders of Israel who have the word and the prophets that that pointed to Jesus. You rejected him but he has become the cornerstone the very foundation of all that God is doing in the world. And then the most important verse in the book of Acts maybe in the whole Bible Peter says this salvation.

is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." So you want to know who did this? You want to know what this is all about? This is about one name, Jesus. This is not about Peter. This is not about John. This is not about Redemption Parker. What God is calling us to, it doesn't matter if...

Anyone in our city knows any of our names, but if the name of Jesus is lifted high that's a win. It's about one name. This is significant for guys like Peter and John because we know just a few weeks earlier at the very week that Jesus was about to be crucified they had this ongoing argument the disciples remember the argument the argument was this whose name is going to be greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Peter and John and James and Thaddeus, all of them would argue, no, it's me, it's me, it's me. And Peter was just, Jesus was like, you guys aren't getting it. But after the death, burial, and resurrection, it became about one name, and one name only, the name of Jesus. They were transformed. It's the name of Jesus. That salvation is found in no other name under heaven. No other name. So your name's not gonna save you. Your family heritage.

You're not saved because they were Baptists back in the day. No other name of world religions is going to save you. The postmodern idea that there are many ways up the mountain to find truth and go to heaven, that doesn't save you. They're very clear. It's only Jesus, ever Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That's the only hope for the world. And so that's why Peter stands up. He's like, that's the name.

And then verse 13 says, when they saw the courage of Peter and John. And again, this is remarkable because Peter and John were not marked by courage just a few weeks before. When Jesus, before Jesus gets arrested, Jesus tells Peter, you're going to deny me three times before the alarm clock goes off in the morning. And Peter's like, no, I would, I would die for you. I, I'm courageous. He's like, no, you're not.

And we see it. denies them all that. But after the death burial and resurrection of Jesus, Jesus meets with Peter and encourages them. Love my sheep. Love my sheep. Love my sheep. Then the spirit comes and the spirit fills Peter and John and the rest of the believers and there is courage. This is what they're marked by now. They're full of courage. When they saw the courage of Peter and John, I love this, and they realized they were unschooled ordinary men.

They don't got a good education. Who are these guys? They're courageous, but they're just fishermen. But it says they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. How did they take note of that? They're like, well, we remember Jesus. We remember Jesus at the trial. We remember how he just stood there and took our accusations, how people punched him in the face and he just...

took it but but but he had this peace and shalom about him these guys look like that guy these guys have been with that guy may it be said of redemptive parker and the whole church in parker that that that the christians have been with jesus have you been with jesus lately did you spend time communing with jesus did you stir your affections for more of jesus do you get into his word do you get with his people do you

with his spirit to empower your life. These men had been with Jesus and they were astonished, it says. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. And everybody knew the man. He's literally doing Jesus jumping jacks in the temple and they're like, what are we to say about that? Something has happened here. So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and they conferred together.

What are we going to do with these men? asked. Everyone living in Jerusalem in this time and this place knows they have performed a notable sign and cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name. mean, this is like the most 2026 politically correct thing possible. Hey, do whatever you want. Worship whatever you want. Love whoever you want. Just don't mention Jesus.

That's basically what they're saying. Just stop mentioning Jesus. And then I love their how they respond in verse 18. So then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied which is right in God's eyes to listen to you or to him. You be the judges. Should we listen to God or what you guys are deciding. As for us we cannot help speaking.

what we have seen and heard. Why? Because they're ambassadors. They represent a king and his kingdom. That's their whole role in life. An ambassador is to speak on behalf of the king and the kingdom. So that's what they're going to do. It says after further threats. And again, these are not empty threats. Like torture and crucifixion is horrific death. But these are the threats that the Sanhedrin are.

leveling against them. After further threats, they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them because all the people were praising God for what had happened for the man who was miraculously healed was over 40 years old. And so they're released and they head back to the believers and they start gathering together again. Verse 23, on their release, Peter and John went back to their own people.

and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer. So they've already been marked by bold prayer. I pray that you're healed. And they've been marked by walking in boldness. They lift the guy, he is healed. And as they pray, notice how and what they pray. They pray in light of that timeline you saw.

They pray in light of knowing that God is sovereign, more than that, knowing that the providence of God is going forward in their lives. They say this, sovereign Lord, you're in control of everything. You made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them, creation. They go through creation, fall, redemption, restoration. He says, you spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David. Why do the nations...

raged in the people's plot in vain. The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one. Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate, this is redemption, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed. This is when they had that sham of a trial and they sentenced Jesus to

crucifixion but look what they said in verse 28 they did that horrific thing that they did they did what your power and your will had decided beforehand should happen it was part of your plan God they are responsible for their sin but you're sovereign over it and then it says now Lord consider their threats again not empty threats consider their threats now at this point in the prayer how are you praying here's how I'm praying

Lord, the same people that crucified Jesus, they're threatening to do that to me. Lord, would you stop that? Lord, I'm praying for your just your blessing of safety and comfort and security. Lord, I know those are from you. And so, yeah, this is how I'm praying at this moment. Like I don't want to die, but this is not how they pray. It's amazing. Consider your threats, their threats.

and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Because they're ambassadors. They've been speaking in boldness, they've been walking in boldness, now as they're threatened, they're like, we need more boldness, Lord. Would you just give us more boldness? They're not praying for safety and security and comfort, they're praying for.

boldness and then they asked stretch out your hand and to heal and to perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus Lord validate our ministry in our message with your power in our lives so that more and more can come and know you as Lord verse 31 after they prayed the place where they were meeting was shaken it's God saying I hear you I'm gonna shake this place and they were all filled

with the Holy Spirit. Again I said watch out whenever you see that phrase in the book of Acts but here it's not one person it's all the believers. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Okay so what is God going to do now? When the whole church is filled with the Holy Spirit it says and they spoke the word of God boldly and it continues but unfortunately in the modern translations you have this break and it makes it off to the side and it's got this the believers share their possessions but

In context, how you interpret the Bible, you say, okay, if they are filled with the Holy Spirit, what's going to happen? What's miraculous that's going to happen? What's supernatural that's going to happen? Well, it's the very next passage that shows us what's going to happen when an entire church is filled by the Spirit. You know what happens? The way we say it around here, gospel doctrine and gospel culture rise up together. That's the Holy Spirit at work.

in a people, gospel doctrine, gospel culture, the word goes forward, people live in light of the word, they love one another. Jesus said, they will know you are my followers by your love for one another. A new command I give you, love one another. We can't do that in our own strength. We need the Spirit of God to fill us. This is exactly what happens as they're all filled by the Spirit. It says all the believers were one in heart and mind. There's a

unity amongst this church that's Spirit-filled. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. They're like, but the mission's more important than my own stuff. With great power, the apostles continued to testify. There's Gospel doctrine to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all, the whole church, that there were...

no needy persons among them. They were meeting one another's needs. Now there are many ways to be a needy person. We have sometimes it's a physical material need, sometimes it's a spiritual relational need, sometimes you just need your brother or sister to come and give you encouragement or prayer or whatever it is that filled by the spirit they are living out the gospel together. There were

needy persons among them for from time to time those who owned land and houses sold them and brought the money from the sales and put it at the Apostles feet and it was distributed to anyone who had need. There's a spirit filled generosity in the room. Verse 36 mentions perhaps apart from Jesus my favorite person in all of the New Testament.

