Walking On the Way

Pastors Brian and Jacque Lother

Brian: I began a series last week, and I'm still actually in the introduction this week. I want to really talk about the walking on the way, walking on the way with the way or the way we are supposed to be on the way with the way. Of course, the way is Jesus. But there are a lot of people who, I think in their hearts have a desire to want to be a follower of Jesus, but we are inundated with the culture around us. Our culture's not evil necessarily. There are certainly evil things in our world, of course, but our culture's not evil. Our culture and the kingdom of God are two separate real entities.

Jesus came and said, the kingdom of God is here. It's at hand, it's now. And that there were ways that we were to do the kingdom work. That is not how our culture, and our world does its work in a sense. Oftentimes, because we are so inundated with our culture, we let our culture really dictate how we do the work of the kingdom. It just doesn't birth the right things when we do that. We read this verse last week, but I want to read it again, Mark chapter 8: 34 and 35.

Jacque: Then calling the crowd to join his disciples. Jesus said, if any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way. Take up your cross and follow me.

Brian: Pastor Jeff did a really great job of talking about what that means, take up your cross. It really means just to follow through to completion to the end of what God has asked us to do.

Jacque: If you try to hang onto your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, you'll save it.

Brian: That's a scary thing to give up your life to someone else, including God to control your life. Because wouldn't you agree that we all have major trust issues? We know what it does to us when we really are able to trust somebody, what that does relationally, what that does, you know, in our hearts, in our minds, and especially when we can come to a place of really trusting God, what that that really produces in our lives.

I know that we've all met people who are yearning for more meaningful lives, haven't we? Maybe we've been in that. Maybe even today. We might still be in that category, wanting something more meaningful in our lives. A lot of people want more out of their relationships. They want more out of their jobs. Even the very simple tasks of everyday life, they want to have actually more meaning in their lives.

Friday night, we went to the movie Jesus Revolution. And, and it painted such a wonderful picture of what so many people in the counterculture or hippie movement were about. For those of us who lived through that time, it was a very challenging time in our country and in our world. But there was a desperation in the hearts of mostly younger people to have something more meaningful in their lives than what our culture was offering them.

Unfortunately, most of the counterculture movement tried to get answers to that yearning in ways that were not of God. A lot of times, all that, especially the church could see at that time was the external behavior. They saw the riots against Vietnam War. They saw the free love. They saw the drug use and all that sort of stuff. So much of that was very destructive. What happened was, we missed as the church, we missed what they were really yearning for.

They were yearning for more meaning in their lives. And a more meaningful life will make people happier. It just does. There are people that we have all met that want more meaningful lives. They want to actually be happier. In fact, they want the kind of happiness that actually touches their heart and their soul. That's what they are really looking for. This movie really painted a wonderful picture about how so many people, which ended up they were mostly hippies, became committed to Christ. They met the Lord and they found that meaning they were looking for. It became what known as the Jesus Revolution.

This is the kind of meaning that God wants you and I to have. For those of you watching about livestream, it's the kind of meaning that God wants you to have. He wants us to have the kind of meaning that comes from knowing him and living our faith and living and helping others and making a difference in a positive way in this world that we live in. Unfortunately, people often look for meaning in all the wrong places. And partly, historically, we have not modeled as the church that right meaning either.

Again, obviously, this movie's kind of prevalent on my mind cuz I just watched it. But this pastor Chuck Smith, who had a daughter who loved her family loved and she wanted to love God, but she didn't love what the church was. The church was almost creating an unbelief in her about God. Rather than fueling a passion and a love for God, it was actually undermining her instinct of desire to want to know God. To cut to the chase, she met this hippie. Her dad was wanting to meet a hippie. So she met this hippie on the road. It just happened to be Lonnie Frisbee. Lonnie was the really, the guy that really, from the hippie side of things, really brought the whole Jesus movement into existence, the spark. He was the spark.

She brought him home, and there was this conflict of church tradition, but the reality of knowing God. Doesn't that sound like an oxymoron: church tradition and the conflict in knowing God? One would think that in the church is where we actually get to know who God is and that we as the body of Christ would really truly represent that. But we find people looking in all the wrong areas to try and find meaning for their lives. All these hippies had been looking in all the wrong areas, and then they heard about this person called Jesus. They began to believe. Pretty soon this kind of dead church was full of hippies, and it created a lot of problem with some of the, shall we say, longer standing members in the church.

