Pastor Jeff and Cheryl Orluck
Pastor Jeff: Testing one, two. There we go. Good morning. Thank you, brother. Walton. Are you on? What do you got there? What's the letter?
Cheryl: Where do I look for a letter?
Pastor Jeff: Right down here. Number two, Joel.
Cheryl: Testing. Testing. There you are. Oh, there. Hi everybody.
Pastor Jeff: There you are.
Cheryl: Aw, it's so good to see you all.
Pastor Jeff: Yeah. Worship was great as usual, brother Walton. Thank you. Sometimes I think Robert and I have the same heartbeat inside of us. Worship started and I'm worshiping the Lord, and all of a sudden, I'm thinking about my message. I don't know if I was asking, or the Lord was asking. It's like, so what's the point of your message? What's the conclusion? I was kind of like, I'm not sure. We got a lot of nice things to say, but what's the-- and then Pastor Robert got up and y'all remember what Pastor Robert said. Okay. That's the conclusion of our message. Pastor Robert gave you the conclusion of our message before we give you the start or the middle. So thank you, Pastor Robert. You definitely were listening to the Holy Spirit this morning. That was pretty awesome. Before we start, we do want to acknowledge an anniversary this morning. 18 years ago, Cheryl and I performed a wedding.
Cheryl: Yes, we did.
Pastor Jeff: Before that we got to do marriage counseling and get to know a couple who have become good friends and been good friends for many, many years. And that's Marvin and Cindy Langenfeld. Why don't you guys stand up? Let everybody just acknowledge.
Cheryl: Cindy is with the children.
Pastor Jeff: I suppose Cindy is with the kids. Last time we spoke, we took a few minutes to honor Cindy for her amazing service and her faithfulness and how she loves the children and as ministered to us. But to this morning, we thought we want to recognize Marvin because number one, it's their anniversary: 18 years as a faithful husband and father. They have the sweetest, the most adorable little girl I've ever met. It took me years to get her to look at me, smile at me, or say hello to me, but now I even get hugs.
When it comes to Marvin, you never see him on the stage. He is never looking for the limelight. If you happen to catch him in a conversation, he'll never let you go. He does love to chatter, but his calling, and he'll tell you if you ask him his calling from the Lord is to serve, and he looks for every opportunity that he can possibly find to help. When we needed a window washer, he washed the windows. When we need snow shoveling, he shovels the snow. When we got tables to set up, he sets up tables. If you are always looking for, oh, who can help, Marvin will be standing behind you waiting for you to ask.
Cheryl: And Marvin says, "I can do that."
Pastor Jeff: I can do that. Yep, yep. Marvin has been faithful. He has been a longtime employee at only two employers that I know: one that he had to drive over an hour to get to work for poultry wages and get abused by his employer. And he is stuck at it until the Lord gave him a new opportunity, much closer to home with a much better employer, and he has gained and advanced at that company because he is faithful and reliable and he is smart. He knows what to do, and he does it well.
Cheryl: Marvin, you are smart.
Pastor Jeff: Marvin, we just want to acknowledge you today and honor you because you are a gift to Hope and we love you, and we thank God that you are here. Actually, the Lord gave me a word for you too. Why don't you just stand up? The Lord said to me, he said, "You are a man of faithfulness. You are a man who has committed himself to me, and you've chosen to be faithful to me. And I see that," says the Lord. "I don't dismiss that. I take that seriously and I want to honor you," the Lord says, "because I honor those who are faithful to me. And I see that you've been faithful to me and faithful to your wife, and faithful to your children, and faithful to your friends, and faithful to your employer. And because of that faithfulness I have much to reward you with. So take heart and be encouraged, my son, because I'm pleased with you and I have more for you. Don't be surprised if there is more for you to do because you are young and you have lots to offer, and I'm going to take advantage of the things that I've sewn in you, formed in you. And I'm going to use you in new ways as the years go by."
