Don't Waste Grace By Jeremy Anderson

Guys, as Christians, if we could if we were to take one thing away from this today, Paul's appeal to the Corinthians is, listen. We are lazy at times when it comes to the ministry of the gospel because we've become so caught up with ourselves and we don't actually love people enough to open up with it, to engage in relationship. So if we're to widen our hearts, we need to consider awareness, our availability, our affections. [00:33:54] (31 seconds)  #WidenYourHeart

I think I would have reasonable a reasonable chance of being right that for many of you, not all of you, but for many of you, you don't remember the last time that someone invited you over for dinner. How about this? When's the last time you did? When's the last time you just said, hey. Our door's open. Come have dinner with us. Guys, we we are not very social people. [00:28:46] (34 seconds)  #OpenYourDoor

Can we not open our hearts in such a way that Paul is saying we're restricted by our own affections? What are we restricted by? The fact that we don't care. If we can be honest, we don't care about what's going on in other people's lives. We don't care about what's we care about ourselves. We care about our schedules. We care about what moves the needle for us, and we're selfish in our thinking from time to time. [00:33:03] (25 seconds)  #LoveBeyondSelf

Your kids cannot always be the excuse to get you out of plans. They can't. I get it. There's bedtimes. There's sicknesses. There's stuff like that. I I understand. But your kids can't be the excuse to not fellowship and open your hearts to people. It's not good. We've had to try to figure that out. And we've had times where we've had to cancel because we had a sick kid, and we said, you know what? Let's reschedule. [00:29:55] (27 seconds)  #PrioritizeFellowship

Will we open our hearts in such a way that it's not just to open our calendars, but to actually care for other people? That as you leave this morning, look for somebody. You look around the room right now for all I care. There's people here. They're not just bodies. They're people, lives, concerns, hurts, joys, all the things that we celebrate, histories. You know, we got stories and all the can we open our hearts to people, [00:31:20] (29 seconds)  #PeopleOverPlans

It was the third person, the Samaritan, which in in that day would have just kind of ripped everyone's heart out to the people that Jesus was talking to. The Samaritan was aware, but also made himself available. And he went and he extended help, and he cared for that individual. Because we need to examine our availability and recognize, are we making ourself available to other people to have relationship with them? [00:26:37] (27 seconds)  #BeLikeTheSamaritan

This ministry of reconciliation that God has entrusted to us is one in which we proclaim a gospel, a good news of of man being reconciled to God, and there being reconciliation relationship with one another in the family of God. In other words, in a time when the people that we live with, that we work with, that we know, that we love, and that we care about are feeling disconnected and isolated, [00:22:48] (27 seconds)  #BridgeTheDisconnect

The problem is with that mindset is that you're gonna go and you're gonna work and live alongside people. You might go to church alongside people that it is their problem. Someone who's saying, I I am just waiting for someone to invite me to something, to open their hearts to to actually care about who I am, to to have con some concerns. So we need to start by being aware of the situation around us, [00:25:24] (28 seconds)  #BeTheInvite