[00:00:02.930] Hi there. My name is Preston Pouteaux. Welcome to the Lake Ridge Community Church Podcast. This is where we share some of our messages from Sunday mornings. So we're glad you're here to listen. We'd love for you to join us in person. We meet on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m at Our Lady of Wisdom School here in Chestermere.[00:00:21.260] At our core, we're a community of.[00:00:23.190] People, so we gather on Sundays, but we also do a lot in the week. Together, we are people learning to follow Jesus and love our city. So to learn more, visit lakeridgecommunity.com. Hope to check in and visit with you soon. Take care, thanks for listening.[00:00:45.060] King Herod was the king. He was called Herod the Great. He built so many things. We got to visit all of his palaces. He had palaces here, there, everywhere. These palaces. We've seen more Herod palaces than right. Colin and Kayla are nodding. We've seen palaces. This guy was wanting to be a king that was never forgotten. He was the king, Herod the Great for a reason. He built so much stuff, he wanted to be remembered. But boy, was he overshadowed because his life coincided with Jesus's life. And Jesus kind of took the stage for history. We have a king that wanted to be at the center of the story, and then he got overshadowed. So here's a bit of the Christmas story. So Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Judea, during the reign of King Herod, about the time some wise men from the eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem asking, where's the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him. You can imagine that if you are Herod, this super king who wants to be the king known forever, whose reign wants to never end, and you hear somebody coming from faraway lands, from the east saying, hey, we've heard there's a new king to be born, you'd freak out a little bit.[00:01:59.290] And they did. It said this. Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. The word from this would have been uproar. There was an uproar in Jerusalem when they heard that there could be another king. Impossible. King Herod is our king. Put a pin in that. We're going to come back to this uproar moment. So, Matthew 21, you have it there. I'm going to read it and unpack it a little bit because I think we're going to get a sense of what's going on in this story, and it's a pretty profound story. Jesus and his disciples approached Jerusalem. Well, where were they coming from before this? The triumphal entry story doesn't just begin approaching Jerusalem, but it begins somewhere farther away. If I put Jerusalem here, I need somebody to hold a piece of paper up. Can I have a paper holder here? Look at this, Ed. Here is Jerusalem. Ed, I'm going to have you hold it there. There is Jerusalem. Well, Jesus, he had come from first from the Galilee, which is a three day walk. Then he made his way down to probably about this far away from where Ed is.[00:03:15.640] He was in Jericho, the lowest city on the earth, 2700 meters below sea level, and he had to work his way up through really rough up and down to make his way over to Jerusalem. So there's a bit of a distance there and we're going to unpack what that's about Ed? Awesome. I will call you up ten more times. That was just so, so good. So Jesus, he is in Jericho, and he begins to proclaim the coming of his kingdom in ways before he even begins to come into Jerusalem. Did you know in all the ancient prophets of the bygone times when they prophesied that somebody would come? They said, Somebody will come who will make lame men walk and the blind to see. This is something the prophets never did, but they had hoped that one day someone would. And so here is Jesus. He's in Jericho just before this. And Jesus, he shows up, and not only does he heal one blind man, but he heals two. They were sitting by the road and they heard Jesus coming and they began shouting, lord, Son of David, have mercy on us. And the crowd, they said they yelled at him, Be quiet.[00:04:25.250] But they only shouted louder, lord, Son of David, have mercy on us. When Jesus heard them, he stopped. He said, what do you want me to do for you, Lord? They said, we want to see. And Jesus felt sorry for them and touched their eyes, and instantly they could see and they followed Him. Jesus had also met another man at a pool who had been lame for 30 some years. And he said the same thing. What do you want me to do for you two people who are obviously blind and lame? And he's asking them, what do you want? What do you want from your king? Well, we want to see. We want to walk. This is how Jesus is setting the stage to say, this is the kind of King that I'm at, that I am. You see, Herod, he was always cloistered away in his palaces. He didn't care if you couldn't see or walk. But he was a different kind of king, and Jesus was inaugurating something different. So Jesus goes from Jericho and begins his journey, which would have taken a good full day, and it would have been sweaty and hot, and he would have worked his way up to a place just outside of Jerusalem.