Cheryl: I have a scripture for you, Marvin: Proverbs eight. This scripture came out of what I notice when I walk by you. You are a vessel who is looking to be filled. I just know that about you. Here is your scripture: those who love me gain great wealth and a glorious inheritance, and I will fill their lives with treasures. Thank you, Marvin. We love you so much.
Pastor Jeff: We do. Amen. Amen. We've been teaching the Jesus ways over the last year and this morning I felt like the Lord kind of steered me tohis words in Matthew 5, where he talks about us being salt and he talks about us being light. We are going to talk about the Jesus way of being salt and the Jesus way of being light in this world. We are going to start with the salt piece. We'll see how far we get if we get all the way through, or if we will have to take a break. We have some wonderful things to share. We are going to start with Matthew 5: 13. This is out of the message Bible.
Cheryl: Oh yeah. I'm supposed to read. Let me tell you why you are here. You are here to be salt seasoning that will bring out the God flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness. You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.
Pastor Jeff: Yeah. That's the Eugene Peterson version of Matthew 5:13. I love it. You are here to bring the God flavors out in the earth. When he talks about light, he says, you are here to bring the God colors out in the earth. In other words, the things that are intrinsic to the nature and goodness of God are the things that we are called to carry and release onto the face of the earth. He compares us to salt because of the value of salt on the earth. Cheryl did a whole bunch of research and she is just going to share a couple things that she learned about it.
Cheryl: You want me to teach that now?
Pastor Jeff: Yeah.
Cheryl: Okay. Here is the low down on salt, just a little part of what salt is about. It's the only rock that we eat. Isn't that interesting? I just thought, oh wow. It's considered white gold back in history.
Pastor Jeff: It was actually used to pay wages.
Cheryl: So valuable.
Pastor Jeff: That's why if you hear somebody saying he is worth his salt, what that means is he is worth the wage that I paid him.
Cheryl: It is good for our human bodies. It helps our brain synapses to fire and connect with each other. How important is the brain nowadays? Get your salt. Muscle control... Our fluid balance... If you have a migraine, try putting some salt under your tongue. It might help the migraine. I mean thyroid, it helps for sleep. It is just full of minerals. It's just good for you. Do you want me to talk about--
Pastor Jeff: Talk about the oceans.
Cheryl: Okay. The ocean. It covers most of the earth. The water is dense with salt. I mean, you all know that if you've been to the ocean, it's very salty and you float a little more because the water is actually thicker. If salt was taken out of the ocean, the currents on top of the ocean would change in a big way, and we would have catastrophic storms on the earth because so much of the earth is covered by oceans and that would not be good.
Pastor Jeff: If we didn't have salt in the earth as we have it now, the natural environment would be much more chaotic. The oceans would be much more turbulent and the weather would be much more turbulent without the salt on the earth. And then the other thing of course--- We were talking about this yesterday at lunch and Dave or Adolph pointed out that in the Antarctic, when it freezes, the salt goes down to the bottom and it goes into these rivers of salt that go around the equator under the ocean. And it actually is like an air conditioner for our environment, which I thought was pretty cool.
Cheryl: Well, salt is in the desert, the oceans, lakes and underground.
Pastor Jeff: It's everywhere.
Cheryl: It's everywhere.
Pastor Jeff: And it's needed. It's an essential part of our environment and it's an essential part of our bodies. If we don't have the salt that our bodies require, we'll die. It that way with a lot of things, but it's true with salt as well. Go ahead.
Cheryl: So when you see salt on your tables this week, it'll help you remember today's word, and how you are that salt. You are like that salt you enhance. Isn't that beautiful? You actually are an enhancer in the world.
Pastor Jeff: That's what you do because you are salt. Back in Jesus day, salt was much more rare. It wasn't as easy to come by. It wasn't a common commodity, and it was very valuable. That's why they paid wages using salt. Now salt is very common, but here is the point: Salt is on every single table in the world, we use it to flavor our food everywhere. If you are on a salt-free diet, then you have to find other things to flavor your food. The point is if you have salt, it really enhances your food and you enjoy it. You enjoy your food more because you have salt. Anybody here like tomato juice like I do, or v8? Do you know how much salt is in there? I tried juicing for a while and a vegetable juice without some salt, I can hardly even drink it.
