Lie #6 “People Are The Problem.” | Jud Wilhite + Central Live | Central Church

well welcome to central online my name's nick i'm here with the fabulous chloe segum and this weekend we will be your host whether you're watching online you're watching from your phone you're at one of our live locations we just want to say thanks so much for starting your week here at central and being with us you know it's a pretty darn good place to start your week and we're so excited to be here with you and if you are joining us online we want to say welcome and thank you so much for tuning in and do us a huge favor and share this experience there's nothing like gathering in person and being in church together but there's something powerful but watching online inviting your friends using your platform to share this experience so they can attend church virtually with you so go ahead and share this experience and please let us know where it is you're watching from so that we can say hello give you a shout out so go in the comments below type your name and let us know where you're watching from yeah we also want to take this opportunity to remind you that central is here for you 24 hours a day seven days a week we are a 24-hour church we have pastors and ministry leaders standing by that anticipate every single call text chat that they get so make sure to go to you can go to central.family to find that option or a number is going to come up on the screen make sure to save that you never know when you're going to need it and our team wants to be there for you hey i want to give a huge shout out to central live if you don't know who that is central live is our worship band here at central church and this week we released a brand new sick song ep the whole ep is titled city of grace and it features the single city of grace this week we released it and it hit in the top three of the itunes charts which is awesome so thank you everyone who contributed to that if you haven't heard it yet go to central.live it's available at all music streaming platforms and this weekend we're excited to share a very special experience with you we're going to be doing all six songs from the ep right now we're about to get started there's going to be some videos going on in between songs but i want to encourage you to remain standing for the whole worship experience yeah wherever you're watching from get ready to experience central [Music] online so [Music] [Music] well good morning central family how are we doing this morning all right we're so glad you guys are here this weekend i just want to invite you all to stand sing let's put our hands together my story [Music] jesus [Music] my hope is anchor in christ alone my past forgiving grace has now become the answers to my story now i'm walking in freedom the resurrection power lives because of jesus [Music] is the curse is [Music] because of jesus [Music] me [Music] me so steve and jesse had said is there like a message that you feel like would just kind of um really describe who your church is i'm like yeah it's it's a grace-driven church on the side of our building it says it's okay to not be okay so we wanted to write a song that says all are welcome here you can come here in chains but you'll walk out at freedom so come find your place in the city of grace [Music] freedom today come on in the darkness [Music] come find your place [Music] oh [Music] there's beautiful houses [Music] yes there is peace [Applause] [Music] there's no condemnation no judgment [Music] [Applause] and yes it's okay [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay [Music] for he is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] the is [Music] well that is city of grace a central live original their brand new single happens to also be the name of their brand new ep that just released this week and i'll talk about more of that in a second first of all my name's nick i'm one of the pastors here at central and if you're just joining us i want to say thanks so much for starting your week right here at central central is a place where it is okay to not be okay and that means that you belong you're at the right place thanks so much for being with us and this weekend brand new ep released by central live it's called city of grace and a couple things with this ep we want you to not just have this album we went out to just want you to download this album but we want you to experience this album and there's some ways that you can do that first of all you can go on youtube and we have a couple of our central live original studio performances we have you always win a brand new central live original city of grace go on and check those out through youtube it's awesome just to see the team in that studio and just how special that moment was you can also download the city of grace devotional on the youversion bible app so all you do is open up your app store search for the bible app it's going to be the you version and there just search in the devotionals for city of grace and you can follow right along is an incredible devotional that you'll need to check out and then you can also listen to the album across all platforms they're on spotify they're on apple music they're even on deezer and if you know what deezer is because i didn't know what deezer was till this weekend i'm feeling generous i want to give a giveaway to someone online this weekend so all you have to do in the chat box is just put your name and just put exactly what deezer is if you know what it is just put it in that chat box and and if you've used deezer put that in that chat box and we're gonna give you this central live hat we're gonna give you a city a grey sticker we want to give that those giveaways to you i want to give a special shout out to kristin from denver stephanie from fort mojave and amy from kingman thank you so much for being online with us this weekend but you know we're right about the time that we're gonna throw it right back over to central live for some more worship and then we somewhere in there jump to the chorus and then the turn and we just came up with this i'm like what is this and david's like i don't think it's anything i'm like are you sure that honestly guys one of my favorite sessions i think i've ever been a part of in all of songwriting to christian's point of i could walk and get to the highest mountains and i could also walk through the shadow lands of fear