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00:00 As I said several times during the conference, it is absolutely amazing to travel 9,200
00:09 miles. I had to figure it out. But to travel 9,200 miles to come halfway
00:14 across the world and to find immediate fellowship and to find hospitality
00:21 and to find the love of Jesus Christ and to find fellowship in the Holy Spirit is
00:27 truly a remarkable thing. And Brian and I are very grateful. We're grateful for
00:32 the hospitality that has been shown to us. We're grateful that for the opportunity to get to know brothers and
00:38 sisters in Christ here and to know some about your struggles and your community. And we thank God for that.
00:44 And I thank you as a church for hosting the NACC conference that Arnold mentioned. It was a it's a wonderful
00:52 gathering. It's a very important gathering in terms of the body of Christ, the need for soul care, the need
00:58 for us to be able to attend to one another and um that's a really critical thing. Thank you. Thank you very much
01:03 for hosting that conference.
01:10 They say that when you're speaking to a group and you have something that is heavy on your heart, it's good to share
01:16 it so that it does not dominate the conversation. And I learned two hours
01:21 ago that my brother has passed away. And so I share that with you because it's
01:26 important for you to know where I'm standing this morning. And I pray that God will use the tenderness of my heart
01:33 to sweeten his message to you and that my heart will not be so tender that
01:39 it'll be a distraction to you. But we say in our counseling ministry
01:44 consistently that God uses what is to transform us, not what ought to be, not
01:52 what we would like it to be. I would rather be standing here not with the news that my brother has just passed
01:58 away. But I am also very thankful to be standing here with you in the context of
02:05 my brother passing away because you are my comfort in this moment. I deeply appreciated your words about the life
02:12 group coming to you and ministering to you. It's very touching to me and the
02:18 body of Christ is just absolutely so precious and so rare and again I I'm
02:24 privileged to be with you even in this moment. It does make very real what I'm sharing with you today because of what
02:31 I'm experiencing in my heart as I speak to you. We are talking today about being called,
02:37 moved, and sent. The older I get, the simpler I get. I I don't know if that's
02:43 progress or regress. I hope it's progress, but um I would
02:48 like you just to remember three words today. I'm going to share a story with you in a moment that I'd also like you
02:54 to remember. But if you just remember those three words and that story, uh that would be well good enough um for
03:01 me. and and the purpose is that I believe that God is working among us today. Um I also share with you in in
03:08 this context and I'm playing with my phone because I've got a story on there that I want to share with you in a moment as I shared. But I also believe
03:15 very strongly and I know you do too that the community preaches the word of
03:20 God. You have a mouthpiece but we preach this together. And so again, it's a
03:26 privilege to unite with you to preach this sermon. And uh I'll just be the mouthpiece, but all of us together
03:31 preach the sermon. And I I my intention today is to reflect at quite a deep
03:37 level. And I'll give it up to God as to whether we reach that level. That's up to him. I will endeavor to try to follow
03:43 after him in creating that for you by his grace alone. But to reflect on the issue of fulfillment in our lives,
03:50 living the abundant life that Jesus promised to us. And by fulfillment, I'm sure you understand that I'm not talking
03:57 about happiness. I'm not talking about things going well for us. I'm not
04:04 talking about possessions or anything besides deep fulfillment in God.
04:12 But God created you and me to be fulfilled in him.
04:17 And sometimes we shy away from talking about fulfillment because it leans so quickly in the direction of being
04:23 fulfilled by things that are not of God. But I would like to expressly talk this
04:28 morning about you and me and our lives in God and what it means to be fulfilled in him and what creates problems in that
04:37 and what is important in that. And so the thing that I'm addressing primarily
04:42 this morning is a question of identity. A question of identity. And that has to
04:49 do with who you and I are. It also has to do with who you and I think we are.
04:54 Because those two things do not always go together. And in some ways that are very difficult for people to handle,
05:02 they they matter greatly. So I want to focus on questions of identity. I think
05:07 you realize that for human beings identity is very very crucial. You may
05:13 know people who have been adopted who are in search of their natural parents
05:18 and you will see that that journey is often a very passionate one. They want
05:24 to know who they are. They want to know where they came from. They want to know the story of their lives. And so you see
05:30 in certain situations in particular that a human being's understanding of their identity is very crucial to them. very
05:37 important to their life and it's very central in our relationship with God. Now, as God would have it,
05:45 he has centered our identity in him. Our identity is centered in God and that's
05:51 what leads to our fulfillment. But you and I and and many people struggle with that particular concept. So, we have
05:59 questions of identity for Christ followers and they are answered in the context of course of our relationship with Jesus Christ. That's where we
06:06 answer. That's where we resolve. That's where we get the answer for our identity. But in our line of work in
06:13 which we are called by God to go into dark places and dark situations with
06:19 people suffering with grief, as as I shared with you this morning and as you shared earlier this morning, we are
06:26 called as Christ followers, particularly in our ministry, to move into those
06:31 situations that are particularly painful. And so I would like to share with you a few of those situations to
06:38 talk about how tragic it can be when someone doesn't understand their
06:43 identity in God. And then I want to also bring it out to just relate it to you
06:48 and me. But I want to share some examples with you. I practiced in California on the west
06:54 coast of the United States for about nine years. This is oh gosh 20 years ago, 25 years ago now since I was there.