His name is Joseph. You know Joseph? Well, that's the only time he's named here, but we're told how we know him throughout the rest of the New Testament. says Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas, which means son of encouragement.

sold a field, owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles feet. So everyone knew in the church, hey Joseph, look what Joseph has done to advance the mission. He's sold his stuff and he's brought it here. He's so encouraged the church. You know what we should nickname him? Son of encouragement. If encouragement had a son, this is the dude. This is what it looks like to be filled by the spirit. Listen, church, don't over-spiritualize this.

Encouragement is what everyone in this room needs. No one in this room is over encouraged.

And that's one of the evidences of grace to me as your pastor. Like even this week, several of you have went out of your way to send me a text of just encouragement.

Listen, know Pastor Rick knows, we know there are no perfect churches and there are no perfect pastors and we mess up. But when you go out of your way to encourage, man, the wind in our sails fills our sails. And that's true for every one of us. You want to walk in the spirit today? Stop being discouraging and start being encouraging. That's it. You can make that choice and the spirit will empower that.

We are ambassadors for this time and this place. Filled by the Spirit, we walk in gospel culture. The early church was compelled by the love of Christ to live and love faithfully in the time and the place which God set them. The question is, are we compelled with the same? You say, well, things were different back then. Jesus had just been resurrected. Yeah, I mean, I think that did help.

John and Peter. But for the rest of the 8,000 people in the church, they have what we have. They have the eyewitness testimony of John and Peter telling them, we saw Jesus dead, buried, alive. So we have that. They prayed boldly. We can pray boldly. They were filled by the Spirit. We have the same Spirit. They had a calling to be ambassadors in

Jerusalem, we have the same calling to be ambassadors. All I'm saying is we have the same. Everything that they had, we have. We just have to walk in it. Gospel culture. I think God is doing 10,000 things among us that we are not even aware of in relationships and in life together, but we are aware of a few things. And so we've put together a video that just captures one way.

that God is working by His Spirit in gospel culture.

I'm DJ Henley and this is my wife, Sam. We've been coming to Redemption Parker for about three years. We have three kids, 10, seven, and four. That's Noelle, Isaac, and Elliot, and then we've got one on the way. The messages right off the bat really spoke to me. We were immediately invited to a GC. We started going pretty quickly and so kind of found community right out the gates, which was great. Prior to coming to Redemption Parker, I really struggled with running to community. I was...

kind of taught from a young age into early adulthood that you run away from community unless you have it all together. So I did not have it all together. So I was kind of hiding the background and it was through a couple of years of being in a GC where I started really sharing things and hey, things are hard and realizing that people around me had similar burdens. And so God was already kind of softening my heart going into about a year ago when DJ came forward with a lot of the things that he was dealing with. GC was there and

walked through really heavy burdens with us. There are two spiritually significant moments that really are solidified in my brain for key milestones in my personal journey through healing and freedom. One of which is when Scott, my brother in Christ, looked me in the eye and said what I was doing was not right and not healthy, but it wasn't in a judgmental way. It was like, this is not good for you.

this is not healthy and there is a better way. Following Sunday, I went to a theology on the ground meeting where we talked through the Romans seven man and I truly do think that God pulled some scales off my eyes and helped me see where I had been blind previously. So, I mean, we've obviously grown a ton in our marriage, but then we've also seen our kids grow tremendously since we've been at RP, I would say our oldest in particular.

a longing and a growing in her heart that she didn't have previously. She's just really eager to know more about the

Pastor Mark talked a little bit about influence and just legacy and how much influence one person can have in your life. And then you get to be that influence to more people or your kids or your kids' kids. And just seeing that play out is cool. What I've gained by being a part of that body, if I can give even like a fraction of that back, it really is a joy and honor to be able to serve at RP through time and resources.

I would say the culture of RP is authentic people trying to authentically follow Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's a bunch of authentic broken people that accept our humaneness, but we're all working together and towards Christ to be more sanctified.

Amen, amen.

Filled by the Holy Spirit, are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God we're making his appeal through us. implore.

Compelled For One More

AI Transcript

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Pastor Rick. Amen. Well, welcome. Good morning. There we go. I just needed the right question or response. Something. I don't know what I'm doing. So if you're new here, welcome. My name is Mark. I'm one of the pastors. It's my joy to open up God's Word with you this morning. We are in week number two of a series that really is a two year launch into something that God

is calling our faith family too. you're here, if you're visiting, you're here at a great time. If you weren't here last week or this is your first time, last week we passed out a series guide to help walk you through that. And if you weren't here, we want to have you raise your hand so we can get this into your hands. If you were here and you forgot to bring your series guide back, no problem. You can go on your phone to redemptionparker.org, compelled, and under resources you can get a PDF of this. But raise your hand so we can get this in your hands.

so you can follow along and this will be a tool on the journey with us. sometimes in our theological tradition, you'll hear people say, you need to accept Jesus into your heart. And while that's not in the Bible, I understand the concept. The concept is, you need to open up your life to receive Jesus as savior and...

Set your life on a different course. I think that's right and good. However, I think there might be a better biblical metaphor. It isn't so much that we need to receive Jesus into our heart. What if what if Jesus is saying, hey, I want you to come into my heart?

Think about the difference. we are, if we come to Jesus and say, I open up your life, Jesus, I want you to come and bless my life. just need I need you to bless all my plans. I need you to bless all my will and all my desire. Just just give me a little bit of that Jesus juice, please, please. Or we say, Lord, I want my heart to reflect your heart.

I want to be in your will. I want to be in what you're doing in this world. I want my life to conform to your life because that's where life is abundant life into the heart of Jesus. We've launched this series out of this passage that the apostle Paul writes to the church at Corinth and he starts by saying for Christ's love compels us that this has to be the engine of what of the Christian life.

It isn't about us. It isn't about Him blessing all of our plans. It's about what is Christ doing? What's the energy that we're going to have to go forward in the mission of God? It's the love of Christ. Christ's love compels us. And what Christ gives to us, He means to do through us. One of the problems with accepting Jesus into your heart in our

hyper individualistic Western mind is it can all be about me and Jesus. Just me and Jesus come come pour your love into my heart pour your love into my heart without any outlet. And that can actually become a dangerous thing for your life spiritually. In northern Israel there's a mountain some famous mountains called Mount Hermon in the wintertime and it collects snow and and of course in the spring it begins to run off and and over the course of forty five miles it it co-relates to one.

River. It's called the Jordan River and in it it's got oxygenated. It's teeming with life. It flows into what the Bible calls the Sea of Galilee. But it's actually just a lake. It's a giant lake. But in this lake there is life and there's vitality. And for millennia villages and towns and people have lived around this lake. Jesus spent a lot of time in those villages and towns and on the lake sometimes even walking on the lake. But there was life in the lake and the towns and villages got their life.

got their water, they watered their crops, they watered their animals, all these things because there was life in it. But at the other end of the Sea of Galilee, at the other end of the lake, there's an outlet. And it flows out of there and it flows for another 80 miles down the Jordan Valley. That's where we get the Jordan River name from. And along those 80 miles, again, there's just life and vitality.

tropes that are being watered, there's villages and towns, and this has been the history, but unlike most rivers, it doesn't, you know this already probably, it doesn't flow into the ocean, it flows to the lowest place on earth, 1,404 feet below sea level to the Dead Sea. It's called the Dead Sea because the water full of life and vitality comes into this place and there's no exit, there's no outlet.