[00:05:28.050] Jesus liked to walk. Jesus didn't have a car. We have no other reports of Him riding any animal except in this story, which we'll get to. But he walked. He hoofed it everywhere. He sent his disciples out to hoof it everywhere. He walked from way up the very, very north to the very south. And it would have taken days of walking anywhere in between. This picture of Jesus, who is maybe some gentle, gentle guy who kind of, I don't know, moves slowly through something, no picture a good mountain man or something, somebody who liked to walk, who got dusty and took his disciples and said, you're walking along with me. In a time when a lot of people maybe stayed in their place, he went out a king who walked, king Herod. He was often carried everywhere. He had a few people who had hoist him up. In fact, he had a gout so bad that he could barely walk, right? He was carried everywhere. And here's Jesus walking everywhere. So get this picture in your mind of a walking Jesus who's sweaty, who's dirty, and who is excited to move on to the next place.[00:06:38.740] So Jesus makes his way up from Jericho after healing, and there's people even following him. Then they're excited. Why is Jesus going up to Jerusalem? Well, he's going up to Jerusalem because it is Passover. And good Jews would go to Jerusalem for Passover and they would prepare to retell the story of how they were rescued, how God saved them. The Passover story is just a retelling of how God took people from Egypt and rescued them out of slavery. And God had a mighty hand of rescue save us. And God did. So Jesus, he works his way up from Jericho and he makes his way 3400ft, 15 miles and makes his way too close to Jerusalem. John Twelve said that he shows up in his friend's house. And if you read, if you want to have a really kind of amazing passion week, read all the different accounts because they all piece together some pieces of what happened. So John Twelve says this six days before Passover celebration began, jesus arrived in Bethany. Bethany is a town probably about, probably about an hour's walk outside of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, there's a valley and it goes down there's.[00:07:53.750] Bethany. You go up on the Mount of Olives, where there's Beth Phage, and you come down the other side and into Jerusalem while he comes to the base of it on the far side, on the east side. And he shows up there at a home of his friends, of his friend Lazarus, the man he had raised from the dead. It says in John. And a dinner was prepared for him in Jesus honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Imagine sitting there with a man who is dead and buried, right, who you rose from the dead. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary took a twelve ounce jar of expensive perfume made from the essence of Nard. I actually went and visited the Jerusalem Nard Maker, because who doesn't, right? I brought back some nard for my sister. Oh, yeah, you brought the nard good. I love just saying the word nard. It's just so fun to say. And he anointed Jesus's feet with it. Or she anointed Jesus's feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.[00:08:58.860] So here Jesus. He's receiving this care from his friends. He's healing, he's coming in, they're anointing him. And all around this, Jesus is telling the story about how he's about to die. And his disciples aren't really getting their heads around it. Jesus is scary at, the disciple who would soon betray him, said the perfume was worth a year's wage. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor. Not that he cared for the poor. It says he was a thief. And since he was in charge of the disciples money, he often stole some for himself. But Jesus replied leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. So here Jesus is getting ready. You see, there's so much more to the Triumphal entry than just him walking in. He's fulfilling some very important pieces. In fact, Jesus, as he's about to come into Jerusalem from the east, he is retracing the steps of one of Israel's favorite kings, king David, who actually fled from his son ABSALOM, going in that direction where one king once left. Here's Jesus, the King coming on that same road in in Micah four two.[00:10:14.220] It says that Messiah will come from the east with healing in his wings. Here's Jesus, he just healed these blind men and he's coming to the house of Lazarus, who he rose from the dead, and he's coming from the east. And anybody that knew their scripture at all would have been like, what's going on? Is the king coming back? He's healing where others couldn't, and now he's showing up from the east with healing in his wings. Is this the Messiah? Isaiah 40. It says he's going to come from the wilderness. And he does. He comes from
Glenn Peterson joined us and explored how life’s disruptions are met by God’s peace, not just as an experience, but as a person. Jesus himself is our peace.
