Neighbor | The Core

john wow so good to be with you guys this is i'm a long time watcher the countdown first time beer owner of the countdown and um clearly i'm no tc but but hopefully i can i can reach that standard one i think well you're trying with the beard huh what's going on all i can grow is a little is a little three musketeers goatee yeah but i'm doing my best you are well and you know what i love about this is last week john was preaching uh-oh ntc was here it's true this week tc is preaching and you are here wow so it's like a little switcheroo exactly yeah we really really turned the tables on people this week you did and you picked a great week to be here though because we are unveiling the winner this is a big weekend i'm pretty excited cece was a little bit bummed he wasn't here yeah we are unveiling the winner of the lh cutest pet contest staff member cutest pet contest so we did all the voting all that stuff last week we got into a pretty heated discussion today yeah it got pretty intense yeah yeah and you know tc is a cat person but has a well he has a dog and a cat yeah but he submitted his dog in the pet contest yeah so which are you a dog or a cat person i am adamantly a dog person okay but uh oh i have a cat but you have so you're a dog person with a cat yeah no dog no dog because when i got married when mary and i got married um she came with a cat they were just a package that makes sense okay like 17 years old he just started driving he's super old and so uh yeah he drives better than you though right he probably doesn't yeah he probably does to be honest with you yeah okay so you're a dog person with a kid with a cat yeah now here's another fun fact okay your brother oh boy sam who's our studio manager right now camera he is a cat person with a dog with a dog what's going on there that's an interesting family dynamic weird family i feel like we could really dig into that psychologically i think next time on the countdown maybe we'll do that maybe we'll bring cam up that you are waiting anxiously to see who won the lh staff cutest pet contest so without no further ado john you want to do the honors absolutely the winner of the lh staff cutest pet contest is none other than willow cashman willow please join us on stage will it congratulations how do you feel wow blown away one way i now matt you are our creative designer here at lighthouse church what does that mean so i do a lot of the behind the scenes things i do all the graphics the videos photography kind of really anything that brittany needs done she kind of just tells me to do it and i do it but usually i'm on the other side of the camera so it's weird being on this side yeah because usually the one putting all this together making jon look good kind of those things just john only john he makes look good everyone i have to try with brady no yeah yeah this takes a lot of work on that matt and you also raised beautiful dogs yeah so um not only do we have this very official certificate for you here um but we also have some prizes from pay and threads so we have a little treat for willa right there just the snails just cause she's excited yeah a little bandana and then a matching bandana for your wife melanie that she uh can wear this as well so now you can put together a look together and so uh any champion deserves an incredible prize and willow you've really you've really gone the distance here so let me put this in the bag for you willow has really pretty eyes i don't know if you guys can see this but no yeah green eyes beautiful willow you can bring her in the office any time you start i think of just an incredible career i do i agree i agree so here you go matt thank you so much willow congratulations if you want to uh shop for pet accessories check out paintthreads.com it's an incredible website with some incredible stuff well you know you did that very seamlessly it reminds me of your lh live days when like you would always say hey that i had sponsors yes and this this was actually your opportunity so i really wanted to bring that electric shock game on to the countdown but i figured you would not stand for such a thing so glad that you did not oh my gosh that is that means the world to me so thank you maybe we i'll have tc co-host with you next year yeah there you go do that for cheese i would like to zap t-shirt for sure well hey one of the things that was so cool to see in this pet contest was where people were voting from and you know every single week we have people who are tuning in to lh online from all over the country even internationally wow and that is just a testament to what jesus is doing through lh through our online community and so we actually had the opportunity to talk to a couple brendan and marissa wilson yeah they're part of our lh fam they decided to do something a little bit different they're gonna go out on the road in an rv for about the next six to nine months wow and host lh watch parties wherever they go wherever they go and i don't know if they have a plan or whatnot but instead of us telling them about it our online community director evan conley had a chance to talk with them so check this out well hey i'm here today with brendan and marissa wilson who they're out on the road they're getting ready to do something really exciting and so i just wanted to check in with them i wanted to see how they're doing and give them a chance to just talk to all of us about where they're at and what's getting ready to happen so guys how are you doing good yeah we're doing good love it where are you at guys checking in from right now where are you on the road we are in florida we're in northern florida right now um at a campground and um we are just got set up today we traveled through all that weather uh again we basically barely tied the storms so we made it safely though love it so you're on the road i see a tv behind you we have an lh logo um what's going on here you got this rv and this tv tell me what's going on what are you guys getting ready to do go ahead so we are we're gonna be traveling um next six to nine months on the road and we are going to be having some lighthouse launch parties and i think uh you know uh this is something that we've always wanted to do and god he he really opened the door for us and uh we wanted to stay obedient to to to the doors opening and it was a confirmation when the series of uh into the valley happened at the end of 2020 um and we just looked at each other and said you know this is what we have to do we have to go into the valley we have to find people bring them to christ and and you know we've been watching online all 2020 anyways so it just