I remember what one person said to John Wimber. The vineyard movement kind of came out of the whole Jesus movement. This one very well intended parishioner, said to Wimber, after all of these hippies were coming and getting saved and following Jesus. She looked at her pastor and said, "What have you done to my church?" What have you done to my church? I don't want all these people here. One of the complaints was that they were barefooted. And of course, that doesn't happen much in Minnesota, especially this time of year. But in California, they were barefoot, and they would come to church and the, they were, the church parishioners were complaining because the dirty feet was getting the carpet dirty, as if the dirty shoes weren't going to get the carpet dirty.

Well, so Chuck Smith said, why don't you just have a foot washing service before the service? And he washed everybody's feet. It's a great, great thing. But the fact of the matter is, these people, these hippies wanted more meaning in their life. And maybe some of them, especially witnessing their parents had tried to find that meaning through power or wealth or maybe even fame or entertainment. But these in many other areas are very transient in our lives.

A deep, very lasting happiness doesn't come from the world around us. It doesn't come from the things that we can possess. It doesn't come from the people that we can rule over, the power that we can have. It doesn't even come from being able to have any kind of entertainment at our fingertips. Happiness doesn't come from that. It doesn't come from the world around us. It comes from having a relationship with the living God. It comes from knowing Jesus. And the scripture says whom to know is life eternal. That was never intended to mean to have a place to go when we die. It was always intended to mean something very vibrant while we have breath on this earth, life, eternal life, life more abundantly.

I want to take a few moments to read a few scriptures from the book of Ecclesiastes that paints this picture of what people have tried to get meaning out of life with and their pursuit of some of these things. And the end result of that. The first verse is in Ecclesiastes 2:4-11.

Jacque: From the New Living Testament- I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself.

Brian: Anybody think their life would be so much more meaningful if you had a better home? Listen to this.

Jacque: And by planting beautiful vineyards, I made gardens and parks filling them with all kinds of fruit trees. I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. I bought slaves, both men and women and others were born into my household.

Brian: So obviously this guy had been doing this for quite a while.

Jacque: I also owned large herds and flocks more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire, so I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me.

Brian: That's like a social status: I've become greater.

Jacque: And my wisdom never failed me. Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure and hard work a reward for all my labors.

Brian: Now listen to this.

Jacque: But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless, like chasing the wind, there was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.

Brian: Wow. But as I looked at everything--- and he has a pretty good description of what he had acquired, I would probably go out on a limb saying probably more than any of us here have ever acquired. Some of you may have been close to him, but not quite all the way there. All the things he had worked so hard to accomplish, and then he said it was all meaningless. King James uses the word vanity. It was all vanity. It was meaningless. It was like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.

Here's a person who had everything. I don't know if you recently heard about the billionaire who committed suicide. He had everything, bought everything, done everything there is to do in the world. And he was completely unhappy and discontent with no meaning in his life. And he ends his life because of that. Let's read another one: verses 22 and 23, same chapter.

Jacque: So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety? Their days of labor are filled with pain and grief. And even at night, their minds cannot rest.

Brian: Can you relate to that? Even at night, your minds can't rest because there is so much to do, so many demands made on you. So many concerns, so many things to do. And your mind can't rest at night.

Jacque: It is all meaningless.

Brian: Let's go to verse 10, 11 of chapter 5.

Jacque: Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness. The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it.

Brian: Isn't that true?

Jacque: So what good is wealth except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers?

Brian: The more you have, the more people come around you to help you spend your money. I thought that was a really good way to translate that verse. So what good is wealth except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers? Wealth certainly makes life easier. Don't get me wrong. I can say with the apostle Paul, I've known what it is to have nothing and I know what it's to have at least some things in my life. I wouldn't necessarily say plenty, but I certainly live a comfortable life without any financial concerns at the moment. But it doesn't mean that that makes my life meaningful. And then he finishes, the writer of Ecclesiastic finishes this incredible book by saying this in chapter 12, verse 13.

Jacque: That's the whole story. Now, here is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands for this is everyone's duty.