If you don't have salt, then you have to look for something else to enhance the flavors of your life. It is with us being the salt of the earth. If this salt that we are loses its flavor, if we don't provide the God flavors that the world needs to have, then our world will look for something else to season life. If the church loses its flavor, the rest of the world has to go someplace else to find meaning to life. If the church carries the flavor, the God flavors that Jesus pours into us, then the world can get the flavor that it needs in life, the meaning, the value, the sense of purpose, the joy from God, because we are bringing that flavor to them. The point of it all is that the world needs you as much as the world. The environment needs salt. The world needs you as much as you need salt to flavor your life. The world needs you to flavor the world. And what happens if we lose our flavor?
Cheryl: Did you say the blurb?
Pastor Jeff: No. Go ahead.
Cheryl: I want to say that Jesus says, you are salt, you are light, and I just thought, what an honor for him to allow us to do that. We get to enhance people's lives. We get to expose, with the light, things that are in hiding. We get to bring things out of people that we see in them and encourage them and just bring them to life like never before. Ourselves, we can do that with things that are in us that we don't even realize that need to come out and operate for everyday living. It's beautiful. It's powerful. I just thank God you know that he says we are salt, we are light. I could take that forever. Be happy with that, you know? It's so good.
Pastor Jeff: Let's talk for a minute about what makes us salty. Cheryl is going to read Romans 4:17.
Cheryl: For the kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Jeff: Goodness, peace and joy, that's a new living translation. Let's look at it in the message version. Why don't you read it out of that?
Cheryl: God's kingdom isn't a matter of what you put in your stomach for goodness’ sake. It's what God does with your life as he sets it right. Puts it together and completes it with joy.
Pastor Jeff: This phrase or this statement that Paul makes is at the end of a discussion about disputes that are going on in the church, about what you can and can't eat. Eating meat, sacrifice the idols, not eating meat, sacrifice the idols. That's why he says the kingdom of God isn't about eating and drinking. There are other attributes to God's kingdom that are more important than the things that we tend to argue about. Let me help you understand something. Right doctrine doesn't make you salty. You can argue all you want to about doctrine. You can argue about infant baptism versus adult baptism. You can argue about speaking in tongues versus not speaking in tongues. There are so many things that the church has found to argue about.
If you somehow were smart enough, I mean, you'd have to be as smart as God that you actually had the perfect and correct theology of all the different theologies that are in all the different denominations that are in all the different versions of Christiandom around the world, if you had the perfect one, that theology wouldn't make you salty. It's not the point. And so what are we arguing about all this stuff for? What makes us salty is the qualities that make God who he is. God is right. He is good. He is true. He is honest. God is joy. God is peace. When we carry joy, we are salty. If we carry a bunch of anger and complaint, we are not so salty. Nobody really cares if you are around us. If we carry mercy, we are salty. If we carry a bunch of judgements and we are the ones who have somehow become the arbiters of who is in and who is out, who goes to heaven and who doesn't, who is living the right life and who isn't, and we let people know that's right, that's wrong, you are out, you are in, we are not salty. As soon as the church becomes that type of mineral, the world goes looking for other flavor enhancers. Do you understand? The world needs flavor. It needs salt. The question is, are we going to be it?
Cheryl: Are we going to be it? Yes.
Pastor Jeff: We talked about the Jesus ways being childlike, being childlike, being full of wonder and anticipation and giddiness over the things of God. that's salty. We are called to not just be loving, we are called to be love, just like God is love. When we are love, we are salty. You see? And we shouldn't need shows like Cheers and Friends to teach us what love means and friendship means. Jesus wrote the book on it, and he is calling us to become that, to become the kind of people that walk with each other through thick and thin, good and bad sin and no sin. He has called us to be transparent because we are all human. And one of the things that we'll ever do if we are salty, is we'll let people see what's really wrong with us.
