Mill City Church Live 9-12-21

[Music] so [Music] [Music] well good morning everyone welcome to mill city church we're so glad you're with us this morning would you stand as you're able as we begin our time in worship you are the word at the beginning [Music] what a beautiful name it [Music] what is beautiful name it is nothing compares to this what a beautiful name it is [Music] [Applause] we didn't want heaven without us to jesus my sin was great your love was greater [Music] what a wonderful name it is the name of jesus [Music] of jesus [Music] is [Music] the heavens are roaring [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] faithful you are [Music] faithful [Music] all your promises yes now one more time faithful faithful you are [Music] faithful forever [Music] all your promises all your promises amen [Music] the father of kindness you have poured out grace drawn me out of darkness you have filled me with peace [Music] this morning [Music] faithful [Music] all your promises [Music] you say [Music] is [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] david says find rest o my soul and god alone my hope comes from him for god alone is my rock and my salvation god is my fortress i will not be shaken david goes on to say trust in god at all times so people pour out your hearts to him for god is our refuge and that's what i love about the god that we serve that we have a god who we can pour out our hearts to him and he receives us exactly where we are we have a god who is our strength and our salvation our fortress a god who is worthy of our trust who we can rest in and know that we have a god who holds us no matter what we're going through no matter the season that fact about god will never change that we have a god who is with us that we have a god who has his arms around us so as we sing this bridge this morning which says i will rest in your confidence i will rest in your faithfulness bring up into your mind what is one area that you need to rest this morning and who god is what is one area that you need to make god your strength your fortress what is one area where you're just crying out god i need help and we can hold on to the hope that we have a god who listens and answers so let's sing this together this morning and sing i will rest [Music] in your promises for my confidence with your faithfulness and i will rest [Music] and i will rest [Music] in your [Music] my [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hey [Music] [Applause] so your promises are yesterday [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] faithfulness great is thy faithfulness morning by morning new mercies [Music] is thy faithful [Music] father we thank you for your faithfulness this morning father we thank you that you are our strength and our shield thank you that you are a god who is with us father you're a god who is our comfort and our healer jesus this morning as we sing about your faithfulness and your strength father i just want to take a moment and just remember that 20 years ago we all witnessed the tragic events that happened on 9 11. and lord as i was driving in this morning i just thought of the families that are still remembering the loss of loved ones i think of the first responders and survivors that are still dealing with the traumatic events that they experienced jesus in a very real and tangible way would you show yourself as a god who is with them show yourself as a god who is their comfort who is their strength when they don't have strength father as a church as we look into our world in this country and our communities jesus we know that people need your hope and so would we be a church that brings your kingdom and brings your hope to those around us father even the breath this morning is a gift from you and i thank you that we are able to gather together and worship that is no small thing so thank you for your presence in the space would you continue to guide us as we go through the rest of our morning together we love you lord you are so faithful and that will never change jesus thank you for your love in jesus name we pray amen amen well you may be seated all right good morning can you guys give a round of applause to our worship team amen yeah they stay having me boogie and for the name of the lord jesus amen yes i know he loves how i boogie in his presence i don't care what you say so um so thank you so much for that um if you're new welcome we are so grateful that you're here and that you're tuning in my name is adobe enduca i am the operations director here at mill city church and our mission here is to love our community in the name of jesus christ and every single thing we do is how we try to live out that mission so if you are tuning in or you're here we'll love for you to go ahead to millcitychurch.com connect or text the word connect to our number 612-800-8233 and if you are here physically at sheridan please meet us at the welcome table we'll love to meet you and give you a gift so i have a few announcements for y'all this morning the first one is about discipleship starting october next month we will we'll be launching resources for intentional discipleship which we are calling discipleship pathway resources now this resources are for individual personal use for a group and if you want to join a group and you need help with that we can absolutely help you with that and pastor steph will of course talk more about this resources later on today so if you're interested go ahead to millcitychurch.com discipleship and go ahead and register and let us know or you can just simply text the word um discipleship see i was about to say type i was about to say type it's not type now i just turned 41 so i know i'm getting a little older so i'm trying to change my lingo but it is text text discipleship to our number 612-800-8233 and for some of you may heard that there was a break in here friday morning but thankfully there was no damage nothing was stolen so but right now we are asking that we pray for the person that broke in it looked like he was suffering from mental illness so we want to pray for him pray for the teachers and the students and staff here we are also offering to cover the cost of anything that was damaged and it's because honestly because of your generosity to