Kingdom Pace - Week 5 | August 22, 2021 | Drew Moore | Message

hey everyone welcome to week five of kingdom pace jesus invites us to follow him and live at the kind of pace so that we experience all the good that god has in mind for us this week we talk about what it is to be hungry and thirsty for what is right and what is best the way jesus invites us check this out [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so we continue this week in a series called kingdom pace that uh jesus invites us to live under his leadership and the pace that he sets for us is so sustainable and so good that all of the good things that he has in mind for us along the way we actually find our way into but it's so easy to live at a different pace to allow the fears that kind of are just out in front of us or the accomplishments or achievements that we had in mind for ourselves drive us to a different kind of pace that's less sustainable in each season different things going on around us motivate us to go faster or slower at different times and so we've just been asking this honest question how's your pace a school gets started for those of you who are parents or or those are your students as this fall kind of settles in and the excitement and travel of summer and the heat finally giving in just a little bit right how's your pace as we head into this next season and just behind that what we really want to look at is what's driving our pace what's motivating our pace around here we're just finding over and over and over that the more we listen to and follow jesus he sets just the right pace not so slow that we're bored or ineffective or not making impact but not so fast that we missed all the goodness that he has for us the impact in us and people around us and so we're finding our way into that as much as we can every single time we let jesus set the pace we find the good that god has in mind for us and make no mistake god has good in mind for you if you've been distant from church or never been a part of a group of followers and you found your way here for the first time you need to know maybe your fear has been god is just mad he's upset he's full of judgment i just got to get my act together that's not true what's true is god has so much good in mind for you will it be challenging at times of course it will will it challenge those parts of you that you're frustrated with yeah it will but it's so good he's so much good in mind for you in fact jesus began a lot of his ministry this way if you look at like this cliff notes of what jesus was inviting people to or you could call it a manifesto of his kingdom in matthew the book of matthew a friend of jesus wrote down an orderly account of his life and he wrote down some of his teaching brought it all into this one little compact place called the sermon on the mount matthew chapter five through seven and he begins right out of the gate with this whole list of blessings in fact i'd love for you to take a look at it later on this week on your own so on the screen there's gonna be a picture of the scripture that we're gonna look at today all of these come from a guy named matthew also called levi in the bible he was a close friend and follower of jesus he saw and experienced a lot of what jesus did and said and we're going to look at a number of those things today but what i'm referring to so far is matthew 5 1-12 jesus just kind of launches out and says look i have good in mind for you blessing to these kind of people he says but if you want to find your way into the good i have for you there's a way there's a posture there's a way in which you have to receive this and it's not running at breakneck speed trying to accomplish all things it's not running like crazy from fears or away from hurts and harms that you found along the way he says no no let me set the pace and so he describes a lot of the ways the kind of people are gonna find their way into blessing so snap a picture of this look back at it this week some powerful questions to jump into there but he starts this way he says god blesses those god brings and wills good that's all blessing means to will and bring good into the life of another god wills and brings good into the lives of those who are hungry and thirsty for justice now we've covered four or five other ones of these but we're going to dig into this one today and he says look here's the promise those who are hungry and thirsty for justice will be satisfied uh and honestly uh sometimes i just look at some things jesus says and i'm just like yeah right because i don't know about you as i read the newspaper even this morning because i don't read the newspaper you got a newspaper on the way in how good was that i took one smell of that newspaper took me right back to my high school like uh study hall is awesome but as i scroll through the news on apple news i don't see a lot of justice how about you right there's a if justice means this it means things as they ought to be how many of you have a sense that there are many things in our lives and in the world around us that are just not the way they ought to be how many times is it easy to look at something and say that's not right right how many times are the last couple of years have we just seen oh man that is something oh there's something wrong with that like it just should not be that way and yet jesus says listen if you're hungry and thirsty for justice if you desired deeply for things to be right there's good news for you you actually have way more in common with jesus than maybe you thought god is a god of justice he is one who desires for things to be right we were created in his image and so we bear that there's something naturally in all of us as we look around and declare that's not right people devalued diminished or dismissed based on simple prejudices or the color of their skin to to look at the things that are happening right now in afghanistan that based on gender people would be treated with so little honor or ign it's not right even things that people aren't doing on purpose like a 7.2 earthquake in haiti it's like oh it's not right it shouldn't be that way right all of us feel this way and jesus says look i have good news for you and so we're going to drill into it we're going to look at it but at face value i'm like jesus i don't feel very filled you say blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness i'll raise my hand to that i long for things to be right i'm tired of so many things being wrong so what do you mean blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness now i'm going to drill into this we're actually going