We won't try to put on that we are perfect. We've been through so many decades where clergy think that they have to put a display of perfection out for their flock so their flock know what to attain to. That doesn't help anybody attain anything. It's so much better if you let people know you are real. Besides that, if you are honest about your flaws, you realize you don't have any grounds to judge anybody else for theirs. Let's get your secret sins out on the table and then go judge someone else's sins.
Cheryl: Confess your sins to one another.
Pastor Jeff: That's a sweet thing. When it happens. It's a precious thing. It doesn't bring shame; it brings support. It brings all of us to acknowledge who we are and what we really need. One of the things that we really need is each other. And one of the things the world really needs is us, not our doctrine, not our preaching. They need us. They need you being you, being Jesus, being a friend, listening or as Pastor Robert did, just encouraging somebody that they are not a piece of trash, just putting your arm around him and encouraging them. And we can do that anywhere, anytime. As you pointed out, Brother Robert, it's not always convenient. But I love what you said. It's not always so important to be on time.
Cheryl: But like he said, when the Holy Spirit put that hook in him, if you ignore that and go on, it just bothers you for the rest of time. It's like I didn't talk to that person when I had that--- the awareness he had to go back, to stop and stay there and talk. It's great.
Pastor Jeff: We are going to get to that more because there is more to that. We can talk about all the ways we are salty, but what something Jesus said, he said, but if the salt has lost his flavor-- how do we lose our flavor? I'm assuming that we all had flavor at some point. Most of you, if you experience a born-again experience where Jesus became real in a moment in your life, how many have had that experience? You were salty, weren't you? It wasn't like everything turned upside down topsy turvy, and you were alive in Jesus and you couldn't not tell everybody around you about Jesus. You drove them crazy. And you brought everybody you could know to church.
That's what John Wimber did, one of my contemporary heroes of the faith, founder of the Vineyard Church. He was in the band, the Righteous Brothers, drug addict, rock and roller got saved, met Jesus started bringing all his drug addict buddies to church. One day he was met at the church door by one of the elder's wives. And she said, "You! You've ruined our church." Do you remember? I can't remember her name when we used to go to the prophetic conferences, June somebody. She was an elderly woman back then, but she talked about when she was young and she got saved and she didn't know any different than just to wear minis skirts. And she'd go to church to the New Baptist church in bright red miniskirts and bring all her friends.
Cheryl: It sounds like Joyce Myers
Pastor Jeff: I wasn't Joyce. Did she do that too? Do you remember those times? Do you remember being salty? Do you remember being alive in Jesus so excited about what he was doing? If you watched the Jesus Revolution-- how many have seen that movie now? I wasn't in California, but we had Jesus revolution in Minnesota. I was just like that. I wasn't even a drug addict. I wasn't even a hippie, but I got saved. I was known as the Jesus freak in my high school. We had a graduating class of 600 kids and everybody knew that I was the Jesus freak.
Cheryl: That's why I went to high school, to share the Lord.
Pastor Jeff: That's the only reason. That was the only good thing about high school. So how do you lose your saltiness? What happens to us? I remember when Cheryl and I were part of a church plan many, many years ago. We were young and fresh and we were so hungry for God and we wanted so much to, to see something bud and blossom and grow in this new church that we were forming that would really reflect the heart of the Lord and the ways of the Lord. And somehow over time we became this self-righteous, judgmental, classic church that you would never want to be part of. Sometimes, I just-- how did we get there?
A part of it, Robert shared. When everything is always consistent, it becomes mundane. But somehow our pursuit of righteousness can become self-righteous. And all of a sudden, we are not just hungry to please the Lord, we are hungry to make sure everybody else is doing it right. I don't know how that transition happens when it happened to me. Somehow, we go from this humble hunger for Jesus into this pride understanding of who God is. Somehow, we go from needing mercy to becoming judges of others. Even with our best intentions at the beginning, somehow, we end up over here.
