JULY 4, 2021 SUNDAY MESSAGE
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Transcription (Please disregard any errors):
There's a well known saying that perception is reality, the idea that our individual perception of something becomes our truth. But if we are honest, this is self limiting. There are blind, blind spot solutions and aspects of an event, concept or moment that can only be revealed from the vantage point of a diverse community. If we want to continue to be a learning community, we must make it a habit to invite many voices to speak into our lives and help us to evaluate what we see or what we cannot see on our own.
Even if we don't always agree. This practice helps us to see new opportunities and allows us to grow in a comprehensive way in our journey towards devotion, community and mission as an individual, as a house Church, as a faith community, as the body of Christ. This is perspective.
This has been an incredible series so far. I am just very excited to introduce our next speaker today, our guest, Myron Duff. I'm just going to keep it real. Myron is my guy met Myron my freshman year at Ball State University. He was my best friend, my roommate and his fraternity brothers. We've been like Ballstate Brothers for years. And then I'll show you just a quick picture. I think I just saw it. I think they were able to get it squeezed up there. Maybe. So this was a fifth and 6th grade picture of my son Andre and his son Ahmad, and the Dooms are the protectors of the Duffs.
So now Drew and Andre protect that man. That's going to get us to state Championships. So we have been fathers of boys that have been playing football for years. So our lives have been intertwined. And the way that God has done it has just been incredible. That's a whole different sermon in itself one day. But I want to introduce Myron Myron is a graduate of Ball State University. He's a native Indianapolis. He got his bachelor's and his master's in higher education at Ball State and recently just excited and just proud to be able to say that.
Mr. Duff has recently received his PhD in urban education studies from IU, and currently he is the associate director of Multicultural recruitment at Franklin College. Myron has an incredible family. He's got four sons, Antoine, Elijah Avery and Ahmad, and an incredible wife who's also a Ball State alarm Sahana. And like I said, we've been doing life together and just his influence on me, my family and what we are going through and what we're discussing here is just incredible. So I want to introduce Mr. Myron death.
You all can hear me. Okay? Can you see me? So I'm so excited to be here today with you all Dooms knows I am not for all the accolades and all this. He begged me for that information, literally pulled it out of me. I just wanted him to say we're buddies from Ball State. Our kids are cool. Our families are cool. And that's it. Do I need to step back? Okay. We're good. You got me. Okay. How's that? Can you still hear me? Okay. All right. So I'm excited to be here.
I know I am on the timeline, so I want to get started. I do want to make sure I thank Pastor Eric just for the invitation. Thank you. Just the love that's been extended from everyone in this process. And so I'm hoping that today we can just share a few things from God's word that can help us all along this journey. Amen. Amen. Before we start, let's open up with a word of prayer, we'll dive right into God's word and I'll get out of your way.
Dear Father, we just thank you so much just for this time. Thank you, Lord, for common ground northeast and what you established so long ago. Thank you, Father, for this opportunity. Thank you for the pastor and the other leaders that are here. Thank you, Lord, for the members that are here. Oh, God. And we just thank you, Lord, for Jesus Christ, the perfect sacrifice that bridge the gap between us and you. And so now we have a right to eternal life. And we just pray, Lord, that as we get into your word, that you would open up our eyes, that we might see the wonderful things in your law, and then Lo God.
We just pray that you would hide your word in our hearts that we might not sent against you. It's in Christ's name that we pray and give thanks. Amen. Amen. If you would turn in your Bibles to Matthew. Chapter nine, Bibles Bible apps or whatever you have turning those to Matthew. Chapter nine. And that's what's going to be the context of our message for today. And I'm going to be reading from starting at actually, verse nine. So Matthew chapter nine, I'll start at verse nine. I'll kind of stay in this
thing for a little bit, and the text reads as follows.
It says, as Jesus went on from there, he saw a man called Matthew seating in the tax collector's booth, and he said to him, Follow me and he got up and followed him. Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and centers came and were dining with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisee saw this, they said to his disciples, Why is your teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners? But when Jesus heard this, he said, It is not those who are healthy who need a position, but those who are sick, but go and learn what this means.