our general fund that we're able to be this generous to help our community that we are using right now so um also one way we are invited to support sheridan teachers this year is for any of us for any of us is to choose to adapt a teacher and what that means is writing letters to of encouragement and seeing how you or our larger community can support their classroom so if you're interested in doing this there is a sign up ship at the wacom welcome table for you to go ahead and sign up some of you already signed up which is pretty awesome we want to say thank you for doing so um or if you don't have time to go in the back and sign up again we in tech we're using tech so go ahead and ty uh taxi type go ahead and text teacher uh to our number six one two eight zero zero eight two three three now we want you to save the date we're gonna have a drive in movie night at brookdale covenant church yes listen i'm with you um this is gonna be saturday october 2nd the movies are yet to be determined i don't know about you but if i was you if i was you you know i'll bring a love offering to tony i'd be like sir this is a love our friend and you know hoping you will play whatever movie so i'm gonna give i'm not calling it bride we're not calling it bribe because that's not biblical that's not godly we call it love offering amen yes amen so that's what we're going to do um so also to remind you also there is a membership meeting today literally at the courier outdoors doors um you don't have to be a covenant member to attend we do have food for you we do have suggested donation of five dollars but if not that's fine just come in and join with us now at this time is time for giving and here at mill city church we truly believe that generosity is something that god wants for us and not from us and everything we do in your giving is literally how we're going to use that to live out the mission that milk milsim church has so please go ahead to millcitychurch.com give to give now it is community time now for those of you that are new you're wondering what is community time this is the time that we ask a question and we want you to go ahead and speak to your neighbor so we get to know a little bit more about you now i it's not a personal question okay don't be scared it's not personal it's just nice light question just for fun and so the question today is are you someone who uses a paper planner stroke calendar or a digital planner stroke calendar or neither or both that's the question the answer for me is i use both now my i use paper calendar and that i leave in my room i put all the stuff i need to do for me and my kiddos so that when they come to my room they can see oh on this date we're doing search on this day somebody has an appointment the digital calendar however is for my personal stuff they don't need to be in my business amen so the digital stuff stays on my phone and stays digitized amen under my own password so they all need to know all that but for the family i use paper so they can see what is happening so i would love for you to go ahead and um answer that question with your neighbor and for those with families from birth to age five you guys literally are gonna go i think it's back this way and then for elementary students you guys are going out that way for those in 6th to 12th grade we are so grateful that you are here would love for you to go to meal citychurch.com and get connected to our student ministries but we would love to have you here in the service so the next person that will be coming up will be rev steph as i call her she will bring the word of god to us this morning so excited about that so go ahead talk to each other let's answer the question if you use a planner stroke calendar what is digital paper [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] all right all right if you can find your seat we're going to continue on here this morning good morning everyone we're so glad to see you here today my name is stephanie i'm one of the pastors here and we're just so glad that you're worshiping with us and joining in with us a special welcome to anyone who's maybe here for one of the first few times i know it can be intimidating to come into a new space but we're glad you're here and we really do want to welcome you make sure you connect with the connections table we'd love to make sure that you're connected so adobe said that this question this community time question was not a personal question but i think this is a personal question and i thought it would be a way for me to kind of get like a pull of the audience so that i can make some judgments i mean inferences about who you are based on whether or not you have a planner or not or a paper planner or digital i just thought it'd be a good way for pastor steph to get to know you okay so if you're willing please let me know if you're somebody who uses a paper planner all right and do you pick it out based on how pretty the cover is or how awesome the cover is yes okay do you use matching pens like nice colors coded i know anna does that's fine she doesn't have to admit it all right where are my digital planner people all right okay yes i used to be a paper planner person and now i am a digital planner person and i still have it color coded and it's important to me and because i am the person who has migrated from physical to digital and it's color-coded and very important i do have a question and that is who are the people that don't use planners what how did you get here like how do you know where you're supposed to be at any time how do you remember things like your birthdays or anniversaries or national dog day that one's on instagram so i know that you got that one but like how do you how are you even look look here's the thing i prayed about this and i'm coming today ready to tell you know planner people that i don't understand you but i accept you and i love you but i don't understand you so here here's the thing regardless of how you keep track of your time whether it's a paper planner or a notebook or nothing apparently is anyone else feeling like here we are it's september 12th and when you think about what you have going on it's like from now until christmas you've got every weekend plan does anyone else feel like that's already