Brian: In this dialogue that he is writing, he uses this word meaningless. It's translated meaningless, or it means transient or fleeting, short-lived. We might say here today, gone tomorrow, something that just can't be held on to, shall we say, on a permanent basis. The writer of Ecclesiastes sums up everything at the end of the book by basically saying, so here is my conclusion, we are to fear God and obey his commands, fear God and obey his commands. Not be afraid of God, but to have this respect and honor for God.

Every single one of our lives is actually a gift to us from God. Your life was given to you and those around you as a gift from God. One of the things I like to say at Memorial Services is that this person who has now passed was a gift to us from God and how they were given to us to bless our lives and that we were given to them to bless their lives, and how often we navigate away from that calling, as it were. History shows us that power and wealth and fame and pleasure are very fleeting. They are all very fleeting.

To show you how fleeting money is, I remember I had a dear friend of mine who was a minister, an evangelist, and he traveled a lot. He had a rather large family, and things were tight. But he wanted to make sure that his kids weren't fearful that they didn't have any money. And so he had a family meeting and he sat down. One of his daughters was I think 17, maybe 18 years old. He is explaining that things are tight, but we have money in a retirement account. Our house is paid for you. We have this and we have that. The 18 year old said, "Wait a minute. Are you telling me we have money and we haven't spent it?" That's why money in our hands can be short-lived.

But if we will align ourselves with God's will, we can find a deep happiness, even in the midst of a life that can have confusion or pain and sorrow. We just heard this past week of young gal who was raised in this church. She is now married; she gave birth to her third child just a few months ago. On Friday she found that little baby dead in her crib. It's a sadness, confusion to them. I'm sure they are asking the question, did I do something?

The reality of Jesus is this, that even in the midst of pain and confusion and questions that we don't have answers to, we can have meaning in our lives. Because this world doesn't have to control whether or not we have a meaningful life or not.

Whether or not we have a meaningful life has everything to do with whether or not

we are in a relationship with God. With the arrival of Jesus, he showed us how to find the meaning of deep happiness, that's not fleeting, but a happiness that truly will last forever and ever. And it can be something that we have every day of our lives. To find that happiness, we must be what Jesus described as in the world, but not what of the world. We need to be in the world, but not of the world. Like Jesus, we must be in this world loving and helping others, interacting with other people, engaging in the world, living faithful lives. But we do not have to seek what the world wants to offer us, which might be power or fame or wealth, or to conform to the ways of our culture to find happiness.

Jesus showed us that no matter what the world does to us, and he modeled this because the world did some terrible things to him, we can find meaning in the way that we respond to what this culture and what the world may bring into our lives. We would love to be able to control our world, wouldn't we? We would love to be able to control the weather. If I could control the weather, it would never snow on a Saturday night. It would always snow Monday morning. Of course, all the people going to work would be mad at me on Monday morning. But even in the face of adversity, Jesus reminds us to do the things that will give us meaning in our lives.

Jacque: Brian, can I just share a little story I just heard this morning that goes here? How many of you have the Bible app and you get a verse every day? Do you do that? And did you watch the story for today? It was so beautiful. This man from over in England was talking about his auntie. She was older and two young men broke into her house at knife point or a gun, one of the two and robbed her of all of her savings. I mean everything. It was really devastating. But you know what she said to our sister, this guy's mother, she said, Well, I have a really long prayer list, but I'm going to have to add two more on."

And so she took that, that hard situation, and she prayed for those boys. At her funeral, he met one of them who had found Christ in the juvenile detention place. But that was her response to something pretty bad the world had.

Brian: Wow. Jesus, at the last Supper, prayed a prayer. He prayed a prayer for his disciples, but he also included us in this prayer. I want to read just a few verses in John chapter 17 of this prayer verses 14, 15, 18, and 20.

Jacque: I have given them your word and the world hates them because they do not belong to the world.

Brian: So here they were in the world, but not of the world.

Jacque: And Jesus said, just as I do not belong to the world, I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one.

Brian: That's very important what he is saying there. His prayer was not that they would be taken out of the world because if all the followers of Jesus were taken out of the world, who's going to bring the good news to those who need it? But he did say that He prayed so that the evil one, they would be protected from the evil one.

Jacque: Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. I am praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message.