[00:00:03.130] - Speaker 1Hi there. My name is Preston Pouteaux. Welcome to the Lake Ridge Community Church Podcast. This is where we share some of our messages from Sunday mornings. So we're glad you're here to listen.[00:00:14.210] - Speaker 1We'd love for you to join us in person. We meet on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m at Our Lady of Wisdom School here in Chestermere. At our core, we're a community of people, so we gather on on Sundays, but we also do a lot in the week. Together. We are people learning to follow Jesus and love our city.[00:00:31.080] - Speaker 1So to learn more, visit lakeridgecommunity.com. Hope to check in and visit with you soon. Take care. Thanks for listening.[00:00:44.340] - Speaker 1I feel like I'm going through a bit of a renaissance of Jesus. Have you ever had those moments in your life where it's like, Jesus means more than he did before? Something is moving in you? Have you ever had that season of life? They're precious seasons because I've also had the seasons where it's kind of wintry and dry and you wonder if Jesus is anywhere.[00:01:02.760] - Speaker 1Some days I feel like I was explained to somebody, was like, what's it like to be a pastor? And I was like, sometimes it's like standing in a shower that's a hot water and cold water coming out of two direct faucets. So you're grateful that you're standing under hot water, but you're also standing under cold water. Do you kind of get the picture there? There's a lot that comes at us and I think Jesus meets us in it all.[00:01:27.010] - Speaker 1Hey. We are on a journey where we are, I called it Mission Friends. This is a phrase that is ancient in the covenant and piatism who we are. It was a phrase that was used and we are wrestling with what it is to be human, and it's hard to be human sometimes. We're standing under the hot and cold tap of life.[00:01:46.030] - Speaker 1There's something good and cold coming at us at the same time. We're like, how do I hold all these things? So we're taking a look a little bit here at Scripture and we're deeply diving in and we're going to be also exploring some wisdom, I think, from those who have gone before us. I'm a bit of a space nerd. I like spaces in my room growing up.[00:02:06.330] - Speaker 1My kids want to ask me all the time, like, what was your room like growing up? And I had Mum and dad put a big mural on the wall and it was like a spaceship overlooking Earth. And I would lay there pretending that I am like a spaceman or something, right? It was really cool and I loved it a lot. One of the things I really loved too, was space.[00:02:27.870] - Speaker 1Learning about space probes. Going to Mars as a young boy would track with every single one that would happen, and I still do. I have a little, like, notification to know if something's launching because that means I got to wait a few months and it's going to eventually get there and then I can follow up with this and it's really cool. Do you know how violent it is for something to travel, launch off, travel and then land? It is a multimillion dollar, sometimes billion dollar project to get something.[00:02:55.330] - Speaker 1It's the most important mission that some people spend their entire lives working on. And then they blast it off, hope it doesn't explode, hope it survives radiation and everything. Then it has to land in some violent way and stop on the planet. And when it gets there, do you know the first thing almost every single probe does when it lands? It puts out its solar panels and soaks up the sun.[00:03:22.580] - Speaker 1What an interesting thing. One of the first things that this thing, which has a very important mission to do, it has a long list of things it's to accomplish, but what's its first thing it does? It stops and soaks up the sun. It does a whole check of its systems and they run everything through and they do the smallest little things to make sure this thing is ready. The biggest challenge to anything going to Mars is dust, something that would build up over time on its solar panels, because the second those solar panels can't receive the sun anymore, the ticking time bomb is on, that this mission is over.[00:03:58.000] - Speaker 1I think we are people who are called to sit and soak up the sun. Your life is so important, what you are called to do here vital. There's no one else doing what you are doing right now. You are the one occupying your life. You are the one who's important to those around you.[00:04:14.390] - Speaker 1And your mission is vital. And yet sometimes we get on with it too quick before we know that we have to sit and soak in the sun, but to sit and find our place of rest in Jesus before we begin. This is not the way that the people of Israel were worshiping and coming close to living this one and beautiful life. In the Bible, Elijah was a prophet in a time of deep chaos, a time when there had been some good kings and then a series of bad kings, people named a kings named Ahab and Omri, his father. These were two leaders who were regarded terribly in the Bible for their leadership.