happened like we're like i feel like fall is the time when things seem to fall into our calendars that we don't know how they got there does anyone else feel like that's the case and then you look at it and you think how did this get so full and how'd this get on my calendar i don't even want to do that right i feel that this is not an a universal experience but it's a common experience that a lot of us have but i would say that this fall feels a little bit different to me maybe it does to you as well some have been calling this summer and into this fall the great reassessment has anyone else heard this being used the great re-assessment this woman writer heather long she writes in the washington post and and people say she coined this term over the summer and the great reassessment is about the shifts happening in regards to how americans work and how we see our work you've probably seen and experienced that there's a labor shortage there's people who are switching careers left and right and asking questions about their vocation some of you as supervisors are experiencing firsthand what it means that people are re-assessing what it looks like for them to commit to their vocation so whether that's been your personal experience that you are reassessing your vocation people around you are one study recently found that nearly two-thirds of us-based employees that were surveyed said that covid19 caused them to reflect on their purpose in life and nearly half said that they are reconsidering the kind of work they do because of the pandemic half are reconsidering the kind of work that they do because of the pandemic so people are re-evaluating and reassessing their work life unlike anything that's ever been seen before but if you're paying attention like i am to the people around you and maybe in your own life it's not just work that everybody is re-evaluating is it it's more than that i would say that this disruption has been leading to the great reassessment of how we live our lives the great reassessment of what are we actually living for it's causing people to think about their priorities in completely different ways than they have maybe ever and for sure for a long time so as jesus followers i want to say today that i think this is a critical opportunity for us a critical opportunity in our lives the conversation that we've been having we're calling this is our story and we're talking about how we the way of jesus and the gospels and how we are people who want to take on the the ways and the works and the and live out the words of jesus that this is what we want to be about that it's not just that that we're trying to merely prioritize some sort of religiosity at least i hope that's not what we're trying to do but we're saying how can we take on the story of jesus and say this is our story and live out the words the works and the ways of jesus being empowered we talked about this over the last few weeks being empowered by the holy spirit to live out the words to live according to what jesus said the works to do what jesus did he said we would do what he did and then finally the the ways to love like jesus modeled which is a pretty radical type of love so when you read the words and the works and the ways of jesus throughout the gospels i would say that it's almost impossible to miss that jesus prioritized one thing over all else jesus prioritized one thing overall else and i would suggest that that is his relationships his relationships even when it was challenging even when there was a lot else pulling at him even when there was a lot at stake he prioritized his relationships his relationship with the father his relationship with his disciples and the people who were closest to him and his relationship with these crowds of people who he was coming to heal and to set free and to tell this good news of why he was now the messiah coming to the world what if our story as jesus followers looked just so different than the world around us as we step into the great reassessment what if we approach the great reassessment and we didn't make adjustments just for our own comfort or our own fulfillment but for the true well-being of yes ourselves but also our communities and our families but also our neighbors what if seeking first the kingdom of god was the main priority in our priority list and everything else came from there the way of jesus is a color-coded planner digitally on your phone wait that's not what i meant i'm kidding the way of jesus is not a planner but a posture of prioritizing your relationships even when it's challenging the way of jesus is a posture of prioritizing your relationships even when it's challenging i mean if he would have wanted the angels to create like the most perfect planner ever he totally could have and it could have been better than all the powersheets and all the daytimers and scripture does not tell us that that happened at least that we know so the way of jesus is not a planner but a posture of choosing to prioritize people in your life even when it's challenging today i want to look at two passages in the gospels and they're similar but a little bit different and the question i want us to ask is how is jesus prioritizing his relationships and what does that mean for us how is jesus prioritizing his relationships so if you have a bible you can turn to luke 6 and we'll have it up here on the screen for you as well i want to read verse 12 through 16. and in this story this is towards the beginning of his ministry i want you to ask this question how is jesus prioritizing his relationships on one of those days one of the early days of his ministry on one of those days jesus went out to the mountainside to pray and spent the night praying to god when morning came he called his disciples to him and chose 12 of them whom he also designated apostles simon who he named peter his brother andrew james john philip bartholomew matthew thomas james the son of alpheus simon who was called the zealot judas son of james and judas iscariot who became a traitor bummered to be the other judas right he went down with them and stood on a level place a large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over judea from jerusalem and from the coastal region around tyre and sidon