to look into two kinds of justice another word for this word justice is righteousness which sounds really churchy but really it just means things made right when you have a sense that that's not right what you long for is for it to be right and that's called righteousness we're gonna look at two kinds we're gonna look at moral righteousness that what changes and reshapes us and we're gonna look at social righteousness or social justice so we'll get there before it's over but before we do that i just want to lay it in this big context so here's what we're going to do i'm going to let's imagine for just a minute that you and i have sat across the table for coffee okay i'm going to have just a lovely like i'm going to have a blonde roast flat white uh at just a little extra hot i don't know what you're having but that's what i'm going to have and so we're just going to sit across the table and have a conversation now if we were literally across the table i would just have a napkin and i'm going to draw you a picture and this picture is just going to meet us right in our sense for justice and invite us into the story that god is writing if you're wondering what god is doing and how much he cares about things being made right i think this picture is going to reveal it to you so i'll just draw it for you and we'll walk through it you might want to draw or maybe this first time you just want to take it in we'll draw it again later in our series called good news this fall but um i asked our staff i said listen is there any way i could get like a giant napkin like just a huge napkin like a paintbrush and some markers and these young people they looked at me with so much patience and then they handed me an ipad to draw on it never has anyone told me i'm old without telling me i'm old so quickly but here we are so i'm gonna draw a picture it's gonna pop up on the screen i just want you to take this in i've already begun the picture in some ways if you think about the world and oop that's the eraser stand by that's blue i'd rather go black stand by this is how tech look at me go okay if this is the world in which we live it is there's just things that are messed up now we may all have opinions about what should or shouldn't happen in afghanistan but there's it's not hard for us to agree that there's some things that are just not right about that this is not right it's messed up we look at an earthquake in haiti we're like there's nobody to blame for that and yet it's not right and you don't even have to look outside my living room with my kids to realize they're not treating each other right there's something in the world that's just messed up it's broken and so even though we have this world in which we live our experience is things are just messed up now what's cool about that is that it reveals something just like when you're hungry it reveals that there must be something to satisfy that desire we call it food right in the same way when we look at the world and say man it is messed up it's not right that points us to the reality that either someday it will be right or at one point it was right but if it if that's not a reality then how would we even know things are wrong well in the biblical world view that's exactly the story that not only did it begin right but it will end right but the world was created really well that things were right and that god when he put people in the midst of creation he put them in great relationship with one another to stand togetherness not good for mankind to be alone and so this perfect partnership developed and the relationship between them and the creation itself like the way they related to creation it was good the creation provided for them and they cared for intended creation there was no earthquake there were no famines there was no starvation these things did not exist it was created just right and like i said they were created well together and not only were they created well together but they lived well with god now god can never fit in a picture let me be clear but let's just let that little circle represent the relationship with god genesis 3 says that they walked in the cool of the garden in the evening with god no interruption in their relationship with god the story of the bible is this is that we were designed for good but we've already said that's not how things are now is it so what happened mankind all of us every single one of us said you know what i'm gonna do it my way god i know you made it i know you probably should be in charge but i'm just going to give this a go we'll see what happens and what happened was things got jacked up that's what happened we turned our back on him and so not only the creation itself was broken to the point that it feels like at times the creation itself is coming after us with earthquakes and anything else but in our relationships with one another we find ourselves divided i don't even need to say how polarized culture is right now do i how many people are just at each other right now and not only that there's this this brokenness within each of us and certainly if we if there is a god which so many people doubt whether there is or not if there is a god he's probably angry he's probably distant and things aren't right either i should be afraid of him or i should avoid him the story of the bible is that we were not only designed for good but we've been damaged by evil and we live with the consequence of that all the time we don't show up the way we want to show up for the people we love the most and we certainly don't show up for the people who annoy us that way right there's things that are just broken and challenging in the midst of this but god so loving didn't want to leave us that way and so 2000 years ago he entered creation in the midst of this broken messed up world that circle's not going to be big enough i'm going to have another go at that hold on wait for it wait for it coming back around oh yeah that's going to work okay kind of looks like a pumpkin but that's gonna work in the midst of this broken creation two thousand years ago god enters his creation as jesus and he begins a movement to restore all that he intended for it to be he takes on all of our brokenness and dies a death on our behalf that we deserved so that any of the consequence of our brokenness with god anything that would hinder us from becoming again who god desired and designed us to be could not hold us back anymore he puts his spirit in us to say i know you don't have enough but i'm enough i will put my spirit in you and i will make you i will remake you into who you're intended to be and not