[00:05:00.340] - Speaker 1They were kings that were on a mission of almost destruction. They disregarded God so deeply it led to assassinations and suicide and war. And at the end, these two were considered, it says in the Bible, they did more evil than all who were before them. There's a brutal vision of leadership that happens in the book of first Kings.[00:05:28.800] - Speaker 1Here they were a father and a son, Ahab and Omri. And one of the things that they did was they set up the nation to be economically stable for the first time, in a long time, they had established some trade routes and they were pretty good. For the first time ever, they were maybe rolling in some of the cash. They could build some things, they were building cities, and these cities were prospering. But these leaders were not going the way of god.[00:05:57.160] - Speaker 1They set up new places of worship. They actually were no longer just worshiping in Jerusalem, but they set up some new temples and some high places. High places were like these shrines, places where you could go and pray no longer with the whole community, but off to the side. You could go and have your own personal experience of god. But these gods weren't enough.[00:06:19.120] - Speaker 1These gods, the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob Yahweh, this this god was not, not exciting enough, actually. So they came up with they found two other gods that they could kind of come alongside, the god Ball and the god of Astreth. And I've been to some archeologists, have found some of these shrines and you can see there's like a rock for Ball of us. And they would often have a place where they'd put up a stick for Ashworth. And these are this, these are the types of gods that they would worship.[00:06:49.960] - Speaker 1It's one thing to be worshiping an idol, but these gods, these gods suited their every need. You see, Ball and Ashworth, they were ashworth was a sex goddess. And they would set up this sex goddess beside and they had a whole new way of worship. You see, it's the first time worship is given as a consumable experience. Worship is not coming and sitting beside god and saying god, I love you, shape me, let me follow you, let me live this one and beautiful life with, you know, Ball and Asterisk.[00:07:22.500] - Speaker 1These gods of this time, these were gods of convenient consumption, a consumable experience. Instead of prayer and songs of trust, it was self gratifying products. You were coming to get something out of these gods, not coming to set yourself before them. Eugene Peterson put it like this. He says, when you are terror stricken, you offer a sacrifice.[00:07:48.300] - Speaker 1When you're anxious about your crops, you make a visit to the temple prostitute. When you're joyful, you ingest the wind god feelings called the tune. Fears of panic, of terror, of desire and enthusiasm. You see, you were in charge of your worship experience under ahab and omri. These gods were simply there to appease your anxiety, meet your needs of your self governed life.[00:08:14.970] - Speaker 1You were in charge. They didn't care about you, they didn't want you around, but they were there. And if you brought something to them, they might see you for a second, but they don't like you. It's an ultimate religion for a world in chaos, actually, a world of wealth, a me world. It's perfect for those who want to get something out of their worship experience at their own pace.[00:08:40.070] - Speaker 1On their own terms and their own pleasure. As a result, the nation was in freefall. They finally had everything that they wanted. They had homes, they had gardens, they had all of these things. But they forgot that it wasn't all about him.[00:08:54.960] - Speaker 1And it says in one King 16, it provoked the Lord to anger. I sometimes get angry. I sometimes do. I sometimes do for the wrong reasons. Sometimes I do for the right reasons.[00:09:07.070] - Speaker 1I'm like, no, you smacking your sister around. That is not allowed in the putto home. That's not how we do things, right? God was angry because he's like, you guys treating each other like this, you guys treating this beautiful thing of faith into something that's just consumable. No, that isn't going to work here because it's going to destroy you.[00:09:27.810] - Speaker 1And it already was. God intended a better way. Not a frenetic religion reacting to a world in chaos and negotiating with these transacting idols, but a relationship that establishes peace, creates a land and a place of fruitfulness, a community of people who came together and trusted God and each other. A place where wrongs are set right, where love for God flourishes. Worship was always meant to be about awe and wonder, about beauty, with God leading the conversation and us responding, not the other way around.[00:10:10.920] - Speaker 1God imagine sex and f