The sun, the desert sun just bakes it, it evaporates, you know, the salt and the minerals stay behind such that no life can survive in that place. I think for some of us, we are okay with receiving the love and mercy of God, but we think it should stop with us. And we have a kind of spiritual deadness. I see it all the time as a pastor. People are like, I don't feel the...

the power of God. don't feel the presence of God. I don't feel all these things. And I just want to say, well, is there any outlet for the love of God to flow through your life into the world? Because it wasn't meant to stop with us. It's meant to go through us. What Christ does in us, he intends to do through us. fact, in our passage, 2 Corinthians 5, if you have your series guide, you could turn to page 47, which is our passage today. But we launched from this passage where

After he says, Christ's love compels us, he goes on, says, all of this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us, look at this, he gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That's an all play, folks. That's not my job. It's not the deacon's job. That's, if you're a follower of Jesus, he gave you a ministry. It's called the ministry of reconciliation. That's what you and I are called to.

as followers of Jesus. So how's it going? How's your ministry of reconciliation? Well, what is that? He goes on and says that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. This is what we're about. This is what we have to be about. If you want to experience the abundant life that Jesus promises you, you have to be a conduit of the love he pours into your hearts.

on the great commission Jesus comes after death, burial, and resurrection. says, therefore and make disciples of all nations. Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you and baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And surely I am with you, with you where? As you're going, as you're on mission. That's where he's with us. That's where this felt presence is. Not just in our own little homes, in our own little lives.

Yes, he's with us there. But do you want to really experience the power and presence of God in your life on mission? That's where it's at. And so today we're going to look at this thing. We're calling it compelled for one more. But really what it is as you turn the page to Luke, Chapter 15, what it is is Jesus inviting us into his heart. You want to see what the heart of God is like. You want to be invited to that. You want to love what God loves. Luke 15 is the place to look.

On the one hand, this is kind of a mirror. We should look at Luke 15 and ask the question, do we love like that? Is this a reflection of our life and our mission in the world? And if not, how do we conform our lives to his life? So Luke 15 compelled for one more. This is the heart of Jesus. It starts off in verse one. Now, the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered,

this man welcome sinners and eats with them. So at this point in the life of Jesus is getting towards the end. He's got massive crowds following him from across the spectrum. was a movement for all people in himself. And we see that here in the text that from the whole spectrum it says there are tax collectors, sinners, there's Pharisees, teachers of the law. It's the whole spectrum. And you may know this already, but tax collector isn't just someone that took some of your money to

to fund the government. No, they were the most despicable, worthy of death kind of people on the planet. These are people that conspired with the oppressive Roman government to extort their own people, their own family, their own friends, their own community to line their pockets, but also to fuel the coffers of Rome so that Rome could continue to send its armies of oppression into their land. Despicable.

the worst deserving of death. They're there. Somehow they're there. That they're hearing Jesus. That they're sinners. We looked at this last week. In that time it was just, yes we're all sinners, but there was a category in people's mind of people that had gone so far away from the will and presence of God that there was no hope for them to come back. But they're there. And you've got Pharisees and teachers of law. These are the most respected people. These are

what every good Jewish mom and dad wanted their boys to grow up to be respectable, moral, righteous. They're all there and these Pharisees and tax collectors are saying this man welcome sinners and eats with them. These crowds are huge, which is surprising because if you look at Luke chapter 14, Jesus is not preaching seeker sensitive messages. He's not preaching nice warm feel good. that's all.

hear Jesus know what he said at the end of chapter 14. You can look at it. What he said at the end of chapter 14 is probably the most offensive things these people has ever heard. He said, Hey, you want it. You want some part in the kingdom of God unless you hate your mom and hate your dad. You have no part in the kingdom of God. What are serious. I mean, maybe that should be our campaign. Hate your mom and hate your dad. Welcome to redemption Parker. It's like they're it's crazy intentionally crazy but

You're like, that's the most offensive thing I've ever heard. He's like, I haven't, I'm not done. Unless you take up your cross and follow me, you have no place in the kingdom of God. They're like, the cross? The Roman torture instrument of death? Are you serious, Jesus? He's like, yeah, I'm serious. And then the crowds would hear this and they'd go home and they'd be like, man, you believe what Jesus said? Here's what he said, hate your mom.

take up your car. It's crazy. And then they would get six more friends and go back the next day to hear him some more. This is what was happening here. See even though his words were hard they knew at the root of it there was love for them in that. And so they're gathering and the Pharisees and teachers the religiously comfortable don't like that those that should seem far from God are there as well. And so they're muttering and so Jesus

tells three stories, three stories that reveal the heart of God, the heart of Jesus. Three stories from three different angles, but making one point. And so the first one, he starts like this. Jesus told them this parable, this story. says, suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until

He finds it. He starts with something they all know. Every shepherd that's worth his salt, every good shepherd, when he does his count and one's missing, he isn't like, we're still pretty good. 99 out of 100, that's a good percentage. After all, this is where it's warm and it's comfortable and it's safe. It's too bad that one of them was stupid. No, no shepherd does that. They're like, no, okay, you're gonna stay here, but I'm gonna...

Go out, out to the wilderness where it's dangerous for me and this lost sheep and I'm going to go find the sheep. Jesus says, you all know this. The Pharisees are like, they're offended by this because they're comfortable. They're religiously comfortable like the status quo. After all, they look around and they're like, most of my friends, most of my family, most of my community is here. And we warned those what God said, if you don't do that, where they're going. so,

If they go out on their own and they go down that path, that's on them. And Jesus says, listen, you know that if you lose a sheep, you would go out and risk everything to find that sheep, but you won't do that for an image bearer of God. Does that make any sense? And the tax collectors and the sinners, they're hearing this. Are we hearing him correctly? Is he saying that that God

Isn't angry with us. Is he saying that that there is actually still hope hope for our lives? I Don't know and and Jesus says yeah, there's hope in fact, it gets better than that because it's one thing to be found by God But but there could some be some fear about that man I've been in rebellion of God with with God for all my life and then he's gonna find me What's he gonna do? Well, Jesus says what he does and when he finds it he

joyfully. That's a happy word. He joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together. He calls his whole community. Look what he says, rejoice with me. I have found my lost sheep. He wants his joy to be a contagious joy. If we have the heart of Jesus, we will celebrate most and loudest.

when the lost are found. Amen. Amen. He has to rejoice with me. He wants his joy to be contagious to us. And again, now the sinners, the tax collectors are like, no way. This is the heart of God. When he finds us, he's not angry with us. In fact, he's joyful. When he finds us and bring us home, there's a party going on. yes, there's a party going on. Jesus makes it explicitly clear. He says,

I tell you that the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven, not just on earth, there'll be the angels will be rejoicing over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who do not need to repent. And they're like, what? No, no, no wages. Shut up. That's wild. You tell me this is the heart of God.

Yeah, there's a party going on in heaven and you're invited to the party? Oh my God, praise God. And then over here you've got the religiously comfortable, the self-righteous, those that don't see any need for mercy and grace and they're thinking and muttering it under their breath. Shut up, Jesus.

Yeah. So Jesus reveals his heart. Is that our heart? He goes on to tell another story. Again, Jesus isn't talking about sheep and in this case about coins. He's talking about what he loves. He loves people. And he'll leave heaven to come on earth on a rescue mission to find lost people. Now we have the parable of lost corn, but again, it's not about a coin. It's about people. Verse eight, or suppose a woman.

has 10 silver coins and loses one. Again, still pretty good percentage. Well, doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house and search, carefully, your translation might say, search diligently. It actually in the Greek means disrupt everything, turn over everything, clear out the house, take all the furniture out of the house, whatever it takes, disrupt her whole life until she finds it.