only that but i'll show you a way of life that allows you to restore relationships a life marked by mercy and forgiveness by generosity and peace by compassion and empathy instead of judgment and attack and self-protection and fear i'll put it all back together and on top of that i'll make you right with god you can have peace with god which we're going to talk about all the way through the fall with good news he does such good news we're not stuck anymore he said listen i know that things have been damaged by evil but i'm going to restore you for better and then as if that were the whole story and if you thought that were the whole story you've been sold short not only did he enter his creation to restore each of us restore our relationships but he invites us into what he is doing in the world yeah we're all experiencing this broken world but as jesus brings us back into right relationship with him he not only does that he shows us how to be in right relationship with one another he puts a spirit in us to fill us with strength with even particular expressions of his generosity his giftedness the things that he wants to bring to the world and he says listen now i want you to join in what i began the the things that i did to start restore you you now join in with others and are sent together not alone it's not all on you you're sent together with one another and with god's holy spirit to heal all that has been broken what is god doing about the world what is he doing about the brokenness the injustice the wrongness that we feel every single time we open the news he says i'll remake you and i'll send you to remake creation i'll surround you with people i'll fill you with my spirit now go be a part of what i'm doing it's a powerful story it's really the fullness of the gospel the good news is he rescues and remakes us to be a part of the rescue and remaking of all of creation and so if you're bored maybe you've been missing out on the invitation to bring rescue for some maybe we've settled for something that's a little bit less for some you might just be stuck in the broken so if we were sitting over coffee i'd be well through the flat white by now and i'd be speaking faster i would ask you some simple questions you could learn this it takes less than five minutes if you don't talk as much as i do and you could ask some simple questions of those you know and love who wonder what your faith is all about after laying this story out just say hey how's your life is it does do you resonate with this circle the most are things all good that's awesome what do you think you have to contribute to the brokenness that others are experiencing it opens the door to invite them into the mission that god has invited us into or maybe life is just devastating right now and you just feel the brokenness everywhere man if that was you i would just sit in i would just ask a simple question man tell me more about that god has something to say to that you don't have to be alone in that i'll stand with you in that and more than that god will meet you in it and invite them in jesus direction some might be discovering that man jesus is doing some cool stuff in my life he's putting me back together i'm finding my way into better relations that's so good that's awesome but he has more in mind that you'll experience him even more as you join him in the mission that he is on to bring the good the life that you're experiencing to bring that life to others to every face and every place that you go to be sensitive to a spirit and invite into that or or maybe you would be someone who says listen i'm on this mission i'm like yes let's talk about that let's pray about that let's partner in that i'll spur you on and hold you up and you spur me on and hold me up and we'll just go after this thing together maybe just take a minute circle one two three or four where you at there's a step in jesus direction for each of you this is the story of god now the question is what does that have to do with justice what does that have to do with making things right well you can see it all over but i want to back up and cover two things pretty quickly the first one is this that when jesus says you're blessed i have good in mind for you righteousness will find our justice will find its way into your life i'll fill you up with it the first one of the first ways he means that is a moral justice or a moral righteousness this remaking that we saw in the picture of when we acknowledge jesus as king he starts to go to work in each one of us that he starts to make things right we've been talking about this if you've been a part of this series or you can always go back and catch up but one of the things that is true if we're really honest with ourselves is we know there's brokenness in each one of us can i just get a head nod that you're not a perfect person and neither am i can i can we just all knot our head together if you need clarification just ask the person you came along with they will give you an even stronger head nod right right they will be very clear with you in fact uh it might be worth just rem no i won't do that i was gonna make you tell them they're jacked up but they know okay the beauty of that is jesus says man you're blessed when you realize that because then i can help you as long as you think you've got it all together i've got nothing to offer you he says blessed are you when you mourn when you grieve over your brokenness when you've got to face the consequences of your brokenness in someone else's life that should grieve us but he says i'll comfort you and part of that comfort is that when we meet with him with humility when we acknowledge that we don't have all we need we didn't bring everything required he meets us in that and he says listen if you're hungry if you're thirsty if you desire to be better which every person i've met who's even remotely healthy desires to be better jesus says i'll help you i'll make you better he says trust me let me be king let me set the pace create some space in your life for me to speak a fresh word into you over and over and over let me surround you with my people and i'll put you back together again and again followers of jesus is this your story that jesus met you in brokenness and bit by bit by bit slowly putting you back together when jesus is king he starts to put us back together the way we ought to be confident and secure in what jesus says about us that we're loved that we're valued that we're cared for that he'll provide for us we'll be connected that we start to when we point our lives toward jesus what he does is we start building and he arranges