even still my heart can't fathom you always find a way to meet me here it makes you and it molds you into a person who's able to look above what you rose through and say god you've been faithful through it and so he's not a god of the mountains only he's very very present also in the valleys in the shadow lands that our hearts can experience i never knew this true [Music] [Music] let is [Applause] [Applause] [Music] oh here i stand for this foundation [Music] give me faith to teach this generation [Music] legacy never let us let us go [Music] [Music] [Music] you never let [Music] something that i've learned from worshipping from home like that's become a thing um is just stopping and worshiping where you're at right then and there these are not songs that you have to gather in person and sing for god to meet you in a place of worship you can be in your house in your car driving wherever our pastor judd says that worship is a weapon and i really believe that i agree like even in this quarantine season i've had to learn how to be more spiritually grounded at home and i truly believe that worship is a weapon over anxiety over fear it's something that allows you to just kind of tune out the rest of the world whatever you're faced with and just keep your eyes fixed on jesus [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] i [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i'm [Music] is [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Music] you can grab a seat that was so rich well this weekend i have the privilege to introduce to you laurel laurel and her husband josh are very special to central family and i'm excited for you to hear her story of how she and her husband josh have learned to trust god in the area of their generosity lord and our husband josh are tithers at central now what that means is they commit 10 percent or more of their income to god's work and they just trusted him in that way so i want you also to know laura laurel would rather be behind the scenes than in front of you this weekend it's just who she is you know she's she's not that person but she decided to take a step of faith and be obedient to jesus to inspire others and also to honor god in her life so i already told her you're the friendliest people in the world so will you help me give a warm welcome to laurel laurel thanks for being courageous and coming up here this weekend and sharing with the central family and this concept of tithing for you began when you were just a little girl right your parents taught you how important tithing was and it became a value that you grabbed a hold of in your whole life yeah and then you and josh have just practiced that and displayed that and you've seen god's blessing on your life but this went to another level right this year right with covet and all that happened you had to lean in and trust god in a way maybe you've never seen before fill us in on that so back at the beginning of 2020 january it's a fresh new year and we had some big goals some dreams for our business and we were just gonna make it the best year yet and and then covet hit and oh to add into that i actually had quit my job of 13 years too and was going to work alongside with my husband so um when comet hit needless to say we were quite unsure of what to do we were almost just paralyzed in what to do and where to go so we did what only we knew what to do and just prayed ask god for wisdom and just ask him to provide for our family and after many months of no income and lots of debt um he started to provide for us which was really amazing and you never give gave up trusting him and all of that right you just said we are going to continue to put god first he's going to take care of us and he's going to bless us and what i love about your story have been so easy to pull back during that time you got a two-year-old and a four-year-old maybe just hunker down kind of keep it all for ourselves but you decided no you were going to continue to give tell us about that act of faith so we wanted to just put everything that we had into our faith and just say god you know make a way for us and and do what only you can do and it's pretty amazing because during this uncertain crazy time um we can actually say that it's been the best year yet for our business so it's pretty incredible to um to say that in that incredible church and so so you guys have had the best year and each step of the way god blessed you tithe god bless you tithe and you just trusted him throughout that entire process and what i love about your story is you both give god the glory you give him the credit why do you see god's hand of blessing and all that um it's just a hundred percent clear to us because there was no way that we could have done these things it was clearly god orchestrating everything and in an impossible situation he just made it possible to provide for our family and it's got to feel so good right to see god's blessing in your life his protection his blessing but also there's a great joy knowing that you have blessed 641 242 individuals with food relief over 7.4 million pounds of food how does that make you feel knowing you're a part of that i love this church it's just amazing what what our church is able to do and meeting the needs of people and changing lives and just being a light in a very dark time so i'm really proud to be part of our church i love our church well we're proud of you we're thankful for you and your generosity come on church help me celebrate laurel this weekend thank you laura oh you know it's just exciting to see i i get so inspired when i hear stories like laurels who stepped out in faith and trusted god maybe in a way that didn't make sense and i'm thankful for those in the central family who put god and others first and have blessed so many people in our cities during this time you guys are true rock stars and i want to encourage the central family maybe you've been coming to central you give occasionally maybe you drop a few dollars in the offering bucket or you get behind every now and then the hope for the city cause but i want to challenge you to trust god on another level maybe to take a step of faith and become what we call around here at central a generosity rock star you say what's a generosity rock star it's someone who commits to give a reoccurring gift online at least 20 every week and if you make that commitment you'll be blessing