WEBVTT
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Welcome to Kingdom Operators, where we train for everyday discipleship with mission-ready faith.
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I'm your host, Pastor Charles.
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And I'm not going to go into great detail.
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I was not in the best of health on Sunday, and I did stray from what I had prepared as a sermon, but it still fits with chapter 3 of Kingdom Operators.
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So let's just get right into the sanctuary and hear the message.
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And sometimes all of us have had those moments when we felt like God's judgment and the way God dealt with things wasn't really fair or just.
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Can you say amen?
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You know, we try, we wonder, you know, Lord, God, what are you up to?
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How is this happening?
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But part of that comes from some of our presuppositions because we have this human thing of needing to know the outcomes, needing to know what's right and wrong and what should and should not be.
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But what we don't have is the infinite knowledge of God.
00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:18.400
We can't say that we knew the end before the beginning even came, but God can.
00:02:19.039 --> 00:02:23.919
God knew the end before He created all that is.
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And God has purpose in everything.
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Purpose.
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Purpose that goes beyond our lifetime, even.
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We don't know what's coming.
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We don't know.
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We only know, sort of kind of, what's been.
00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:47.840
We have our perspective of it.
00:02:48.400 --> 00:03:02.000
But we don't know the depth of the ins and outs and the intricacies of all of the things that touch the lives of all the people that have been engaged and involved in so many incidences.
00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:10.719
Today I want to talk to you from the subject, the man in the tree was never an enemy.
00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:27.520
And this is kind of based on the third chapter of my book, Kingdom Operators, and basically pointing out that Zacchaeus, we also know him as Matthew, the tax collector.
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He was never the enemy, but you know how the Jews hated tax collectors, amen.
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The Jews hated the Romans, amen.
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The Jews hated Samaritans, amen.
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But isn't it interesting in the Gospels we see that Jesus chose a tax collector to be one of his disciples and even the disciple who wrote the first book of the New Testament.
00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:27.519
We notice that they hated Samaritans, but it was a Samaritan woman and a woman of ill repute that Jesus first revealed himself as Messiah to.
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We see in the scriptures too that it was a Roman centurion that Jesus healed his Son.
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God's ways are not our ways.
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But what Jesus was always, always, always coming against were the systems.
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The systems that had people bound.
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Matthew did what in his sight was the right thing to do.
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He had the skills, he didn't want to be poor, he saw the oppression of his people, and true, maybe greed got in there a bit too.
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But it's not wrong to want to survive and have a better way of life, amen.
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But what's most important, and what I think we miss so often, is what is God calling me to do?
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What is God's direction for me?
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And you all know my story.
00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:57.120
I was on a completely different path, a path that doesn't in any way connect with or confluence with ministry.
00:05:59.279 --> 00:06:01.040
I was in the entertainment business.
00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:04.399
I was a radio announcer, I was on television.
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Down in Charlotte, North Carolina, I was on, I had a radio show, a daily radio show, and a weekly TV show.
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And it was kind of then, at the peak of where I was going and heading to, that God had to go to extreme measures to get my attention.
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That's where I was shot.
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That's where I was my whole life, my whole life, everything that I had known up to that point was totally abandoned.
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And beloved, I'm not saying that that's going to happen to any of you if you don't follow God's leading.
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But what I mean, what I am saying is the life that I have now, I don't have anything near what I had.
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I was making some serious dollars.
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And all kinds of perks.
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You know, you go into a restaurant, and oh, I was like a prince of the realm.
00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:10.000
You know, oh, here he comes, you know.
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Had my little groupies that would follow me around.
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Had one guy that was just, he he was insistent.
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He just was always there whenever I was, he wanted to know what my schedule was.
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He wanted to make sure that he was there so nobody would mess with me.
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All that's gone.
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And what I have now is so much more priceless than what I had then.
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The enemy are the systems that get us caught up that lure us and draw us away from what God has for us.
00:07:54.720 --> 00:08:09.600
Jesus, Son of the living God, King of the universe, along with his Father and the Holy Spirit, rulers of all that is.
00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:16.800
But the scripture tells us that he humbled himself and became a servant.
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And what did he do on that last Passover meal that he shared with his disciples?
