Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Brian: Thank you, Kelly. Hello everybody. It's good to see you. God bless you. I wanted to just mention that Rachael sends out this email every week on Tuesday and in it is all the ways that people can stay connected, but you know a lot of people, they just don't like emails. They get irritated by them. That's why there are 10,000 emails in their mailbox.
Jacque: Have you looked at mine?
Brian: No. Was that you?
Jacque: Yeah, that's me.
Brian: Well, anyways...
Jacque: I'm working on it. I'm going to get better.
Brian: We wanted to just say to everybody, especially those of you who are watching online and you don't live in the Twin Cities area, we really consider you part of Hope community. We would like to be able to stay in communication with you. We do send out emails. We do send out videos, but if you have a different form of communication, that you would rather prefer us to communicate with you, if you would just let us know what that would be, maybe it's text messaging or Marco Polo or whatever it might be. We will communicate with you in your language and the way that you want to be communicated to. We just want you to be aware of all the things that you can be connected to. Jackie got a call from a lady in Florida who wants to be part of a Bible study that the ladies are going to be doing this fall.
Jacque: She sent an email.
Brian: She sent an email.
Jacque: Hi Becky.
Brian: That's a really easy way for that to happen. Let's just quick mention real quickly, just a few other of the groups that are still meeting. A few of them are taking a break for the rest of the summer, but we have a JOY group that meets really every Wednesday.
Jacque: Jeff has a wonderful chat with 55 and up folks who are really fun.
Brian: That's right. JOY stands for...
Jacque: Just Older Youth.
Brian: Yes, and Flo and Ernie Stanton...
Jacque: Thank you for that name, Flo and Ernie.
Brian: Flow and Ernie Stanton started this group and Jeff is kind of working with them and so forth.
Jacque: Yeah. And then every Friday morning we have a wonderful woman's prayer meeting that has just become life blood to my life. It is just a beautiful time of prayer. We pray for the needs that come in from the church body. And then we just let the Holy Spirit lead. It's just a beautiful time. The hour just flies by.
Brian: I had something to do last Friday morning, and I came back in about 11 o'clock just after the prayer time. I was looking for Jackie, and there she was up on the ceiling. She was so high. So she was so high from flying high with Jesus in prayer.
Jacque: It's a blessing.
Brian: It's a great way to stay connected. And of course, we have other opportunities as well, so check the email [crosstalk 39:58].
Jacque: And Joel's groups.
Brian: The engaged groups.
Jacque: The engaged group, that's nice.
Brian: By the way, if you didn't catch last Sunday evenings interaction with Joel and I just about some of the topics that we were talking about, especially on social media, go back to our archives in our live stream to watch that.
Jacque: Joel, I have done better since last Sunday night. You inspired me to maybe take a little less time on my phone.
Brian: I remember we left one day to go somewhere and you forgot your phone.
Jacque: And I was okay.
Brian: You survived.
Jacque: I survived. I did.
Brian: That's right. So that's good.
Jacque: And last night, no screens. I spent an hour talking to my mom. I just had the most wonderful time.
Brian: Fasting from social media.
Jacque: There you go. It was just very good, so it was inspiring.
Brian: Let's move on here. Here are some scriptures I want you to read for me in a moment. I stated last week that because we live in this world, it's very easy to let the ways and the thinking of this world seep into our mind and habits, isn't it? We live in the world, we are inundated with advertisements. We are inundated with programs. We are surrounded with people who don't live for the same things that we are trying to live for in Christ. It's so easy to let the thinking of this world and the ways of this world seep into our minds and our hearts. I want you to read a verse from Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23, because this is really an admonition to all of us as we live in this world, but are trying to not be of this world
Jacque: Above all else... Let's start again. Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Brian: Yeah. So we are to guard our hearts. We are supposed to guard our hearts, the affections that we give our affections to, the things that we give our affections to; we are to guard our hearts, because everything we do flows from it. I love how this verse starts. Above all else, that means there is really nothing more important in how we live. There is nothing more important in how we live than to guard our hearts and to not let anything else take possession of our hearts other than, of course, the Lord, our God, our savior.
