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.