Hi there. My name is Preston POUTEAUX. Welcome to the Lake Ridge Community Church Podcast. This is where we share some of our messages from Sunday mornings. So we're glad you're here to listen.[00:00:14.210] - Speaker 1We'd love for you to join us in person. We meet on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m at Our Lady of Wisdom School here in Chestermere. At our core, we're a community of people, so we gather on on Sundays, but we also do a lot in the week. Together, we are people learning to follow Jesus and love our city. So to learn more, visit lakeridgecommunity.com.[00:00:34.140] - Speaker 1Hope to check in and visit with you soon. Take care. Thanks for listening.[00:00:45.700] - Speaker 1Let's pray together. Father, you are good to us and we love you. Give us imagination, for your spirit is speaking to us today. May we find a new way. Show us the way.[00:01:00.110] - Speaker 1Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Amen.[00:01:06.360] - Speaker 1There is grace for this journey of faith in Jesus. You have a God who deeply loves you. He has thought of you before the creation of it all. He has made you nothing about you as a surprise to Him. Maybe sometimes you raise his eyebrow, I'm sure, but he has even accommodated for that, and it is good.[00:01:25.200] - Speaker 1We are on a long journey over this whole year to talk about what it is to be human in the hands of a loving God. And it's exciting and it's good. But maybe on your journey of figuring out what it is to follow Jesus and take a look at a world around you that is in shambles, you might pause for a second and come up with a strategy for being a Christian in a broken world. This is a little bit what we're going to talk about today, our journey, and I'm going to weave all these pieces together. We are talking about what is the mission, friends?[00:01:58.370] - Speaker 1A pious way to be human? We are in the Covenant Church, which has its roots in Piatism. We're going to unpack that for us a little bit here. But maybe you are standing there and reading the news. Maybe you're like me.[00:02:10.380] - Speaker 1I look at Twitter every day to see if Ukraine has finally got the Russians out. That's that's pretty much what I use Twitter for. And as I do, I go through a long, winding journey to figure out what to do in this world. What does following Jesus have to do with all the complexities of my human existence here? I'm going to show you five ways to start, and I'm not going to comment on them except to tell you what they are.[00:02:33.590] - Speaker 1And you might put a pin in some of these and go, oh, that's me. When I started following Jesus, that's how I thought the world would get changed. These are from a guy named Richard Neighbor. And Richard Neighbor, he might be rolling over in his grave when he sees how I summarize something that was deep and complex theological stuff into something as simplistic as I'm about to present it. So if you know a neighbor scholar, say, yeah, Preston probably butchered this, but I think that he might actually think that I did a pretty good job here.[00:03:00.300] - Speaker 1I'm going to show you five. He calls them different things, but I'm going to call them this. The first one on the far side. This is dealing with a world that's crazy. And you decide to follow Jesus.[00:03:11.450] - Speaker 1You might decide to be what's called what I call through Nebra. I call it a bunker Christianity. What is that? A bunker Christianity. The world is very bad.[00:03:21.940] - Speaker 1Very, very bad. And so I have found Jesus and I have found a safe tower, a safe bunker to go and hide. It has a four foot thick door. I'm going to get in it and close it. I know Jesus says, love neighbor, but have you seen my neighbors?[00:03:38.390] - Speaker 1They're crazy town, right? I'm going to live in a bunker, and hopefully pretty soon God will, I got a ticket to heaven, so God will extricate me from this terrible world and we'll be done. That I call Bunker Christianity. It's all bad. We hide, we separate and protect ourselves from the world around us.[00:03:57.630] - Speaker 1The next one. So if that's bunker Christianity, here's something I call bleeping Christianity.[00:04:06.100] - Speaker 1Bleeping Christianity. Yes, the world is bad, but we'll bleep out the swears, right? As long as we close our eyes, keep our head down, we have to go in the world because we need to work. We have to go in the world. And I guess God does say love neighbors, but I'm only going to really love certain ones.[00:04:23.630] - Speaker 1And really, if there's something bad, if we bleep it out, cross it out, create a veggie tail, subculture for it all, we can kind of close our eyes enough and keep our little circle healthy. Some permeable walls to let some people in, but we keep it clean. Close your eyes and figure a way through that's. The second one, third one, chainsaw Christianity. The world's kind of half good, half bad, right?