who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases those troubled by impure spirits were cured and the people all tried to touch him because power was coming from him and healing them all then jesus goes on to speak to his disciples there how do we see jesus prioritizing his relationships in this story if you've been around mill city for a little while and if you're new with us i want you to see this one of the ways that we think about this together and my friend mike breen a british guy who lives here in the states now i remember the first time he taught this to me and it stuck with me ever since and we have this diagram here that explains it that jesus prioritizes three types of relationships in his life and you see them all in this passage alone the up in and out relationship jesus prioritized his up relationship with the father jesus prioritized his in relationship with the disciples that you see him actually choose in this passage and his out relationship with the people in need with the people who god has called him to and then we see one more thing and that is that throughout the gospels jesus relationship with the father is what directs him to know how to live out the in and the out relationships his relationship with the father propels him here you see the first thing he does is spend time with the father and then from there he goes to those in relationships into those out relationships so we see in this passage alone jesus models some pretty reproducible things i think first of all we see jesus prioritize time with the father don't we now i have never stayed up all night to pray that was just a confession maybe you have but jesus is spending that time when he can find it to be with the father now it doesn't say that every time he's all alone and by himself but that he's choosing to make time when he can we also see here in this story that jesus picks just 12 people to focus on deepening relationships with some of you are extroverts and you're like 12 is a really small number and some of you are introverts and you're like 12. what no how about three cool three for you that's fine you you see him taking this really specific steps to to pick to to to pursue these people who he's going to deepen a relationship with and then finally you see with those same people those same disciples and even and even more people who had been following him he steps into that out space to the crowd to these people just full of needs and he's healing people and and power is leaving him it says and people's lives are being changed did you also notice that when judas is is chosen right here early in this text it also it already says this is the guy that's going to betray jesus and i point that out today to say that relationships are risky aren't they even when you're jesus relationships are risky and so if you feel like some of us do that it's it's tough to be vulnerable and it's really difficult to trust people because you've been hurt before i want to suggest that jesus understands he understands what it's like to say i'm going to i'm going to welcome you into my inner circle even though you're a risky person i want to look at one other text that's kind of similar but it has a distinction that i think is worth noting so it's mark 6 now so flip over to mark 6 and we'll be at towards the end in verse 30. so this time jesus has a little bit later on and jesus has sent out the 12 disciples and given them the task to live out the works his works when we talk about the works of jesus and so now they are the ones that are are coming to people that have this evil spirits and and setting them free and healing people and talking about who jesus was and how incredible he had been to them in their experience and so they're going out in twos and then they're coming back in this story and you can imagine that if you just saw the things that they saw they're excited to be together they're excited to share stories they're excited to be you know just with jesus again and so they're coming in after they've been sent out and sharing all that happened and now look notice what happens i want you to pay close attention to the distinction of prioritizing relationships in this story mark 6 verse 30. the apostles gathered around jesus to report to him all they had done and taught just imagine the energy they were sharing then because so many people were coming and going they didn't even have a chance to eat can i mean who can relate to that like whoops forgot lunch okay and he says come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest doesn't that sound great jesus says come with me so they went by themselves in a boat to a solitary place but many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them they're running around the lake to get to the other side when jesus landed and saw a large crowd he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd so he began teaching them many things by this time it was late in the day so his disciples came to him this is a remote place remember they were going to a quiet place to rest this is a remote place and it's already very late send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villager and villages and buy themselves something to eat and then they probably said to each other and where's our dinner jesus promised anyway right but he answered you give them something to eat you give them something to eat so okay just picture you being one of the disciples you've come back you're with jesus he says we're gonna go to a quiet place we're gonna rest we're gonna get some food it sounds awesome so what happens here they're gonna get some food but the people came and it changed their plans didn't it now we could read this text and we could say jesus is not having good boundaries here has he not read the boundaries book someone get jesus a copy of the boundaries book now that is one way we could look at it but if you read further in this passage you find out that the disciples still do get something to eat because if you continue on in this story this is the story where they are a part of the miracle of feeding 5000 people and then there's so much food that everyone's stuffed including them and they are full and the disciples then after that still do get some time away from the crowds they wanted to get some