made sense to start having to watch parties on the road yeah yeah we've been working from home watching you know online we've been we've had we've had the chance to go live at lighthouse the last couple of months uh before we left uh but now we're doing about a six to nine month uh circle around the country man that's incredible so you guys you're taking a church service out on the road and you're just inviting the different communities that you find yourselves to um come join you guys i think that's so cool i'm so excited for you guys um so what's that actually look like you know i don't think a lot of people watching probably heard of a watch party before it's probably a new concept like what does that look like on a sunday morning yeah so we're gonna set up here in the campground and um we got a obviously an outdoor tv with speakers um so we have plenty of sound um and we're gonna set up around it um with the rv right here uh and invite people uh to come on in and see lighthouse and we are gonna promote lighthouse and promote our lord and savior man well i love that that's so cool it's just outside you know out of the box like you guys are uh just doing something really innovative here and that really excites me so i know i'm praying for you our community is praying for you and i really hope that as you guys continue to do this we'll be getting some more updates from you i know i want to see what's happening i think other people who are watching they want to see what you guys are up to so please keep us updated be posting updates and i'm so excited for you guys awesome thank you thank you evan thanks for the prayers we love it we love and miss lighthouse big thanks to brendan and marissa i think that's so cool they're just traveling and uh hosting watch parties wherever god leads them if you could host a watch party from anywhere in the world where would you pick that's a tough question because i've got a couple of options so i studied abroad in vienna austria and i just love vienna so i think i would do that but then i also well i can't help it's just have you been i have been to salzburg in austria and okay through vienna it's good beautiful it's like one of my favorite places um i think i'd also want to do it from a beach though so i think i do too i'm not sure what beach maybe somewhere in hawaii wow what about you i would do yosemite you said oh okay i think that's my favorite place that i have ever been and uh you could also pronounce it yosemite if you would like but uh yosemite um national park i think i'd like to go would you do it in like an rv style like the wilsons are doing yeah i think so yeah yeah or you know maybe a a cave oh something okay i feel like ranger station for you yeah do that that's awesome well hey we want to know where you guys would host a watch party from let us know in the comments in the chat we can't wait to see um where you guys would host from but hey we're just excited about what's going to happen today and we are so excited to be with you we are blown away that every single week there are new people who are coming to lh online to lh glen burnie and just really amazing to see what jesus is doing in this season so if this is your first time we just want to say welcome you will learn very quickly we are family we like to get to know people we want to welcome you so if you have any questions about who we are as a church if you need prayer if there's anything we can do for you as the church let us know hop on over to lh chat which have you been on lhchat i have it's super cool it's awesome so it is staffed by some of our staff members you can just type in any prayer requests any information you want to know and someone will real time get back to you so make sure you check that out and that's on our app and our website lhchat uh live people are live to talk to you from 8 a.m to 1 on sunday and even if you comment during the week yeah the goal is still to get back to you it might just not be absolutely live yeah so what's gonna happen today brittany so in a couple of moments we are gonna go live from our sanctuary we're gonna have a time of worship yeah and then as i mentioned earlier we've got pastor tc in the house he's gonna bring the word we are closing out our current series the core which you guys have just done an amazing job with it every single week i hear story after story between that and the devos it's really really touching people so i'm excited to see what tc has and then we're going to close out with some worship so hey let's get ready wherever you are prepare your hearts let's worship jesus together amen let's do this thing morning church it's good to be with you this morning i just want to encourage you let's be one big choir this morning let's sing out to our father amen amen so many different things that are changing um in our everyday life but god never changes he stays the same so let's sing [Music] together come on [Music] [Music] is louder than the unbelief [Music] heaven comes to fight for me [Music] [Music] is [Music] hallelujah [Music] asleep [Music] is [Music] me [Music] come on everybody sing a little louder sing a little i'll sing a louder louder [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is [Music] is is [Music] i [Music] [Music] [Music] i raise a hallelujah [Music] the cross has [Music] the darkest night the cross has to find [Music] the cross [Music] the cross has [Music] come on the cross the savior [Music] the crosstalk [Applause] [Music] blue [Music] thank you jesus [Applause] [Music] there's nothing stronger nothing higher nothing greater than the name of jesus to the name of jesus than the name of jesus the name of jesus nothing stronger oh we'll cross he my [Music] again nothing but the light of jesus [Music] is [Music] [Music] nothing but the [Music] nothing but is [Music] jesus [Music] me it awesome to know that our father who sits in heaven designed a plan to save us to rescue us despite our shortcomings despite our faults he created a way for us to return to him in the bible when jesus was in the garden he asked god if there be any other way take this cup for me but nevertheless not my will but thine will be done jesus surrendered his own will to god to rescue us so my encouragement this morning anything that you may be worried about anything you may be concerned about surrender it at the feet of jesus he's the only one that can carry it we can't carry it on our own so we're going to sing that again and as we're singing it out i'd encourage you think of anything that you may be facing and surrender to god amen every voice working watch away my sins nothing but the blood of jesus what can't make me hold