07:01 But when I was there, I worked with a 15-year-old male client who was an I'm going to say it this way, an accidental
07:08 child of two physicians who were absentee parents. He made a decision when he was 9 years
07:14 old. He shared with me that he was going to take his life on his 21st birthday unless his life radically changed. He
07:23 had no idea about who he is in God. He had no deep
07:28 connection with God. He really didn't have any deep connection with anybody in his life. His identity was simply one of
07:35 being unwanted. His identity was one of being unwanted.
07:40 One of the ministries that's close to our hearts at Formation Counseling Services is that of working with women who are being rescued from human
07:47 trafficking. And invariably, these are women who have suffered horrible sexual and physical abuse, domestic violence,
07:54 often at the hands of those who were supposed to protect them. parents and
07:59 other family members. These women have no idea who they are in God. Their
08:06 identity is simply one of being unworthy of anything but abuse.
08:13 I recall the situation of a 36-year-old single mother of young children, two young children. She lost her mother when
08:20 she was four years old to a massive stroke. Her father got cancer a year later, then died when she was six years
08:27 old. She went from unhealthy relationship to unhealthy relationship in her life. Each
08:33 time eventually ending up being abandoned. She had no idea about who she is in God.
08:42 Her whole identity was one of being abandoned.
08:48 From those with disabilities to those from broken homes, those raised in alcoholic homes, those raised with domestic violence, those raised with
08:55 perfectionism, those raised with parents unable to handle emotion, to those raised by people who blamed and
09:00 scapegoated them, to those who have suffered horrific trauma or loss or abandonment or poverty. Many of us
09:06 struggle to know who we are in God. And that truly determines affects greatly
09:12 the outcome of our lives. Now for you and me it may not be quite
09:18 as tragic but we struggle too to know our identities. I come from a divorced
09:25 home. My mother and father divorced when I was nine.
09:30 My experience of my identity was that I must have done something not quite right
09:37 or else my parents would not have divorced. So my identity became one of making sure
09:43 that I was good enough in order to be loved and I have struggled with that
09:48 part of my identity for all these years. You may also have some struggles with
09:55 knowing who you are in God. Truly knowing in your heart who you are
10:01 in God in a way that does bring fulfillment to you and fulfillment in
10:06 God in your life. So we have examples, you and I do from our lives. We struggle also because we don't truly know who we
10:14 are in God's eyes. So what I want to focus on in terms of our identity is three different things as I shared with
10:20 you that we are called, we are moved, and we are sent. And I wanted to share
10:25 with you, that's why I keep playing with my phone here. I have a couple stories on my phone that I wanted to share with you. I want to share a story about a
10:31 recent convert to Christianity. And the recent convert is having a conversation
10:37 with a theologian. But the theologian though he's an expert
10:42 in theology has yet to be transformed by his theology.
10:48 We talk a lot in our setting about uh a saying by Tim Hansel, Christian author Tim Hansel, and he says, "All of our
10:54 theology must eventually become biography." In this case, he's an expert in the
11:01 theology, but it's not yet become his biography. The theologian says to the convert to
11:06 the recent convert, "So you have been converted to Christ." Yes. The
11:11 theologian says, "Then you must know a great deal about him. Tell me, what country was he born in?"
11:18 I don't know. How many sermons did he preach? I don't
11:26 know. How many miracles did he perform? I don't know.
11:33 The theologian says, 'You certainly know very little for a man who claims to be converted to Christ.
11:38 And the man says, 'You are right. I am ashamed of how little I know about him.
11:49 But this much I do know. Three years ago, I was a drunkard. I was
11:54 in debt. My family was falling to pieces. My wife and children dreaded my
12:00 return home each evening. But now I've given up drink. We are out
12:08 of debt. Ours is now a happy home. All this Christ has done for me.
12:17 And this much I know of him. This much I know of him.