Because we live in this world, it’s so easy to let the methods and the thinking of how the kingdoms of this world and how businesses in this world do their business, it's so easy to let those methods and thinking of how those kingdoms and businesses operate in this world and how they go about their purposes. It's so easy for us to adapt those methods in what we are trying to do for the kingdom of God, because it becomes so much a part of our thinking. There are many pitfalls in doing this. The first pitfall that I actually mentioned last week was that when we do the work of the kingdom of God, in a power-over manner, rather than a power-under, but a power-over, exerting power over people, when we do the work of that kingdom of God that way, one of the first things that happens is our witness for Christ is compromised because that is not how Jesus operates. We need to operate in the kingdom of God from a power-under perspective, a servant perspective, a perspective of coming alongside rather than lording over. We know this, do we not, that, Jesus came into this world not to be what?
Jacque: Served.
Brian: He didn't come into this world to be served.
Jacque: But to serve.
Brian: But to serve, and using a power-over our approach to anything is trying to coerce people into your way of thinking.
Jacque: And that, people get hurt.
Brian: People get wounded.
Jacque: People get wounded.
Brian: People get disillusioned. I know people today that don't have to do with church because that is how they were treated in church. The leadership in the church didn't approve of their behavior maybe, and so we are going to exert pressure over them to get them to conform to a certain kind of behavior. This power-over approach to ministry and witnessing does not represent who Jesus is. It just doesn't. We can't fuse that aspect of this world and the kingdoms of this world and even the businesses of this world with the kingdom of God. This doesn't represent who Jesus is nor is it the method or the message that Jesus used, or the one that we are to be representing.
You and I are to be ambassadors, aren't we? An ambassador really isn't supposed to speak their own thoughts, but they are only to speak what? The thoughts of who they are representing. They are representing somebody. I mentioned last week, and I didn't mean to ruffle this many feathers, but I mentioned last week that I personally do not believe America is a Christian nation, and I gave you some reasons that I believe that today. There are a lot of people today calling America a post-Christian nation. I happen to be of the opinion that I'm not sure America ever actually really was a Christian nation, but that's just my opinion. I don't mean to offend anybody by saying that, but for those people, there are still people who think that America is a Christian nation. I just would like you to listen to a couple of things that I have to say today.
One of them is this; if we actually take the view that America is a Christian nation, I believe this view does a couple of things. It does, number one, it diminishes our missionary focus right here in America. It diminishes our missionary focus right here, because when we embrace the idea that America is a Christian nation, then we begin to think that mission is something that takes place over there in another country someplace, rather than something that is needed right here in our country, so we get lax and then we get apathetic about the missionary needs that we actually have right here in America.
The fact of the matter is that most cultures, almost every culture in the world has what I would call a civic, religion, or some kind of social religion. You go to different parts of the world and they have their own idea of what God might be like or what a god is like, or the gods that they worship or whatever it might be. This has all been part of human history, has it not?
America, in large part today has what I would call a deistic form of Christianity. Deism is basically the idea that there is a God, but God kind of wound up the universe, like you wind up a clock and then you set it on the shelf and then you walk away and you leave it. That's basically the concept of deism; that God created the world, God created the universe, and now he left it and it's kind of ticking on its own and it's operating on its own and he put forces in play that it will self-sustain, but he is outside of it and he is not a really a part of it. That's really a deistic form of Christianity.
Many people in America have what again, I would call an abstract belief in God. If you ask a lot of people in America… In fact, I just read a statistic the other day that 72% of America are Christians. I think that's an astounding thought that if 7 out of every 10 people, over 7 out of every 10 people in America are Christians, why do we have the problems we have in this country? Isn't that a legitimate question that should be answered? There are some countries in the world… Samoa, by the way, is the second leading Christian nation in the world by this poll. They are 98.5% Christian.
There is one country that is called 99.5% Christian, and yet I can guarantee you that if we were to go to these nations, and they are smaller nations, maybe a couple million people, but I can guarantee you, there is still immorality and there are still abortions and there is still murder and so forth. I hardly would say that those things are being committed by just one 10th of, 1% of the people. But nevertheless, many people in America have an abstract belief in God, but God doesn't make any real difference in that person's life or in their minds, in anybody's life.