time away as friends in that in relationship but the out the crowds pulled them away from that time so what's the lesson the lesson is use a pencil in your planner instead of a pen right obviously no that's not all okay that's the lat i think that's the last planner joke okay what we see here is that jesus models prioritizing these relationships in ways that sometimes does not go as planned and sometimes it's not exactly what you want to do the way of jesus is a posture of choosing choosing to prioritize the people in your life even when it's challenging and when you follow jesus into unplanned situations this story would suggest that that's often where the miracles happen even if it's not what you were hoping for at the beginning when we started mill city 13 years ago some of you remember me telling the story and there's something that i often say and that is that we had our mission statement before we had a name for the church we had our mission statement before we knew we were going to worship in sheridan school 12 years ago we we had our mission statement before we knew pretty much anything how to even start a church but we had this mission to love our community in the name of jesus and that mission is so intentionally about all three of these relationships in the name of jesus you can do a lot of good things but in the name of jesus with the authority of jesus with the wisdom from jesus the up relationship is what propels us to the in and out to love our community what do we mean by community well here we are our community to love our community in the name of jesus but we also mean our community outside of this place right northeast minneapolis sheridan school every community represented by all of you the places where you live and work and learn and play all of your everyday spaces are communities to love in the name of jesus so our mission is about the wisdom from jesus and the authority from jesus the up relationship propelling us to love our church community and our closest friends and be committed to them but also to press into the out and to live into those spaces where we might be uncomfortable but we know that we go in the name of jesus and when that we do that miracles happen things happen that we never would have expected and things that wouldn't happen if it was just us going out on our own this is our mission to love our community in the name of jesus which means that we follow the way of jesus to prioritize the people in our lives led by jesus in those relationships so when you hear us say loving our community in the name of jesus it's all of those things it's deeply up deeply in and deeply out so i want to i want to say thank you to those of you who filled out the community survey i've got a prize for you i don't have a prize sorry that's a joke no prizes but thank you you know 165 people filled out that survey and i'm so grateful that you did there's so many things that we learned from that to hear from you about where you're at so that we can equip you better to live out this mission that we're talking about so that we can know as leaders as staff as covenant members how we can be a church that keeps moving forward together and one question that we asked was for you to rank some different statements to help us understand what is the motivation to even be a part of a faith community what what motivates you to come into and to be in this room or to join us online like why why would you do that and so we heard from you and here's the top three things that were very clearly the top three motivations for being a part of a faith community that you told us first that the mission of the community is clear and compelling second connection with others from the community and third a community that challenges me to grow in my relationship with jesus now there was like 11 total things but these three things rose right to the top you ranked a priority of up in and out when you said this is why i'm even a part of a faith community in the first place because there's something about knowing that together we can do those three things that we can't do by ourselves in the same way and i'm just i'm really proud of that it's so encouraging to hear that from you but it's also a challenge to our team to say stay focused on this this is why we're here and we received that challenge and as a pastor we i know that my team and our our leaders here those of you who are leaders here in our community we there's no perfect church there's growth areas for every church but i i hear this clear motivation and that's so encouraging to me to say this is what we need to keep pressing into so i want to spend just the last little time here getting real practical okay just real practical so if you're a notetaker person or whatever we're going to get real practical and i just want to talk about these relationships in our own lives so we've seen jesus model it here we've talked about how this is something that we're invited into and we might need to have a great reassessment when it comes to the relationships in our lives and our work and our vocation might intersect with that because a lot of us spend a lot of time in our work spaces so let's just think through these really practically when you read through the gospels when you read through jesus life and you see how he is intentional it's not perfect balance it's not a color-coded planner it's not it's not some sort of utopian thing he is stepping into rhythms of relationship that's why we use that term rhythms practically speaking there's different seasons where we need to press deeper and deeper into different relationships some of you know like right now i'm feeling really disconnected from god and i need to press deeper into that up relationship some of you are are here and saying i'm not totally sure who the people that are closest to me really are and who i would call on and that's that in relationship you need to press into and some of you as you think about this you're saying yeah i want to be about this mission that god has to the world that god loves but i'm not totally sure how i'm doing that right now and i want to press into that there's rhythms in our lives and you and the people closest to you can discern that together the up in and out rhythm so let's just go through