I desire compassion and not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous but sinners. Then the disciples of John came to him asking, Why do we and the Pharisees fast? But your disciples do not fast. And Jesus said to them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the brides room is taken away from them, and then they will pass. But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment for the patch pulls away from the garment and a worse tear results.
Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the wine skins burst and the wine pours out and the wine skins are ruined. But they put new wine into fresh wine skins and both are preserved. Let's skip down to verse 36 36 says, seeing the people, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few, therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.
Amen. Today I'm going to talk about how to make disciples. How to make disciples is what I want to talk about on today. So Jesus, in Matthew chapter eight, gave us the great Commission, which is go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and know I will be with you always. That is the great Commission that all of us have been given. And I've been wrestling with that concept for years, even as a kid, a group in the Church.
My grandfather was the pastor of the Church that I grew up in. I don't know anything but the Church. I became a believer on January the first 1000 1980. Yes, I'm old. Yes, I'm an 80s kid. Yes. I love the British invasion. Yes, I believe the best music was made between 1000 971,995. Everything before after that. I just don't know. But I've been wrestling with Go and make disciples a long time, and I've really been trying to wrestle with God's Word to figure out what is going and making disciples mean?
Is it what the Jehovah's Witnesses do, which is wrapping on doors and making people hide behind curtains and lock their doors when they come there. Is that what it is? I'm not sure that wasn't clear to me until I began to pay very close attention to what Jesus Christ did. When I began to pay very close attention to what Jesus Christ did, I begin to understand what making disciples look like. And so I want to share that with you today. And I want to look at this example of how Jesus interacted with Matthew, who became one of his disciples, how he actually became a disciple, and what Jesus did in that process to attract Matthew to Jesus.
And so we're going to talk about that on today. And so the Book of Matthew, as many of you all probably already know, is a book that was written primarily to a Jewish audience. Matthew consistently and ongoingly communicates Jesus Christ as the coming Messiah so keep in mind John the Baptist, he was the person that was responsible for paving the pathway for Jesus Christ, preparing the wife for Jesus Christ coming. But Matthew, what he does is he pretty much positions Jesus Christ as the coming Messiah that has already arrived.
The thing that's interesting about the book of Matthew is that it is not a chronological book. So if you're an orderly kind of person, you might get a little frustrated with Matthew because Matthew does not speak in chronological order. Instead, he just kind of highlights major points and some points may occur before others, but he doesn't make a big deal about that. So Matthew does not speak in that regard. But when we get to Matthew, when he's sitting at the tax collectors booth, when we get to Matthew, we begin to see this story unfold, and it demonstrates Christ's forgiveness of sinners and the change that it brings.
So the context of the passage, the true interpretation of the passage is the forgiveness that Jesus Christ brings. That's the true interpretation of the passage. But one of the applications that comes out of that is discipleship making. And so what the wave I want to ride today is the discipleshipmaking application that I pulled out of this interpretation of this particular text. Okay, so I hope I don't lose you. I'll try to tell a few jokes along the way when I see a few people falling asleep.
Hopefully that wakes you back up. But hopefully when we walk out here today, the goal is for all of us to be more like Christ. That's the ultimate goal. So my goal is not to make anyone feel bad. My goal is not to challenge anyone. My goal is to allow God's word to work on your heart the way it continues to work on mine. Amen. So that's the goal. So I have three things. There are three points that I'm going to
pull out of this text that helps us to understand what Jesus did that we can model in regards to making disciples.
And the first thing is found in verses nine through eleven. And I'm going to read that. Verses nine through eleven says as Jesus went on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting in the tax collector's booth, and he said to him, Follow me, and he got up and followed him. Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why is your teacher eating with the tax collectors and centers?
All right. So here's the first thing. If we're going to make disciples, the first thing that we, as believers have to do is we have to do what's called relationship cultivation. If we're going to make disciples, the thing that we have to model that Jesus Christ did is he focused on cultivating relationships. So making disciples is a relationship building relationship cultivating process. And we see Jesus Christ doing that. And I see some of you getting a little uncomfortable right now, but I'll go through this in the text, and maybe as I show you this in the text, you feel a little bit more comfortable.