For example, that type of person would never have been involved in our day of prayer a week ago. The reason for that is God is just out there somewhere. He is not really here personally connected to us in our everyday life. I'm sure you could ask almost anybody on the street, in fact, I challenge you to do this, even maybe in your workplace or people that you are maybe just basically familiar with, or maybe they could be strangers, and ask them this question, do you believe in prayer? And see what they say. If they say yes, then ask them this question, "Then what is the purpose of prayer?" I guarantee you very few of them will say, well, because prayer changes the course of history. Prayer changes the outcome of events. Prayer changes the destiny of people.
They won't say that because in their minds, God is out there, distant, detached from what we are doing. And so even when we talk about prayer, virtually every legislator and senator in our country, when those planes flew into the world trade center on 9/11, they were calling for all people to pray, but for what reason? Do they really believe that God changes the course of history and protects us? I think not. I'm not trying to be judgmental of them. I just know how they act and how they talk and so forth.
I'll give you a good example. Back when I was in high school, I played football and before every football game we would meet in the locker room and the coach had have the lights all turned off except for a couple lights in the locker room. And then we would kneel down and we would pray. We put our arms around each other and then someone would pray a prayer and then we would say the Lord's Prayer together. And then we turn the lights back on and say, "Now go out there and kill them." We would get out on the football field and we would be talking sham and dirt and cussing at the guys on the other side of the field.
Jacque: Not you.
Brian: I...
Jacque: Okay.
Brian: I'm going to take your knee out. Your mother must be ugly. Look at your mug, all sorts of stuff like that. What good did our prayers do in the locker room? Jim knows what I'm talking about, don't you Jim, right? All I'm saying is this; that kind of Christianity is a veneer Christianity. It's just a veneer. You know what we do? We take a lot of time to Polish up that veneer. If we don't see past the veneer, we will begin to think that the veneer is really the truth that we should be seeking. And then we will spend a whole lot of time just polishing that veneer, that facade. We will spend a whole lot of time defining our faith in making sure that we can still pray in the locker rooms, or maybe we will spend a whole lot of time making sure that we keep "In God We Trust" on our money.
I don't mean to offend anybody by saying that, but there is a great story with Jesus. There was an unfair practice that the Romans put... There are many unfair practices that the Romans put on the Israelites, but one of them was called the Temple Tax. If you were Jewish, of course, you would go to the temple. Rome would exact a tax on everybody that went to the temple, but if you didn't go to the temple, if you weren't Jewish, or if you were some other nationality or what have you, and you didn't go to the temple, you didn't have to pay that tax. So it was a selective tax.
The Jewish people got frustrated with this and rightly so. It wasn’t fair. And so they came to Jesus one day and said, "Should we pay the temple tax?" And Jesus never got baited into that discussion. Do you remember the story? What did he do? He said, "Take out a coin and look at it." And then he said, "Whose image is on that coin?" And what did they say? Caesar's, right? And Jesus said, "So give to Caesar, what is Caesar's and give to God, what is God's?" But I noticed that what Jesus never said was... When he said, whose images on the coin, and they said, Caesar’s, I noticed Jesus never said, "Well, one day my image is going to be there", because Jesus' goal was not to have his image on our currency. His goal was to stamp his image on our hearts.
That's where his image needs to be. If his image is stamped on our hearts, it doesn't matter if his images on our money. We will use our money for his glory. I get very concerned that these things reinforce this cultural assumption that what Christianity really is all about is just some kind of social religion. Christianity is about the absolute change of a person's heart because they received Jesus there as their Lord and savior.
The early disciples had a real dilemma because the common greeting, even in Israel, as people would walk down the street was, "Caesar is Lord." That was the common greeting, Caesar is Lord. Now all of these people started to get converted to Jesus. They were in a quagmire because Caesar wasn't their lord. Jesus was their lord. Sometimes when they were greeted with the greeting, "Caesar is Lord." They would say, "Well, actually Jesus is Lord." That was the beginning of them being fed to the lions. Just imagine just by saying, Jesus is Lord, not Caesar is Lord, that could cost you your life.