two families every month now if that's too high a bar you say i can't make that kind of commitment maybe for you you start out by blessing one family at 35 a month that's a little over a dollar a day or for others we might be able to do more than one or two families it's really up to you and god and what he puts on your heart but it's trusting him and to take that step of faith you can do that by going online our team right after our experience would love to help you take that step and when you do that and you make that commitment we have a hope for the city t-shirt we'd love to give to you a generosity coin that we just want to say thank you for taking that step of faith and watching god bless you and maybe in ways you've never seen him bless before and just to remind all of us the easiest and best way to give is to give a gift online and it's easy to do just type in your web browser central dot family you don't need anything else and then click the link give a gift or you can give on our mobile app or you can go to central online dot tv and if you're meeting live at one of our locations you can give the gift at the end of our experience today by going up to one of our generosity team members in the lobby hand them your credit or debit card tell them what kind of gift you want to give they'll swipe your card and you'll be good to go or you can give by check or cash our ushers will have buckets at all the exits but thank you central family thank you for trusting god and i pray you experience his blessing in your life let's pray together well jesus we love you so much and i pray that you'd take our gifts that you would bless them and the recipients of these gifts would know that you're an awesome god who loves them and one day they would name you to be the leader and forgiver of their life and they would serve you with all of their heart for it's in jesus name we pray amen well right now i'm going to invite you to stand his central life leads us in a time of worship let's declare our thankfulness to jesus during this time [Music] i've tasted and seen so many things [Music] nothing but faithfulness you've shown [Music] you're making all things news will bring praise [Music] jesus [Music] you're working on you jesus [Music] jesus my life belongs to you praise the lord you've done jesse just looked back at the four of us and said you know this tells me we are in the right place the right moment because the holy spirit's moving and the enemy's attacking and so now's the time to sit down and write some songs so we sat down and our very first song you always win that's a song personally for me that no one else will understand but me because of the year i had just gone through joshua 1 9 be strong be courageous do not be afraid do not be discouraged for the lord your god will go with you wherever you go you know what i'm facing [Music] and i am confident that i am not forsaken [Music] i believe that you will see me through so come into [Music] you make me strong you make me crazy [Music] i won't be afraid i won't be discouraged [Music] you are my god always right beside me [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh jesus [Music] [Music] too you make me crazy you are my god always right beside me is maybe you're here at church today and you feel like you're up against a lot i want you to know that god has not forgotten about you and we want to pray for you today so if you need prayer of any sorts wherever you're at would you just slip your hand up in the air if we can pray for you today church family let's join and pray for our friends god we come before you right now we left up every brother and sister who are here in this room today who are struggling god you know what we're faced with so i pray in this very moment you would carry this burden for us and meet us right here lord i pray for the victims and the family of the october first tragedy in las vegas i pray that today you would give them a sense of your hope and peace god i lift up our president and all of government and those who are sick today i just pray that you would watch over them and protect them god would you come in this room today would you do what only you can do we love you god and we thank you for it's in your name we pray and everybody said together let's say it out loud amen come on let's sing [Music] yourself [Music] oh [Music] you will see [Music] you can do [Music] [Music] always [Music] yes [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Music] i hope that you were tremendously blessed by that incredible time of worship every single song you just heard is a part of the brand new central live city of grace ep thank you all so much for participating in that wonderful time of worship and i'm so excited to be sitting next to lori wilheit who is our senior pastor's wife and she has some exciting news to share with the women of central that's right ladies i would love to personally invite you to a very special retreat we have coming up october 20th and 21st in our partnership with leading and loving it because you have been investing in so many people during this season you've invested in your kids your friends your co-workers and your family but what would happen if you took just two days to invest in yourself because when the whole world falls apart we need grit and grace and when you feel overwhelmed and overworked we need grit and grace in our lives and when you feel weary and worn out like we do we need grit and grace and this year you can join us live at the henderson campus with restrictions or for the first time ever you can join retreat from your couch you can come in person or watch the live stream but since we're all navigating crazy work schedules and distance learning and so much more retreat will also be available on demand with unlimited access for an entire year and as part of the central family you get to attend retreat at the discounted rate of just 79 with the code vegas 79 but we don't want anyone to miss out on this incredible opportunity if you're in need of a scholarship you can reach out to us through the email on the website please do that if you need help coming because we would love for you to be there or you can just go to central dot family to snag your ticket with the code vegas 79 today i will be so excited to see you at retreat but right now we're thrilled to get to continue on in our series out of my mind so open your ears and