12:24 Knowing something and being transformed by something are two different things.
12:31 Knowing something and being transformed by something are two different things. And that's the story that I invited you
12:38 to remember as we started today. I'd like to weave that in and out as we go through scripture today and as we talk
12:44 about being called, moved, and sent. That knowing something about being
12:49 called, moved, and sent. Knowing something about your identity in Christ is not the same thing as being changed
12:54 by it, transformed by it. It's a difference between being informed and transformed. We can be informed, which
13:01 is wonderful. I'm not saying that's bad. We can be informed, but if we're not transformed, we're not talking about the
13:07 gospel. So, we talk in our setting about how information that doesn't lead to transformation is not part of the
13:14 proclamation of the gospel. Jesus never intended to impart information. He
13:19 intended to change the lives of those who heard his voice. So we are called, moved and sensed. But are we merely
13:25 informed about these aspects of our identity or are we transformed by them?
13:31 So first we are called. And this is where I'd like to center the scripture that was read and raise that as our
13:37 flagship scripture for what we're talking about this morning is to talk about how we are called basing it on
13:43 Isaiah 43:1-7. Now, those of you biblical scholars recognize that Isaiah 43:1-7 is a
13:50 salvation oracle, but it's unusual, as as you also know, you biblical scholars,
13:55 and that it's written in such personal, individual, intimate language.
14:00 And so, we find in scripture that that double meaning that we see salvation history played out through scripture,
14:06 but we also apply all of scripture to our lives. And so I'm taking the tender intimate side of this scripture today
14:13 and focusing on the application to us individually knowing that it also is very important in terms of salvation
14:20 history as a salvation oracle. But I have just absolutely fallen in
14:25 love with this scripture. It has just captured my life and I I have a hard
14:30 time not quoting it as I go through every day because of the impact that it's had on me recently. And um the
14:37 start of the passage is incredibly powerful. It's incredibly simple,
14:43 but it says, "But now, thus says the Lord." Just just that phrase. I remember
14:49 uh Tim Hansel, who I quoted for you earlier, uh talked in one of his books about how he began to meditate. He was
14:56 driving a a youth bus home from a youth retreat, and he was the driver of the bus. And so he's kids are all sort of
15:03 messing around in the back of the bus and uh not really paying attention to the youth pastor who's driving the bus. And so he started meditating on the 23rd
15:10 Psalm, the Lord is my shepherd. And he said, I spent three hours
15:17 meditating on the word 'the'. Because he said, I realized that 'the'
15:24 was pointing to something that was real. It was pointing out something that was real. And I just got caught up in the
15:31 fact that this psalm was introducing to me me to something that is real and that the Lord is my shepherd. And so we find
15:39 those moments where just very simple words even just the word the can take us
15:45 soaring into God's presence and into what he's communicating with us. So but now thus says the Lord is important
15:52 because of what's happening in the context is we're talking about redemption from captivity. We're talking
15:58 about God, talking about the fact that Israel was was not obeying and that there was a great rupture in the
16:05 relationship. But this simple phrase is so characteristic of the way that God
16:10 relates to you and me. That as we go through our days, we can
16:15 so often say, "This is the way I feel, but now thus says the Lord." This is
16:21 what I'm suffering, but now thus says the Lord. This is what I'm tempted to fear, but now thus says the Lord. This
16:27 is his word. This is what he's saying to me about it. And so just that just that phrase, I've been stuck on that for for
16:34 weeks. Just that that sense that God takes us from Romans 7 to Romans 8. He takes us from the old self to the new
16:40 self. He takes us from sinner to to redeemed. But now, thus says the Lord,
16:46 there's a great change that God brings in our lives. He's the great intervention in our lives. He who created you, oh Jacob, he who formed
16:53 you, O Israel. So God is saying that a big part of your identity again, nation
16:59 of Israel, but also you and me as individuals is that he has created you and me. And so again, I know we all know
17:06 that in our heads. We rehearse that. It's not new theology to you. But to be able to move that in your heart in a way
17:12 that you understand it, in a way that you understand that your value is immense and immeasurable because God has
17:18 created you is part of the gift of scripture. The word creating life in us, the word of God creating life in us. Oh
17:25 Jacob, he who formed you, oh Israel. So again, God is our creator. That's so central to our identity together. Do not
17:32 fear for I have redeemed you. We talk a lot in our setting about how
17:38 God sifts everything that comes to us. So, the passing of my brother this morning didn't sneak by God.