Jesus, really, his goal wasn't to get his image stamped on the coins of that day. His goal was to get his image stamped on the hearts of the people. I'll just tell you this; I think this social religion, this veneer that we are always trying to polish up. I really think it's a problem that we are up against as the church. It's a fake Christianity. As a Christian, I'm thankful that I can look at my $1 bill or my $5 bill or my $10 bill or on rare occasions, a $20 bill, and on it, it says “In God We trust." I'm thankful for that and I'm proud for that. I don't know that there is any other country in the world that has that, but that doesn't make us Christian. It's what's in our heart that makes us Christian. It's what's in our heart.
What alarms me is that for many people, and this is really alarming to me, but for many people, having that phrase on our money is more important than taking care of the needs of the poor. That alarms me. It's more important to some people that “In God we trust” is on our money rather than how we are taking care of the poor, how we are using that money to take care of the poor. Let's read Matthew 11, verse 5. I might get into less trouble if I read more scripture here today.
Jacque: I hear your passion. Thank you.
Brian: Let's go on.
Jacque: Yes. The blind received their sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.
Brian: This is a response. John the Baptist who had been the forerunner of Jesus is now thrown in prison, and this incredible anointing that has been on John, The Baptist is now lifted. How many of you have felt that? You have this great anointing to do something and now it's time to pay the price for what you've been led in anointed by God to do? That's what had happened. He had been anointed by God and lead of God to be the forerunner to be this one proclaiming there was one whose sandals, I'm not worthy to tie that's going to come after me and his name is Jesus. When Jesus came to him, he said, "Behold, the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." He was like having an angelic out of body experience in the level of annoying thing that he had.
People were coming from all over to get baptized. In fact, the apostle Paul, some 15 years later after Paul was doing his ministry, he came across some people that had never heard of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, didn't know really much at all about Jesus. Paul said, well, "Whose baptism were you baptized in?" And he said, "John's baptism." So they had been in Israel and got to the Jordan River and John baptized them and God did a great work on their hearts and they went back to their own regions and heard nothing else, but they lived the best they could for God.
But we see that Jesus is now coming on the scene and John has been thrown in prison. John sends word through one of his followers. He says this, "Go ask Jesus if he is the one or should we look for another." Because now he has got doubts. He is sitting in prison; his life is about to be taken from him. How many know that you can be subject to doubts and accusations and all sorts of things at times in our lives. Jesus sent back words. He said, "Go tell John..." Read it again, verse 5.
Jacque: The blind received their sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.
Brian: The good news is proclaimed to the poor. I want to read another similar verse. It's found in Luke chapter 4, verses 18 and 19.
Jacque: The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
Brian: Good news to the poor. The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to speak the good news to the poor. This is what should be one of the focuses of our money, is helping those who are needy and poor.
Jacque: He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Brian: There is so much oppression around us today. We can look any direction North, South, East, and West, and we can find oppression everywhere we look. We as Christians should never be bored. There is so much for us to do and so many opportunities to do it in. The book of James, there was great debate over the book of James when, shall we say, the church fathers canonized the scriptures. I think most of you realize that the New Testament was primarily letters, epistles and letters that were written to different Christian groups in different regions.
Around 300 ADM, I'm just giving an approximation, but around 300 AD, there was a compilation of all of this written history. Some of it just rose to a much higher level, shall we say, spiritually. The church fathers, back at that time, decided to, what we call canonized the scripture, put them all together in a sequential order, not necessarily a date order, but just a sequential order. This is how we got the canonization of scripture. But there was hot debate over one book, if it should be included in the canonized scripture. That book was the Book of James. Yes. James of course, was like the father of the church in Jerusalem. He penned this book, but it was because of some of the things that were contained in this book, that there were some that felt that should be left out. I want to read one of the portions of scripture from James chapter 1 verses 26 and 27. Before we read that, one of the things that James said is, you can say you have faith, but I'll show you I have faith by what?
Jacque: By works.
Brian: By how I live, the things I do. This was resisted by a whole segment of the church, the early church, shall we say, that that wasn't... Faith was just something that happened in our hearts. It didn't come out into our actions. But thank God, the people that were canonizing the scriptures included this book, because it is such an important book, a short book, but it's such an important book on how we are to live as followers of Jesus, as evidentiary proof that we are followers of Jesus. We see this in verses 26 and 27 in the Book of James,
Jacque: Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless.
