People: Living Loved and Loving Others in Christ

we have failed. What I'm saying is every human being bears the image of God. And so if we want them to fully realize who they are, who God made them to be, and who they can be in Christ, we gotta stop trying to distract them with things that aren't our key mission of introducing them to that God who stamped his image on their heart. [00:53:33] (28 seconds)  #ImageBearerMission

I I need us to realize that the image of God is not a reward bestowed on those with good behavior. It's a gift given by God himself to every human being. People, every person is an image bearer. Number two, every person is loved by Jesus. Matthew nine thirty six, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. [00:58:10] (30 seconds)  #EveryoneImageBearer

We have somehow come up with amazing core values that no other church has before. These core values are probably similar to a lot of other churches because we share the same book. These are biblical values. And so I'm not trying to get you to be something that God doesn't want you to be. I'm trying to help you grow into the church family that God's already designed you to be. And so today, our first core value is people. [00:43:24] (26 seconds)  #PeopleFirstChurch

The point is God didn't create you to be alone. He created you to be, in relationship, not just with other people, but with God himself. So this is where it gets complicated because there are some people who don't reflect this image very clearly, and so we might be tempted to say, well, they're not image bearers and devalue them. We can never do that. [00:51:24] (31 seconds)  #MadeForRelationship

Jesus being moved to such an extent by with compassion that he feels it physically, that there's a knot in his stomach. Have you ever seen something or been so discouraged by something that you feel a knot in your stomach? That's how Jesus views people who are far from God. Jesus loves every person. Many, a few of a few verses later, he speaks about capacity. [01:00:00] (30 seconds)  #CompassionInAction

some of you need this, are image bearers of the God you worship. People you disagree with, people you agree with, the rich, the poor, LGBTQ, heterosexual fornicators, you just name it. Okay? They are made in the image of God. It's quiet in here. You still here? Okay. They are made in the image of God. [00:54:47] (26 seconds)  #ImageBearerForAll

But I wanna talk about capacity because he does. He says there the the need is greater than the laborers. If you've ever been in a situation at work where the demands are greater than the than the team. Right? Like, I rem like, every time we're in Africa, there are a 120 people an hour going through the clinic. We are I'm just monitoring, like, where's the bottleneck? Let's find it. Let's resolve it. Right? And Jesus, he sees we aren't we don't have a sufficient team for this. [01:01:50] (31 seconds)  #MoreWorkersNeeded

There's there's a lot there. We can't hit it on all of it. You know, church is growing. Guess who's growing it? Not the pastors. We pray to the Lord, and he's the one who's in charge of the harvest. So when we see people raise their hand to follow Christ or they come for we saw three, maybe two more in the back. I I we're not sure. People decided to follow Jesus last Sunday. [01:00:46] (25 seconds)  #GodGrowsTheChurch