Brian: So that's you and I. Because we ultimately heard the message some 2000 years later. And Jesus was praying for us in this prayer as well. How many know that Jesus' prayers always get answered? You were the target of, of his prayer. This prayer of Jesus was cultivating the idea that the followers of Jesus would be in the world, but would not be of the culture or of the world. Of course, the world in these passages just means the culture that we live in. Jesus was in the world. He did not retreat to a mountaintop and stay there. He would go to the mountaintop to pray, but he would then do what? He would come back. He wouldn't retreat away. He did not retreat to a mountaintop and stay there. He walked among us. He ministered to people just like us. He taught people. He healed people. He healed us sick. He fed the hungry.

He wanted his disciples and his followers to do the same. He wanted us to lay hands on the sixth so that they would recover. He wanted us to feed the hungry. He wanted us to correct injustice. He wanted us to be in a sense Jesus with skin on. His prayer was for God to protect his followers from the evil one, not to isolate them from the world. His prayer was not that we would become isolated from the world, but that we would actually go into the world. If we are isolated from the world, then how can we help? If we are isolated from the world, how can we serve others? If we are isolated from the world. How can we actually be the salt and the light that we are to be?

God wants us to be in the world, not against the world. There is a big difference. There are a lot of people who today are I believe are followers of Jesus, but they are against everything. Their whole concept, their religious ideology is "thou shall not." It's all about what they are against rather than what Jesus is for and what he offers us. When we are against the world, when we are against so many things, what ends up happening is it becomes part of our nature. A part of our thinking becomes us versus them.

Being like Jesus is really about loving those people who are very different than us, who think differently, believe differently, look differently. That was the struggle that the membership of Chuck Smith's church had when the hippie started to attend. They looked differently. They talk differently. They had a whole different lingo. And instead of trying to see what God was doing in their lives, what they wanted was for them to become like those church members in how they looked, how they thought, talked, how they acted. And then you can belong here.

I'm thankful today that Jesus' attitude towards me wasn't when you begin to look and act like me, I will receive you. Aren't you glad that wasn't his posture? God has given to each of us certain giftings and abilities. And when we use these gifts that he is given to us, we have this opportunity to truly glorify and honor God. If we use these gifts well, we might even become successful in the world. We might get promoted at our jobs. We might win some kind of contest for our abilities. We might be drafted and play quarterback in the NFL if we have the giftings and abilities. We may be successful in the eyes of our culture or world, but if we are successful in the world or culture that we live in, that success is really only to be a byproduct of seeking to do God's will, doing what God's will is for our lives.

Some of us might achieve some power and wealth, even fame. Hopefully, if you are famous, it's for something good rather than bad. John Wilkes Booth is very famous, isn't he? But not for anything good. This may come into our lives, but all of these things, whether it be power or wealth or fame, these are just tools that God wants to give us to honor him with. I know Tim Tebow gets a bad rap by so many people, but I really believe that the reason he gets a bad rap is because of his very prolific testimony about wanting to honor God. He has used his platform of being a good athlete and, and his fame in his prominence to keep testifying about how good Jesus is. People are going to be upset about those kinds of things, but that is what it is.

What matters is that we love God and that we will truly be a help to others. I don't mean to be offensive when I quote GK Peterson. GK Peterson was the founding pastor of Souls Harbor. He did our wedding with my father and I served, we served under his ministry for many years. I had the privilege of doing the engineer work for the radio program that he recorded. I recorded hundreds of short messages that he would preach on local radio stations here in town. It was called a Man with a Message. But he used to say this when people started to get a little bit arrogant in their attitude towards people who were less fortunate, and he would simply say, "Listen, we all are nothing but one bum telling another bum where to get a piece of bread."

I don't mean to be derogatory on somebody who might be homeless or anything like that. I imagine the word bum is not probably a politically correct word to use today. It was a common word when I was young. Of course, people who rode the rails and so forth; they were homeless, most of them. But what he was really saying is that we are all in this together and we are all just one very needy person telling another very needy person where to get a piece of bread. And that bread is of course the bread of life. It's Jesus. It's Jesus.

There is a great paradox. I'll bring this to a conclusion here. There is a great paradox in our walk with Jesus. That paradox is this: even when things in our everyday life, whether our everyday secular cultural world, even when those things in our everyday life are going poorly or even badly for us, our lives can still be very meaningful. They can be very meaningful because if we have a relationship with Christ that supersedes all of the chaos that's in our world, and we can truly have a life is full of happiness. So as we engage the world by loving and helping people by working and praying for people, we still don't specifically know what's going to happen because we can't control our external world. There are some things that we have control over. And sometimes when you have power and influence, you are able to control a little more.