[00:04:53.060] - Speaker 1But guess what? If we work together, we can cut out the bad parts, right? We can slice out the parts that are bad. And if we do this really well, we'll actually remove the bad and keep the good. And we've got to now work out what parts are cut out and what parts are kept, right?[00:05:10.280] - Speaker 1Chain cells, zoom zone. We're going to go through bit by bit as the church and figure this out. Have you put a pin in yet? Are you stopping in one of these? Here we go.[00:05:21.470] - Speaker 1Next one. Number four. I call this power suit Christianity, right? What does a power suit do? They know that the world isn't all bad.[00:05:32.610] - Speaker 1In fact, if I put on my power suit, if I figure out I can use the world's ways, I can use the world's techniques to get Jesus's accomplishments done, right. The world actually has some pretty good things. Like if we just vote for the Republicans or the Democrats, we are going to figure this out. Power suit Christianity. If we can get in places of power, then we will be in control, right.[00:05:57.530] - Speaker 1If our nation was only just ever Christian and we got there and we had enough people operating there, we would be good. God can use the bad things of the world to his advantage and recreate the world in a better way. At the very least. If I'm a lawyer or a businessman or parent, jesus has some little hot tips to help me get through things, right? I'm mostly of this way, but the pro tips of Jesus give me the advantage.[00:06:27.520] - Speaker 1I have some values advantage going on on my side if I follow Jesus a little bit. And the last one, hot tub Christianity. I like this one. Look at this. Chill dude.[00:06:40.090] - Speaker 1Whatever happens, happens. I don't want to look any different than my neighbor. I want to look like the world around me. Right? The world around me is going this direction.[00:06:49.090] - Speaker 1Well. Jesus helps me just go with the flow, dude. Right. All is well. I just soak in whatever feels good.[00:06:57.050] - Speaker 1I don't look any different than the culture around me. I am exactly like it in every way. If you were to put a taut tub Christian beside anybody who wasn't Christian, you would not really see a difference. They would be about the same. So you see from bunker Christianity all the way through, nebras points these out.[00:07:15.300] - Speaker 1He has different ways of talking about them in his Christian culture book. You have probably read it and we get to the other side with hot tub Christianity. What do you think? What do you think?[00:07:28.820] - Speaker 1Who are you? Or maybe it's easier to point figure out somebody else. Who is that Christian that you know, that you really don't like very much, right? Are you frustrated with the hot tub Christians that you know, oh, they're just caving in, right? Are you frustrated with the bunker Christians who is hiding away from the world or somebody in between?[00:07:49.000] - Speaker 1Richard Nebras points these five out. How do you go forward with it? What do you think is the right answer? Which is the best way? Is there another way?[00:08:03.280] - Speaker 1I think sometimes we have to pause and wonder at how Jesus is helping us navigate the world around us. And in this room I almost wonder if we have somebody in every one of those camps in one way or another. And so when we encounter each other, we go how are these people navigating the world? Why do they see it differently than me? Well, the pietists are these people who were dealing with the same things that you are in the world.[00:08:29.880] - Speaker 1But it was a long time ago so they didn't have running water or electricity, which made it just a little bit harder. But they still had great challenges around them in the world, and there were very major challenges. And there's a story, it's one of the starting stories of pietism. And I've shared this one other time, and a lot of people talk to me about it, but it's a story of a woman named Maria Nil's daughter. I came across it again as I was reading, and I wanted to share the story again.[00:08:56.560] - Speaker 1They called her Mother of Val Farm, or Mori Val, and she was a widow, mother of six, who in Sweden at that time. If your parents owed money to somebody else, you could give them your kids as a servitude to pay off your debt. Yeah. So your children would essentially become slaves to someone else, and they could be in that state for a long time. But if the parents passed away, these children, instead of going to an orphanage, they would go and they'd be in some sort of indentured servitude or even slavery to somebody else.[00:09:33.500] - Speaker 1And this woman, a mother of six, she was deeply moved by Jesus, and she saw this happen. And she probably she probably didn't know neighbor's construct, but she was probably looking and going, I could hide in a bunker and be away from these kids.[00:09:49.120] - Speaker 1I could maybe just keep my eyes closed. I could say, oh, thi