00:08:26.959 --> 00:08:34.080
And we will celebrate it coming up as we move into the new year and into the Lenten season.
00:08:36.720 --> 00:08:55.360
We celebrate that Monday Thursday, that last supper, where Jesus wrapped a towel around himself, took a basin, and went to each of his disciples and washed their feet.
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And you know it was totally odd because his disciples even protested, Lord, what are you doing washing our feet?
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We should be washing yours.
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But he said he was saying, this is the way.
00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:24.799
He told us he did not come to be served, but to serve, and he serves us in ways that we don't even recognize we need to be served.
00:09:27.039 --> 00:09:41.360
He shows us what the kingdom is truly all about, and how we are all so intricately connected together, and how we are truly dependent upon one another.
00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:46.639
Even though we may not realize it, even though sometimes we don't act like it.
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But we are all here together for one purpose, for the good of others and for the glory of God.
00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:03.759
Everything in our lives comes down to those two things.
00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:13.279
Is what I am doing going to bring good to others, not just me, but bring good to others.
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And will it glorify my Father in heaven?
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And I don't know about you, but you know, moving toward that mindset that Jesus was pointing us to and guiding us toward.
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The God that sits on the throne of heaven is your Father too.
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Again, he's the creator of all things.
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He created us, he made us to be who we are.
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We are created to have fellowship, communion with him.
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What was the first commission to Adam and Eve?
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Have dominion over the earth.
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And that's not the dominion that so many Christians like to think about.
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We're gonna rule, yeah, we're in charge, we're gonna kick butts and take names.
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No.
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It's service, serving one another.
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Luther talked about it in his Heidelberg disputation.
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It's not a gospel of glory.
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It's a gospel, it's the theology of the cross.
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When we lose it all for the sake of all, and by losing it all, we gain everything.
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Trust in God in all of your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.
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But even the institution of the church has moved us toward more of this being in control, as opposed to yielding to the control of the Holy Spirit, yielding to the control and the guidance of God.
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God is good all the time.
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And all the time, God is good, and we need to tune in to Him.
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So many of the scriptures, we read them and we we miss the whole meaning as we breeze past them.
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It's interesting that Jesus uses the word day when he says to Zacchaeus, I must have dinner with you.
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Now, here again, the whole crowd pressing in.
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They want to see the holy man.
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They're pressing in to see Jesus.
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And Zacchaeus, it says in Luke's account, was short, and the crowd he couldn't see, so he climbed up in the tree.
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And Jesus told him, Come down from the tree.
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Listen, I must have dinner with you tonight.
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Zacchaeus, a tax collector, that all the people that were in this crowd, Jesus was sending a message right then.
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You despise this man because you don't see in him what I see in him.
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And he's called for this purpose.
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I must have dinner with you.
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And that's the same Greek word that we see when he says, I must suffer many things.
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I must go to the cross and be crucified.
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It's imperative.
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Beloved, my prayer is that we continue to move deeper and deeper into a genuine, authentic knowledge of Christ and his mission, and how that mission becomes our mission because again he said, as the Father has sent me, you know the end, so send I who?
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Okay, so send I you.
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So send, so send I you.
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That means me.
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Turn to your neighbor and say that means me.
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And I can stand here and say that means all y'all.
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Me included.
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Beloved, the challenge that's coming, and there's a book by Brian McLaren that I would really strongly recommend.
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Um on Amazon.
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I think it's in Kindle Land Paperback.
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But it's called We Make the Road by Walking It.
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And it's basically weekly reflection.
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But it has some really poignant questions, and it starts for the first week of Advent.
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We got a little time here.
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Advent isn't starting until the end of November.
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But I would love for us as a congregation to kind of walk through that book, starting with the Advent season.
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And for our Tuesday night Bible studies, and even beyond that, you know, just that we as a congregation walk through that book.
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The questions, even at the end, and the way, Brian, I really feel like Brian McLaren is truly my brother from another mother, because we, from a theological standpoint, we're so on the same page.
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And Lord willing, Lord, you listen, I would love the opportunity just to meet him and have a cup of coffee with him sometime before I leave the planet.
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But if not, I know I'll see him on the other side.
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But I guess it comes down to this.