17:45 It got sifted. He sifted it. He's sovereign. He knows what's happening. He
17:51 sifts my suffering. He sifts your suffering as well. But he says, "Marty,
17:56 you need not fear this pain and grief because I have redeemed you and I have redeemed your situation." And then he
18:02 says,"Ive called you by name and you are mine." Such an intimate intimate comment
18:09 about calling each one of us by name. Of course, as you all know, name in scripture is very, especially in the Old Testament, a very personal thing that
18:15 describes our nature. So, it's very very personal for us. So, do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by
18:21 name, and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not
18:28 overwhelm you. So no matter what you and I face,
18:34 and it's interesting that he doesn't say if you pass through the waters, it doesn't say if you pass through the
18:39 rivers. He says that you you will, but you will know as you will. That part of your identity is that you are mine. And
18:46 because you are mine, I will not allow you to be overwhelmed. I will be with you in whatever it is that you suffer.
18:54 And again, as was shared earlier, we are embodied Jesus to each other. This isn't something that's theoretical. It's
18:59 something that we have to do for each other in the body of Christ because we're the Holy Spirit with skin onto each other. When you walk through fire,
19:05 again, not if you do, but when you do, you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you.
19:12 And why? Because now our identity gets linked together with his identity. We're
19:18 secure because of who he is. We're secure in him because we're owned by him. We're possessed by him. We're his.
19:24 So, not only is it important to know who we are, it's important to know who's we are. We know who we are, but we also
19:31 know whose we are. We are we are gods. But he is the great I am. For I am the
19:37 Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your savior. I give Egypt as your ransom. I'm willing to go to great
19:43 lengths in order to purchase you, to redeem you, Ethiopia and SA in exchange
19:48 for you. Because you are precious in my sight and honored and I love you. I give people in return for you nations in
19:55 exchange for your life. Precious in my sight. Honored.
20:01 I love you. I give people in return for you. Nations in exchange for your life.
20:08 Can you imagine those lives that I just described to you being able to hear those words?
20:15 women who are coming out of being trafficked to be able to hear those words, you are precious in my sight and
20:22 honored because they've not experienced any honor and I love you. I give people
20:28 in return for you nations in exchange for your life. The woman who was uh raised in the situation where she lost
20:35 mother and father within a couple of years constantly feeling abandoned. Well, God is saying I am with you in
20:40 everything but also saying your identity is not one of being abandoned. Your identity is one of being precious in my
20:46 sight. You are honored. I love you. I give people in return for you nations in
20:51 exchange for your life. So do not fear for I am with you. So we have a repetition again of God saying that in
20:57 everything that you and I face, God is with us. The great solution to fear in scripture is the presence of God. The
21:04 great solution to anything that we face in our lives is
21:09 the presence of God. And then he will gather us to him. He will gather you and
21:14 me to him. Bring your offspring from the east and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north give them
21:20 up and to the south do not withhold. Bring my sons from far away. My daughters from the end of the earth
21:25 gather them to me. Again this has to do with being released from captivity and being gathered to God. But also as we
21:31 interpret it personally, he's gathering us to him into his presence into our
21:36 relationship with him. Everyone who is called by my name. So he calls us by name and we're called by his name. So he
21:44 calls us and our nature to him, but it's by his nature that he calls us. It's a very powerful combination whom I created
21:51 for my glory. So there in the midst of him talking about our identity is him talking about
21:58 the fact that the purpose of all of it is that we you and I have been created for his glory, for God's glory. Because
22:05 when we glorify God, we're most fulfilled. When we're most fulfilled, we
22:10 most glorify God. And again, I mean fulfilled by God in relationship with him. And you and I are most we're most
22:18 glorifying of God when you and I resemble Jesus Christ. So the connection then becomes one of being formed into
22:24 the image of Christ as the best way that you and I can
22:30 glorify God. And in that glorification, we find our fulfillment. So it's all the
22:35 punch line at the end is that it's all created for his glory. So we are called
22:41 dear friends. You and I have that at the center of our identity that we are called. And whatever it is that our life
22:49 has communicated to us about who we are. Saying to us that we are abandoned. Saying to us that we are unwanted,
22:55 unloved. Saying to us that we must be good enough in order to be loved. Those
23:01 pale. Those are destroyed. Those bondages are broken in the face of God