Okay. Verse nine says, as Jesus went from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the taxi electoral booth, and he said to them, Follow me. So the first thing in terms of relationship cultivation that we do is you got to get in the habit of inviting people into your life. You just can't walk around here walking past people like zombies. We all have to put ourselves in a position where we invite other people into our lives. And I know we don't like to do that because I know we like to just drive.
We're tired when we get off work. I want to just drive home. I want to drive in my garage, and I don't want to keep waving to my neighbor every time I go in. I know the feeling, but that's not what Jesus did. Everywhere Jesus went. He was always inviting them into his life. And as believers, I could stay on this all day. But I won't. As believers, we have to make sure that we are inviting people into our
lives. And let's get to the uncomfortable part.
I am a social butterfly now, typically on Sunday mornings when I preach, I don't mean to be standoffish, but I'm kind of getting my mind together, so I speak. But I need to go kind of get off and get my mind together. But I am a social butterfly. I will speak to anyone, and it drives my wife and my kids crazy. I'll talk to the person at the cash register at the grocery store. I will talk to anyone if I didn't have to preach. I'd be over here coloring with these kids over on the floor because that's just the kind of guy I am.
But my wife is nothing like me. My wife is very quiet, very demure, very easy going, very laid back. She doesn't initiate relationships like I do. What she does is she does what Matthew said, what Matthew did. Look at what Matthew did, and he got up and followed him. So you need to be either two people. You need to be the person who initiates the relationship, or you need to be the person that is open to new relationships. You all see that if it doesn't fit who you are, that's great to be a person that initiates it, but at least a smile to let a person know that you're open to being friendly, right?
We're Christians, right? So there's no reason for us to walk around with faces like we're sucking on lemons, right? We're believers. We've been sucked by the true King. And so we need to represent that. And if I am a shy, quiet person and I'm not comfortable expressing myself openly, that's fine. But just
be open to the person that is that way. And in that way, because I noticed that my wife makes as many friends as I do. And I'm thinking, how does she make so many friends?
And she barely speaks. But I paid attention to her and noticed that she's always in a pleasant disposition where a person would want to speak to her. Does that make sense? So you don't have to be this outgoing, Overthetop person. You just need to be open either way. And Jesus Christ what he does. We see this example with Matthew and with Jesus is they were Jesus initiated relationships and Matthew was open to establishing new relationships. Look at verse ten, then verse ten says, and this is the tough stuff.
Y'all this is the tough stuff right here. Verse ten says, then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and his disciples. Now what's not being discussed here or what's not demonstrated here? We see in Luke
in Mark, chapter two, verse 15 and Luke, chapter five, verse 29, that this house does not belong to Jesus. This house actually belongs to Matthew. What we see Jesus doing is he invites Matthew into his life.
But what we also see Jesus doing is inviting himself into Matthew's life. Do you all see that? Thanks. We just can't have friends around people that we just know. You're going to have to make some friends with some people that you don't know that do some stuff that you probably don't do or get into some stuff that you probably don't get into. You got to do that. You just can't be comfortable around you. That's not discipleship making. If you're going to make disciples, you're going to have to learn how to get comfortable around people that are different from you, whose hair is kinky, just like mine.
Who has this beautiful Brown skin that I have. You're going to have to get accustomed to be and going in their house and don't just go around people just to say, I have friends in different environments that do different things. Learn the culture, understanding the culture. You know who I know. I noticed somebody in here who knows the culture. You know who I noticed? Sam. Sam dipped me up big time. Sam came down here. God bless you. I see Sam running around here. Sam is trying to get all this technology and all that kind of stuff to get.
Can we give Sam some praise for his hard work? But I can always tell when someone understands the culture by the depth. He didn't give me the handshake. He came up and he gave me the full on the depth, the grip, the snapback, the slap around the back. He gave everything but that's funny on one end. But you know what it also represents is Sam paid attention to the culture, understood it, and became a part of it. Let's not just go in other people's cultures and other people's environments and look and say, Why do they do that?