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My plea is that we dig deeper.
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And again, I encourage you.
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Any scriptures that you stumble across or run into that give you pause, you got a pastor that would love for you to text me or email me or call me and say, listen, can I talk to you about this scripture?
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There's I want to understand it better.
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Something about this scripture I'm not quite getting.
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But let's look deeper when we read our scriptures, when we read the lessons, go deeper than you've ever gone before.
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Because there's so much that's right there hiding in plain sight because we have been so trained to see it one way and we miss the deeper meanings.
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Can you say?
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Amen.
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There's so much depth of meaning in all of these scriptures, and the true enemy, Paul tells us, are the principalities and the powers, all of the forces that are misguiding us around what the Gospels are really saying, what the Word of God, the Old Testament, the Epistles, and the Gospels are saying.
00:17:19.279 --> 00:17:21.359
So much there for us to glean.
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So much in the Old Testament that so connects to the New Testament.
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And of course, the Old Testament scriptures from Isaiah and Micah and all of these scriptures that point to Jesus.
00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:41.200
And it makes you wonder, how did the Jewish people miss him?
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How could it ever be written that he came to his own and his own didn't even recognize him?
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It's right there.
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So examine your hearts and commit, not to me, but commit to your Abba to go deeper.
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Because this is the way.
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Until next time, stay alert and mission ready.
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This is the way.
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Welcome to Kingdom Operators, where we train for everyday discipleship with mission-ready faith.
00:00:28.160 --> 00:00:30.480
I'm your host, Pastor Charles.
00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:33.840
And I'm not going to go into great detail.
00:00:34.479 --> 00:00:48.399
I was not in the best of health on Sunday, and I did stray from what I had prepared as a sermon, but it still fits with chapter 3 of Kingdom Operators.
00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:53.359
So let's just get right into the sanctuary and hear the message.
00:01:20.719 --> 00:01:32.400
And sometimes all of us have had those moments when we felt like God's judgment and the way God dealt with things wasn't really fair or just.
00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:33.760
Can you say amen?
00:01:34.719 --> 00:01:38.799
You know, we try, we wonder, you know, Lord, God, what are you up to?
00:01:40.239 --> 00:01:42.000
How is this happening?
00:01:42.959 --> 00:01:59.040
But part of that comes from some of our presuppositions because we have this human thing of needing to know the outcomes, needing to know what's right and wrong and what should and should not be.
00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:09.599
But what we don't have is the infinite knowledge of God.
00:02:11.840 --> 00:02:18.400
We can't say that we knew the end before the beginning even came, but God can.
00:02:19.039 --> 00:02:23.919
God knew the end before He created all that is.
00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:28.800
And God has purpose in everything.
00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:30.719
Purpose.
00:02:32.159 --> 00:02:36.000
Purpose that goes beyond our lifetime, even.
00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:38.960
We don't know what's coming.
00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:40.159
We don't know.
00:02:41.199 --> 00:02:45.360
We only know, sort of kind of, what's been.
00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:47.840
We have our perspective of it.
00:02:48.400 --> 00:03:02.000
But we don't know the depth of the ins and outs and the intricacies of all of the things that touch the lives of all the people that have been engaged and involved in so many incidences.
00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:10.719
Today I want to talk to you from the subject, the man in the tree was never an enemy.
00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:27.520
And this is kind of based on the third chapter of my book, Kingdom Operators, and basically pointing out that Zacchaeus, we also know him as Matthew, the tax collector.
00:03:29.039 --> 00:03:35.120
He was never the enemy, but you know how the Jews hated tax collectors, amen.
00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:41.199
The Jews hated the Romans, amen.
00:03:43.599 --> 00:03:47.680
The Jews hated Samaritans, amen.
00:03:54.639 --> 00:04:14.639
But isn't it interesting in the Gospels we see that Jesus chose a tax collector to be one of his disciples and even the disciple who wrote the first book of the New Testament.
00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:27.519
We notice that they hated Samaritans, but it was a Samaritan woman and a woman of ill repute that Jesus first revealed himself as Messiah to.
00:04:30.639 --> 00:04:40.639
We see in the scriptures too that it was a Roman centurion that Jesus healed his Son.