23:07 saying to you and me, "You are precious in my sight and honored and I love you and I call you by name." So you and I
23:15 are called first to God. We're called first to God. That's the center of our identity is that we're called first to
23:21 him. Called by name. We are his. We're protected by him. We're precious in his sight. We're created for his glory. But
23:28 then we're called then by God. Called to God. called by God. So, we're called
23:34 first to him and then we're called to service for him, to ministry in his name, to purpose in his name. And so,
23:41 Isaiah 61:1-3 is one that in our particular church setting, in our counseling center, we lift that up as
23:47 our flagship verse. And we talk about it as the soul care commission that it's the commission upon the church and upon
23:54 us as individuals to provide soul care for one another. and we stack it
23:59 alongside the great commission because you cannot serve the great commission without serving the soul care commission
24:05 because you cannot make disciples unless you care for the souls of the
24:10 people that you're discipling. So the soul care commission is is crucial for our understanding of what we're sent by
24:17 God, what we're called by God that are said to do. So, as all of you know, this
24:23 passage from Isaiah 61 was what Jesus declared as his mission statement. So,
24:29 in Luke 4 when he's announcing his ministry, Jesus announces the purpose of his ministry by quoting this verse,
24:34 reading this scripture. So, if this is Jesus's mission, then it is our mission as well. So, we take on his mission and
24:41 we're then called um by God, called to God, but then also called by God in
24:47 order to serve this mission. The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me. He has anointed because the Lord has anointed
24:53 me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me, bookmark that because we're going to come back to that. He has sent
24:59 me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor
25:06 in the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who grieve in Zion, to bestow on
25:12 them a crown of beauty instead of ashes. There's that great exchange again. But now, thus says the Lord, you had ashes,
25:18 now you have beauty. But now, thus says the Lord, the oil of gladness instead of mourning. But now, thus says the Lord, a
25:24 garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. And what's the outcome? They will be called oaks of righteousness, a
25:30 planting of the Lord for what? For his glory. Again, for the display of his splendor. Because in his glory, we find
25:36 our fulfillment. And then you and I are moved
25:42 when we come to God and we are close to God. When we experience being
25:49 loved by God, when our identity is centered in God, we're moved because God
25:55 is moved. God is moved by our suffering. And as we take on his identity, we are moved as well. We're moved like Jesus
26:02 was moved. So, I love the story in Luke 7 where Jesus raises the widow's son
26:09 from the dead. And there's just that phrase in there that's just a beautiful phrase where it says, uh, "The Lord's
26:16 heart went out to her. The Lord saw her. That is the widow. The Lord saw her and his heart went out to her. His heart
26:23 went out to her. The Lord's heart goes out to you in me right there in the midst of her pain and sorrow. And again
26:29 this morning, I can relate to that in very deep and powerful ways. So Jesus was moved. We are moved as well. John
26:36 11, when Jesus came to minister to Martha and Mary in the situation where Lazarus
26:41 had died, it says twice about Jesus being moved. He's moved by Mary's tears
26:47 and then he's moved again later in the passage in John 11:38 where it says once more deeply moved Jesus came to the
26:54 tomb. Jesus is moved by our suffering. Again,
26:60 that's theologically true. But just knowing that and not having it change us
27:05 is exactly what we're speaking about this morning. We all know the theology of Jesus having compassion, but we do we
27:12 experience the Lord's compassion? Do we allow him to minister his compassion to us? Do we participate in our lives with
27:19 him in a way that we feel that compassion in our hearts and in a way that changes us as human beings? So
27:25 Jesus was moved. We're moved because we take on the identity of Jesus Christ. So
27:31 again, we're challenged, friends. We're challenged. Knowing something and being changed by something are two different
27:37 things in our setting. I shared this a bit during the NACC conference. um we we
27:44 have a we have a little bit of a struggle because we have people in in our particular
27:50 church setting um who are absolute Bible scholars. So they go to three Bible
27:57 studies a week and they've been doing this for 20 years and they study the
28:03 word of God faithfully and it's wonderful and it's beautiful and they have great knowledge of the word of God.
28:12 But the thing that's troubling sometimes is that their lives are not changed. They're bickering over parking places.
28:19 They're gossiping. They're they're jealous. They're they're they're they're
28:25 struggling in ways that that just knowing scripture is not changing their
28:31 lives. And so again, we're challenging one another this morning to to say that knowing something and being changed by
28:38 something are two different things. So knowing scripture well is beautiful.