What's wrong with them? Why don't they do it the way we do it? Let's appreciate how each other does things in each other's cultures and represent it and appreciate it and glorify one another's culture. Right. When I first got to College at the same room, my roommate is a white guy from College, white guy from Southern Indiana. And he and I would always have these conversations back and forth about where he grew up versus where I grew up. And of course, the first question he asked me was, how come black people don't wash their hair every day?
So I had to go through that. And I had to explain that to him. Then he really wanted to know about this. Dorag, I wore my hair differently back then, and I didn't have all the Gray hair back then. Of course, I didn't have all these kids that I had back then, and I explained that to him. What I appreciate it is he understood and he learned it. You know what I found out he was doing after that is his wife friends. He was explaining things to them so that they understood.
I appreciated that. So he wasn't just looking at me to be condescending and negative. He was really looking to understand my culture and where I came from, and that's what we needed. And it just can't just be black culture. That Latino culture. I'm really starting to learn more and more about that group because it's interesting, the uniqueness about that culture. And so we need to be willing to learn and explore and appreciate not only white culture, but black culture, Latino culture, Asian culture. And so
we can celebrate all of our cultures together.
Amen. Amen. But you can't do that. If you sitting back with a proof shaped mouth, you got to do that with an openness to getting to know other people. And then let's look at verse eleven, verse eleven says, and when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why is your teacher eating with tax collectors and sinners? But when Jesus heard this, he said, let's stop right there. Now. This is what I like. I don't know if you all notice Jesus is the bomb. I like how he thinks.
I like how he goes down. I like how he moves. I just like how he thinks. And so what he's doing here? Well, I don't know if you noticed it, but what the Pharisees are doing is they are pulling the disciples to the side because they didn't want to contend with Jesus. They pulled the disciples to the side to catch them, to trap them because they knew they couldn't trap Jesus. And they began to question him about some of the things that he was doing, or some of the things that Jesus was doing.
And so Jesus overhears this. You know what he does? He defends his disciples. If you want to establish relationships with people that are different from you, and if you want them to be authentic, and you know that certain people that have been marginalized in this country and you know the experiences that other people have gone through, you want to know if they believe your relationship is authentic is when you start fighting for them. If you if and not when they're around, I'm in this sense, it was around.
But if you want to know someone like for me now, Sam, I got to know Sam today. And so as far as I'm concerned, can't nobody mess with Sam? If I'm out on the street and I see somebody messing with Sam, I'm coming to Sam's defense. Why? Because this man has tried to make me feel in this Church. I know Sam's lost about £15 running down them steps, making sure my technology was right. So I will defend him because he tried to do everything he could to protect.
And that's how we need to be when we meet new people. Let's not be neutral. Let's get outside of the neutral thing. Let's get involved. If you see someone doing something against someone or a group that you know is being marginalized stepping in, I'm not saying you need to change the world. I'm not saying that you need to be Nelson Mandela, but if that person means anything to you, whoever that person represents, authenticity should expect some defense on your part, just like Jesus did. Jesus was not going to let anyone come up on his disciples because these were people that he cared about.
And I think that that's a model when a person really believes, is this person really caring about me or do they have an alternative motive going against people in your own life to defend someone else that's pretty authentic in your life. And so that's something that I would consider. All right. I'll take more time on this, but to ask a black preacher to give him only just a few minutes. That's hard for us to do. So I just want to let you all know that. So I'm doing everything I can.
Verse twelve. Let's look at verse twelve, second part of verse twelve. Oh, and here's the thing. Here's the thing. So the first thing I shared with us, I don't want to miss this. First thing I share with us is if we're going to make disciples, there has to be relationship cultivation. You have to get in the habit of developing relationships. If you're an outgoing person or being open to relationships. If you're not an outgoing person, see how God designed that for our personalities. So that's the first thing we have to do.
But the thing is the thing about making disciples is there's always some things that God requires from us in terms of holding us accountable. There's always heart issues that God is going to always deal with His believers because he is sanctifying us while we are here until we are with Him and we are glorified and that sanctification process. We'll see as we look at these Pharisees. Aren't you glad God didn't have to use you as an example in the Bible? Aren't you glad that God didn't have to use your stupidity?