And he's not talking about coins, he's talking about people. So what is this? What's going on here? Well, it's a question for us. Are we willing to disrupt everything in our life to find one more? To find one more person? Are we willing to disrupt our lives? See, in some way,

If you have your series guide, hopefully you took it home and you put this somewhere where you could pray about it and ask the Lord, show us Lord what it is you're asking us to do in this. But if you have it in this commitment card, it's one way to look at it. And I think what happens is a lot of people are like, man, I like that God is on the move. I like that he's doing things, but I don't really want it to affect my life at all. Or they'll look at this and they'll be like, we should do something. Right.

But let's do something that doesn't actually affect our life in any way, shape or form. What are the leftovers we have? Let's give those to God. You see the radically different nature of what Jesus is describing here? He's not just telling parables, he's telling his own story. He disrupts heaven and earth in search of one more. One more to come home. See.

It's the difference of living your life driven by something or as a derivative. So let me see if I can explain this. So if something's a derivative in your life, you're like, well, I would like this to happen. I would like that to happen, but I'm not going to rearrange my life for any of that to happen. Maybe it'll just happen. But if you're driven, man, we live in a place and a time that you guys are driven. But like you're driven to do things and you

You're educated enough, you're smart enough, you're willing enough, you have a drive enough, you accomplish those things. So for example, let me give you some examples. First time you go to buy a home, you run the numbers, you do the math, you're like, oh, this is the range, you find your realtor, you're like, okay, this is the range that we can buy. And they're like, sweet, okay, let's show you some houses. And the first house they show you, they're like, well, it's $25,000 out of our range. You're like, well, just see the house, come see the house. And you go and you look around, you're like, well.

I see why it's this is nice. And your spouse is like, this is really nice. And you're like, let's let's go back and figure this out. Why? Because you're driven and you go back and you're like, well, I could work more. We could go out and eat less. Maybe maybe not do some vacations for whatever it takes because you're driven to get that house and you get the house. Right. What you're driven for, you will arrange your whole life for. You know, for others, it's like, man, I want my kids.

to go to college, right? Like right now I have three daughters in college. I'm paying three tuitions, I'm paying three room and boards, three food, all the things. I promise you, you do not pay me enough for that. I promise you that. But 22 years ago, we were driven to lay a path for our kids to go to school. And so what that meant was we didn't go out to eat. My kids didn't go out to eat. If we did,

I promise you they only ever had water. I promise you that. Like we're not paying $5 for a drink. That's wild. It's not wrong to go out to eat. It's not wrong to have a Coke. It's just in our economy and with a missionary salary, we're like, this is what we have to do because we're driven. That's it. You're driven by there's someone or something that you will turn everything up over to get. Right? mean, we live in park, Colorado. Some of you you're like, man,

sports schedule comes out. I go, okay, guess what kids? This year, we're gonna travel to 18 countries in six weeks. Well, not countries, that's a little much. 18 states in six weeks. And you're like, how much is that gonna cost? Well, don't worry, it's airfare, it's tournament, it's everything. Okay, well, we're gonna need a second mortgage. Why? Because we're driven. You do whatever it.

takes. is what Jesus saying. Are you driven by the kingdom of God. Is there anything in your life where you like man I'll disrupt everything. We need a new car but I'm going to wait a few years because we could drive a nicer car in a few years but I want to do it so that one more one more person can walk the streets of gold forever. I'll do whatever it takes to just delay this so that my life is disrupted so that one more can can come and experience the Lord.

Jesus Christ one more for the kingdom of God King David once one time in his life he he he was a man with a lot of flaws But it was also a man that was a man after God's own heart and at one point he he needs to make this offering this sacrifice and he comes to this guy's land named Arun Arjuna and he he says here's what I need to do But he recognizes him as the king and he's like, you're the king. It's an honor just to have you you don't need to pay for

the bulls that you're going to sacrifice. You don't need to pay for the wood and the altar. You can have it all King David. It would be an honor. Like David understood worship isn't like that. And so he says this in second Samuel 24 24. He says no I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God offerings that cost me nothing.

Are you OK with sacrificing to the Lord that which costs you nothing? To have the heart of Jesus, this is what we're getting at. And he comes to this last parable, the most famous parable. I wish we had more time to dig into all of it. I've done other series where we did several weeks on this, but I'll just go ahead and go through it pretty quickly. You know the story. It's called The Parable of the Lost Son. It should be titled The Parable of the Lost Sons. There's two lost sons in this story.

He tells a story about how the younger brother basically comes to his dad and says, I wish you were dead. Massive offense in that culture. Give me my, give me what's coming to me. And surprise of surprise, the father agrees and it says he divided his property. The word property there in Greek is bios. We get biology. He divided his life among his sons. We know the story. The son takes it, goes to a far country.

He lives it up for a long time. He gets whatever he wants, but eventually the money runs out, a famine comes and he finds himself at the worst possible place that any first century Jewish boy could find themselves in a foreign land with foreign gods knee deep in the muck and mire of a pig sty. He hits rock bottom. Sometimes rock bottom is God's grace to us, right? For some of you, that's your story.

had to hit rock bottom, but he hits rock bottom. And the story says he came to his senses and he's like, what am I doing? And he develops a plan. It's the religious plan. It's this, I'll work really hard. I know I can't come back as a son, but my father's a good man and maybe he'll let me be a slave in his household. And so he gets up and he begins to make his way back home. The long journey home covered in

pig stuff, muck and mire. Now, some commentators believe that this story, this parable was actually a well-known story in the first century, but Jesus puts a very different ending to the story. Because the Levitical law said this kind of disrespect to a parent, to a father, that person deserves to be stoned to death.

In fact, it was on the village elders that if this son who had so disrespected a father was ever to make his face shown again, that the elders are to grab him, seize him outside the city gates and stone him to death. And in the original story, that's what happens. The son gets what is coming to him, which makes Jesus's story so radical. says this, verse 20.

He says, so he got up and went to his father, but while he was still a long way off, way outside the village, his father saw him. Implication, his father's been looking and longing and hoping and praying for his son to come home. He saw him and he wasn't angry with his son. He was filled with compassion. He said, there's my boy. And it says he ran to his son.

dishonor to a Middle Eastern man hiking up his robe, showing his thighs, running to his son. People are like, he's crazy. What is he doing? And he runs and he throws his arms around his son and he kisses his son so that even if the village elders were to do their duty, they can't throw the stones now because they'd hit the father. He's protecting his son. The son gets out his letter that he wrote. He's got his plan. says,

Father, I have sinned against you and against heaven, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son, but he can't get the rest of it out." His father interrupts him. His father said to his servants, quick, bring the best robe and put it on him. It's a picture of the gospel. This son covered in the muck and mire of the pigs. Cover his filth with the best robe with my righteousness. This is us in Christ. We are covered by the righteousness of Christ.

put a ring on his finger. That's the authority of the father back in his life and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate again. Come celebrate with me. Let's celebrate what God celebrates. Let's be a people that leverage our lives so that we can have these celebrations. This is for this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate.

Of course we know that's not the end of the story. There's another son, another lost son. He's the older brother. He's the Pharisee. He's the teacher of the law. He's the religiously comfortable. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. Okay, it's one thing to hear the music, but have you ever been to a party where you heard the dancing? I mean, that's a throw down, right?