00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:47.439
God's ways are not our ways.
00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:59.040
But what Jesus was always, always, always coming against were the systems.
00:05:01.279 --> 00:05:04.160
The systems that had people bound.
00:05:06.079 --> 00:05:12.000
Matthew did what in his sight was the right thing to do.
00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:21.600
He had the skills, he didn't want to be poor, he saw the oppression of his people, and true, maybe greed got in there a bit too.
00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:27.600
But it's not wrong to want to survive and have a better way of life, amen.
00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:38.800
But what's most important, and what I think we miss so often, is what is God calling me to do?
00:05:39.439 --> 00:05:42.319
What is God's direction for me?
00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:45.279
And you all know my story.
00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:57.120
I was on a completely different path, a path that doesn't in any way connect with or confluence with ministry.
00:05:59.279 --> 00:06:01.040
I was in the entertainment business.
00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:04.399
I was a radio announcer, I was on television.
00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:12.000
Down in Charlotte, North Carolina, I was on, I had a radio show, a daily radio show, and a weekly TV show.
00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:26.160
And it was kind of then, at the peak of where I was going and heading to, that God had to go to extreme measures to get my attention.
00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:30.639
That's where I was shot.
00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:37.680
That's where I was my whole life, my whole life, everything that I had known up to that point was totally abandoned.
00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:44.959
And beloved, I'm not saying that that's going to happen to any of you if you don't follow God's leading.
00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:53.759
But what I mean, what I am saying is the life that I have now, I don't have anything near what I had.
00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:57.199
I was making some serious dollars.
00:06:58.480 --> 00:07:00.480
And all kinds of perks.
00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:07.120
You know, you go into a restaurant, and oh, I was like a prince of the realm.
00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:10.000
You know, oh, here he comes, you know.
00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:13.279
Had my little groupies that would follow me around.
00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:19.759
Had one guy that was just, he he was insistent.
00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:24.480
He just was always there whenever I was, he wanted to know what my schedule was.
00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:28.720
He wanted to make sure that he was there so nobody would mess with me.
00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:33.279
All that's gone.
00:07:34.399 --> 00:07:39.600
And what I have now is so much more priceless than what I had then.
00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:52.800
The enemy are the systems that get us caught up that lure us and draw us away from what God has for us.
00:07:54.720 --> 00:08:09.600
Jesus, Son of the living God, King of the universe, along with his Father and the Holy Spirit, rulers of all that is.
00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:16.800
But the scripture tells us that he humbled himself and became a servant.
00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:26.720
And what did he do on that last Passover meal that he shared with his disciples?
00:08:26.959 --> 00:08:34.080
And we will celebrate it coming up as we move into the new year and into the Lenten season.
00:08:36.720 --> 00:08:55.360
We celebrate that Monday Thursday, that last supper, where Jesus wrapped a towel around himself, took a basin, and went to each of his disciples and washed their feet.
00:08:57.679 --> 00:09:04.799
And you know it was totally odd because his disciples even protested, Lord, what are you doing washing our feet?
00:09:04.879 --> 00:09:06.240
We should be washing yours.
00:09:06.480 --> 00:09:08.799
But he said he was saying, this is the way.
00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:24.799
He told us he did not come to be served, but to serve, and he serves us in ways that we don't even recognize we need to be served.
00:09:27.039 --> 00:09:41.360
He shows us what the kingdom is truly all about, and how we are all so intricately connected together, and how we are truly dependent upon one another.
00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:46.639
Even though we may not realize it, even though sometimes we don't act like it.
00:09:47.759 --> 00:09:57.919
But we are all here together for one purpose, for the good of others and for the glory of God.
00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:03.759
Everything in our lives comes down to those two things.
00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:13.279
Is what I am doing going to bring good to others, not just me, but bring good to others.
00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:18.559
And will it glorify my Father in heaven?
00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:29.759
And I don't know about you, but you know, moving toward that mindset that Jesus was pointing us to and guiding us toward.
00:10:32.080 --> 00:10:41.120
The God that sits on the throne of heaven is your Father too.
00:10:42.639 --> 00:10:44.879
Again, he's the creator of all things.
00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:49.039
He created us, he made us to be who we are.