Brian: Let me stop right there for a second. Historically, we have interpreted this verse incorrectly so about, this is the things that we would say to other people, say with our mouth, because James goes on to say that the tongue is a very, very difficult instrument to tame, isn't it? But today people speak with their fingers on social media, on Facebook and messaging and emails and everything else much more so than they use their tongue. I would say that this verse now applies to social media as much as it applies to just the things that we say with our tongue. So he is saying that if we do not keep a tight rein on the way that we talk to each other, the way we communicate with each other, the things that we say to each other, then actually our religion is what? Worthless.
Jacque: Worthless.
Brian: It's worthless. That's a pretty strong indictment, wouldn't you say?
Jacque: We can say what we feel.
Brian: But how we say it.
Jacque: But it's how we say it.
Brian: It's so critically important. Let's go on.
Jacque: Okay. Religion that God, our father accepts as pure and faultless is this; to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the way.
Brian: So we are to look after widows, and we are to look after orphans. And of course, the implication there is they are going to be needy. They are going to be more helpless. They are going to be poor. And so those are the people that we are to really spy out, look out for, shall we say? And he goes on to say that this kind of behavior is seen by our father in heaven as pure and faultless when we do that. Now, as I see it, the problem that we have is that most people in America are, again, what some might call quasi socially Christian. That's kind of a long phrase, but quasi socially Christian. They do a lot of decent things. America has a long history of trying to bring aid to the rest of the world when there are problems. In fact, you can read a lot of entrepreneurs who are multibillionaires and part of their whole philosophy is setting a certain portion aside of their revenues and their income to give to needy causes, et cetera, et cetera.
So America is a very, very... It's the most generous nation on the earth. There is no question about it. And there are many people who are what I call quasi socially Christian. They do decent things and may even go to church on occasions, especially Easter and Christmas. But if we don't actually see that this is just a veneer, then we are going to miss something very, very important because this veneer doesn't bring us closer to Jesus. And when we aren’t bringing people closer to Jesus, you know what happens? We lose our missionary edge. We lose our missionary edge.
I have people that send me a lot of information; you’ve got to watch this video, read this article, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I've tried to honor my friendship with them by reading or listening to most, if not all that they send me. I'll be frankly honest with you; a lot of times after I get done reading it, I feel more depressed. I don't feel edified and I'm starting to put up a boundary and I've never thought I would ever say that, but I'm going to ask people, am I going to be more like Jesus after I read this article? Am I going to be more like Jesus after I listened to what you just sent me? Am I going to be more inclined to love my neighbor as myself, after I listen to this? Am I going to have a greater heart of generosity to my fellow man? Am I going to want to live by the golden rule to all that I come in contact with after I read this or after I listened to it?
Frankly, if I'm not going to be, I think I don't want to listen to it anymore, because it's just eroding my resolve to try and be like Jesus the more I expose myself to this. I had a teacher that once said garbage in garbage out, Brian. I don't want to lose my missionary edge for America. I don't want to think we are okay just because we have "In God We Trust" on our currency. I want us to have a heart and passion to see the image of Jesus stamped on every person's heart. That's what I want to see happen. So I value you, Carl, with your evangelistic fervor. If anybody wants to read something, edifying, read your book.
Jacque: Love is calling.
Brian: Love is Calling book. Recently I had someone approached me because there is a very large, wonderfully successful church with multiple campuses that wants to move into our community here in Corcoran. A person in the community, not from our church, but a person in the community came to me and he said, “What do you think about that? Aren't you worried about the competition?” You know what I said to him? Absolutely not. I said, “They are my partner. They are not my competition.” I said do you know who my competition is? My competition is youth athletics that keep kids and their parents out of church on Sundays and out of church and youth group on Wednesdays. That's my competition. My competition is the entertainment industry that keeps sucking the morality out of everybody's hearts. My competition is actually professional athletics that gets people to want to stay home to watch a football game rather than come together and worship Jesus. My competition is materialism where people can't get enough, so they are working 80 hours a week and they have no time for prayer and they have no time to be involved with other things of the kingdom of God. My competition is greed and self-centeredness. My competition is not another church that wants to come into our community.