He intentionally wants us to think of the greatest celebration. This is what's going on. This is what's going on in heaven when someone comes to Christ. He hears the music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him, what's going on? He says, your brother has come, he replied, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound. If this older brother had...

any love in his heart for the younger brother, he would celebrate. More than that, if this older brother had any love in his heart for his father, even no matter what he thinks about his brother, he would celebrate because he would reflect the father's joy. But he has none of that. Again, the self-righteous don't like mercy and grace because they don't think they need mercy and grace. And they don't think anyone should get mercy and grace. Since the older brother became angry,

and refused to go in. Another offense to this father. Massive cultural offense. So his father again lowering his dignity, he goes out with and went out to him and pleaded with him. He's like, son, come in. Don't do this. Come, come to the party. It's going on. It's a great party. Come get some brisket. It's amazing. Like it's come into the party. Come on, son.

But he answered his father, Look, all these years I've been slaving for you. That's a weird thing to say to your dad. That's what the religiously self righteous do. I've worked hard. Now you owe me. I've done my part. Now you owe me. All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. right. Yet you gave me yet you never gave me even a young goat.

so could celebrate with my friends. The dad's like, what? I know I'm old. What did you say? A boat? Did you want a boat? Because that makes more sense. You said a goat, a young goat? Yeah, you never gave me a young goat. Are you serious right now? says, but when this son of yours who has squandered your property, your life, and he's speaking the truth, when he squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fat and

for him? That makes no sense, dad. This is my son, the father said. You are always with me and everything I have is yours, but we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. The heartbeat of Jesus is for one more.

One more. One more person to come into the kingdom of God. We are compelled by the love of Christ to pursue one more for the kingdom of Christ. Well, maybe you're apprehensive. think, oh, I don't know about that. You know, if we do that, if we do, if we wreck the roof to make room for one more, if we continue to grow, I think I'm worried things are going to change. I'm going to say a couple of things here.

Things will change. All churches should change. If you have a three-year-old and you're like, I love my three-year-old, I don't want him to change, and they stop changing, something is seriously wrong, right? The question is, how will we change? And when people push back on me on this, I hear what they're saying. They're like, man, I love the welcome of this community. I love knowing people and being known. I don't want that to change. And I say, absolutely, amen. We don't want that to change either.

plan from day one has been get in life together, join a gospel community, go to men's group, go to women's group, join a core group, become part of the covenant membership. That is still there. So it's on you if we're still going to be a welcoming church. It's on you if you're still going to do life together. But we are changing. We're going to change. And that's not a bad thing. We'll wreck the roof if we have to, because after all, what's the alternative?

What child are we going to turn away from hearing about Jesus? You tell me. What neighbor are we not going to invite so they can hear the gospel and come into the kingdom of God and add one more to our midst? What family with disability needs are we going to shut the door on? What single mother are we going to tell you and your children are not welcome here? We don't have the space. We don't want to change.

See, if we do all that, then we will have ceased to be the welcoming church you love, and we will have ceased to be in step with the Spirit. We will have changed only for the worse. So may God shut the doors of Redemption Parker if that's how we change.

But God is at work in our midst. I can't even fully explain it. Sometimes people are like, we're gonna change, we're gonna sell out the gospel, we're not gonna tell about Jesus. Listen, we just did a six week series, passage by passage, through the book of Revelation, for crying out loud, and we added 45 new covenant members. That's wild, like no, you don't do that. No one wants that. But God's at work. Listen, the church always...

changes. That's not a bad thing. Acts chapter one tells us, I think in verse 20, that there were about 120 followers of Jesus in those first 50 days after Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. 120. You can imagine that. They get to know each other. They're doing life together. But then at Pentecost, the Spirit comes and empowers them. Peter stands up and preaches this sermon. It's honestly

I've taught some classes I'm preaching. It's one of the worst sermons I've heard. It's so harsh. He's just so harsh. But he preaches the gospel. And what happens? We read 3,000 people, not overnight, in that moment, come to be followers of Jesus and are baptized. In a moment, they went from this nice little community, everyone knows each other, to a mega church. Did it cause some problems? Yeah, you can read about it in the book of Acts.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. That's why 2000 years later we're gathered here today because people were willing to do whatever it takes to make room for one more. This is the heart of Jesus. A church on mission is always changing as it pursues one more. We've got a video we want to show you about some of the ways God is calling our church and moving amongst our people.

I was struggling in life. I knew I couldn't do it alone anymore. Found RP on Google. The reviews of people saying how welcoming and how full of love that church was just drew me in. It was scary going in there the first time, for sure. That fear all went away the moment I walked in the door. Felt like a place I truly belonged. December 16th, 2025, I made the choice to walk with Christ and become a Christian.

What I love about Retention Parker is just the close-knit community that there is within. It's a place where you can know others deeply and be known, and people truly care and see one another on a daily basis. What I enjoy most about RGCs is just the place of accountability. There's a place of belonging, and we really do care for one another. And it just allows a place for people to show up and know that someone

really cares about how your week went and how to pray through what you're going through in life at that time. And it's just really special to be part of that. As part of the COMPEL initiative taking place, I think God has moved in my heart to pray more for the future of our church. I think it's really exciting to be part of something so early on and to...

help grow and create a permanent, beautiful place of worship. And just to be part of something in the beginning is really beautiful and really cool. Disability ministry matters because God cares about disability ministry. One in five families are affected by disability. That means they have either a dependent in the family or are affected themselves, which is 20 % of our neighbors. So that made me pause and...

ask myself, if 20 % of our neighbors are affected in some way by disability, why is that not being represented within the walls of our church? Is there something that we are not doing that is hindering them from coming in? And so, just like we want to consider what are we doing to serve the people who are already within our church well, we also want to ask the question of who's not coming and why aren't they coming and how can we rip off the roof if we need to to get them inside to meet Jesus.

Before coming to RP, I was squarely devoid of a relationship with God. And now that I'm part of the RP family, I feel that I've got that daily engagement with God that absolutely is driving the direction of my life at this point. There was not an earthly explanation that I could come up with for the changes that I had seen in people that were very, very close to me. And that was sort of my first realization that, okay, God's really impacting people's lives.

And if I open the door, he can impact my life. It was time to accept Jesus is not the Lord and Savior, but is my Lord and Savior. When I think about what I'm most excited about, I think it's the future of RP. It's the future of the membership growing. It's seeing how I can contribute and give back so that we can better be the hands and feet of God here in Parker. What I love about the heartbeat of Redemption Parker is everybody is truly eager.

to make room for one more. One more family on the block, one more mom friend who comes to the play group, one more coworker, one more foster child welcoming in one more single, one more family with a single parent, one more child. It's such a delight to see people who love the gospel and love Christ, but they don't stop at being welcomed in by him. They work hard laying down their lives to welcome in others. And I think that's what's gonna compel us forward.

And Amen, let's give it up for.

Praise God. Jesus is at work rescuing people in our midst even right now. Last week we had 150 kids or we had 150 check-ins in our kids ministry. There is limited space there. We are up against the clock. We will have to turn people away. We don't want to do that. There's an urgency here. I hope you feel the urgency. If you have your series guide on page 50, if you turn over, there's three questions for reflection.

The idea is that you would take some time maybe later today and fill those out. But I want to point out question number three and it is this who is my one one person I will pray for.