And sometimes if you have certain disease, if you have power and wealth, you might have access to some medical treatments that maybe some other people may not have. But you don't have complete control over what happens in your life. You and I had absolutely no control over whether or not Putin was going to invade the Ukraine. We had no control over that. But that decision affected us here in America, not just politically, but it affected the world with a food shortage that came, the food that came from the Ukraine that was no longer available. We can't control the economy as an individual. I have no control over the economy. Collectively, we can help do things in our world. But as individuals, like I said, we can't control the weather, can we? We can't control international politics. We can't control war or peace. We can't control the decisions that other governments make. Most of the time, we have no control over the decision our own governments make.

As a matter of fact, we have very little control over the things that our neighbors do. We can work hard, which we all should do that. We can work hard, which we all should do, that we can be as prepared as possible. We can do our very best to solve problems. I love Jacque. She is a problem solver. She solves all sorts of problems, especially my problems. But we have virtually no control over our external world. And that is why our happiness and whether or not we have a meaningful life can't depend on the world that we live in. It can't depend on that. It can't depend on what others do to us. If we let our meaningness of our lives and our happiness in our lives be determined by what everybody else does to us or says about us, we will forever be in a place of depression.

Deep happiness comes from our inner lives being submitted to Jesus Christ. It comes from our spiritual lives. That's a part that's a part of our life that we actually can control. I have control whether or not every day I say to the Lord, I give everyone and everything to you today, Jesus. I give this outcome to you, Lord. I give this medical report to you, Lord. I give my life today to you. I know that how to take care of what belongs to you. Now, you may not take care of it in the way I want you to take care of it. You ever come into that disagreement with God? I don't like how you are doing this, God.

Micah was very young and he had some ear problems and he'd have tubes in his ears when he was young. We went into the doctor and he was going to have a procedure on his ear. And so he is sitting on my lap and the doctor says, "Now you need to hold him because I have to give him a shot." So I'm kind of holding him. And, and he is sitting on my lap and the doctor comes in and puts a needle in his arm and he looks at his arm and he looks up at me and he says, "I don't think I like this."

Sometimes we are sitting in the lap of God and we look at him and we say, 'I don't think I like this." I don't think I like this. But you know what? I didn't let him go. I still held onto him and I said to him, 'You know what? It's going to be okay buddy. It's going to be okay."

Jacque: It was the best thing for him at the moment.

Brian: And it was, yeah, it was the best thing for him. We get to decide who we are going to be and how we are going to live. I'm so thankful for that. Somebody else doesn't decide how I'm going to live. I get to decide how we are going to live, how I'm going to live. That is our decision that we have. And the good news is that we can decide to love God. We can decide to love each other. We can live out our most cherished values, your most cherished values. You actually can live out. And that is whether you love God, whether you love your wife, whether you love your family, whether you love your neighbor, you can live that out. We have been greatly empowered by God to do this, to do what is right.

Jacque: I just keep thinking of Micah 6:8. I think next to John 3;16, it's my favorite verse. He has shown you, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Brian: And we all have been empowered by God to be able to do that no matter what. I repeat, no matter what. No matter what sorrow might be happening in your life, no matter what loss might be happening in your life, no matter what adversity you might be facing in your life, no matter what challenges you might be facing in your life, we have all been empowered by God to love him, to do justly and to walk in a merciful way towards our fellow man.

Jacque: Because when we look to him, he does just give us the grace we need for that specific situation if we look to him.

Brian: Yes. going to begin a series of messages that I'm going to call do it anyways. Do it anyways. We are going to take a bunch of stories from Jesus' life where he did something that was not easy for him to do, but he did it anyways. He did it anyways. If we will embrace this over the next few months, because just like there is 10 commandments, I think I'm going to do 10 messages on do it anyways. I believe that if we will begin to do these things, we will see our lives actually changing. We will see the temperature level in a good way, rise in a good way here, even in our own church, where we will truly live in a way towards each other and to others. That is how God wants us to live. It will be the ways of Jesus in the midst of our challenges and difficulties.