00:00:03.130] - Speaker 1Hi there. My name is Preston Pouteaux. Welcome to the Lake Ridge Community Church Podcast. This is where we share some of our messages from Sunday mornings. So we're glad you're here to listen. We'd love for you to join us in person. We meet on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m at Our Lady of Wisdom School here in Chestermere. At our core, we're a community of people, so we gather on on Sundays. But we also do a lot in the week together. We are people learning to follow Jesus and love our city. So to learn more, visit lakeridgecommunity.com. Hope to check in and visit with you soon. Take care. Thanks for listening.[00:00:44.240] - Speaker 2What do you think are in here? Look, I'm going to share with you what's in some of these things. You can sit on down. The sermon will peak in about five, six minutes and then it'll just all kind of slide down after that. Hey. We are on a journey all year long to talk what it is to have this one and beautiful life in Jesus. I just firmly believe that Jesus shows us do I got a question already about the whole sermon series about the end of the entire year? Yeah. Okay. We are exploring what it is and I think I'm proposing all year long that if we point our eyes towards Jesus, he will show us what to do with this one and beautiful life. And so we're going to be doing this throughout the year in lots of different ways, exploring what it is to be human in the hands of the loving God that made us. And so we are about to enter on a bit of a journey and and we are going to talk for the next few Sundays. Our sermon series is called Mission Friends. A Pious way to be human.[00:01:49.260] - Speaker 2That's a lot there. Isn't that's a mouthful? And that's why I'm going to unpack it over the next little while here the story of God. We come from a tradition as covenant people, part of the Evangelical Covenant Church, and as a group called Pietists, and I'll explain what that is, is that we deeply love the Bible. We think that the story of God makes sense of our lives today. We think that if we somehow were to get into God's story or have God's story get into us, some interesting weaving of God's story in our story, that somehow, in some way, we would begin to walk in a way that is a lot like Jesus. Did Jesus read the Bible? Did you ever think about that? Did Jesus read the Bible? What did Jesus think of the Bible? What did Jesus think of God's story? That's kind of a weird kind of mind trip, isn't it? Because we say that Jesus is God, so did he have to learn the Bible? What did he have to do with the story of God? We're going to unpack that a little bit kids. And I want to show you my first thing here.[00:03:00.240] - Speaker 2And it is a box. I got a box. It's my daughter's 9th birthday today. And she was given this beautiful box by her sister. And I thought it was lovely. Let's see what's inside. Another box. I know. How deep is this going to go? Did you know that when Jesus was young and all the way while Jesus was growing up, he would go to something called synagogue? This was the place where people would gather, kind of like this. And they would gather around and somebody would go to the back in the front, behind a curtain and pull out a box. And this box would be raised up high and carried. And it was a big box. This is a little box. But it was a big box that they lifted out. And suddenly this was very important. Suddenly the box would be opened and in it would come out a Bible. Well, the Bible looked a little different back then. The story of God was in a big scroll. The scroll was probably about this big. Sometimes it took two people to carry it, and it was covered in a big velvet thing and it was inside of a box.[00:04:12.660] - Speaker 2And the box was called the Arc of the Law, right? And Jesus, they would sometimes have people read. And one day, Jesus, they brought out this big scroll, pulled it out. You see, no one had a Bible, right? There was only one kept here. And they open it up and they'd unfold it. And Jesus would read from it. And one day, Jesus opened it up and he read from it, and he said, today, what I'm reading is come fulfilled. It's come alive. What I'm reading is suddenly coming out of the box, and it is now going to enter into the world. And everybody was like, what is he talking about? No, what you do with it, everybody thought, is you take it afterwards and you put it back in the box and then back in the other box and you put it away. And Jesus, he came out and he said, no, today this story goes out. What do you think about that? What do you think about something like that? Well, this is the next thing. So Jesus brings a story and it brings it out of the box. He takes it as a gift and he unwraps it.