Compelled For The One

AI Transcript

There are moments in the life of a church when God brings his people to a crossroads. These are moments when God calls his people to courageous faith to step forward into what he is doing next. Nine years ago, our family found ourselves at one of those moments. We've been serving overseas, preparing to plant churches in one of the most secular regions of the world. At the same time, family needs brought us back to Colorado and we landed here in Parker, unsure of what the Lord had next. What became clear very quickly was this.

There's a great spiritual need in our city. Jesus loves this city and he died for the people who live here. We began simply inviting people into our home for meals, scripture, and prayer. And soon, another moment of decision came. We could remain where we were, grateful for what God was doing, or we could step forward in faith, trusting him with something more. That step became Redemption Parker. And now, nine years later, God has brought us to another defining moment.

because God has exceeded our hopes, grown his church, and is now calling us to take the next step of faith at this crossroads. This moment is not accidental. It is part of a much larger story, God's story, and in this season and in this place, it is our turn. The Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, for Christ's love compels us. That word, compels, means to be seized, constrained, and moved forward by a force greater than ourselves.

Love of Christ is not passive. It does not leave us unchanged. When Christ gave himself fully for us, when he bore our sin, conquered death, and reconciled us to God, he claimed every part of our lives. His love now shapes how we live, how we love, how we give, and how we move forward together. In this season, God is inviting Redemption Parker on a journey of bold faith. We are calling this journey

We're compelled as a unified movement of Christ's love at work, in us, through us, and beyond us. We describe it with three words, deeper, wider, forward. First, Christ's love compels us to go deeper. Throughout scripture and throughout church history, we see a consistent pattern. Before God does a significant work through his people, he first does a deeper work in his people. Before Abraham was sent, God formed him. Before Moses was...

used God, humbled Him. Before the early church multiplied, God devoted them to prayer, repentance, and the Word. God is calling us to that same deeper work. A work of renewed trust, of deeper surrender, of greater dependence on Christ. This means opening every area of our life to the transforming grace of Jesus. Our hearts, our habits, our priorities, and our resources. Generosity is not an add-on to discipleship.

It's one of the primary ways Christ reshapes our loves and reorders what we treasure. As we go deeper, God is forming us into joyful, mature disciples whose lives are rooted in Him and marked by obedience. We were really drawn to redemption because of just the really robust worldview and commitment to gospel center.

That's one reason we see redemption as a really good investment and gift to the city of Parker. As the Word of God says, that they will know you are Christians by your love. And the testimony I hear time and time again, and it was our own as well, is that when they come into our church, they feel loved. Second, Christ's love compels us to go wider. The gospel never stops with us. What God forms in us, he intends to send through us for the sake of others.

In this season, we are praying for one more. One more neighbor to encounter the love of Jesus. One more family to find hope and healing. One more child or student to be discipled in the faith. One more life to be reconciled to God. God has placed us in Parker for such a time as this. He has entrusted us with relationships, resources, and opportunity, not for comfort, but for mission. As ambassadors of Christ, we are sent people called to live

with gospel intentionality right where God has planted us.

RP's been amazing, the community there, the relationships I've made has been life-changing. When I think about getting the strength to walk through those doors for the first time, there's others just like me. And I think I just encourage us as a church to keep that welcoming, loving community and just know that everyone has a story walking in there. We just have to continue showing the love that I got when I walked in.

Third, Christ's love compels us to move forward. This journey calls us to lift our eyes beyond ourselves to future disciples we have not yet met and generations we will never see. Moving forward means establishing a permanent, beautiful church home, a place that displays the hospitality and beauty of the gospel, a place where disciples are formed, families are strengthened, and the presence of Christ is made visible in our city. It's not about arrival, it's about stewardship.

What we build now will shape the spiritual landscape of this church and this community for decades to come.

I want to encourage us as a church family to really lean in to this COMPEL initiative and reach others who don't live near a church or may not have even heard the gospel and they'll get to drive by our beautiful building. This is the next step for us and we all get to see and be part of this growth of our church.

As we step into this journey together, we do so with clarity and faith. Our primary goal is 100 % engagement, that every person at Redemption Parker would seek Christ, trust Him deeply, and respond in joyful obedience as He leads. Our secondary goal is $4.5 million over the next two years, a reflection of what we believe God is calling us to pursue in generosity as we go deeper, reach wider, and move forward together.

Christ has given Himself fully for us, He now calls us to respond with full-hearted faith. That includes radical, joyful generosity. We give because we have received. We sacrifice because Christ first sacrificed for us. We invest because the kingdom of God is worth everything. Each of us is invited to ask, Lord, what does faithful obedience look like for me in this season?

As we step into this season together, Christ is calling us to go deeper in our discipleship, trusting Him with every part of our lives, to reach wider in our mission, living as sent people for the sake of others, to move forward in faith, building for generations we will never see. We move forward together compelled by the love of Christ. This is God's story, and in this moment and in this place, it is our turn.

Awesome, awesome. Well, welcome. Welcome to Redemption Park. If you're new here, you're actually here at a great time to hear about what we believe God is calling us as a faith family to be about. And so today we launch into a two-year discipleship journey. And to help you in that, we've actually created a series guide for you. I'm going to have some guys come out and pass this out. In the kids ministry also, they'll have their own series guide with their opportunity to color pages, all that.

But don't give this one to your kids because this was not cheap for us. Don't let them cull her on that. Let me, as they're passing that out, let me just explain a little bit about the series guide. If you open it up, you'll see our passage that Rick read to you. Then you'll see a blank spot that says, this guide belongs to, and you're expected to put your name there because what we want you to do is keep this and bring it back every week over the next six weeks and also,

Bring it into your gospel community and you'll see why in a moment. If you're not part of a gospel community, we'd love for you to get plugged in. This is kind of the heartbeat of our church to do life together. The Christian life was not designed to be lived alone. As you go through the pages of it, the first few is kind of in written form what you just saw in video form. But I want to just point out a few. On page 16, however, there's just this

story of God. It's a reminder of creation, fall, redemption, and glorification. I love it. It starts with the timeline. It goes back to 33 AD. Jesus died, buried, raised again at Pentecost. He sends His Spirit. The church is born. If you trace the timeline, you trace it all the way down to 2026 in Parker, Colorado. And I love that because

You see how the gospel moves and it crosses oceans and it crosses continents and language barriers and cultural barriers. And eventually you get to 2026 Parker, Colorado, thousands and thousands of miles away from where Jesus died, buried and was raised again. I love that because this moment is not an accident. It's not new. It's just our turn.

I'll just say that again. This moment that God has called us to, it's not new, it's not an accident, it's our turn. And the question for us as a faith family is, in this moment, will we be found faithful? I believe we will. If you turn then towards the end, on page 40, you start to see the series guide. It's got sermon notes, you'll see it's got reflections, group discussion.

You turn the page here, you see what we're going to cover over the next six weeks. Each week we will launch from that 2 Corinthians 5 passage and then we'll dig deeper into another passage of scripture. And if you turn the page, it says on page 43, compelled for the one. If you turn that page, you'll see there's a place to take notes. We're not going to pass out any bulletins over the next six weeks because all the notes can be here. The passage that we'll be preaching from, I'll be preaching from is

right there, Luke chapter seven. So again, bring this back each week. Take notes. Let the Lord do some work in your heart. Today we're on part one and the launch text for that is the first two verses. For Christ's love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all died and he died for all that those who live, I love this, that those who live should no longer live for themselves.