them so up what do we see in just the stories that we read today we see that jesus discerns with the father he discerns his relationship with the father the the relationships that he comes down right it says he prays he's with the father all night i don't think it's a coincidence that it's because the next day he was choosing the 12 closest people to him that god the father was giving him wisdom to know who to make that very important invitation to and god makes that same promise to us that when we press into our relationship that the holy spirit gives us wisdom to say who are the people in our lives that we should draw closest to and then what else does jesus do that very next day he's healing all these people and he knew to have compassion on them in that second story even though it was interrupted there's times when jesus is interrupted by the crowds and he says no and then there's times when he steps into it how does he know jesus says i only do what i see the father doing he's pressing into that up relationship to propel him in to the out and the in relationship in his life so when we are people who are seeking after god's heart for us relationally we often say that that's the most important relationship not that that means you have to have more time in your calendar to have like a devotional time that's a good thing but obviously we're going to spend way more time with other human beings but that the time that we do spend with god and the connection we have throughout the day gives us wisdom as we encounter people in our lives jesus discerns with the father now i just had an email sent to you 23 minutes ago should be in your inbox if you get the emails from me if you don't let us know and it explains this discipleship pathways stuff that we want to do we want to resource you we've heard so many people say we want resources in the up and the in and out and so this is our best way to do that this year uh there's other resources in your life you might have but this is one thing we want to try to do this year invite people into ways to to connect with each other to connect with some resources about connecting with god there's a book called sacred pathways by this guy named gary thomas he's a pastor so we're kind of borrowing that idea from him it's really not based on the book but this idea of sacred pathways or that there's different paths that help each of us connect with god and depending on our personalities those pathways might be different and that's a good thing but we don't always represent all of those different ways to connect with god here in this room for instance so here's the five that we're going to focus on this year put them on the screen connecting with god through creativity connecting with god through nature connecting with god through activism connecting with god intellectually and connecting with god contemplatively now as you listen to this you're like okay maybe i'm this one and some of you go i have no idea which one i am and that's okay that the point is to explore them and to discover and so if you go into that email you'll see that there's a way where you can go in and you can actually take a little quiz kind of see which one of these five things is at the top in the middle but the purpose of that is because the up relationship is the most important and if we can find those pathways to connect deeper with god then from there we can be propelled into our in and out relationships and so that's why we're using that as a way to kind of equip everybody this year through some groups if you want to be in a group if you want to get some personal resources for a group of people you already have or with your family or on your own through equipping hour classes all the stuff that will start in october and if you didn't get that email just go to millcitychurch.com discipleship and we'll make sure you get it later today but i think what we notice here is that together jesus is coming with these people to press into the up to the in and to the out sometimes jesus starts talking to the father just right there with everybody right there together we press into those things okay so second let's look at in in what do we see jesus do jesus picks his people and commits didn't we see that in that first story jesus picks his people and then he commits to them you see jesus prioritize picking his people i'm doing well in those like those are like tongue twisters prioritize picking the people he's prioritizing this in his life and as you read these stories if you read through the gospels i mean as you read them you're gonna see they were not always the easiest people to be friends with sometimes they just did not get what was going on who has felt misunderstood in their relationships okay jesus has sometimes they were just completely not available not present distracted but these are still the people that jesus chooses to step into relationship with and to figure out how to form deeper and deeper relationships i think that what we learn from jesus is that he's intentional to choose his people and commit to them now i know i just told you that i want you to sign up for the resources and i do signing up is a good thing we're always telling you to sign up for stuff i get it but here's the thing we will help you connect with other people in discipleship groups and things like that but i feel compelled to to be honest with you about something i have to confess something that i found to be true leading people for the last 20 years and that is this forming deep and profound relationships with people that you can truly trust is not something that you can sign up for it's not i mean it's a place to get started it's a next step but anyone who's developed deep relationships especially past college or earlier in life some of you have had to develop deep friendships after those times in life anybody would tell you that it takes a special kind of effort in our world today to deepen friendships as an adult doesn't it a special kind of effort it means we have to go back to that discernment that we receive from the holy spirit to know what relationships that we're supposed to step deeper into are it might mean that we have to say no to some relationship so we have time for the ones that we're called to go deeper with i want