[00:05:26.570] - Speaker 2That's one of the most important things about the Bible, is we unwrap it. And the second one is this. Jesus did something even more. Look at this. This is every home has one of these. Does anybody guess what this is? A junk box. Yeah. This is a sewing kit. Look at this. This is a sewing kit. We got different colors of stuff, of thread in there. We have needles. Be careful if you put your fingers in there. And we have look at this. Where is it? We have patches. This pair of jeans that I'm wearing, these are my favorite pair of jeans. And look at the knee. I wore these today because look at what I did. Look at my patch job. What do you think of that? Terrible, right? That's a terrible patch job. I know nothing about patching things, but this is where I go to patch things up and sew something onto my favorite jeans. Well, guess what? Did you know that Jesus, he took the story of God and he sowed it into his heart. He sowed it into his life. The grand story of God became so connected to Jesus that he carried with it wherever he went.[00:06:38.970] - Speaker 2Did you know that Jesus, he knew the story of God so well? He knew the grand story. In fact, he refers to in his teachings. He refers to Adam and Eve and Abel and Noah and Lot. He refers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He tells stories of Moses and David and Solomon, even the Queen of Sheba. Elijah naman Zechariah daniel Jonah. These are just a few. Then he starts to quote Psalms, and he quotes Isaiah and Malachi and Deuteronomy. Jesus was just telling the story of the Old Testament over and over again. Woven into his life was this grand story. It was his. Did you know one in ten things that Jesus says is directly just quoted from the Old Testament? 180 verses of the 1800 places where Jesus is talking about something. It is stories from the Old Testament, the story of God, it is etched in his heart. Or as I say, it is sown into him, he is carrying it with him. His heart is so etched in his heart, and it spills out in his life to heal, to remind, to forgive, to teach, and to guide his friends. You see, it's not locked away in a box.[00:07:58.800] - Speaker 2It is now brought by Jesus and sewed into his heart. That's what he's carrying around, is this grand story sowed into his heart. Last thing, what do I got here? This is a good backpack. This has served me well for, like, 20 years. There's a lot going on in this backpack. Act back. Look at this. Yeah, I got a bee on there. I got a beekeeper. Look. Put that inside. What am I doing here? What am I doing? Yeah. What am I doing? Yeah, I'm going somewhere with this man. I'm on the move, right? Did you know that Jesus, he didn't just put the Bible back into the box, it was stitched in his heart. But the Bible, his story of God that he's now carrying with him, is now on the move. He's taking it somewhere. One day, Jesus was on a journey, and he brought himself to this little mountain. It's called a mountain. It's called Mount Moray. And it isn't big, but on Mount Moray, at the base of Mount Moray, is this ancient, ancient long forgotten city, Schunum. And it was a place where a miracle happened in the Old Testament.[00:09:20.370] - Speaker 2It was a place where in the Old Testament, there was once a guy named Elijah. And Elisha, when he would pass by this mount, he'd stay in this family's house in Schunum. And when Jesus went and stayed at when Elisha went and stayed at the Schunumites house, these people, they wanted a kid really bad. So one day they had a little baby boy. And the baby boy grew up. And Elisha got to know this family and care for them as he's traveling around the land. Well, one day this boy dies, and they send out far away they send out a person who goes a day away to find Elisha and say, come back. This person is dead. This kid that you know, that you love is dead. And Elisha comes back and he does all these different things that eventually the boy, can you believe it? Rises from the dead. He comes back from the dead. And it's a major story. Well, one day, Jesus went to the same place. Now. It's called name. Let's see what happens to that story. Jesus is walking through at the base of Mount Moray at the same place, and guess what he sees coming out of the town?[00:10:39.220] - Speaker 2It is a procession, a funeral. These people are carrying a boy that had died. And Jesus comes into this town, and guess what he does? I'm going to read it for you. Jesus comes into this town and he sees that these parents, they're so sad, their baby boy died. And he steps in to this place. And here is what Luke says happens in that amazing story. Goes like this. See if my little eyes can spot it. Goes like this. Soon afterward, Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain. Now, people would know where this is, right besides where this great other story happened. And a large crowd followed him, and a funeral possession procession was coming out. As he approached the village gate, the young man who had died was a widow's only son. And a large crowd from the village was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart was overflowed with compassion. Don't cry, he said. Then he walked over to the coffin and he touched it, and th