your hearts and let's see what god has for us this weekend all right [Applause] well welcome everybody great to have you with us today and if you're joining us online great to have you guys as well i want to thank my amazing wife lori for that announcement and just ladies of central this is a great opportunity in a crazy season it's right around the corner in a couple weeks to just get some spiritual inspiration in your life uh great speakers from around the nation some of the best will be pouring into you and it'll be a great opportunity to just grow spiritually so lean into that well i wonder if anybody's had a headache recently anybody had a headache recently you know i mean i i hate headaches and i've gotten some headaches uh recently but i saw this uh slide i thought it was pretty funny it said types of headaches you have migraine headache you know which sort of is the tension in the frontal lobe then you have tension headaches in the back then you have stress headaches right here but then look at this the 20 20 headache right we all relate to that that's what it feels like and you got all that the tension the stress the pressure that we're all sort of navigating right now in this season and then you know it kind of spills over into other areas of our life like like social distancing um i remember when the shutdown was first happening in the like early days and and i went to the grocery store like everybody else remember that like the grocery the mad grocery store run right there's a million people everywhere and um you know there wasn't like spaces marked off on the floor nobody was wearing masks you know this was right at the very beginning and and i'm sort of like him then i'm i finally i'm up next to the cashier but there are there's a mile of people behind me there's people all around me and there's nowhere i can move to the left or the right to the front or the back and this guy is standing at the front of his cart not the back at the very front like in front of it right literally six inches from my neck and he's breathing on my neck i can feel his breath every single breath and i remember i'm just standing there like seriously bro right now i'm getting the rona that's what's happening i'm standing in the line i'm getting the coronavirus as i try to get and then the you know that took me 10 minutes to get finally up to the checkout counter i just got home i said lori just keep your distance because if it's out there i got it man this guy he breathed it right down my neck but you know so i remember that moment and that kind of experience and then i remember our first flight we took our first flight it was to go see uh my um niece's wedding i got to officiate her wedding and um that would have been i guess early august and so we got on the southwest airlines flight you know and it was totally empty there was like nobody on the flight we were all seated everybody was like distanced and lori and i had a middle seat in between us which that's like strike striking gold when you're on a southwest airline you know it's like hey we've got a middle seat right here between us it's awesome and this guy gets on the plane at the very end and he walks all the way to where we are and he sits in the seat right in front of me i remember i'm sitting there i'm like bro there's a whole plane you're gonna sit right here in front of me and i just think i turned to lori i said nope we got up and we moved back to the back of that empty plane we got our own we got our own seat even this last week i took montel jordan um back to his hotel saturday night by the way didn't he do a great job this last weekend just love them the best people too and we took it back to our hotel and we walked him in and it was busy there were people around and and uh this guy kind of walking past me brushed my arm now in any other time somebody like bumps into you or whatever it's no big deal you know like you don't even think about it but in this day and age i was like dude seriously you just touched me i remember i stopped and i looked at my arm it's like you can't do that man that's not get the lysol y'all we live in a world right now where there's a real tendency to see other people as threats right they could be carriers they could have verona you know they could they could get and then and so we're navigating that side of it then we're in an election season come on somebody and i can't remember a time in my life that has been more divided or hate feel filled or bitter then this season we're sort of navigating and i think social media doesn't always help that you know social media it can be a great thing it's a great tool right you know it unites people we get to share each other's lives it's great but then there's another side to that coin the amount of misinformation and disinformation that gets spread across social media platforms has anybody thought recently i don't know what's true about any number of things right like i just don't know like what's true and that's part of the downside i think of social media and everybody has an opinion and and there are nefarious countries and people and sources out in our world that work that confusion that's actually to their benefit for everybody to not know what's true anymore you know what i mean so we know all of this is happening we know it's going on at some level and we're all kind of caught up in it and then with social media you can sort of create a bubble you can just follow the people that believe like you you can follow the people that see the world like you you can mute and unfollow all those people that don't and you can start to think that this is all the world is and you start to divide the world up those that are on your team and those that are on that team right those that you know i agree with and those that i don't agree with and you might not say it this way but those that i love and those that i hate and that's a simple way of dividing the world that goes back thousands of years jesus himself would teach the israelites you've heard that it was said love your neighbor and hate your enemies right common sense love your neighbor hate your enemies but he's going to challenge our thought today and challenge us with his teaching to love our enemies as well and so we live in a time where it's easy to see other people as the problem right now there's other people that they just want everything to open up too soon or the