this is my hope okay my hope is that you all would be able to answer questions like this who are the people in your life who challenge you to live the words the works and the ways of jesus who are the people that you could call at two o'clock in the morning when something super difficult is happening i call that your two am people do you know who your two am people are who are the people that are willing to tell you hard things but also willing to remind you how much you are loved when someone else who has no business is coming in and rejecting you in some way or frustrating you in some area of life i i genuinely wish that this was easier than it was because if i could i wish you could sign up i would have sign ups all the time if it just magically led to people having deeper relationships because i feel this with you how big of a challenge this is don't even get me started about the people with the little kids right you're like look and then they're teenagers and they're busier it's hard the challenges and the barriers are so real this great reassessment has a lot of barriers to it doesn't it have you ever thought about how many of us were taught when we were younger maybe this is you maybe not we're taught when you were younger that you're supposed to pray for your spouse and to make a list of what you'd hoped for in your spouse uh i'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand but you know give me a little nod if that happened to you all right so i was told that i was told that i was supposed to go and write this list and i want to say that i feel like marriage in my opinion was hyper focused on in inappropriate ways in the church when i was growing up i get led to some weird thoughts about what one other person was able to do for you and and i i mean people were telling me to pray for a spouse when i was 15. i didn't get married for 20 years after that but no time in that 20 years did any spiritual leader in my life tell me i should be praying about what kind of community i needed in my life like no time did anybody tell me to make a list of what kind of mentors i needed of what kind of people i wanted to be able to disciple about what kind of people i wanted to know who were my 2 am friends why didn't we make 2 am friend lists why weren't we praying for that i feel like it's a little bit messed up that that's i'm glad i prayed for you jd really grateful real grateful but anybody who's married or is in a serious relationship you know there's no way that relationship's gonna thrive if both people don't have other people they trust there's just no way so i want to challenge you today if you don't feel like you have those people in your life those 2 am people that you'll see how jesus is modeling this he's intentional he pursues them he doesn't wait till they pursue him right we're all in the in the story we're like well i'm a disciple i'm walking around no one's picking me no pursue the people and sometimes you're going to pursue people and they're not going to be the people who want that deep relationship and then you're going to need to move on and commit to someone else i get that but i just want to encourage you i know it's discouraging but i want you to keep at it we need to have these people in our lives that encourage us and do this life of mission with us and maybe with us doesn't mean in person sometimes but they they have your back as you're stepping into the mission that god has for you in your life so finally out jesus prioritizes those that the father calls him to even though it's inconvenient those crowds picture this the crowds were running along the side of the lake while they were in the boat trying to get to a quiet place to rest and picture people just being like hey like just running and they get over there and jesus has compassion on them and i want to suggest because he discerned that from the father and they stop what they're doing and he has compassion on them i'm just going to tell you i do not like being inconvenienced my husband pray for him about that i don't like being inconvenienced i don't like that feeling i i i know i made the jokes about the planners but i like when there's a plan and we stick to the plan and the plan lines up the way i want to like that's my personality i like that but the problem is people and the problem is me because i'm not as consistent as i like to think i am my life is really full like a lot of yours is so not only do i have to be willing to be inconvenienced i have to be very intentional i have to be very intentional for instance this last year i signed up to be a part of a racial justice cohort with a bunch of other pastors we had to meet every three weeks for an hour and a half and i didn't want to do it all the time i thought this seemed like a good idea but now it's filling my time but i look back on this year and i see how much i grew and how it propels me into an area of life that i'm committed to growing in the rest of my life and now i'm leading a group of other pastors through this and it's hard to be intentional because there's other things i could be doing with my friday morning but this is what god's called me to because of my up relationship with god i'll also confess that jd and i moved over the winter and we went this entire summer without inviting any of our neighbors into our yard we live on the corner like it's not even that hard just like open the gate and they'll come walking in probably we didn't do it and we talked the other day and we're like is there time before it snows probably not get out the gloves and welcome them over to the backyard we didn't do it we didn't make the priority even though i'm talking about that all the time who is god calling you to love will we prioritize seeking first the kingdom of god in all the places that god's already has it's already where you are the places god already has you i'm not even talking about necessarily getting into different spaces but you're among your neighbors among people who need to experience the same experience of love that jesus was offering to the people that he encountered who is god calling you to love i want to suggest that the answer to that question is if you ask him for it if you ask god who are you calling me to love this year because i'll tell you this