I would hope that our community would be a safe haven for as many churches as possible to come into this country. But all these things, greed and materialism, entertainment have caused our hearts to grow cold to Jesus. We have to define the kingdom of God as something that is of a Calvary character. When you think of Calvary, what do you think of? It's a place of suffering. It's a place of sacrifice, isn't it? It's a place of giving your all. Isn't that what the kingdom of God should be about, where we give our all? When we understand the kingdom of God, as something of a Calvary nature that will help to give us eyes to see what is really going on in our culture today.
When we really see what is going on in our culture, much of what we have called Christianity is just a veneer. It's not the real kingdom Calvary love that God has. We look at the cross; that is the kingdom of God. When we pull back the veneer, I believe we will see that we in America are just as pagan as many of the other nations on the earth. We don't like to admit that because we have so many churches in our country, but when you pull back the veneer and when you take down the facade, we need missionaries in this country like every other country needs them.
We need people talking and explaining and exhibiting the love of Jesus. And you know what? You are a missionary. If you are watching today, you are a missionary. You are a person with a mission from God, like the Blues Brothers would say. I'm on a mission from God. I was going to wear some dark sunglasses when I said that today, but I thought that would ruin the moment. I'm not sure. But we are all missionaries and we need to take seriously Paul's instruction. Let's read it from a 2nd Timothy 2. His instruction to Timothy... Timothy was a rather young man. I don't know if he was still a teenager, but if he wasn't, he was just in his early twenties. He had a godly grandparents and godly heritage. And Paul, the Apostle was mentoring him. Man, wouldn't you have loved to be Timothy to be mentored by the apostle Paul? He is writes this scripture to Timothy.
Jacque: Join with me in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Brian: Wow. Does that sound like a lot of gospel today? Join with me in suffering and in sacrificing. No, it doesn't sound like a lot of the preaching we have today. Oftentimes I think that we just have a humanistic form of Christianity. You know, humanism is the end of all being is the happiness of man. That's basically a layman's version of humanism, where the end of all being is the happiness of man. Whatever makes man happy, let's do it. That's humanism. The end of all being is the happiness of man.
We presented the Gospel that way too, haven't we? The gospel is, but you can get this and you can get that and you can get this. And at the end of it, you go to heaven when you die. Well, who wouldn't want that? But that's not a complete gospel. That's just part of the gospel messages. I'm thankful that Kathy's in heaven today and we are going to see her again someday. I'm so thankful my father is there and my mother probably very soon will be there in one day. I will be there. I'm so thankful for heaven to have as an end place for when we all die, but the fact of the matter is Jesus came to do more than just get us to agree to go to heaven when we die. He came so that his image would be stamped in our hearts, and our hearts would reflect him in this wonderful life on earth called following Jesus. Let's go on.
Jacque: No one serving as a soldier gets in tangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officers.
Brian: Yes, so he says, don't get entangled in all of the civilian affairs, but let's focus on pleasing our commanding officer. Frankly, I think the COVID thing has exposed just how in tangled people are in the things of this life and how we've lost our focus on the kingdom of God and the love of God and the message of Jesus that he is the savior of the world, that he is a Prince of peace, and yet… I want to just say this, that there is a huge difference between being entangled and being involved. We are to be in the world, but not what?
Jacque: Of the world of the world.
Brian: Of the world. And so we are not to be entangled in all the stuff or the world, but we certainly are to be involved in the world. Again, one of the things that we need to be involved in is helping the poor. Helping the poor should not be a Republican or democratic issue. It shouldn't be an issue of a political party. It should be a church issue. It should be a church issue. We didn't do our job properly throughout history, especially church history. So in many nations, especially in America, the government took over most social issues. That's what happened.
There are all these social issues, and so the government started taking over because the church was too busy singing about going to heaven when we die and we neglected the poor and it's been catastrophic to say the least, catastrophic. If you want to know the catastrophic event of probably the last 50 years that absolutely impoverished the poor, it was, LBJs Great Society from the sixties, but that's a whole other rabbit trail to go down. That' will get more people mad at me if I talk about that, but the fact of the matter is that whole policy made people dependent on the government rather than dependent upon God, and if the assistance...