communities for us a people where what jesus says is reaffirmed and we're reminded just like we sing it out in this place we also sit across from coffee or or in living rooms with other people who remind us no no you're believing a lie this is what jesus says and we step back into the truth of that we're not afraid to acknowledge our mistakes totally jacked up show of hands who's jacked up every hand goes up because jesus meets us in that with forgiveness and mercy and compassion and he makes us the kind of people who meet other people in their brokenness on their worst day with mercy and compassion and empathy that we can trust that god has good in mind for us and we can seek the good he has for others because we don't have to worry about giving it away because he lacks nothing he gives us more so we can give generously to our neighbors and our friends right these are the kind of things we can speak blessing and good into others this is the kind of life this is the remaking that jesus does in our life when we're restored for better this is the picture that he invites us to now none of us live this way all the time do we none of us but can i just get a head nod from followers of jesus or even a little little something that we're way better than we were anyone he's filling us certainly when jesus said this he did have an end in mind where he will absolutely remake all everything the way he intended for it to be but for now he's filling us he's remaking us we may not be perfect but we're on the way we are a people in process and what he says is the hungrier and thirstier you are the more you'll experience the blessing he has in mind for you so um how hungry are you because if you're this hungry he'll meet you with this much good if you're this hungry he'll meet you and fill you and bring right and justice into your life remaking you into the person you actually desired to be all along if you create this much space jesus says i'll meet you i'll fill you how hungry are you would you be willing to face even the challenging parts of your life i gotta say i've been um there's a lot of examples that we could lean in on this but i'm gonna go after one that's pretty delicate so uh been pretty discouraged at times with some of the ways that people who have called themselves christian have dismissed out of hand the racial tensions that we've experienced in our country in the last 18 months it doesn't ring of meekness that jesus says receives blessing it doesn't ring of mourning over the consequence in our culture of people prejudging mistreating devaluing others when we recognize our need though if we're really willing to get hungry and thirsty we don't need to fear judgment we can create space for god to say something fresh and new and so i've been deeply encouraged by this group of six or eight people that i've gotten to meet with over the last like last summer when things really like hit a fever pitch like not that those things weren't true or didn't exist before but they just came to the forefront and it was right at the center of our cultural narrative right in the middle of that we realized we were behind in the conversation have we really done the internal work in each of us to not assume that we don't bring any of the damage along with us but to boldly look within to be hungry and thirsty for better and so we sat down with this very diverse group of people and started to have some really honest conversations dangerously honest conversations and so even just this past week we got to sit down and have one of these we were talking all through this book that we had been reading about forgiveness and what's the role of forgiveness and racial reconciliation and if that's going to happen in our culture it's got to happen in us for sure right and so man i was just i just got to tell you i was overwhelmed with the hunger in these people to all look within and say there are places jesus needs to do something new in me if i'm going to be part of the solution instead of the problem in fact the very next day one of these people would be faced in her work with a challenge someone who had committed to showing up with massive bias based on race and she had to wrestle and we got to stand with her in wrestling she had to decide am i going to show up with judgment and protection and fear am i going to show up with mercy and compassion this is just one of the many examples that if we're really hungry and thirsty we've got to let jesus into the deepest darkest parts the parts that we don't want to have to address the parts that we'd rather play defense around but he says no no no you're blessed i have good in mind for you will find blessing you will find good i will bring good into your life like the opportunity to stand alongside a friend like a chance to celebrate the text that she sent and said i was able to show up well and behave well in jesus name and still be really helpful despite the desire to be defensive like ah so good i get to look to the next conversation god has good in mind if we'll just create space this kind of work doesn't happen in a hurry we got to live at a kingdom pace if you're really hungry for change what we've got to do is create space for jesus to do something fresh and new in each one of us when we're hungry when we're thirsty for him to make us right he says man you are so blessed i will meet you there in fact those of us who have found our ways in the direction of jesus like the more we see this the more we taste and see how good god is we just want more and more and more and more can i get a head nod right we get distracted we get sidetracked we get sometimes we're tempted to settle for less but man we just get hungry and hungry in fact it's just like this parable in matthew chapter 13. it says this it says the kingdom of heaven like where god gets what god wants when you just get tastes of things being set right you're like oh yeah keep going what's next let's do this the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field in his excitement he did it uh he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy that field again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls when he discovered a pearl of great value he sold everything he owned and bought it especially those of you who have encountered jesus is there anything better than the ways in which god has made you right he is the treasure he is the pearl of great price and so let me just say if you're hungry and thirsty create space make every effort make every effort to make space for god to remake us and this will require you to bring the pace down just a little bit to create