it's not going to be every single person jesus is going to give you specific opportunities jesus discerns his relationships with the father the up jesus chooses his people and he commits and jesus prioritizes those that the father calls him to even when it's inconvenient the way of jesus is a posture of prioritizing your relationships even when it's challenging i'm gonna invite the band to come up as we close today here's my here's my challenge to you try to find some time this week just to get some space and you can bring out your planner especially if it's got a pretty cover or your calendar it might be helpful to have it there you don't have to and just surrender your time to jesus this fall if you surrender that time there might be some things that jesus says to you you can take that off your calendar you don't need to be in that book club you've been in it for five years it can be done you you don't know if you surrender your time what jesus might lead you to but i want to encourage you to do it to say what would it look like for me to step into intentionality in my relationships this fall the great reassessment that we have jesus says in john 13 one of my favorite quotes a new command i give you love one another as i have loved you so you must you must love one another by this everyone will know you are my disciples if you love one another pick your people prioritize your relationships the great reassessment is not just about our calendars it's about our hearts it's about our posture and it's about our lives jesus prioritized relationships all the way to the cross didn't he jesus went to that cross and took on that brokenness and sin for those disciples that he loved for those crowds who always wanted his attention he went to the cross and took all that upon himself to prioritize his relationship with his mom who's watching as her heart is breaking but also to prioritize his relationship with peter who's hiding somewhere because he just told people he doesn't even know jesus and he still goes to that cross when i said that that jesus the way of jesus is a posture of choosing to prioritize people even when it's challenging i wasn't kidding talk about a challenge jesus took on a challenge in a way that we will never fully understand but he came back to life and sent us the holy spirit so we would have guidance as we took on the challenge of prioritizing the relationships in our life starting with making ourselves available and our relate to our relationship with jesus to our to our the wisdom that comes from the holy spirit so i encourage you as we go into this time of worship just to to think about what it would mean for you to have a posture of availability to god when it comes to your relationships because i know from experience it'll be one of the most meaningful postures you could take as you go into this fall [Music] and narrow is the road [Music] broken as my life baby i will give you every piece [Music] yes lord i am [Music] here i am with open hands counting on your grace again less of me and more of you i just wanna see you move [Music] [Music] i am [Music] yes lord i am [Music] when i think of jesus with his disciples on the night in which he was betrayed and he took the bread and he said take and eat this is my body that has been broken for you and then he takes the cup and he says this is my blood that has been shared for you that was the end as pastor steph talked about but when i think about us here as we take communion as we do every week we usually you're praying and you're focused on the up and then when it comes to out as the lord speaks to you as the lord ministers to you as you surrender what god has for you you get to share that with others and that is the out there are always people that are available to pray for you pray with you during this time of reflection and they will be along the walls and we can pray for that 2 a.m friend and we could pray for anything else that you would like but this is a time to reflect on what pastor steph has called us to do as we focus this year on the up and the in and the out here i am here i am you can have it all you can have it all here i am here i am [Music] here i am [Music] here i am [Music] here i am [Music] [Music] oh [Music] for the one who gave me life [Music] nothing is a sacrifice use me how you want to god have your throne within my heart i'm using this course one more time [Applause] [Music] [Music] yes lord [Music] i am [Music] i am [Music] father we thank you for who you are we thank you that you're a god who invites us to be in relationship with you thank you that you're god who's drawing us close you're god who brings community around us and your god who sends us out so as we go through this week would we live lives that are available to what you're doing but we have a posture that says god i just am ready to see what you're doing to join and where you're moving and to love the community that you've brought me into in your name jesus would we be a church that doesn't hold our schedule so tight but is available to love you and love those around us jesus we are so grateful for the opportunity to worship together this morning we love you lord in your name i pray amen amen would you sing this out with me and praise god from home [Music] praise him all creatures hear me lord [Music] praise [Music] well thank you so much for joining us here at mill city church would you live lives that are available to join god in the work that god is doing know that you have a god who goes before you a god who is by your side who is inviting you to love your neighborhood love your community in the name of jesus would you go knowing that you have a god of peace a god who loves you and a god who is moving in wonderful ways we have a covenant member meeting out there so if you are going to join us there's food just head out these doors we'd love to get to know you love to have you be a part of that meeting if you want more prayer you can go the people on the side of the walls will be there to pray over you but now would you go in peace thank you for joining us and we'll see you next week [Music]

Channel: Mill City Church

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Length: 76min 57sec (4617 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021