If the church is not going well, I can feel like a failure. And sometimes if the church is doing really well, I can feel like God loves me more. And both of those things are untrue. And I realized the discipline of going on sabbatical is, for me, not only to find rest and replenishment, but honestly to extricate myself or my ego from performance and how the church is doing and have that all tied in.
[00:04:06]
It's almost like what I say is it's a practice of dying, which Jesus calls us to do. Welcome to church, everyone. If you're new here, so glad. But the practice of dying to all those things that my ego gets so tied up in so that, hopefully, I can find a life that's not defined by performance and things like that, but instead find it in God and in God alone.
[00:04:33]
On Easter Sunday, we actually celebrated this kind of historical event that the whole Christian movement is centered around. And that's the bodily resurrection of Jesus. That this really happened, that Jesus was a person, flesh and blood, who we believe is fully God and fully human, who actually rose again from the dead.
[00:06:40]
We've been exploring how now the people of God, they move from a life of despair to actually a life of hope. Because the founder just rose again from the dead, y 'all. Like, can you believe this? And because of that, we do have this living hope in a God who actually raises the dead. And that changes everything.
[00:07:23]
Life on the other side, it moves from scarcity, from this idea that, oh no, what am I going to do? I don't have enough. How am I going to handle this raise in my rent? How am I going to handle one of the kind of these financial struggles that I'm going through? But actually moving from a place of scarcity to actually generosity, moving from a place of isolation, of especially in a city like this, which is so dense and yet so lonely that what does it look like for us to be a people who are isolated but actually to...join this new family as a community of people.
[00:07:41]
We're not saying that, hey, now, because we're Christians, we don't struggle with any of these things like anxiety, being self -seeking, or anything like that. Instead, we're talking about after Jesus resurrects from the grave. In the earliest Christians, you see this vision of what life could be like. And in this vision, they basically talk about these different movements, that in light of the resurrection, what if we could actually be a people who embraced the life with Jesus in such a profound way that it changed everything?
[00:08:55]
You got to imagine like the early Christian movement, it was not founded from a place of power with people that had all sorts of social capital. It wasn't from the academy. It wasn't from the upper echelons of government or money or wealth or fame. In fact, these were people that were incredibly poor. They were a persecuted minority, and they were talking about a Jewish messiah in the midst of this Roman empire, which rules that known world during that time in that region.
[00:09:56]
Somehow, there are people who are in poverty, who are an oppressed minority, who are now talking about a peace that transcends understanding. They're talking about generosity when the rest of the world tends to be so frugal in the way that they think about life. And so you got to get yourself in a position where it's almost like, no, no, do you see? Like this moral vision, not even a moral vision, but a vision for life. Like it comes from a people who are on the underside of society.
[00:11:38]
This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. What? He's talking about a sacrificial kind of love that we are to have.
[00:12:36]
If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, the word for pity is this word for having, being moved, like in the gut, having pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. What a vision for life.
[00:13:25]
Even within the church, the questions that we ask, and listen, as a pastor of a church, I would probably have the same questions, right? When it comes to a church, what does this church have to do? How can it serve me? How can this church, is the preaching okay? Is the music okay? Are the snacks, is the coffee, how's the coffee? Or, like many of the questions that I ask, has a lot to do with my own personal fulfillment, my own personal needs. Even the way that I evaluate church communities.
[00:17:09]
Dear children, let us not love with just words or speech. And again, there's this movement, especially, that comes from our politicians. Whenever there's another school shooting, there's always kind of the tweet, our thoughts and prayers are with them. And look, John is actually, just think about how prophetic these words are, even to today's world. He basically says, not just with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. Putting your money where your mouth is. Actually doing something about it.
[00:18:17]
A flourishing life is actually not self -seeking. A flourishing life is self -giving. It has an orientation that's fundamentally different than the ways of the world.
[00:18:58]
Dopamine is actually a neurotransmitter that usually kind of helps regulate, especially when I feel pleasure. And one of the things that Dr. Lemke actually writes about is how our culture is so self -seeking in the ways that we look for pleasure in hedonism. We look for pleasure in all sorts of things. Even technological advances. We look for things that will be more pleasing and easier for us. So things that are pleasing for us, things that kind of give us these short -term hits of joy and pleasure.
[00:20:24]
The antidote to addiction is not sobriety. Here's what Lemke writes. it's not just giving up some of those things although she does talk about fasting and taking these 30 -minute purges from this dopamine hit but it's actually connection now connection through what here's what she talks about in terms of what connection might look like connection through honesty humility in other words sharing honestly and humbly about what we're going through but it's also through serving others.
[00:23:34]
She talks about how actually the way that we begin to heal from this addictive self -seeking way is actually to start serving others isn't that fascinating there's this vision for serving others.
[00:24:51]
John is giving this vision that goes so contrary to the ways of life and ways of the world that you and I often we've been so awash in which is this self -seeking self -promoting manner of living he wants you to be moved to the heart but also to do it with actions and with truth.
[00:25:46]
Serving others through words just through saying kind words to each other, serving people through just being nice especially in a city like ours, serving others with time and energy as Alexa was giving this announcement of this heart and one of the things I so appreciate about this community is the heart to serve our neighbors and to actually spend time and energy thinking about how we can bring resources to bear for those in need.
[00:26:15]
For those of you who volunteer whether with connection or production or with our kids and teenagers or worship or prayer or groups and building community and facilitating community the ways that we serve one another and again a part of me when it comes down to like oh well I'm not in any place because I've just been feeling really down or anxious well what if the invitation was to actually take a step and get connected through serving not only that but with our money being a people who are generous giving of our money.
[00:26:52]
This is a dog eat dog world and this city is honestly no one's looking out for anyone else I've got to look out for myself I mean that's honestly that's the phrase that comes to mind whenever I think about this disposition and it makes sense and what social scientists and what scientists have said about a moral vision for how we end up especially in our primal nature as human beings behave it really is survival of the fittest look out for yourself this is the way that the world works now do you see how counter this is then gosh even me as a pastor who's preaching this message I'm like so self -seeking I'm trying to look out for me and my own family like this vision is stunning where does it come from.
[00:28:44]
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit rather in humility value others above yourselves not looking to your own self -interest but each of you to the interests of others what listen for those of you who are married it's hard enough to do this for our spouse isn't it sorry that i shouldn't presume that for anyone i'm saying that for myself like it's hard enough for me to do that with my wife and my children like to do that with to do that with even others.
[00:31:54]
The center of our faith is not a philosophy a moral vision alone it's a person the person of god jesus christ who dies for us and the invitation is and one of the things that i love is you know john 15 um it's a passage about remaining connected to the vine and apart from god you can do nothing and in that passage it talks about how the only way that we have life to give to others is when we are connected to the vine is when we ourselves are remaining in this love relationship with god is when we have pondered the love of god seen his self -giving love for us it's the only way we have anything fulfilling to give.
[00:33:01]
One of the things i love about john and the early christians is they knew that this vision for life that the starting place was to to be tethered to the one who loves you and died for you and gave his life and the one who invites us into a vision to be a people who actually just don't look out for ourselves but to look for the good of others you
[00:34:06]