Your mistakes, your dumbness? The mistakes you made in God's Word? I'm so glad because I'm so dumb. I'm made so many stupid mistakes. But I'm glad it's not written in the Bible where everybody can see it right out front. So I'm praising God for that. I am so happy about that. So here's what we
learned. So we need relationship cultivation, but we need internal examinations. All right. We can't make disciples if we are internally allowing God's Word to examine us as individuals. And the first thing is found in the second part of verse twelve.
Jesus response to these disciples was, it is not those who are healthy who need a position, but those who are sick. So, Jesus, these Pharisees are arrogant. These Pharisees think that they don't need Jesus. They think that they don't need forgiveness. They think that they don't need to be healed. Jesus is being kind of using iron. He's being sarcastic. That's what the word I'm looking for. He's being sarcastic. He's saying, well, the people that need to be healed are already healed. So I'm just going to go out and heal the sick.
He already knows. All of them need to be healed, including the Pharisees. But the Pharisees attitudes were that they didn't need to be healed. And to make matters worse, that these tax collectors didn't deserve to be healed. Isn't that an awkward? Not a bad attitude. That's a bad disposition. But I'm afraid that's a disposition some of us have and praise God for some of the things that you're doing in the community and all that. But as we are making disciples, be careful about your attitude. Be careful about your disposition.
Be careful about how you think of the people that you are hoping that God seeps into their heart because you don't want to start thinking that you got it all together, that you're the best Christian there ever was, that they need to be where you are. I'm going to tell you right now, everywhere I go, even when I start speaking with someone that is not a believer, I can think in my mind, I'm always thinking this person probably sees right through me. They probably see what's in them.
I shook a couple of yards and I'm thinking, you guys are looking at me like, Why is this guy even here? He doesn't deserve to be here. I know. So I can see right through him. You have those shifty eyes so I can see right through this guy. And I'm always afraid of that. But we need to be careful about looking at people in a condescending way when God has come to us. Thinking that we are better than others or more holiday than others defeats our ability to make connection with others.
So we need to be willing to check our hearts as we find ourselves developing relationships with others, particularly if they're not believers. Check yourself. Make sure you aren't looking down or thinking that you're better than anyone else because you're safe, because the only difference between us and a non believer is that we're covered by the blood. That's it. That's the only difference, right? Because you already know you can't save yourself. You can't be good enough. You can't give enough. You can't serve enough. None of that saves us.
The only difference. The only thing that saves us is the blood. So there is no distinction. So even if the person is on drugs, your issue might be your heart and to God. In regards to sin, there is no difference. So because there's no difference, there is no sin that's looking down on the other brothers and sisters who are caught in things that we wouldn't dare find ourselves into. Amen. Verse 14, verse 14 says,
this is the tough stuff right here. Then the disciples of John came to Him asking, Why do we in the Pharisees fast?
But your disciples do not fast. And Jesus said to them, the attendance of the groom cannot mourn as long as the groom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the groom is taken away from them and they will fast. Now Jesus is using this visual of Him being the groom and the Church being his bride. And remember, he is incarnated. He is on Earth right now. And John's disciples are like, right now, you should be faster. We're fasting. How come your disciples aren't fasting?
And Jesus is like. The reason why people are fasting is to get closer to me. That's the purpose. The whole purpose of fasting is because you see this chasm between you and Christ, or you need some clarity from Christ. So you fast. But Jesus is like, I'm here. I'm right here. Why do you need to fast? And I'm right here. And so the question we need to ask ourselves is, Why are you doing the stuff that you're doing? Why are you here today? Are you here because of relationship with Christ, or are you here because that's what you want to be?
Because your mom and dad told you this is where you need to be. Why do you give? Do you give? Because the Bible says, give or do you give because you just love Jesus? Why do you serve? Are you serving? Because it looks good because you want to show everybody how good you are or are you serving because you know that you love God, and he has given you so much that you just cannot help but to give back to Him. Doing things mean nothing if they do not originate from a heart that looks to have a deep relationship with Jesus, everything that you do.