28:44 It's necessary. It's not sufficient just to know it in our heads. It has to be
28:53 the process of spiritual osmosis to go down into the deepest levels of our souls that we experience the word
28:60 creating life in us that we experience being changed by the word of God. So you and I are called to compassion. And of
29:06 course, the good Samaritan comes to mind very quickly that we are lifted up an example in the good Samaritan that the
29:12 person who Jesus lifted up was the person who had compassion, the person who was moved by the pain and suffering
29:17 of the of the person that he was ministering to. And in Colossians 3:12,
29:24 Paul exhorts us, saying, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with
29:30 compassion. Be moved by the pain and suffering of others and be moved in a way that you are called to do something
29:36 about that. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and
29:42 patience. We are called to compassion. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 focuses more on
29:47 comfort, but again, the same idea of us being moved by the pain and suffering of others. And I love this verse
29:53 because it's it's out of overflow that we minister. It's out of overflow. Compassion is an overflow ministry. So
29:60 it's hard to share it if you if you're not in a place where you can receive it. And we'll talk about that a little bit at the end of the message. So we are
30:06 called to compassion in this way. Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of compassion
30:12 and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the
30:18 comfort we ourselves receive from God. So we are called, we are moved, and we
30:25 are also sent. We are also sent.
30:30 And we are sent like Jesus was sent. We are sent like our Lord Jesus was sent. God is obviously a sending God. It's
30:37 part of his nature. He's a sending God. So he sends forth his word to create
30:44 reality and existence. He sends forth Jesus Christ as his son to redeem us. He
30:49 sends forth his holy spirit to enliven us. God and the Trinity, Jesus and the
30:54 Holy Spirit. It there's it's a sending God that you and I worship. And so being
31:01 made to be like Jesus Christ means that we are also sent. So that's a very
31:06 important part of our fulfillment as human beings is that we are sent. And as we live that out, we find our
31:11 fulfillment. So he has sent me. Remember how we talked about this before and I said it was coming back up again. Isaiah 61:1-3.
31:20 He has sent me. Jesus said, "I've been sent. God has sent me. The Father has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted and
31:26 proclaim freedom for the captives. This mission that he's on, he's been sent to the mission by the Father." 1 John 4:9
31:33 and 10. Again, there's lots of places in the New Testament where we talk about Jesus being sent. But just a couple of
31:40 examples here for you. This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we
31:45 might live through him. Jesus was sent. This is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son as an
31:52 atoning sacrifice for our sins. And then Jesus in his prayer in John 17 talks
31:58 about you and me and very explicitly says as you sent me father as you sent me into the world I have sent them into
32:04 the world. So you and I are sent it's a core part of our identity. We're called
32:10 we're called first to him and then called by him. We are moved moved by the
32:15 pain and suffering of others. moved by our own pain and suffering and welcoming the compassion of God into our own pain
32:21 and suffering. And then we are sent we are sent into the world to do God's
32:27 bidding and to be fulfilled in carrying out that mission. And finally the church the church is also sent someone once
32:34 said the church has been sent on a mission to announce the gospel of good things. The good news announce the
32:39 gospel of good things. And this is what we do because it reflects who we are. Reflects who we are. There's that
32:45 question of identity again. Our identity is centered in God. What we do as Christ followers, we do it because it reflects
32:51 who we are. And who we are reflects the one who made us.
32:57 Who we are reflects the one who made us. So the role of the church is also to be
33:03 called, moved, and sent as the bride of Christ. And you and I, we worship an
33:09 amazing God. an amazing God who would choose to make the bride of Christ part
33:14 of the trinitarian community. So as Jesus and the bride of Christ, the
33:20 church are united. The church is lifted into welcomed into the community of the trinity of God. So the church has the
33:27 highest ecclesiology and theology that you and I could ever imagine because it's included in the the trinity in
33:33 terms of the community of the trinity. So you and I, friends, the church, precious bride of Christ, called, moved,
33:40 and sent as a body of Christ to support healing, growth, and renewal so that people can discover their true identity
33:46 and being called, moved, and sent. The church is called, moved, and sent, but the church is called, moved, and sent in
33:52 part to help you and me understand that we're called, and moved, and sent as part of our identity.
33:57 So the church needs to be a welcoming place. A welcoming place for people to be able to experience their identity in
34:05 Christ and in God. So I want to share with you a story about steeples. I shared this at the conference. So if
34:11 there's any NACC people here this morning, they will hear this again. But our ministry has been very profoundly
34:20 touched over the last 5 years by church steeples. In May of 2013, uh, a friend of mine who
34:27 was on staff at the church, a woman by the name of Annette Hicks went on a trip to Pittsburgh in the sort of upper
34:34 almost northeast part of the United States. And she was going to visit her daughter who was graduating from
34:40 Carnegie Melon, a university there in Pittsburgh. And she came back and told me that while
34:46 she was on her trip, they did a little bit of touring around the community, around Pittsburgh and some of the
34:51 outlying communities. And she said a remarkable thing to me that has that's changed my life and has shaped our
34:58 ministry over these years. She said that she was taught that when the Europeans
35:03 came from Europe to settle the eastern seabboard of the United States in many
35:08 of the communities, most all of them in the northeast part of the country had a regulation that you could not ever
35:16 build anything in the community higher than the steeples of the churches.