John said in first John, don't love the world for the-- he talked about the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life. It's interest to me that God loved the world so much, he gave his son. John tells us not to love the world. If you've ever wondered about that, because the world that God loved was all of humanity that he made in his image with all of their foibles and all of their flaws and all of their sins and all of their rebellion. He loved us.
And the world that, that John is alluding to is not the people of the world. He is talking about the patterns. He is talking about the ways of craving, the ways of living for what you want, the ways of seeking the things that please you. You know what, we can do that in the church. You don't have to go to the bars to seek the things that please you. We do that pretty well right here. We fall into living for the pleasures and the comforts that our western world brings us. We fall into enjoying the wealth that we have. It's not that it's wrong to be wealthy; that's not the point. The point is that our focus of life begins to shift, and our hunger for Jesus changes to a self-satisfaction with what we have and what we can get. And we start living for that.
There are so many things that are taught in the New Testament, so many things that Jesus taught that tie into this. This parable of the vines and the branches ties into this perfectly. The vine brings forth fruit when it's connected. The branch carries the fruit when it's connected to the vine. If you separate the branch from the vine, what is it good for? What does Jesus tell us it's good for? Throw it in the fire. How do you keep your saltiness? You’ve got to stay connected. Somehow, in the normalcy of our life or in the struggles of our life. In many cases, it can be the struggles of our life, the hardships, the things we worry about, the things we are fighting for, our lacks, our sicknesses, the sicknesses of others, losses. Those can become something that we get so focused on and we lose hope or it can be the other side. It can be just the enjoyments, the pleasures, all the things that we want to have in life, all the things that we think should be there.
All of those things can somehow become the focus, can't they? They are always trying to become the focus. Did you ever notice that? They are always trying to become the focus. When we let them become the focus, we become disconnected from the life who is Jesus himself. It's our connection with Jesus that keeps us salty. It's the only thing. Why don't we read Revelation 3? This is another piece that just flows into this pretty well.
Cheryl: I know you inside and out and find little to my liking. You are not cold. You are not hot, for better to be either cold or hot. You are stale, you are stagnant. You make me want to vomit. You brag, I'm rich; I've got it made. I need nothing from anyone oblivious that in fact, you are a pitiful blind beggar, thread bear and homeless.
Pastor Jeff: Wow. That's the message again. He brings out the essence of that. See, the world desperately needs the church. That's what we were trying to point out when we were talking about the values of salt. Our world desperately, desperately needs the church. Look at the world without the influence of the church, and what do you have? Chaos, destruction, hatred, all the things that everybody in life doesn't want is what fills the earth without the influence of the church. But what the world doesn't need is a self-satisfied, self-righteous, poor, blind and naked church that has nothing to offer. That church can't bring to the world what it needs. The only way I know that the church can stay salty as we have to be connected to the lover of our soul intimately.
Cheryl: That's it. Have his heart. Have you ever looked over a crowd of people with the heart of God? It's very frustrating because your heart just goes out to them. If you haven't done it, do it.
Pastor Jeff: Go to the state fair. She does it at the state fair.
Cheryl: It's amazing.
Pastor Jeff: I don't know how you can look over the state fair--
Cheryl: I can do it anywhere there is a crowd. The crowd's really big there, but when you are just out in public, look over the crowd. It's like all these people, I have answers for, for these people in the situations they are in. Maybe they are not looking to you for answers, but you are there, and just pay attention to the draw.
Pastor Jeff: Cheryl lives with a very clear understanding that her presence anywhere is influencing the environment that she happens to be in.
Cheryl: Whether I say anything or not.
Pastor Jeff: Because she carries the person of Jesus with her wherever she goes.
Cheryl: We all do. We walk into a place and I believe the atmosphere changes. We are there. I'll walk into a store sometimes and I'll whisper. I am here. I am here. I'm here with everything that God has made me to be and I'm available and show me. Let this be an adventure. It's good.
