Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] All right. Well, good morning, everybody.
[00:00:09] We did. We just got back from the nation of Turkey, which was quite an experience. We did a lot of biblical sightseeing. Like you can tell right there, everywhere from Ephesus to Colossae, which, by the way, I didn't know this Colossae is just a big pile of dirt right now.
[00:00:24] They're going to excavate it out. I guess all the ruins are there and all that stuff, but they haven't excavated it. So we went and visited the pile of dirt.
[00:00:31] We saw Heropolis, we saw Laodicea, a lot of really incredible, beautiful, beautiful things, and shot some video for a sermon series that we have coming up in this next year. But the biggest reason that we went and what we spent the vast majority of our time doing was ministering to and encouraging and learning from a church in a town of about 250,000 in which they are the one and only Christian church, and meeting this church, which is about 20 people, I think on the Sunday, maybe 25 people, we're learning about some of the different challenges that they face in the nation of Turkey. But really, the biggest thing that we got to learn was that God is moving and doing powerful things through them. Their nation, which is traditionally Islamic, is going through a bit of a crisis of faith as well. Specifically where we were on the western side of the country. We weren't experiencing any threat. We walked around at one moment in the middle of the town square, and Brent was walking around with one of these 360 camera that's on a huge.
[00:01:31] I would say it's not a pole, it's like an antenna. And Brent's a tall guy already, so he's got this thing going up about 10ft, and he's just walking through it, and people are kind of watching us. And Brent brought attention to us everywhere that we went. And it proved to me, actually, that we were very safe, even with talking about our Christian faith. And we met a few young people just in the middle of this square that were curious why.
[00:01:55] Why we had cameras and what we were doing. And they invited us to dinner. And what we discovered in conversations with them about their faith in Islam was that for them, it specifically had become a very passive thing, very cultural in context. Like, yeah, we're Islamic and we would consider ourselves Muslim, but we go to mosque a couple times a year, and it's just more a bit of a part of our tradition and what we do. There's no real weight to it, he said, other than a lot of the cultural heaviness that exists inside of it. But one of them specifically said, we don't necessarily find life in it, we just find our community inside of it. And I thought, huh, I've experienced a similar conversation over a different faith in a different country. And I would discover, I would say that that is Christianity in the United States of America. For many, many people it's a cultural faith where we understand the traditions and the Thanksgivings and the Easters, we even understand to some degree in the Sunday mornings. But as far as the actual life changing thing, the centerpiece of it, what are we really getting after? And this is lost on many, many people.
[00:03:03] And I believe that this is why. And so we're going to talk a little bit about what it's like to receive Jesus in our context. What if Jesus was coming to minister to us again for the first time? And then also how we are called to live missionally inside of all of our contexts. Whether you end up taking a trip to Uganda or you end up staying in the same neighborhood for the next 30 years. I believe that Jesus wants to speak and work through you in such a way as this. And so it says In John chapter 14, this is after Jesus has told the disciples essentially that his life will be over soon. And they go through the Last Supper and all those things. And he says, don't let your hearts be troubled. Jesus said, you believe in God, believe also in me. My Father's house has many rooms, and if that were not so, I would have told you that. I would not have told you that. I'm going there to repair a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that you might be where I am now. You know the way to the place where I am going. And then Thomas said to him, I love, I really appreciate Thomas in this context. Have you ever gotten into a conversation where he said, and you know. And you go, yeah, totally, yeah, I know all about that thing that you know about. And Thomas says, wait a minute, Lord, we don't know where you're going. We're actually a little confused at this entire process and this whole dinner has been frustrating for some of us. How can we know the way?
[00:04:28] And Jesus answered, well, I'm the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. And if you really know me, you will know my Father as well. And from now on you do know him and you've seen him, and. And Philip said, lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. This is a group of people that have heard these stories of God. We will call them Old Testament stories of God and the image of God and even the ability to see God was so dangerous and not for everyone that it became this incredible mystery for anybody that would be in Judaism. And so these young Jewish men are going, if you are so close to the Father, then let us actually see him, because that would change everything. Nobody has seen him in our minds.
[00:05:13] And Jesus answers in verse nine, don't you know me, Philip? Even after I've been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. That's huge.
[00:05:24] Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in Me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it's the Father living in me who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am the Father and the Father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I've been doing, and they will do greater things than these, because I am going to the Father and I will do whatever. And I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in My name, and I will do it. So Jesus has this big reveal for Philip and the other disciples who say, just show us then the Father. And Jesus says, if you speak spent time with me, you have seen the centerpiece of this faith. You've seen the Creator of the universe, how I have acted and behaved and how I've healed and cared for the poor and the broken. This is the image of God.
[00:06:25] You've heard all the stories and you've wondered many things, but I am that image. And that is the thing that then compels the disciples to go forward. Of course, Jesus's death and the resurrection, but their pre knowledge, their understanding and knowing the words of Jesus, saying, I am actually the Father, the one that you have always wondered if you could ever see.