35:22 You could never build any structure in the communities higher than the steeples of the churches. And you can guess the
35:28 reason for that. The reason was that they wanted to be sure that when any anybody was in need or hurting, all they
35:35 would have to do is look up, find the steeple, and they would know where to run.
35:45 But friends, I think in in our culture, in in the United States, I think I can say this confidently in Europe as well.
35:53 I don't know how you would identify it here. Um, we we've lost much of that.
36:00 We've lost much of that sense of people thinking that all I really have to do is
36:06 look up and find the steeple and I know where to run for care for my soul. I know where to run to get support. I know
36:12 where to run to find my true identity in Christ. I just have to look up and find a steeple. So in our ministry, we are
36:20 very passionate about inspiring the church, the church worldwide really. I'm
36:26 standing in Malaysia. I would have never guessed that before, but the church worldwide evidently. Um inspiring the
36:32 church to raise the steeples again so that the lives of people can be renewed.
36:37 To raise the steeples so that the lives of people can be renewed. And so we encourage we we love to inspire we love
36:45 to encourage churches to to regain that sense again of being the primary provider of soul care in the community.
36:51 Not just for Christ followers but for everybody. The church also needs to be a safe place. So we need to be a welcoming
36:57 place. We need to have our steeples high. Welcome people into the church. But we need to be a safe place. We need
37:03 to be a place where people experience the difference between knowing something and being changed by something. We need
37:09 to be a place where people are accepted no matter what they're struggling with. We need to be a place where people are
37:14 not judged or criticized. We need to be a place without measuring sticks, only the unconditional love of Jesus Christ.
37:21 We need to be a place where people can experience themselves and their identity, their true identity in Christ
37:28 and being called and moved and sent. So, I encourage you again as a church
37:34 and I'm just thrilled in talking with Arnold. Um, I'm just very excited about what you all are doing with a with uh
37:41 NACC and with other organizations with which you are partnering to be able to provide soul care in a robust way and to
37:49 link together as the body of Christ to be able to provide care for people. That's exactly what we're talking about.
37:54 That's lifting up the steeples. That's raising the steeples and creating those safe places, those safe conversations
37:60 where people can share their pain and their hurt and experience that that all parts of them are welcome at the
38:05 banqueting table. There's a quotation by Trevor Hudson
38:11 that talks about how the divine host presides over the deep center over the banquet at the deep center of our
38:16 beings. The divine host presides over the banquet at the deep center of our beings. He invites us to search out the
38:22 poor, crippled, blind, and lame aspects of our own inner lives and bring them
38:27 into the banqueting chamber. So when Christ is shaping us, we bring
38:33 all of us into that banquet. And the end of the quote says that here the living
38:38 Christ receives them with open arms and begins to include them in the new person that he's patiently forming. So friends,
38:45 we it's clear that God is inviting us to through through scripture through all of
38:51 scripture. Scripture is amazing in how authentic it is. It's amazing that way.
38:57 It's amazing that we we see the Psalms and we see David in such in such a raw form, so authentic, so human, so willing
39:04 to share that. And here it is in the word of God encouraging you and me to know that that our struggles are to be
39:12 accepted unconditionally. that you and I didn't stand in line for the most serious things that we face.
39:18 The most serious things that you and I face most all the time, we didn't stand in line for those things. And so to have
39:26 grace for one another and welcoming one another into that healing place. So I I leave you this morning with questions of
39:33 identity for you and for me. When you ask the question of yourself,
39:40 who am I? Can you can you get a sense of how grounded that is in your
39:46 relationship with God? Can you get a sense of how you're precious in his sight and you're honored
39:52 by him and he says to you, "I love you and that it is absolutely unconditional.
39:58 Do you do you have a sense of of where you've come from in terms of the fact that he created you and that he has
40:04 redeemed you and that that is a central part of your identity? Do you realize that your story is the story of Jesus
40:10 Christ? that his story is being written into your life, that his story of of
40:16 redemption, his story of of even of crucifixion, the the false self in you and me is crucified so that the true
40:22 self can be resurrected. Jesus's story becomes our story. Our story becomes his story.