some space each day to hear from god to create some space each week to sit alongside some other believers and listen to what god has said discover what he said to put it into practice and to share it with others to be in places like this where we sing out and remind one another the truth of who god is and who we are in response it's in these places when we make space he does the heavy lifting but we gotta be hungry and thirsty and he'll make us right so how hungry are you are you hungry enough to shift your pace to create some space for god to do something fresh and new god will meet us he'll fill us together with his spirit so that we're strengthened by his spirit to live more and more like him you know who doesn't get blessing people who aren't hungry so man i just hope that you'll create some space now we can't move past this we've covered moral justice thoroughly but let's touch on social justice so many times what happens is that people want to go straight from brokenness to making things right in fact back on our picture it might look like this that um that people from their brokenness which here's the thing about justice who gets decide if justice is things as they ought to be who gets to decide how they ought to be who gets to decide you know who gets to decide i do that's what we all tell ourselves anyway who's right i'm right my definition of justice what we're invited to with god is he actually created things he knows best what is right so we listen to him for what is right but what often happens is people from their frustration totally warranted justified frustration they try to go straight from this damage and brokenness that every single one of us carries and every single one of us has contributed to and they try to go straight to making everything right but the problem is when we do that when we bring all of our brokenness along with that we may make one thing right but just behind that we're making something else wrong bringing rescuer justice to one is that great cost to another that's still just as contrary to what god intended all along we can't stick up skip steps we have to actually live and be the kind of good that we want to see in the world which is why we need jesus to remake us so that as he's remaking us we partner with him and instead of each of us getting caught up on our own isolated agendas but when we step into community with other followers of jesus the spirit speaks among us it tempers each of our own fear and brokenness coming into play and god in community helps us by the power of his spirit consistent with what he has said in his world we actually help make things right doing things that we could only do in his strength instead when we try to go it alone we end up causing generally just as much damage as we're trying to fix jesus invites a solution to making things right it shouldn't just be oh jesus is making me right and that's good enough no no no no it's not that's not the whole story it's not the gospel it's not what jesus did he said no yeah i'll restore you for better and then i'm going to send you together in my name with my values to heal jesus says show up with love show up with mercy show up with compassion show up with truth speak fresh identity invite people to face their own brokenness and be part of the solution all of this sounds great doesn't it we can only do that in the midst of jesus spirit alive in us and so if we really deeply care about justice if we're hungry for the world around us to be made right invite jesus to make you right and surround yourself with people who jesus is making right so that you can bring and make things right around us some of you who are not followers of jesus are like listen i've seen what christians try to do to make things right and it looks like shouting judgmentally from a distance those people are missing this part of the story the real remaking of ourselves and the real partnership with others to bring right into the world let's not be those kind of people let's invite you let's do the work let's sit in a room with six or eight and wrestle the deep things of racial reconciliation before we engage or even as we engage what's happening socially around us let's pray deeply for the brokenness in afghanistan and haiti all the places around us let's engage people around us with compassion and empathy in the brokenness that they are expressing not trying to be some sort of heroic solution but instead inviting them to jesus and saying he can make us right he's making me right here's my story here's the way here's who i was here's what jesus did here's what he's doing now he'll do the same for you he can do the same with systems yes god wants to rescue systems yes god wants governments to reflect his value yes businesses can be demonstrating of love mercy compassion all the good that god has in mind for us but only when the people who are living in those are being remade by jesus and so if you're hungry for justice that's so great you're so close to jesus already invite him to begin in you partner with others who are making the same invitation rally them together and step into the broken places of the world in jesus name and invite them in his direction speak good news over them blessed are those who are hungry blessed god has good in mind if you're hungry and thirsty for justice or righteousness you'll be filled if you make space and join with others making space to be restored for better and sent together to heal so god blesses all of us who are hungry who are thirsty for righteousness that we would want the good that god has in mind to come about in our lives and through our life together as we take the good news of jesus everywhere we go let's be those kind of people if there's any way we can support you along the way we would love to and in fact to get the most out of this i just want to encourage you to shoot a quick text you can text dive in to 9400 you get some encouragement some questions some challenges throughout the week get the most out of this series don't forget to subscribe and if this was helpful to you please take a second and share it with a friend we hope to see you soon see you later

Channel: Canyon Ridge Christian Church

Views: 487

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Christianity (religion), God, Jesus, Grace, Praise, Gospel, Ministry, Christian, Church, Canyon Ridge, God First, Lord, Holy, Ministries, Fellowship, Ridge Live, Church Online, Drew Moore, Kristi Templeton, Canyon Ridge Christian Church, Las Vegas Church, Las Vegas

Id: gUxmd9wE4Xg

Length: 34min 12sec (2052 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021