If you decide you're going to make disciples and you don't have a deep relationship with Jesus Christ, you're wasting your time. You first have to start with Jesus and your relationship with Jesus, or as you develop your relationship with Jesus. Then you make disciples. But you can't do an absent of that. You should not serve absence of a relationship with Jesus. You should not give absent of a relationship with Jesus. And Jesus was saying that all of us need to do or make disciples along with a deep relationship with Him Amen.
One more thing, he says. He says verse 16, but no one puts a patch on unshrunk cloth on an old garment for the patch pulls away from the garment and a worse tear results verse 17. Nor do people put on new wine into old wine skins. Otherwise the wine skins burst and the wine pours out and the wine skins are ruined. But there are new wine into fresh wine scans and both are preserved. I know I'm confused just like you are, because I don't know what Jesus is talking about.
Patches and all that kind of stuff. I have absolutely no idea what Jesus is talking about. What he is saying is let's focus on the wine skins. What Jesus is saying is what happens in this daytime. Of course, they have really bottles and all that kind of stuff. They would place new wine into new wine skins, which were made from animals. But once the wine was poured out and the wine skins dried up, you couldn't put new wine skin inside the old wine skin bottles because the old wine skins were already cracked, dried and cracked up.
So if you put new wine in to the old wine skin bag, the wine skins would burst and explode. You had to put new wine into fresh wine skins or it just wasn't going to work. So here's what Jesus is saying represents in Jesus analogy. The wine represents the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the wine skins represent us when we are dried up. What it represents in us is people that refuse to change. So the gospel will be effective when we change and we develop according to what God has called us to change into right.
The wine will not be affected. So when the wine skins burst, when the wine skins burst open, it is because we have refused to change both in terms of how God is trying to develop us as believers and because I've done it the same way since 1950 and we're going to continue to do it the same way all the time. So a refusal to change is a dried up wine skin. The only way when we refuse to change and be open to change. We are old garments and we are old wine skins.
If God is going to be effective in our lives in terms of making disciples, we have to allow God to change us in regards to our hearts and doing things differently than what we used to do. Amen, if we're going to go out whatever vision that God has for this particular Ministry, you will have to probably consider doing things differently than you used to do it. And those of you who are resistant to that are the old wine skins and those of you who are on board are the fresh wine skins.
What are you today? Are you an old wine skin that is halting the movement of the mission of God. Are you a new wine skin ready for whatever God calls you, no matter how different it is, no matter how uncomfortable you have to be, and no matter how you meet the circumstance, what are you last thing. Because the clock is ticking. I ain't even sweating yet. Okay. Verses 18 through 26 Jesus restores the lives of a woman and a young girl. In verses 27 through 31, he restores a man's sight.
And in verses 32 and 33, he restores a man's ability to speak. So the first thing is relationship cultivation. The second thing is internal examination. The last thing we have to do if we're going to make disciples, we have to have selfless demonstrations. That's the last thing. So what we see Jesus doing all the time, what we see Him doing all the time is participating in the healing of the community. He's always doing that. But let's look at something interesting. Verse 35, verse 35 Jesus was going
through all the cities, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, in healing every disease and every sickness.
You all see that all the cities and all the villages. Let me tell you what that is. The cities were walled off and they were protected. The cities were protected by these walls, these high walls. And then they would have this gown, the wall that would yell out whenever there was anything that was coming up to attack the city. But the villages were not walled up. They were open and they were vulnerable. So basically, you have the suburbs and you got the hood, right? Those are pretty much the two different areas that's going on right here.
And the text says that Jesus went to all of them. Right? The Assumption Saints, the assumption for us as believers that we're going to have to get over is that when we serve, we only serve in low income neighborhoods. And I'm going to tell you right now, upper middle class neighborhoods, privileged neighborhoods, middle class neighborhoods, privileged neighborhoods. They might not need money, but they still need Jesus. There are still some issues that are going on in neighborhoods with money. There are still divorces that are going on in middle class neighborhoods.