40:29 Do you know in italics, I mean at a heart level, that you are called to God and called by God in a way that is life
40:36 transforming? Are you moved by the pain and suffering
40:41 of others? And what are you sent by God to do? I'm arguing this morning that all
40:47 of us have similar answers to the first two questions. We're all called to God and called by God in ways that are life
40:54 transforming. We share that together. We're all called to be moved by the pain and suffering of others. But then we're
40:59 all called to do something a little bit different. What is it that you're being called to
41:05 do? What are you being sent to do? Is that clear to you? And is it lifegiving for you? And are
41:13 you willing, here's an important, really important question. Are you willing to seek support and being changed by
41:19 experiencing your true identity? Because dear friends, this is this is not a solo
41:25 journey. It never was intended to be. God is a
41:31 communal God. He exists in community. He's the three in one God. By his very
41:37 nature, he is communal. He exists in community. You and I were never asked to
41:43 bear our burdens alone, to travel the journey alone, to be formed into Christ alone. It's never worked that way.
41:52 And so for us to be able to say to one another, you are loved as you are. You
41:58 are welcome into the hospital for the sinners and the sick at heart rather than into a museum for saints. You are
42:06 welcome and all of you is welcome and we watch together as Jesus begins to
42:11 include all of you in the new person that he is patiently forming. So I want to end by sharing another story with you
42:17 because it's very relevant to you and me and what we end up doing sometimes.
42:23 So um I'm mindful of time. This will just take about a minute and a half. But there's a story told about a man who
42:29 used to teach at Virginia Episcopal Seminary. So we're on the east coast of the United States and he used to teach
42:36 there and one cold night he got a call from the bus station in Washington of
42:41 course very close by to Virginia if you know a little bit about that geography. It was a young man who had grown up in a
42:47 parish that this person's named John had served before as the pastor or recctor
42:53 in the Episcopal tradition of the parish. He had once been an acolyte. That is this young man. His family had
42:59 been very active in the church. And the young man told John that he had gotten into the drug culture. He had lost touch
43:06 with his family. He was out of work and out of money. And so John went to pick
43:12 him up at the bus station to be able to rescue him. Acting with compassion, as
43:17 we're modeling this morning, he went to pick up the young man and to offer him to stay with him there in his home. When
43:25 he got the young man into his car, he saw that he was emaciated truly in body,
43:31 broken in spirit, and he took him home. And as the young man ate supper there with him, John began to get some kind of
43:38 an understanding of his condition. He asked the boy if he had ever asked Jesus Christ to help him in his troubles. And
43:45 the young man said no. It had been a long time since he had even thought about those things. And then he
43:51 brightened up a bit and he said, 'You know, when I get myself together and start coming back to church, I'm going
43:57 to ask Christ to help me. You know, when I get myself together and
44:03 start going back to church, I'm going to ask Christ to help me. And John said to
44:09 the young man, "It will never happen that way. If you think that you have to get yourself together on your own and
44:15 then come to Christ, you'll never do it because it's not possible. You're going to have to come to Christ as you are
44:23 at this moment. You're going to have to come to Christ as you are at this moment. And then he will give you the
44:29 strength to start getting things together. So friends, again, knowing something and
44:34 being changed by something are two different things. And how you and I become people who are changed by things
44:40 is by being able to engage that process of Christ working in our lives. But we do it together. We do it in community.
44:47 We do it in ministry. We do it in soul care to one another. We live our lives in a way that reflects who we are,
44:53 called, moved, and sent. God is glorified in that, and we are fulfilled, and we then live the abundant life that
44:60 Jesus promised. But out of this, could it be
45:06 that God is asking you out of this morning to make a deeper commitment to knowing
45:13 in a transforming way that you are called, moved, and sense? Not in anformational way, not in a theological
45:20 way, knowing in a transforming way that you are called, moved, and sense. Or are you saying when you get yourself
45:26 together, then you're going to ask Christ to help you? When you get yourself together, then you're going to
45:32 ask Christ to help you. Dear brothers and sisters, I pray that
45:38 God will indeed enliven his word in you and create the word of life in you in a
45:43 way that brings you new life. And I pray that your identity being one of being called to God, called by God, being
45:51 moved by the pain and suffering of others and being sent by God will truly be lifegiving for you. Father, thank you
45:58 so much for the lifegiving word that you offer to us. Thank you that we don't
46:04 journey apart from one another. We don't journey in a solo way. Father, we journey together. And I pray, God, that
46:11 you would continue to bless this church, Father. Bless First Baptist Church with
46:16 a sense of raising up the steeples, renewing the lives of those in need, with a sense of creating safe places and
46:21 welcoming places for people to be touched and transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. In the name of Jesus
46:28 Christ, love everlasting, reigning on high, we pray. Amen.