[00:06:46] I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who wouldn't consider herself a Christian and has been my friend now for probably three or four years. We spent lots of time together. Our kids are the same age and so We've spent time on the lake. We've spent time at sporting events and in bleachers. And when you play sports as much as my son does, that means we spend a lot of time with these people. And she came to church fairly recently and then wanted to talk after. Not immediately after, but a few days after.
[00:07:21] And she said, I've got to be honest with you. My only experience with Christianity is through a political lens.
[00:07:29] That's the only way I've ever really heard of this. And she said, like, you guys and what you guys think, you know?
[00:07:36] And I thought, oh, okay, yeah, that's good. We've known each other for several years.
[00:07:42] And she said, but then I went to church and I heard you speak, and I heard you talk about Jesus.
[00:07:46] And she said, I've been wondering ever since if I've been missing something.
[00:07:52] And I am all at once wanting to smile and laugh and rip my clothes and put ash on my head, Old Testament style and mourning a person who is extremely well educated, extremely generous and loving and gifted. A good close friend of mine who has spent much of the last three or four years as a senior pastor at a Protestant church that's fairly large in Bend, Oregon.
[00:08:15] And she's going, hmm, so this Jesus thing, how long has this been a part of your faith?
[00:08:26] I'm going, oh, my gosh, we have.
[00:08:29] We have missed the work, the boat, the idea. Now, this isn't everyone's experience. I understand. This is just one of my friends, but it breaks my heart to think that we have buried the lead, the headline, so deeply. I worked at a newspaper for a while, and the editor of this newspaper would all the time would be like, I'm two paragraphs in, and I don't know who won the game that you covered. Don't bury the lead. The score has to be toward the top. And I really feel like sometimes in Christianity we've buried this lead, that there are people in this world that live amongst us. They are friends of ours that are going, I understand you're a Christian, and Here are the 10 things that I think that you believe because of your faith, and Jesus isn't on the list.
[00:09:17] Come on.
[00:09:21] And so we think about this mission of living, and the things that I think of first when I think of, we gotta live on mission. We gotta live with a missional mindset where we're gonna reach the world around us. One of the first things I think of is, okay, how do I share my testimony in 30 seconds or less?
[00:09:37] Time me. You know, when I really Think. And this again, I'm experiencing this from my new Muslim friends that I met in Turkey when we are missing this very central idea, something that is life giving. It is beautiful. It does show us the way that we can live in the world. And it does show us ultimately how God loves us and adores us.
[00:09:59] There's something greater at hand that we have to stop burying. And instead of simply coming up with strategies, which, by the way, I love the idea that if you can share your testimony in 30 seconds or less, and it's entertaining and wonderful and beautiful and there's a light show and all the things, I hope it's beau, I think it's beautiful that you can do that. But I really, truly believe that if the Christian church would stop making it so difficult to see the face of Jesus in our lives and in our hearts, that most of the missional work would be done for us. There's something so compelling, even though it's difficult to follow Jesus, there's something so compelling about the way that he lived and loved and cared. And that same compelling thing can exist inside of our faith and in our churches to where people are not wondering, because of our faith, what political side we fall on. Instead, they're convinced that we are the people that are here for the broken and the hurting and the poor are people that bring hope into hopeless places. That is the Jesus people that I know.
[00:10:59] The apostle Paul affirms all of this. That Jesus says. He says the Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created. Things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All these things have been created through him and for Him. He's before all things, and in him all things hold together. So the ultimate mission of Jesus is not to just give us a system in a way of living, but instead it's to expose the fact that he himself is the Father and that when people see that he is God and how he has lived, that changes the world around us. So our number one mission should be the same.
[00:11:41] Not that we build churches necessarily, although that is a good and worthy part of the vision. Not that we write music and we participate in the arts. Those are all wonderful and beautiful things that we should do and we should do well and we should continue to do for all time.
[00:11:57] But we use every tool, everything that we have to continue to wipe away some of the dirt and the dust that has gathered around the face of Jesus so that the world might understand and be clear on who he is.
[00:12:12] Now, Jesus did this himself by first of all, and this is my first point, embodying God's mission. Jesus embodied God's mission.
[00:12:21] Jesus was sent to reveal God's love. We learn this from John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
[00:12:29] He incarnated the message by dwelling among us. And John chapter 1:14 speaks to this that he moved into the neighborhood the message translation describes. Jesus didn't come as God with skin on and come and orate to everybody and speak at these high languages, but instead he moves in and becomes a neighbor with us. He dwells among us, the scripture says.
[00:12:54] And similarly, living missionally requires stepping into the world of others with great humility and empathy and love.
[00:13:03] It's not about our programs, but it's about our kind presence that changes the world.
[00:13:10] These pastors that we met with in this again, in this town of about 250,000 people are not quick people to talk down on Islam and their Muslim friends. Instead, they are quick to provide a meal and a space where they can care for, for each other.
[00:13:27] They really, truly believe if they're going to. If they're going to exist, well, and they're going to help change an entire nation of people that believe in a different way that the ideas and that they run into that town square and start shouting at the top of their lungs as quickly as possible, but it's going to be one meal at a time.
[00:13:45] Now, this requires incredible patience and love in these places. But I believe that God himself is patient.