Welfare, if I can use that expression, welfare was God's idea. It wasn't Hubert Humphrey's idea or FDR's idea or some president's idea in America. It was God's idea, because he said when you harvest your crops you leave everything in the corners of the field and when you have fruit that falls on the ground, you leave it on the ground because the poor are going to come and take care of that. That's theirs. That belongs to them. Welfare was God's idea. God always had a heart to take care of the poor and Jesus comes on the scene and he says, "I'm anointed by God. You know why? Because the good news is being preached to the poor", to the poor.
I want to finish with... I'm sure that's music to your ears. I want to finish with five portions of scripture, very short. We find him in Matthew chapter 5.
Jacque: Go ahead?
Brian: Go ahead. Yeah. Thank you.
Jacque: You are blessed when you are content with just who you are; no more, no less.
Brian: You are blessed when you are content with just who you are; no more, no less. I've heard some young kids, usually in junior high, junior high is a tough age, and they will say, I hate myself. I hate how I look. I hate my hair color. I hate this. I hate this. And you know what, let me just encourage everybody today. God fashioned you and made you. We can become blessed when we are content with who we are. It goes on to say... Read a Jacque.
Jacque: That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
Brian: That's when you find yourself the proud owner of things that can't be bought. The most valuable things in this world are things you can't buy.
Jacque: It's true.
Brian: And yet we spend so much time trying to acquire the means of buying things rather than spending more time in acquiring things that actually can't be bought. Understand of being content with who you are. Let's go on to verse seven,
Jacque: Matthew 5 verses 7. These are from the message Bible. You are blessed when you care. At the moment of being careful, you find yourselves cared for.
Brian: When we are full of caring, we will find ourselves being cared for. Isn't that what Jesus said? It's more blessed to give than to receive. When we find ourselves being full of caring, then we will ourselves be cared for. Let's go on, verse 9.
Jacque: You are blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight.
Brian: Wow, we are so blessed when we can show people how to cooperate, how to get along, how to bend a little bit, how to make some concessions so that we can value relationships more than anything else. I know that that is hard for some people to hear in the church because they think our only goal is to stand up for the truth. Listen, the truth we need to stand up for is a person. His name is Jesus. It's not your theology. It's not your interpretation of the scriptures. It's a person. His name is Jesus. It's a person. His name is Jesus. When we stand up for Jesus, we might suffer some persecution, and he says we are blessed when that happens, but when we suffer persecution, just because we are bullies. And we are just not very nice, let's not think that that's being persecuted for Jesus. Let's go on, verse 10.
Jacque: That's when you discover who you really are and your place in God's family.
Brian: Yeah. That's when we can find our place in God's family, where we can really fit.
Jacque: How last week we talked about blessing, blessing others.
Brian: Let's look at verse 10.
Jacque: You are blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.
Brian: So when our commitment to being like Jesus results in persecution, then that persecution can actually drive us deeper into God's kingdom. And that's a blessing. And then the last one, verses 14 through 15.
Jacque: Here's another way to put it. You are here to be light.
Brian: We are here to be the light.
Jacque: Bringing out the God colors in the world.
Brian: I love that. You and I are to bring out all the beautiful colors of God in the world. What a great missionary goal, isn't it, to bring all the colors of God out in the world.
Jacque: God is not a secret to be kept.
Brian: No, he is not a secret. We can't help but speak these things, as Peter said,
Jacque: We are going public with this, as public as a city,
Brian: Isn't that a great line? I'm going to go public with this. I'm going to tell everybody about Jesus. Isn't that a good thing to go public with? I'm just going to tell everybody about Jesus.
Jacque: If I make you light bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you?
Brian: No.
Jacque: know I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I put you there on a hill top, on a light stand, shine.
Brian: Shine. That's like a command. Now that I put you on this stand or on this hill, what you are supposed to do? Shine.
Jacque: Shine. That's good. Keep open house. Be generous with your lives.