I want to end with one more portion of scripture. You've read it many times, heard it many times. It's the beatitudes or a portion, the beatitudes. But I want to actually read it from a newer translation. It's the passion translation. How sometimes Pastor Jeff was talking about how when he would read a verse in the translation that he'd read it for 30 years, and I've read that and it goes over your head or you run down the same rabbit trail. When I read this, it, it made the beatitudes come again more alive to me. I want to read these as kind of a conclusion here today.

Jacque: What happiness comes to you when you feel your spiritual poverty for yours is the realm of heaven's kingdom.

Brian: See, most of us don't think that--- we don't like the word poverty. We are always trying to flee from poverty to acquire things, so we won't be poor. But the paradox of Jesus is that when our spirits, when our spiritual life is actually in a place of being destitute, that's when we are blessed because then we recognize our need for God. Nobody will come into the kingdom until they know they need to come into the kingdom. What happiness can come to us when we feel can truly feel our spiritual poverty in our spirits. Because now the realm of the kingdom of heaven is therefore for the taking.

Jacque: Like we really blew it then we go right to God.

Brian: Yeah.

Jacque: What delight comes to you when you wait upon the Lord for you will find what you long for. What blessing comes to you when gentleness lives in you for you will inherit the earth.

Brian: See, most of us don't think that people who are truly gentle are going to end up ruling the earth. We really don't identify with that, do we? And you know why we don't? Because we think too much like our culture. Our culture is, to the mighty are the spoils right. To the persuasive are the spoils. But Jesus is saying, when gentleness lives in your soul resides in you, you will now be those who inherit the earth. Wow.

Jacque: How enriched you are when you crave righteousness for you will be satisfied.

Brian: See, most of us struggle like again, Pastor Jeff was referring to the flesh and what that all means. And we have these appetites that we crave for. And oftentimes it's contrary to the kingdom, isn't it? But the blessing says how enriched we will be when we crave for righteousness, those things that are righteous. I'm not talking about external holiness here. I'm talking about true righteousness where justice and mercy are those things that we really long to see.

Jacque: For me, it's wanting to please God, wanting to make him happy, wanting to love him. It says, if you love me, keep my commands. How blessed you are when you demonstrate tender mercy for tender mercy will be demonstrated to you.

Brian: What goes around comes around. Be careful when you are climbing the ladder. Because when you are on your way down, you might find somebody that's passing you.

Jacque: That you didn't show tender mercy.

Brian: That you didn't show tender mercy to. Kick you right off the ladder.

Jacque: I like your sound effects. You've done a few today.

Brian: Oh, sorry.

Jacque: It's cute. It's cute. You are cute.

Brian: Oh, thank you. And I'm 72 now and she still thinks that.

Jacque: His birthday was last Tuesday. I forgot to say it was your birthday on Tuesday.

Brian: Hallelujah. Thank you. It was great. I had a great day.

Jacque: I was too busy cooking your favorite meal.

Brian: That's right.

Jacque: Okay. Alright. Okay. Where are we?

Brian: How blessed you are...

Jacque: How blessed you are when you demonstrate tender mercy for tender mercy will be demonstrated to you. What bliss you experience when your heart is pure, for then your eyes will open to see more and more of God.

Brian: We want to know God more. We sing that I want to know you more. That's a prayer my heart, Lord, I want to know you more, help me know you more. And then he tapped me on the shoulder. He said, well, just purify your heart. Help me purify your heart.

Jacque: How joyful you are when you make peace for then you will be recognized as a true child of God.

Brian: Yeah. Isn't that good? Yeah, peacemakers.

Jacque: Oh, it makes me think of my conversation on Friday. I ran into a gentleman that years ago we were part of a church together and he had left. I didn't even remember all the situations and we just found ourselves together at the hospital when I was visiting my niece. And we just started talking and we just had the most wonderful talk. And I said, "I don't even remember all the situations involved so many decades ago, but if I have hurt you in some way, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." And he just said thank you for saying that and then he said the same thing. But he said, "Well, I think I need to say the same thing back to you." We just talked about all that God was doing in our lives. And I was so happy after that conversation. I just was so happy.

Brian: Making peace.