other people that they don't want things to open up soon enough or the people that walk down the grocery store aisle the wrong way you know who i'm talking about out there right you're like seriously bro turn around look down you see these things these are called arrows right like that's the world we live in and so all this tension starts to brew and i want to suggest to you today that as a follower of jesus people are not the problem they are your purpose they're not your problem they're your purpose look they're messy i'm messy we're all messy but people are your ministry and god wants to use you to share his love and his light with people people that agree with you and people that don't agree with you people that are in your circle and people that are not in your circle so jesus tells a story to challenge some of our basic assumptions we know it as the story of the good samaritan and it's amazing story let me just set it up jesus is having a conversation with an expert in the religious law and in the midst of this conversation they agree on the greatest commandments the number one greatest commandment is love the lord your god with all your heart soul mind and strength and the second is love your neighbor as yourself and then we read this luke chapter 10 um beginning uh here i believe it's in verse 29 um when we get to the red word let's say it together it says the man wanted to justify his actions so this religious expert in the law he wants to justify his actions they've agreed loving god and loving your neighbor as yourself is the most important commandment and then he asked jesus this question and what who is my neighbor who is my neighbor makes me think of mr rogers you know won't you be my neighbor right but he's like who is my neighbor in other words he's trying to limit and you could even you know commentators have noted that this sort of below the surface of this question is really another question which is who am i allowed to hate who am i allowed to keep on the outside who am i allowed to not let into that circle of neighbor who is my neighbor and so jesus is going to challenge him and challenge us today with some pretty amazing teaching around this whole idea and the first thing he's going to challenge us with is this idea of cultivating compassion if we're going to love people that are hard to love if we're going to love people who are our neighbor which in jesus definition as we'll see includes everyone we're going to have to cultivate compassion in our life now compassion i think there's some compassion fatigue growing on uh right now in this season and certainly when it comes to sports and football i'm feeling that i'm for the my whole life i've been a cowboys fan you guys know that i'm also a raiders fan now i'm cheering for the raiders cheer for the cowboys i'm kind of two-timing and um the cowboys have struggled right the cowboys are not doing so good and so everybody sends me all kinds of grief on social media when the cowboys don't do well there's no compassion look at this i'll just show you a few of these i've gotten now this is an old classic but somebody sent it to me recently dallas designates cowboys stadium as a tornado shelter since the chain since the chance of a touchdown is highly unlikely there we go but now that the pandemics started there's even pandemic memes check this next one out it says cowboys face masks guaranteed you won't catch anything come on that's all we need right there cowboy's face mask all right let's go one more social distancing somebody sent me this the super bowl and the cowboy star social distancing since 1995. i'm like bro that's just mean it's true but it's me no i to all my friends that do this keep them coming i love it secretly i love it but listen compassion is something we can all struggle with especially when we're tired and we're stressed out like we are in this season i always say it this way my give a care meter is in the red zone anybody ever get there where you're just like i don't care i can't read another thing i can't have another conversation i'm not going to have another argument i'm not going to go there this brother's done i'm done right we all get there but jesus is challenging us to cultivate compassion with this story so let me set it up jesus says let me tell you a story who's my neighbor here's a story there's a guy he's on his way from jerusalem to jericho it's a path that the original hearers would have understood it's a very steep windy rocky road to go from jerusalem to jericho was a 17 mile journey you dropped 3 300 feet over the 17 miles and it was twisty and rocky and a lot of robbers could hide out on this road and so they actually called that road the way of blood because they you know in the time they understood this is a dangerous road you get robbed you get mugged and so in jesus story there's a there's a guy going from jerusalem to jericho on this windy rocky road and sure enough he gets mugged he gets beaten he gets robbed he gets left half dead over by the side of the road and jesus says here's this guy's half dead and then suddenly a priest comes walking by and i know that people are hearing this story and they're like oh man good a priest you know he's going to help him he's going to intervene he's going to do something because he's a priest and priests were highly viewed in that time he's sort of an icon a hero he would have stopped and did something but as jesus often does in his story he shakes it up and he says no no the priest sees the guy and just keeps on walking all the original hearers would have been like whoa then a levite comes along now levite was not quite at the level of a priest but still like a religious professional kind of like a temple assistant and so the levite comes along and he also just keeps on walking right both of them and so the people are here they heard this they're thinking like well who's gonna who's gonna help the guy maybe somebody like me maybe just an everyday person and then jesus sort of blows all of their minds with this comment that we just take for granted all these years later luke chapter 10 verse 33 says then a despised samaritan came along and when he saw the man he felt what compassion for him now notice jesus calls it out first of all he's a despised samaritan samaritans were seen by the jews as ethnic half-breeds there was all this racial and ethnic tension that went on between jews and samaritans