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We are created to have fellowship, communion with him.
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What was the first commission to Adam and Eve?
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Have dominion over the earth.
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And that's not the dominion that so many Christians like to think about.
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We're gonna rule, yeah, we're in charge, we're gonna kick butts and take names.
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No.
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It's service, serving one another.
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Luther talked about it in his Heidelberg disputation.
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It's not a gospel of glory.
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It's a gospel, it's the theology of the cross.
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When we lose it all for the sake of all, and by losing it all, we gain everything.
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Trust in God in all of your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.
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But even the institution of the church has moved us toward more of this being in control, as opposed to yielding to the control of the Holy Spirit, yielding to the control and the guidance of God.
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God is good all the time.
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And all the time, God is good, and we need to tune in to Him.
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So many of the scriptures, we read them and we we miss the whole meaning as we breeze past them.
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It's interesting that Jesus uses the word day when he says to Zacchaeus, I must have dinner with you.
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Now, here again, the whole crowd pressing in.
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They want to see the holy man.
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They're pressing in to see Jesus.
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And Zacchaeus, it says in Luke's account, was short, and the crowd he couldn't see, so he climbed up in the tree.
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And Jesus told him, Come down from the tree.
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Listen, I must have dinner with you tonight.
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Zacchaeus, a tax collector, that all the people that were in this crowd, Jesus was sending a message right then.
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You despise this man because you don't see in him what I see in him.
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And he's called for this purpose.
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I must have dinner with you.
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And that's the same Greek word that we see when he says, I must suffer many things.
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I must go to the cross and be crucified.
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It's imperative.
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Beloved, my prayer is that we continue to move deeper and deeper into a genuine, authentic knowledge of Christ and his mission, and how that mission becomes our mission because again he said, as the Father has sent me, you know the end, so send I who?
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Okay, so send I you.
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So send, so send I you.
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That means me.
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Turn to your neighbor and say that means me.
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And I can stand here and say that means all y'all.
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Me included.
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Beloved, the challenge that's coming, and there's a book by Brian McLaren that I would really strongly recommend.
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Um on Amazon.
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I think it's in Kindle Land Paperback.
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But it's called We Make the Road by Walking It.
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And it's basically weekly reflection.
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But it has some really poignant questions, and it starts for the first week of Advent.
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We got a little time here.
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Advent isn't starting until the end of November.
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But I would love for us as a congregation to kind of walk through that book, starting with the Advent season.
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And for our Tuesday night Bible studies, and even beyond that, you know, just that we as a congregation walk through that book.
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The questions, even at the end, and the way, Brian, I really feel like Brian McLaren is truly my brother from another mother, because we, from a theological standpoint, we're so on the same page.
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And Lord willing, Lord, you listen, I would love the opportunity just to meet him and have a cup of coffee with him sometime before I leave the planet.
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But if not, I know I'll see him on the other side.
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But I guess it comes down to this.
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My plea is that we dig deeper.
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And again, I encourage you.
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Any scriptures that you stumble across or run into that give you pause, you got a pastor that would love for you to text me or email me or call me and say, listen, can I talk to you about this scripture?
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There's I want to understand it better.
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Something about this scripture I'm not quite getting.
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But let's look deeper when we read our scriptures, when we read the lessons, go deeper than you've ever gone before.
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Because there's so much that's right there hiding in plain sight because we have been so trained to see it one way and we miss the deeper meanings.
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Can you say?
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Amen.
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There's so much depth of meaning in all of these scriptures, and the true enemy, Paul tells us, are the principalities and the powers, all of the forces that are misguiding us around what the Gospels are really saying, what the Word of God, the Old Testament, the Epistles, and the Gospels are saying.
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So much there for us to glean.
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So much in the Old Testament that so connects to the New Testament.
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And of course, the Old Testament scriptures from Isaiah and Micah and all of these scriptures that point to Jesus.
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And it makes you wonder, how did the Jewish people miss him?
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How could it ever be written that he came to his own and his own didn't even recognize him?
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It's right there.
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So examine your hearts and commit, not to me, but commit to your Abba to go deeper.
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Because this is the way.
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Until next time, stay alert and mission ready.
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This is the way.