Pastor Jeff: I think we are going to move on now. For the sake of time. let me just suggest to you that the qualities of salt and the quality of, of light in terms of who we are as Jesus lovers, they are the same. The things that make us light are the same things that make us salty. It's, it's the heart and the nature of God, the things that we just talked about. But we are going to move on to the, to the topic of light. There is another twist here as Jesus talks about light that I think is a really great way for us to end this message. We are going to read Matthew 5: 14- 16.
Cheryl: Here is another way to put it: You are here to be light, bringing out the God colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We are going public with this as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I am putting you on a light stand. Now that I put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand, shine. Keep open house. Be generous. Be generous with your lives by opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God. This generation---
Pastor Jeff: Generous.
Cheryl: Oh, generous. Okay, let me read this again. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous father in heaven. I just got caught up in that.
Pastor Jeff: I realized.
Cheryl: Sorry. I just was like-- And I've read it before, but just--
Pastor Jeff: Ah, it's all good. Good. That's a cool picture of light. Just as badly as the world needs salt, the world needs light. We are the light. If the church is not present, the world becomes a very dark place. We all understand. We get the 10 commandments off the walls of our courts and we get rid of the church saying what's right and wrong. We get rid of the concepts of sin. And somehow there is this current trend of thought that if we don't say something is wrong, then it's not, and the only reason people feel guilty is because we say something's wrong. If we just shut up those voices that talk about things being sinful, then nothing will be wrong, and everybody will feel good. But it doesn't work. Because we, intrinsically as human beings made in the image of God, know deep down what's right and wrong. The reason we get so violent against people who suggest something we do is wrong is because deep down we know it is. That's what I think. The world needs light, but the light that the world needs won't do any good for them if it's cooped up in the four walls of this church. Pastor Robert, taking a page from his playbook.
Cheryl: Get those cards out there.
Pastor Jeff: Yeah. Wasn't it last week he held up those cards. He said, "you got the cards."
Cheryl: When you are in the dark damp, it's damp and moldy. Isolation happens and isolation leads to insanity. You are stagnant and you are blind.
Pastor Jeff: That's why the world needs us. The light is wonderful in here and it's great that we can enjoy it, but the reason we are light is for the wellbeing of the world. We need to take the light we have outside with us wherever we go. It's a pretty simple equation. Get to know your neighbors. Meet the people who live next door. Have them over for dinner or lunch. Have a picnic in your cul-de-sac for your neighbors. Have a neighborhood party. Be present and active in your children's schools. Help make lunch. Do whatever they need in terms of volunteers. Bring your kids and be part of Cub Scouts, girl Scouts, boy scouts, different social activities. If your kids are in the sports, you be there and you be light when you are there. I'm not saying that you have to jabber about Jesus. Everybody that you talk to, you are light. It doesn't matter what you are saying. You are something very special. You carry it inside of you.
Cheryl: They will see it.
Pastor Jeff: And when you love people, when you befriend them, when you talk to them, when you acknowledge their pain, when you share your own pain, Jesus will come into the equation. This is just how it works. Join the local card club, pickleball club, golf League, Zumba, class. What amazing miracles have happened in our Zumba class. We didn't start it; we joined it right now. I'll let you in A couple of secrets about us. But before I do, I've got to do another thing about John Wimber.
John Wimber, after he was saved, he was a radical young Christian. He had been going to church for a couple of months and one day church was over and he caught his pastor. He said, "Pastor, pastor, when do we get to do the stuff?" Pastor said, "What do you mean the stuff?" He said, "Well, you know, the stuff Jesus did, you know, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons. When do we get to do the stuff?" I don't know. I mean, you are taking a big risk. But if you are with a friend, a good friend who's at work and they've got a horrible headache, you could offer to pray for them.