to a jewish person this would have been the last individual who would have stopped and who would have cared for another jewish person who'd been beat up left on the side of the road i mean a priest didn't even stop and a levite didn't stop but this would be like saying to us the isis leader came walking by and saw the american beat up on the side of the road and felt compassion for him whoever the most despised person you can imagine is you know tom brady came walking by and he saw the poor samara the the poor jewish person on the ground and he had compassion for him just kidding but that was the shock right of the story it wasn't what was expected we today we're just like oh yeah good samaritan yeah there's a good samara to law thing and there's you know like we just 2 000 years of history cover up how shocking and even offensive and upside down this would have struck the original readers jesus is pushing us in this moment to say the least likely person was the person that felt compassion and stopped and for us to cultivate that compassion is something that we can do intentionally in our lives one of the number one ways for me when i'm tired and worn out and i just don't really want to care anymore is if i will just remember what a mess i was when god rescued me and restored me and moved in my life it helps me cultivate compassion for others who maybe look different than me or think different than me or approach the world different than me i just got to remember that man there was a time in my life where i had i violated all of god's principles i was going my own way i was a mess i was an addict i was caught up in all kinds of different things and you know a lot of people wrote me off and god probably should have wrote me off but he didn't write me off and he worked in my life and he redeemed me in my life and he helped my feet get back on solid ground and he helped me get my sanity again he helped sort of he moved and worked in my life he didn't forget he didn't you know just just write me off in that moment he moved and worked in my life and when i remember that my mess when i remember what god did me in my mess it helps me have compassion for others who may be in their own mess listen i want you to think about this god loved you when you were foolish god loved you when you were selfish god loved you when you were wrong god loved you when you were cheating god loved you when you were stealing god loved you when you were bitter god loved you even when you know that you you even when you did the thing that you said you would never do god loved you even when you didn't do the thing that you promised to do god loved you when you were lazy and that wasn't always a long time ago come on somebody this week god loves you when you were crazy for some of us that wasn't a long time ago either god loved you when you acted out when you were burned out when you wouldn't listen god loved you when you were stubborn when you walked away when you were self-righteous when you were kind of at your utter worst listen god did not cancel you instead he loved you he showed you grace he showed you mercy he had compassion when you were a mess god didn't cancel you he had compassion for you and so now jesus is challenging us to remember all god did for us and to treat others with all of that in perspective right people are not just the problem they're your purpose you're called to show them the love of god and the love of christ cultivate your compassion by remembering all that god does and then do mercy do mercy so y'all i went to the dentist this week i haven't been to the dentist in like five years i got a fear of dennis right it's been a long time so i go we're gonna get like the test done and kind of i just knew it was time and sure enough i got issues so we're gonna start with like this super deep cleaning and then to clean our teeth she's like the dentist who i really like she's a great dentist she's like so um you know we're going to go ahead and numb you on the top and on the bottom because it's bad and we got to do like the super duper duper duper duper cleaning of all cleanings okay okay great so i didn't really understand what i was getting in for kind of in the moment and i didn't really prep for it so it's already like you know probably three or four o'clock in the afternoon and and um so she gives me eight shots across the top and eight shots across the bottom a sixteen i count them you know she's like you're gonna feel a little prick a little prick little prick sixteen times y'all 16 times by the way it didn't hurt but i'm just telling you when i left i couldn't form words you know i couldn't talk i was slobbering down my shirt i had no control they took this whole part of my face out in fact i took a picture just to show you like this is legitimately a photo i want you to just look at that see it like my lip does not that's just hanging down there that's the bot that's that's the that's my teeth my bottom teeth and that's like look at all that gum so by the way i got i got botox right there that's what that is i got some botox i was starving because i got out of there like right after five o'clock and i'm like man i got to eat hadn't eaten yet and so i and i can't go so i go home and i'm like i grab a banana cause i'm thinking i got to figure out a way to eat something and this banana just comes all out on my shirt it's on the floor i tried to use a straw i couldn't get a straw to work i was bad y'all i was a mess and we don't have to go far in our lives to get to a place where we all need help right some kind of help i needed help and this guy in jesus story in a whole other level he needs help he's laying on the side of the road he's left for half dead and you know here all these people walk by him but the samaritan stops and he helps him he nurses the man and he does a little first aid to him he puts him on his donkey he takes him to an end where we assume that he was already heading he pays for him to have a night's lodging there he takes care of him through the night the next morning when he leaves he goes to the attendant on the way out and he says hey i'm going to leave you with some money to take care of this man and help him get on his feet and if there's more keep a record of it and when i come back through i'll even up with you you know and so then he went on his way but he took care of this guy he showed him compassion and he did mercy