00:00:03 .130] - Speaker 1

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. 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 2

What 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 2

That'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 2

And 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 2

And 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 2

That'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 2

Did 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 2

It 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 2

It 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 2

It 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 p