It happened to me once years ago. My big boss, not my boss-boss, but my boss's boss's boss was here and we were having these meetings, we were opening new restaurants. I was working for a restaurant at the time and we were getting like an orientation for all the employees for the new restaurant. His name was Bill. We took a break and, and we were outside. And he said, "Oh, I don't sleep well when I'm away from my wife. I have the worst headache." And I said, "Well, Bill, let me pray for you." And right then it was time to go, and I didn't get to pray for him face to face. We were walking back into the meeting and I said, "Well, Lord, I told Bill I would pray for him, so I just asked right now that you'd heal his headache."
We did the next session and when the session was over he made a beeline for me. He said, "This is great. Do I get three wishes?" He was a Jew. I don’t know if he was a practicing Jew. You just never know. You take a little bit of a risk, maybe nothing will happen. So what? At some point in time, you have to be willing to be a fool for Jesus.
My wife loves to dance. She cannot not move when there is music on. She loves to dance. One of our favorite haunts, maybe some of you too, we'd love to go to Stillwater. We love the restaurants there and the shops there, and we love to walk along the river. It's just a really fun place to take time away. Because the restaurants are so good, oftentimes, when her and her daughters are celebrating birthdays or any of us are, we'll go to Stillwater for dinner. But then Cheryl would always like to go out and dance afterwards. There is this bar in Stillwater called Ziggy's. Anybody ever been there? You have! In this bar called Ziggy's, you can dance. We are out for, was it Steven's birthday or your birthday? No, Steven and Sophie were with us to celebrate your--- my son and his wife were with us at dinner in Stillwater to celebrate Cheryl's birthday.
Cheryl: They were like, well, if mom wants to go to Ziggy's, okay. I was dragging three people with me.
Pastor Jeff: Who didn't want to go. We get to Ziggy's and the place is so crowded, so crowded. I mean, you have to stand like this to stand like this side.
Cheryl: I love that part of it. You are just with people that, you are just sardine with them. You are all like in a party mood and you are all like, hi, hi. Oh, excuse me, excuse me. And you are smiling. I don't know, that's community to me. Any little bit of that I can get with strangers is like, oh, I just need this. I need this.
Pastor Jeff: And so do they.
Cheryl: Yes, they did. I was there.
Pastor Jeff: We are in Ziggy's and it's wall to wall people. You can't even get to the bar to order a drink. There is no way. You are hoping, and there is room on the dance floor, but nobody's dancing yet because the band is spending a half an hour going check, check, check, check, check in the microphone. It was kind of ridiculous. But in the middle of it-- we weren't there that late, maybe 8 o'clock, 8:30 we are there, and people had drunk plenty. This poor young guy who had obviously drunk too much, comes up to me and he says, "Do you know where the bathrooms are here?" And I said, "Dude, it's my first time here. I have no idea." He walks over to Cheryl.
Cheryl: No, I said, "I know where the bathrooms are. They are back there and to the right." He says, "Well, will you help me to get there?" And I'm like, sure. I wiggled through the crowd with him and bring him right to the bathroom. So that was the end of that. And I thought, oh good, you know, I got to help him.
Pastor Jeff: Help somebody desperately needed a bathroom to find it.
Cheryl: Desperately. Then later, he came out; he was out in the crowd again and I don't think we were even dancing yet. He just came up to me and thanked me again for bringing him to the bathroom.
Pastor Jeff: She was just like his mom at that point. She was a mom taking care of this young boy who desperately needed somebody's help, you know, and Jesus helped him. Jesus helped him. Cheryl loved him and she took him by the hand. She took him to the bathroom. She helped him get what he needed. That's part of being light in a dark world. I mean there is all kinds of people. You might say Ziggy's is a dark place, but it's not so much the place that's dark. It's all the people that are dark. The people who are there, many of them are lost in darkness. So go hang out at Ziggy's. Go be light.
Cheryl: Yep. And when I dance, I'm dancing to the Lord. I'm worshiping. Worship is happening. It's good.