to him and then jesus turns to this expert in the religious law and this is what he says luke chapter 10 beginning in verse 36 and jesus always did this by the way he flipped things around and asked a question you know he doesn't just tell him he's going to ask him a question because he's brilliant that way he says now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the a man who was attacked by bandits right and you know he's kind of trapped the guy there's no real way to answer this except the way the man did he says the one who showed him mercy then jesus said yes now go and what do the same do the same go show mercy in your own life go show kindness in your own life aren't you glad that that samaritan didn't come across this jewish guy and the first thing he said is hey man what's your what's your name what's your handle on instagram and social media what's your twitter account i need to know your politics i need to know kind of your view on life i need to know if we line up otherwise bro i can't help you because you're you're not part of my group you're not part of my tribe you're on the outside and i only take care of people on the inside that's not what happened at all what happened what is jesus doing jesus is pushing our categories saying as followers of him we don't just get to draw lines everywhere about who we're going to do mercy to and who we're going to have compassion on he's pushing us right he's pushing us in fact roy angle captured some attitudes that come out of the good samaritan story and we see these in the different characters one attitude is this it's the attitude of the robbers if that is what's yours is mine i'll take it right you know they just go in they rob this guy they take what he has another attitude is the attitude of the religious leaders what's mine is mine i'll keep it right and they just keep on walking now some have said well maybe these religious leaders were going to jerusalem to serve in the temple and you know if if a priest was to touch a body that turned out to be dead it could compromise his ritual purity and it might impact his ability to serve when he got to the temple except other commentators have noted that jesus clearly says this was a story about people going from jerusalem down to jericho in other words they were leaving the temple in the temple area so he doesn't really let them off the hook here's the the final attitude we see in the good samaritan what's mine is god's i'll share it oh it's mine is god's i'll share it and so god's given me gifts and time and talent and ability and resources and you know what he puts in my hand he puts in my hand to provide for me and for my family he puts it in your hand to provide for you and for your family but also to have an open hand with what we have to share it to others here's the thing i think is true about the heart of god god loves to give to givers i believe god loves to bless people that bless others right because then his blessings don't just stop they flow through us into the lives of others and so no jesus does not say in this story now simply go and think the same right now go and feel the same he says go and do the same go and do the same find some small way to practically love people that you disagree with have the courage to show kindness to those you may want to cancel do for the one maybe what you wish you could do for the many right this is kind of what we see in jesus story as it plays out the samaritan personally comes across someone he can clearly see as a victim he already has the resources to help with a clear and pressing need but he helps in ways that are both generous and wise i mean he takes him to an end but he doesn't cancel his own business trip sure he pays the innkeeper but he entrusts this care of this person to the innkeeper he promises to come back and to pay the bill and that's really the end of it he sets wise boundaries he doesn't let the pressure of trying to do everything stop him from doing the something that he can do he doesn't let the pressure of helping everyone stop him from helping this one that god put in his path you're not called to help everyone but you are called to help someone you are called you're not called to meet every need but you are called to meet some needs in your life it's a do mercy go and do mercy and it can be little things when you choose to not be offended when you could be offended that's doing mercy right when you believe the best about a person when you could easily choose to believe the worst that's doing mercy when you set a boundary rather than just trying to run out and get revenge on someone well that's mercy when you hold out forgiveness rather than holding onto a grudge that's doing mercy when you choose to serve rather than be served when you give what you can even though you don't think it's enough that's doing mercy when you take a call that you would rather send a voicemail come on somebody when you meet a friend for coffee even though you disagree when you invest in a friendship with someone who doesn't look like you or think like you that's doing mercy when you refuse to attack and correct your family member you know the one who has a different opinion than you because you value that relationship over their politics that's mercy when you do the dishes even when it isn't your turn that's mercy when you help a friend change a tire when you encourage someone i mean that's mercy when you offer to check on a neighbor's pet when you pick up a shift for a co-worker who's having a hard time when you pray for someone's success even if it's bothering you that is doing mercy kindness does not have to be big to have a big effect it doesn't have to be big to have a big effect so my challenge for myself my challenge for you this week is as we navigate our lives as we have that tendency to to want to put people in camps for or against as we want to start blocking off our compassion who we'll show it to and who we want my encouragement to you is just have an open hand and just remember you and i we're never going to lock eyes with somebody that doesn't matter to god and if they matter to god they ought to matter to us you don't have to agree with them you don't have to support everything they may believe or not believe but you can still you can cultivate compassion you can try to understand you can build a friendship and you can realize that those people are not simply your