Brian: Keep open house. Now, you know what? When someone comes to an open house, it’s called an open house for a reason. Everybody is welcome. You are going to sell your house, you have an open house? You can't say, well, I'm not going to sell it to that kind of person or this kind of person. That's against the law. You can't do that. We need to keep an open house, which means we need to welcome all people. Welcome all people. Keep an open house.
Jacque: I love that line. I'm going to read it again. Be generous with your life.
Brian: Yes. Be generous with your lives. What do you have to give? Some of you might actually be destitute, but you know what? You are not destitute of love. You might be financially destitute. Let's quit thinking that the only thing we have to give is money. Let's give our hearts. Let's give our affection. Let's give our love to people.
Jacque: Our empathy.
Brian: Our empathy to people, absolutely.
Jacque: Be generous with your life. By opening up to others you will prompt people to open up with God.
Brian: If we are open to other people, that's going to engender in them, an attitude of wanting to be open with God. That's how we get people's hearts to open up [crosstalk 1:25:11].
Jacque: And he is our generous father in heaven.
Brian: Yes, because he is our generous father in heaven.
Jacque: He is generous with love.
Brian: So let's be careful not to fuse this power-over, this controlling way, this demanding way, this I'm going to have to preach harder against sin, but rather let's come under people. Let's come alongside of people and let's allow them even the freedom to fail, because God does that with us and still loves us and still loves us. So let's not fuse this ways, the ways of this world into the kingdom of God. Let's not say you've made your bed now sleep in it. His ways are always a power-under working through love and through grace and through forgiveness and through gentleness and through meekness and through kindness and forbearance. We need to bring all these things to our country, to our land today. We need to be missionaries right here, right in our own backyard, right here.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have a foreign heart cry. I'm so thankful for Norbert and Leslie Bond right now, who are probably watching, who are in Hungary, who are living such a sacrificial life to bring the gospel to maybe just a handful of people who will believe. We ask God for greater harvest than a handful, but they are willing to do it just for a handful. To Bill and Linda in Uganda and Leanne in Mexico.
Jacque: And a wonderful missionary I've been corresponding with in Nepal.
Brian: Yeah, and then another one in Turkey.
Jacque: Oh, Turkey, yes. I meant Turkey.
Brian: This gal writes us and she came and visited us like five years ago. She watches us online. We love you. We love you. She came here five years ago and said, “God is so precious here. I want this to be my home church.” She is connected in her heart. And they are in Turkey of all places bringing the gospel of Jesus to that dominantly Muslim country. All I'm saying is this; they are not coming in with both barrels firing. They are coming in on their hands and knees to serve. That's how we will make a difference in our own backyard, our own backyard. We need you Jesus, in our own backyard. Jesus, we need you to move back into the neighborhood again. We need you to move into our cities and our communities. We need you Jesus, to stamp your image on our hearts, because if your image is stamped on our hearts, we don't need any other image stamped on any buildings anywhere or on our currency or anything else because everything will be used for your glory Lord.
So I pray today in the powerful name of Jesus, we sang how powerful you were just earlier today. And I pray in the powerful name of Jesus that we would open up our hearts and let you stamp your image on our hearts, that we would begin to follow hard after you in your ways, that when we begin to speak in a way that you wouldn't speak, and we begin to think in a way that you wouldn't think, and we begin to act in a way that you wouldn't act, and we begin to judge others in a way that you would never judge, Holy Spirit convict us.
I pray that we wouldn't allow anything into our hearts or minds that would pollute us from being like you. Help us, Holy God, to stamp your image on our hearts, deep in our hearts, Lord, deep in our hearts. Not just a little surface engravement, but stamp your image deep, deep, deep into our hearts, Lord, that people would say, "Ooh, there is something about them that I want to be like. There is something in them that I want and I need." And that's something will be your image. This we pray in your name and for your sake. Let's raise our hands together, shall we?
Now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. May you know how valuable you are to the savior, Jesus, and how he longs to put his image on your heart. This we pray, in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Thank you for being here today and thank you for watching. Jacque and I are going to be on a quick after service chat with those of you who are online. So stay online and come into the chat. Jacque and I will be glad to just visit with you for a few minutes. God bless you. Hope to see you soon.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 8-2-20. If you would like to watch the full service, click one of the links below.