Pastor Jeff: There is a scripture where Paul is rebuking the church and he says, you know when I told you not to involve yourself with ungodly people, he says, "I wasn't talking about the people in the world." He says, "I was talking about the people in the church." If we've got a church that's full of corruption and greed and pride and misery, that's not where we belong. We belong in the world with people who are full of corruption and pride and greed and misery because we are the light and we are the salt that's going to bring some effect to them that actually might help them to have a new life. It might be as simple as helping them find a bathroom. Or it might be a conversation you have with somebody that you meet there when you are dancing or when you are sitting at a table and you are not dancing. But wherever we go.
You don't have to purposely go to brothels to find community with people. We are everywhere all the time in the world around us where we get to be salt and we get to be light. That is the Jesus way. Jesus said you are that, so let's be it. The best way to be it is to be hungry and connected to our savior. We keep pressing into Jesus. We keep hungering for Jesus. We find those moments that Robert talked about and those are the things that make us alive. Those are the things that we live for. That's how we keep the essence of who we are. Let's pray. Anything else you wanted to say? Thanks Adrian.
Jesus, you told us what we were and we want to be what we are, and we need you to do it. We need you to be flavored salt. We need you to be light. It's so easy, Lord, for us to fall into our own despair, anger, fear, judgments. But I thank you Lord that in the middle of our lives you come, you love us, you forgive us, you wash us, you give us your wisdom. You take our hand, you walk with us and we learn to live a life full of hope and trust and joy. Even though life isn't easy, it certainly is better because of you. And now here we are, Lord. Some of us, we've known you for 50 years and our lives have been good because of you. So much more reason for us to take all that you've given us and all that you've made us, and take it someplace outside of our own little community here and give it away, give it away. Just be Jesus with other people. Love them the way you would. Pray for them the way you would socialize with them the way you would. Accept them, the way you do.
Lord, we want to be that. We want to be the salt and we want to be salty. We want to be the light and we want to be on that hill. We don't want to be under a bushel. We don't want to be hidden away. We want to be shining. And we want people to benefit from who we are. So we just open up our hearts to you. Confess that we get very myopic sometimes, Lord. We get all focused in on things that aren't important. We just need to take a deep breath and ask you to come. We love to commune with you Lord. We love what you teach us and what you do in us, how you form our hearts. We want to be like you. Amen. Pastor Brian.
Pastor Brian: You know, Pastor Jeff, I was thinking we should maybe get some t-shirts that say, "Do this stuff." But the stuff is being salt and light. You know, being salt and light. That's probably the one of the things I'll miss most about Deb. She was salt and light. She was salt and light. But this I know about God: he never steals from Peter to pay Paul. If he takes something from Peter to pay Paul, he will get something from Philip to pay Peter. And then he'll take something from James to help Philip. There is this giving and receiving and loss and gain all throughout life. I'm so thankful today that we all can be the salt and light. It's in you. It's in all of us. It's in all of us.
So Father, we just asked that your grace comes into us. Help us Jesus. Every day, they pass us by people need the Lord. Every day, Jesus, we will pass by people who need a little bit more of the flavor of God in their life to shine a little bit more of hope into their darkened hearts. We carry that with us, Lord, every moment of every day, every place we place our foot, we can take your light and your salt. So just pray that you would help us to be aware. Help us to be aware that we can be this salt and this light for you. Hallelujah.
We appreciate Ken and the men who are putting a lunch together. If you are visiting here today, you are welcome to stay for lunch. We have plenty; we always plan for extra. If you are within about 15 minutes of driving to the church here and you are watching by livestream, get some clothes on. Don't stay your pajamas. Get out of your pajamas and get in the car and come down to Hope Community. We have a good chicken dinner today and we'd love to have you. Please stick around and visit. It's always a great opportunity to connect with each other in a more personal way. Hallelujah. Let's raise our hands together.
Now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. And may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face toward you and give you his peace. And may you be filled with the light and the flavor of salt for the world. This we pray in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Thank you so much for being here today. We so appreciate you. Visitors, make sure you say hi to Rachel and also make sure you stay for lunch. We'd love to visit with you. God bless you.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 5-7-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.