[00:13:54] And when we consider the pathway that other people have taken in their lives, we actually offer them a new sense of love that tells them and affirms to them. I don't just love you because of what you are about to receive from me, but it's I love you and I love you right now in the middle of all that you have and everything that you believe.
[00:14:14] So we don't train ourselves to just strike when the iron is hot, quote unquote, but instead we learn and learn and we learn again about the centrality of loving our neighbor from a place that we embody hope and kindness and Christ in moments of crisis, being God's hands and feet where he places us.
[00:14:35] The second thing is that Jesus prioritized people.
[00:14:39] It says Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through and a man there by the name of Zacchaeus and he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he could not see over the crowd. And so he ran ahead, climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him. And since Jesus was coming that way. And when Jesus reached his spot, he looked up and said to him, zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today. Jesus is not afraid to invite himself over. My mom told me that was always a problem.
[00:15:10] Hey, come on down from the tree and make a bed for me. I'll be right there.
[00:15:16] All the people saw this and began to mutter, he's gone to be a guest of a sinner.
[00:15:23] Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, look, Lord, here and now, I give half of my possessions to the poor. If I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount. And Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house because this man too is the son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and save the lost. A couple things from this story. Number one, if we are to be truly missional people who want to see the world around us come to know Christ, you will find yourself at times being accused of spending too much time with sinners.
[00:15:54] People will hate you for it or loathe you for it. And they will say, but that kind of person, but that goes too far for me.
[00:16:03] You will find yourself accused as just the same.
[00:16:07] And the second thing we can understand from this passage is that even after Zacchaeus says, I'm going to give half of everything I own, Jesus says, you've received salvation. But he doesn't say, because the cash flow is so overwhelming because of what you've given in this sacrifice that you have made is not the reason he comes to salvation, he says, but because this one too is the Son of Abraham simply because he has been born. He belongs to me and I love him. The Son of man came to seek and to save the lost. The third thing is this.
[00:16:42] Jesus shared the Gospel.
[00:16:44] Jesus proclaimed the gospel, boldly says in Mark 1, after John was put in prison, Jesus went to Galilee, proclaiming the good News of God. The time has come, he said, the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good News.
[00:16:59] He modeled a life that validated these words.
[00:17:03] Our mission includes sharing the Gospel in word and in deed, reflecting the transformative power of Christ. Through our lives, we should find ourselves with the ability to share the gospel, to share our story, to simply tell, this is what Jesus has done in my life.
[00:17:24] And finally, and we'll close with this, Jesus sacrificed for the mission.
[00:17:29] This life in following after Jesus will require sacrifice.
[00:17:35] We're calling ourselves to live in a different kind of way, to speak with different kinds of words, to participate in our community, in our world, in a way that not many would venture to do. We give our time and resources and sometimes our comfort, and we must count this cost and follow him.
[00:17:59] It says in Luke 9, Jesus said to them, all, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow after me.
[00:18:11] We were flying back from what ended up being about a 10 day trip, all said and done. And these people who regularly travel internationally, like Brent, they can go at a pace that I cannot keep up with. And I have this awful combination of really, really, really needing sleep in my life. It's very, very important to me. And also not being able to sleep on airplanes.
[00:18:39] And so I'm on the flight, I think this was the nine hour London to Denver on the way home and I'm feeling done. I have this thing that's part of my personality where I'm like, I worked hard, this was great. Everything else needs to now shut off because I don't want to take any more input. So I'm going to turn on a show and I'm going to play cards on my phone and I'm going to put headphones in and not speak to anybody.
[00:19:05] And it was during this show that I'm watching that I really believe that God was speaking to me, which is really frustrating.
[00:19:13] I was done.
[00:19:14] I did a great job. I went across the world to talk about Jesus and now I need a break. Right? This is not.
[00:19:22] Didn't he just talk about counting the cost? Yes, and I was watching the the Rings of Power show on Amazon Prime. I finally caught up to the end of the second season and this one primary character in this story named Celebrimbor says it's not strength that overcomes darkness, but light.
[00:19:49] Armies may rise, hearts may fall, but still light endures.
[00:19:57] And it is mightier than strength.
[00:20:03] I really, truly believe that if we are to live missionally in the way that Jesus has called us, we are asked to love and to care for and to ultimately sacrifice for the world in the way that he did.
[00:20:15] What a compelling thing that God put skin on and came to be with us in the world and did not try to hold political office or become king, even though he was offered the opportunity at several moments.
[00:20:30] But Jesus came with all of the possible strength that anyone could muster and instead he became a light into the world.
[00:20:41] So I want to encourage you as we go to the west side of Bend, as we go to the east side of Bend, as we go to your neighborhoods and your schools and your workplaces. As we go to the northwest of the United States, as we go to nations across great oceans, as we go to Turkey, as we go to Uganda, as we go to the uttermost parts of the world.
[00:21:05] I want you to be confident in a couple things. Number one, that God loves us, that he cares for us, and we are called into that same loving and caring way of holding ourselves. We will not find a world that is changed through the strength and the might of the church, but one that is changed through the light of Jesus Christ.
[00:21:29] The way that Jesus carries and holds himself. May we also hold and carry ourselves in here at Westside Church.