I don't know if y'all know that or not, but it's going on. I know that it's projected more on TV and lower class neighborhoods and middle class neighborhoods. But people in middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods, their kids do drugs. It's just they got the money to cover that up. And the news
doesn't cover that. I just want you to know that in case you didn't know, but Jesus is needed in the suburbs and in the hood. And so we can't just do one. We just can't be a Church that only focuses on just doing one thing.
We've got to cover all bases things. You just got to find out where your mission is as a Church because you can't do everything. So we got to make sure that we do that last thing and then I'm done. You all know, I got a whole lot more last thing, and I'm done verse 36. Jesus seen the crowds. He felt compassion for them because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd. By definition, compassion is a concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.
Here's the last thing that I'm done in terms of selfless demonstration. We need to put ourselves in a position whenever we serve anyone else. You got to challenge your motive for why you're doing it. We can't be doing things so we can feel good about ourselves. Or so we can impress other people. Our motive should be motivated. Our motive for serving others should come directly from our compassion that we have for other people. Jesus healed and served because he had a deep compassion about what he saw.
And we got to stop get out of or we have to get out of walking past things that we know aren't good and not saying anything or not having a deep sorrow about the challenges that are going on in this world. And we have to allow our compassion for other people to motivate us to do more. And it can't just be money. You can't just give stuff and think you're doing well. You've got to be in it. The text says in verse 35 that Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, not passing by handing out money.
He was right on his hands and knees specifically and intricately involved in everything that was going on. My brothers and sisters, if you want to make disciples, if you want to make disciples, you got to be a person who's willing to be involved in relationship cultivation. And then you need to be examining yourself internally. And then finally, you need to be doing some selfless demonstrations. Other than that, you're wasting your time. Amen. God bless you. I was supposed to do the prayer. I'm sorry, y'all I like to get out the way.
Let us pray our God and our Father. We just thank you so much. You are awesome, God. We thank you, Lord, for the people that are here. We thank you, Lord, for those who led us in worship. We thank you for those who are early to put things in place so that we might be comfortable when we arrive. We thank you, Lord, for the children that are here and the parents that brought them here just so they can be a part of this fellowship. We thank you, Father, for everything that you provided for us in terms of transportation and employment, the insurance where we can care for our families.
We thank you for all of that, Lord. We don't take that for granted. We thank you most of our Lord, for Jesus Christ in His word, his perfect sacrifice word. And so we pray all, God, that your word sat on the hearts of your people. And that as a result, we all think about what your word shares with us and that we'll be committed to changing as a result of that. So we thank you, Father, for all that you are. And we just pray that as we're we leave this place that you would never dismiss us from your site in Christ's name.
Amen.
COMMUNION:
(1 COR. 11:23B-26)
“The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
SAVE THE DATE: The 2020 Marriage Retreat is scheduled to be Saturday and Sunday, November 7 and November 8!
PRAYER REQUESTS:
We are hosting prayer team meetings for both the congregation at large and individuals to sign up for individual prayer.
SUGGESTIONS FOR WORSHIP:
“Praise & Worship” Spotify playlist and “Praise & Worship” YouTube playlist (slightly different from each other), both of diverse music that are being constantly updated!
Bethel Music :
Bethel Music’s hours of live music YouTube Playlist, also being constantly updated
Bethel provides chords to most (if not all) of their songs here (just have to register email, but free!)
Live worship moments from the Upper Room YouTube Playlist
Journal writing! (I’m a writer too, so sometimes creative writing and writing my thoughts to God is my form of worship.)
Declare and worship with truth by singing and praying scriptures.
WORSHIP NIGHT! Dedicate a night to worship with friends and family, your house church or neighbors, those who need prayer, love worship, or just enjoy music through a video chat platform like Zoom. You can have one person leading at a time (switching off to whoever else wants to lead) while others sing along, pray, or prophesy, etc.
Serving your community, both online, in person, or both, is a great way to worship God, from spreading encouragement and God’s Word online to physically serving food to others. If you are able to go out and serve, click here for opportunities.
COMMISSIONING:
As Jesus said in John 20:21,
"Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."
Go, be the Church!
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.