That's such a countercultural message. If you are in Christ, you should no longer live for yourself, but for the one. For the one who died and was raised again. So if you have your Bible, we're in Luke chapter seven. You actually don't need your Bible. I'll actually preach from the serious guy. Luke chapter seven. can turn the page. We're going to be right there. Today, as we start into this journey, we

start with that first part of what you saw in the video, that we're asking God to do a deeper work in us. We know that we can't do this on our own. We know that if God is going to do a significant work in our city, that He's got to first do a work in us. Now, you saw the video and you saw the building that we hope to build and all that. That's all part of it. However, sometimes people

Because you come to a smaller church they get nervous. How is this going to change this or I went to this one church and we They built a building and then everything changed. So let me let me just say something of that first of all, please Don't judge us on other churches that you have. Okay, can you just judge us on what we do? Secondly, maybe stop judging other churches

But here's the deal. If we're going to change, it's going to change this way. We are going to double down on Jesus. We're going to become more Jesus obsessed, not less Jesus obsessed. I assure you of that. This is what God is calling us to. When I was a student at the University of Economics in Prague, it was 1997. And one day my friends came to me and they said, hey, they're filming a film down

down in the old town district of Prague. And I said, what is it? And he said, it's Les Mis. I was like, what is that? It's a French film, I don't know. Well, what does it mean? It means the miserables. I said, that sounds terrible. But he's like, no, they've filmed there. And then after they film every day, it's Liam Neeson. He's Irish. And he goes to the Irish pub that's right next to the set. And so we can go meet Liam and Claire Danes and everyone.

And they were still in their costumes. And we went down there and sure enough, he's drinking a Guinness and he's like buying around for the whole place. And I got to meet Liam and talk to him. And so now I was interested in what this film was. So in 1998, when I came back to the States and it came out, I was like, I'll see this miserable film. But as I watched it, man, I was blown away. It's one of the few.

movies I'll watch again and again and again. It is this story, this powerful story that kind of in so many ways captures the heart of the gospel. What happens when someone is encountering the love of Christ. Well in this story, go back to Les Miserables, Liam plays Jean Valjean and it starts out he's.

He breaks into a bakery to feed his starving sister and her kids and he gets caught and he gets sentenced to five years. He tries to escape several times and it's hard labor. And so he eventually does 19 years of hard labor in this French prison. Eventually he's let out and he's got to go to another city and get there by a certain time or he's back in prison. But as he's traveling with his convict passport, no one will let him in.

And eventually someone points to the Abbey and he goes and knocks on the door and the bishop opens the door and welcomes him in. And this hardened criminal comes and for the first time in 19 years sits at a table, has a warm meal with real plates and silverware and then goes and has a warm bed for the first time. But then in the middle of the night, his darker hardened nature begins to take over. He gets up.

He remembers the silverware that he had and he goes into the kitchen and he starts stealing all the silverware and then the bishop comes in and Jean Valjean grabs the candlestick and smashes the bishop over the head, knocks him out and takes the silverware and flees. Well the next day the gendarme, the French police arrest Jean Valjean and bring him back to the abbey and they say, found him and the bishop comes up to

And he says, I'm very angry with you, Jean Valjean. He's like, of course. He says, you took the silverware, but you were supposed to take the candlesticks as well. Why didn't you take these? And the police are like, what? He's not, what? He said, no, no, he's fine. And they go away confused. And he looks at him. says, now with these, I've bought your life for God. Go make something.

The rest of the story is the story of the transforming power of grace, mercy, and love, among many other biblical themes in the story. But that's what I want to get at here. If we're going to go deeper, we have to have a deeper experience of the transforming power of grace, mercy, and love. And here's the thing with Jesus. He's an infinite well. We can all go deeper. You could take your first step

today or you could take your 10 millionth step there's more to experience in the love mercy of Jesus. so to capture that we're looking at Luke chapter seven. Luke chapter seven says this starting in verse 36 when one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him he went to the Pharisees house and reclined at the table.

This is early in the life and rather the ministry of Jesus. He's begun to gather some disciples, teach about the kingdom of God and do some miracles. And at this point, the Pharisees are not organizationally opposed to Jesus. They're interested. What does this young rabbi have to say and what is he about? Maybe he needs some correction. But nevertheless, this Pharisee in this town invites Jesus to have

dinner and presumably Jesus and his disciples to have dinner. This would have been an honor and Jesus goes and this would have been one of the nicer homes but not a home like ours more like a U shaped home with a courtyard or even the courtyard in front of the house. It would have been almost a public setting like when you eat at a square in Europe somewhere and there's people walking by. so Jesus goes and but the table would have been low there would have been

pillows there and they recline at the table. So they kind of lay on their side towards the table. They tuck their feet up behind them and they begin this conversation. Now in Luke's gospel there's seven meals. Whenever there's a meal buckle up. Something is about to happen because something happens over meals. are the in gospel communities we know this right. Verse 37 says a woman in that town who lived a sinful life.

learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house. So she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. What is happening here? Well, it says a woman of that town or the ESV would say a woman of the city. It could be a euphemism. Luke doesn't tell us what kind of sinner she is. It just says she lived a sinful life. between a woman of the town lived a simple life and this alabaster jar of perfume.

we can presume that she was a prostitute or at least had been until very recently. But we know from the context, no one else except for Jesus knows in this moment, something has transformed her heart. She has been, had an encounter probably from a distance that she's heard Jesus speak about the kingdom of God. It's unlocked something in her heart. And even though she had great shame in her life, she was compelled.

by the love of Christ to come and see him. She lived a sinful life. This will be a theme that comes up time and again. But if she was a prostitute, then we know that some other things have happened, right? Like no little girl grows up wanting to be that. Something has veered off tragically. Usually it's from the mistreatment, the abuse of other men. Nevertheless, she's had this transformative

encounter with Jesus and she goes and as she comes close everyone sees her but they don't really see her if you know what I mean. Everyone recognizes what is she doing here. Some of the men maybe are averting their eyes because they've partake of her services. She's got this alabaster jar. In the other gospels we know that a jar like this is immensely valuable worth about a year's worth of wages. You either had to be very rich

or you were a prostitute. This would have a little spout by it and it would waft this beautiful fragrance around the body. would communicate to everybody a desirability, a beauty, and availability. And she brings it to Jesus. And they're all thinking, what is she doing here? They're just like, whatever she's doing, please don't make a scene, right?

She shouldn't even be out in public, but but here she is don't make a scene and she proceeds to make a scene verse 38 Says as she stood behind him at his feet weeping So everyone kind of knows she's there. Maybe some are looking at her, but Jesus is reclined He's facing the table his feet are behind him and and she gets this close to him the one Has set her free

She's overwhelmed. Maybe she's overwhelmed by joy and sorrow. Sorrow for the brokenness of her life and joy that there is forgiveness and love in the heart of God through Jesus. And in the overwhelmed moment, tears fill her eyes, roll down her cheeks, splash on his dusty feet.

From there she gets on her knees and as she continues to cry and his feet get wet, she says then she wiped them with her hair, his feet. Overwhelmed by love for Jesus, she begins to kiss his feet. And then she finally comes to do what she came to do. It says the text says she poured perfume on them. But here's the thing, that alabaster jar, it was designed so that you can't pour it.