Jacque: Making peace. Yeah. How enriched you are when persecuted for doing what is right, for then you experience the realm of heaven's kingdom. I expect you to say something. How blessed you are when people insult and persecute you and speak all kinds of cruel lies about you because of your love for me.

Brian: I could say a lot about this, but we have to finish here. This is a description of really the richer, deeper life. This is a description of the life of faith that Jesus actually offers every single one of us today. We are in the world to bring this into the world. We are not of the world. We are not to be just seeking power, seeking wealth, seeking prestige, seeking fame. That's not what the end goal is. It's okay if we have those things because we have been honoring God and God put us in a position to serve him and serve others and so forth. But at the end of the day, deep happiness and the peace of God can be ours every moment of every day. It has nothing to do with our external surroundings. It has nothing to do with how well we are accepted or how much money we actually have or how much power we actually have.

I believe today, just like in the sixties, there was a cry in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of young people for something more meaningful in life than what was being modeled for them by their parents, and by the culture, by those who had gone before them. I would say the very same today. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people in just our country alone, who are desiring to have something more meaningful in their lives. Something that will help them find contentment in the midst of their emotional pain and suffering in their quest for what is real. Even philosophically asking the questions about what is truth, and these kinds of things, the answer to all of that, and I really loved what was said again in this movie because a reporter was sent to write an article about what was happening.

He asked a question, "How do you explain what is happening?" And the answer was, God isn't something that should be necessarily explained. God is someone to be experienced. God is someone to have a relationship with. As we have a relationship with that living creator who we know by name as Jesus Christ, as we have a relationship with him, even in the midst of disappointment and sorrow and loss and setbacks and difficulties and tragedies and things that we don't understand that can't be explained, we can have a meaningful life and we can truly have a happiness in our hearts that goes above and beyond our ability to comprehend how he does it.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this time. I pray that there will be a recalibration in our minds regarding our everyday life. I pray that there would be a aha moment that will again happen to us, those who are watching, those who will watch this in the future, that my life is not going to be determined, the value of my life and the meaningfulness of my life is not going to be determined by the external world that I live in, but rather it will be determined by my relationship with you. This I ask in your name. Pastor Jeff, would you come?

Pastor Jeff: Wow. You just heard the gospel, all of its fullness. If you are watching a live streamer, if you are here today and you are struggling with a sense of value, meaning if you are struggling with the ability to have any kind of joy in your life, then it's experiencing Jesus that begins the road back into happiness. It's as simple as that. And you may have never in your life encountered Jesus, or you may be like me and you encountered him 52 years ago. I was thinking that as you were ending, Pastor Brian, what I experienced when I was 16 years old doesn't help me today. I need to experience Jesus today, every day, every day.

If you haven't experienced Jesus for a while, let's encounter him right now. If you have never experienced Jesus, there is no better time than now to encounter him. Come Lord Jesus. Just close your eyes; open up your hearts. Lift your hands. Jesus, we open our hearts to you right now to encounter you, to experience you, to be in communion with you. You see all the weights that we are dragging behind us right now, and we trust you to lift those weights and fill our hearts with the peace that we need, that overcomes the fear and the joy that we need that overcomes the despair and the faith that we need that finds its way through. We receive your love in your presence right now. Because in your love, Lord, all things are beautiful. We love that place. We choose that place. We trust you; we yield to you. Choose to leave this place today and look forward to our weeks with you. Thank you, Jesus.

Do you need a healing in your life right now? Just put up your hand. Want to pray for you? We are praying for you, Lori and Deb, Brian and Donette, our friends who aren't with us, Christie. We are trusting you, trusting Jesus to touch you, continue to do his work in you. So I just release the father's grace for healing to everyone whose hand is raised and to our friends. You are the healer, father. You are the healer. And I thank you Lord for your hand on our lives with healing because of Jesus. We receive it now. We receive it now. We receive it now. We receive it now. Thank you. Pastor Brian.

Brian: For those of you who would like communion will serve communion for you after the service over here to my right, your left. Thank you for being here today. I just pray that your hearts are encouraged, that no matter what you might be going through in your life, what challenges you might be facing, your everyday can have meaning in your life by following Jesus and walking in his will. Let's raise our hands together 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. And may the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. And may you know that true meaning full life by knowing Jesus. This we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Thank you for being here today. And for those of you who want communion, we will serve it for you there.

Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 2-26-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.