problem they're also your purpose and they may be your ministry and as individuals god may use you in their lives to grow their heart and ultimately to point them to jesus it also means as a church community we don't have the luxury of drawing hard lines about who we're going to love and who we're going to show compassion to and who we're going to do mercy too when we first started the food lines and we've served over i don't know seven and a half million pounds of food now over the last six months i remember you know when it first started though there were some really nice cars coming through i mean really not i mean cars that cost as much as you know some people's homes nice cars and i remember a guy looked at me he's like hey man are we going to put food in that and i just looked at him i think they wouldn't be in this line if they didn't need him and we're not here to judge we're not here to draw lines on who we show compassion to we're just here to serve people cultivate compassion and do mercy cultivate compassion and do murph now like that's what we do i just think shall mercy and kindness to everybody because we need it right now in this culture and it's not going to necessarily get better over the next month come on somebody so we got to go first to lead out you can have differences and they can be real and substantial i'm not dismissing that but there is still more that unites us than divides us and as followers of jesus it's ultimately the call of god on our life to love our enemies to pray for our enemies to serve one another and to find that god's love is ultimately what can change a person's heart so i know it can seem like people are the problem but i want to suggest we got to get that out of our mind and never forget that people are your greatest purpose so how do we love as god leads we'll first cultivate compassion remember that when you're a mess god gave you his very best and then do mercy don't just feel bad but do good for others don't let the pressure of doing everything keep you from doing something share what you have do it wisely even if it's small because people aren't simply the problem they are your purpose and maybe you're here today and maybe you have never crossed the line of faith and i want to know when we talk about god's love and his compassion for people that extends to you he loves you he cares for you and it doesn't matter what you've done what you've experienced what you've said how frustrated you've been how angry you've been i want you to know god can forgive and restore and heal and he wants to do that in your life so today i'd be honored to just lead you in a simple prayer to turn your life and heart back over to god and if you're at a place where you're ready to follow him in your life you can just repeat this either out loud or in your own heart god knows but this is a starting point a way to rekindle that relationship and just ask christ to move and work in your life so would all of you bow your heads and close your eyes if you'd like to take that step of faith today you can begin that journey by repeating this prayer after me just say dear god i thank you for loving me thank you for sending jesus into the world i believe he died on the cross for my sins i believe he rose again forgive me for my sins give me the gift of eternal life help me face the challenges that i'm up against god i surrender my life to you in christ's name friends with every head bowed and every eye closed if that's your prayer today if it's your commitment i'm going to ask you to just slip your hand in the air just make eye contact with me just to stay before god to say to me you're going to follow him in your life today god bless you guys thank you thank you just reach out to him today thank you thank you thank you guys thank you god we love you we thank you for each person reaching out to you and we pray you fill their life with your goodness your joy your peace help all of us to cultivate compassion for one another to show mercy to each other and to lead the way in representing your love and your life we ask these things in jesus name amen well let's put our hands together for all those who made spiritual commitments in their life today if you made a spiritual commitment we would uh love to share a resource with you it's just an e-book a devotional we've created called how to follow jesus so be super helpful for you just go to central.family just click the link i've decided to follow jesus and we'll get that resource sent to you be a great way to help you as you follow god in the future all right well let's put our hands together for pastor nick who's got a few final thoughts for us god bless you guys awesome thank you so much pastor judd that was awesome wasn't it so so good hey and if you're one of those that raised your hand awesome awesome awesome you made the best decision you'll ever make in your life and we want to get that free resource into your hand i decided to follow jesus just go to central.family click the link i decided to follow jesus and we'll get that guide into your hands and we just want to say again congratulations on making that great decision absolutely we could not be more happy for you guys and we would love to help you along this journey hey if you've been a part of central for a while or if you're just now starting to tune in and you're experiencing god moving in your life you're experiencing some sort of life change let us know we miss hearing from all of you we miss hearing the stories of life change going on in your lives so comment below shoot us an email reach out to 24 hour church and let us know how god is working in your life as always we would love to invite you back to join us next weekend as we go live saturday at 5 00 pm and sunday at 8 a.m 10 a.m and 12 p.m pacific standard time we would love to have you join us next week yeah and just remember romans 8 no matter what your week lies ahead remember that if god is for us who can be against us keep showing up we'll see you next week

Channel: Central Church

Views: 1,493

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: central church, central online, central live, drew bodine, it's okay to not be okay, pastor jud wilhite, jud wilhite, Sermons, online church, outta my mind, people are the problem, lies, crazy, out of my mind

Id: HPNbmJUNKF8

Length: 74min 15sec (4455 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 04 2020