It was designed to just slowly, over months and even years, waft this fragrance. The only way to pour it is to break it. What is she doing? She is burning some bridges. She is, with her life, leaving her old life behind and she's coming to Jesus with wholehearted gratitude, without conditions. Which, by the way, is the only way you can come to Jesus.

without conditions. And she takes that which is her most treasured possession and in worship she pours it on his feet. Extravagant love because she has been loved. Well, the scene shifts in verse 39. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, so he has this inner monologue. If this man were a prophet.

like everyone says, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is, that she is a sinner.

It's obvious. He doesn't even have to be a prophet. Doesn't he know he's unclean if she touches him? She's a sinner. You're like, aren't we all sinners? Yes. But in that day, in that place, there was a category of people like, yeah, we all kind of sin. We have these respectable sins. then there's people who sin differently than us. And they're in a different category. We still do this today, right?

He is a sinner. So he's questioned if whether Jesus is a prophet. He's judging her. Doesn't know that there's been a transformation in her. 40, Jesus answered him, Simon, I have something to tell you. I love this because did you know in the New Testament, even though Pharisees are all over the place, we only know the names of three of them. Do you know who they are?

Nick at night, Nicodemus, comes to Jesus in John chapter three and into the cover of darkness. And Jesus has this powerful conversation with him and says, listen, Nicodemus, it doesn't matter your religious petri, if anyone is to come into the kingdom of heaven, he must be born again. There is no other way. Eventually, Nicodemus becomes a follower of Jesus. Another Pharisee we know the name of is the most notorious one.

We know him as Saul of Tarsus, who after the death, burial and resurrection is gathering up the church to persecute him, to put them to death. And then he has this transformative encounter with the mercy, grace and love of Jesus. And he'll go on to write for Christ's love compels us. So we know Nicodemus, we know Paul, and now we know Simon. Why do we know Simon's name? Well, Luke is...

is Paul's traveling companion. So maybe as he's writing this part, he's like, that was Simon's house. was, that's my, I was, was there. Maybe that's why, or maybe as the time comes for Luke to write his gospel, Simon, the Pharisee is known among the Christians. Maybe later in his life, he reflects back on this encounter and he too gives himself to Jesus. We don't know, but we know his name is Simon because here's the deal. Jesus loves

Simon he loves Pharisees and he loves prostitutes and everyone else he loves them all so he sees Simon and then he pursues Simon So Simon I have something to tell you teach tell me teacher He said he two people owed money to a certain money lender We can already see where this is going one owed him 500 Denari about three years worth of wages and the other 50 about two and a half three months worth of wages therefore

we see that Jesus acknowledges, he says that there are different debts. No doubt that there are different debts. We all have different debts. Some are huge debts, some are little debts, but the most important line is that the very next line, says, neither of them had the money to pay him back. Neither of them. So it doesn't matter if you're $10,000 in debt or $10 million in debt. If you have

zero opportunity to pay back one penny of it, you are still bankrupt. You might convince yourself, I could pay back 10,000, but in your life, you've only got the debt bigger and bigger and bigger and never paid back a cent, but you could still convince yourself. he says, neither of them had the money to pay him back. So he forgave the debts of both.

He's not being flippant about forgiveness. Forgiveness is hard. Why is it hard? Because when you forgive someone, you're telling that person, I take on the debt. What you owe me, I bear that cost. That's why it's so difficult. This is what Jesus does. We see at the end of our passage, for God made him to be sin, who had no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God. He says, now which one of them

will love him more. Simon with some intellectual integrity answers rightly, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven. Jesus says, you have judged correctly. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, so you can picture it. Jesus looks up, everyone's seen the woman except for Jesus because he's had his back to her and he's looking at her, but he's talking to Simon.

It's a way of getting everybody to look at her. And look what he says. Do you see this woman? It's a good question. Do you see this woman? Not this sinner, not this prostitute. Do you see this woman made in the image of God? Do you see her?

And then he goes on to offend his host. But he's doing it not to offend him. He's doing it to pursue Simon's heart. Imagine you going to a dinner party. Someone in the church welcomes you in and in the middle of the thing you just start saying the most offensive things to them. This would be wild unless there was something to it. Jesus loves both these people. So he says, Do you see this woman, this image bearer? I came into your house.

You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. If you welcomed a guest of honor, you would have your servant, your slave at least, wash their feet, but that honor was not given to Jesus, but it was by her. He says, you did not give me a kiss. You would welcome an honored guest with a kiss of greeting. He says, but this woman.

from the time I entered has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she poured perfume on my feet. Radical, sacrificial love. says, therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven. The theologians at the table, the theologians in the room are like, what? Yeah, that's not how it works.

How is that possible? Because again, she's already been forgiven. We see that as he goes on. As her great love has shown, those that have been forgiven much love much. But he says, but whoever has been forgiven little loves little.

Then Jesus said to her, your sins are forgiven. The other guests began to say among themselves, who is this that even forgives sin? Jesus said to the woman, your faith has saved you. You're forgiven by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. She's already has that. And Jesus is showing the rest of the dinner party how your sins can be forgiven. He says, now go in peace, go in shalom, go live the abundant life I came to.

give you.

Maybe we struggle because this whole passage is kind of a mirror to our souls, right? Like, do you see yourself in the story at all? I think we should probably see ourselves maybe in both Simon and this woman. Simon doesn't love much because he doesn't think he needs love much. Maybe we don't love Jesus much because...

We don't really think we were that bad. Maybe because we have a fundamental understanding of the absolute holiness and righteousness and glory of God that we think, we're okay. Our debt's not that bad. One of the ways to go deeper is to just consider how much Jesus loves you. You have been loved greatly. In the gospel, we find the bad news is as bad as the good news is.

good. In the gospel we see that we are far more pitiable and wretched and in rebellion than we ever thought or imagined. We also see in the gospel we are far more loved and accepted and brought in than we could ever hope or dream. See the Pharisees were blind to their needs or maybe you're here and you're like yeah but if God really knew what I had done

really knew my past, really knew my brokenness. Maybe you're intimately familiar with your brokenness. By the way, God knows and he still says, come. That's the offer on the table of the gospel. The offer on the table is to be transformed by the grace and mercy and love of Christ that your life would be compelled, compelled by that. Well, if you turn the page,

To the next one you see that there's on page 46. There's some questions for reflection Again, we're asking God to do a deeper work in us And so maybe this afternoon or some point this week We want to invite you to fill out those things Let the Lord work on your heart in those things But and then what you're gonna do is you're gonna take your series guide to your gospel community And having had the Lord do some work on your heart. You'll have something to say when you gather

together in a group. want to point out to one more thing here. We'll get to in about six weeks but I want to see at the back pocket. I want you to pull out this thing. This is a commitment card. We're not even ready to touch it really. the reason we want to get it into your hands now is because we want this to be a tool that God begins to speak to you. Put it somewhere on your nightstand or on your refrigerator. But when you see it I want you to pray two prayers.

Lord, your will be done. Lord, search me and see. Begin to pray. Lord, what does radical, sacrificial worship look like for me and my family in this season? Again, pray about it, think about it, put it somewhere significant. We'll talk about it more in the coming weeks, but we believe at Redemption Park, and now nine.

years old as a church that we're just wrapping up chapter one of the story of God at Redemption Park. We're about to turn the page to chapter two and there are chapters, Lord willing, that we are not in, far beyond us, where others will come and write their story. But it starts here by being compelled by the love of Christ to no longer live for ourselves but for the one who died.

and was raised again. Amen. Let me pray for us to that end.