again nothing of but [Music] is [Music] nothing but the blood [Music] [Music] my hope is built on nothing less than jesus blood in righteousness i dare not trust the sweetest friend [Music] but holy trust in jesus [Music] one every horse my hope is i dare not trust the sweetest friends in jesus [Music] is when darkness seems to hide his face i rest on his unchanged [Music] [Applause] my oh is lord [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] may i then and him be found lawyers dressing his righteousness alone fallen stand before the throne [Music] christ the lord cornerstone [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] oh [Music] amen amen man that's thank you so much bobby that was an incredible time of worshiping together right y'all in in in the house online man i love doing that and uh i just want to i want to say thank you to the worship team for leading us um i you might be aware this maybe you're not but almost everybody on that worship team is a volunteer they are up here using their gifts and blessing us with the gift god has given them i know right they're not the only ones everyone who's serving here is using their gifts and if you're sitting there going you know what i want to contribute my gifts around here we need you we want you can you imagine if all of them were like yeah i got a gift but i don't want to use it we we'd be missing so much and we're missing when we don't have you as well so if you're not plugged in we'd love to have you get plugged in you can go to growthtrack.lighthouse.church and we can start that process and and listen let me just for one minute let me just tell you um that i know some of you just thought well i don't have a gift i'll tell you right now paul tells us in first corinthians 12 7 everyone has a gift god has given everyone a gift there's no wasted or overlooked sons or daughters of god you have a gift you might not know it growth track is us helping you find it if you don't know it and we have online serving we have in-person serving so that's just my quick plug that if you're not we need you we need you we love you well we haven't met my name is tc i'm one of the pastors around here i'm the catonsville community pastor but i'm thrilled to be with you today catonsville peeps in the house love you uh glad to be here um we're going to finish up a series that we've been in for a few weeks now today called the core have you guys have you guys liked this series have you found it useful beneficial yeah amen it honestly it's been powerful for me uh a little a little a little behind the scenes here so i i got to hear about this series a few months back when when god put it on sami's heart and he started developing it he told me about it and and and one of the cool things about lighthouse y'all i don't know if you're here for the last series but there was a week where sammy said i gotta pause it and i gotta share a word that god gave me this week and it was incredible and then there are times where god will show sammy you know or or others leaders around here hey here's what i want to say to my people whether it's half a week notice or three months notice it's always the spirit we're trying to let the spirit speak around here so if you ever walk in here and you're like or you're watching online you're like that that sermon was for me and to some degree you're right you're right god has put it on the heart and put it in the mouth of those who have the privilege of speaking and i just love that about lighthouse but when sammy was telling me about it um you know we've gone through what jesus said about loving the lord your god with all your your heart your mind your soul i'm a mind guy i'm a head guy i live in my head but i was going through a situation that had me living out of my soul i didn't like it did not like it at all i want to just live my head i want to understand i want to analyze i want to i want to i want to strategize but i had to live emotionally i had to connect emotionally and uh i'm not good at it but but i needed i needed the holy spirit to transform you and so even even in hearing about the series and then hearing what was preached on it was powerful for me to know god has a plan for me in every area that is within me so i'm so grateful for it and and um the cool thing was the series before this we were talking about loving your neighbor right about being charitable about living out your commitments about honoring people about loving confrontation and when sammy brought us into this series the first week he said listen maybe you tried to do that and you were like i don't know how i don't know if i can do that that's tough and that's okay because we said what that tells you is you got to get stronger in your core you need jesus transforming your heart mind and soul so that you can love people well past forward future future forward future perfect i don't know what term i'm trying to use but but this series ends on jesus talking about loving your neighbor it ends on the same thing we started we said we gotta love our neighbor but to do that i i need jesus filling me with life but when jesus does that it's time to go back out and love people so it's this beautiful cycle that we are in the midst of um before i jump into loving our neighbor why not pray for us and then and then we'll get started sound like a good plan three people are with me okay good it's starting well online people everyone said yes it was so loud you probably couldn't hear it let's pray jesus we are so grateful that that you pour your life into us heart mind and soul and that jesus it doesn't stop there that you give us a purpose you give us a mission you call us to live out what you lived out god just as we were singing the cross has the final word lord even if we have walked in here and we have gotten it wrong a hundred times already this morning that doesn't get the final word your cross gets the final words we're here to be filled up with your life so we can live it out we can see your kingdom come and your will be done we love you jesus we pray all this in your name amen so we've been reading from um from matthew 22 about loving the lord your god with all your heart mind and soul if you can see the graphic behind me i don't know if you can see it online people it says heart mind and soul it says neighbor but it's white on white so you can't see it but it's definitely there that's what we're doing today but as we've been reading matthew 22 jesus talking about that i'm gonna actually switch to luke 10 jesus is talking about the same thing a similar topic but it's a little different emphasis now when i say that if you're like well wait a minute matt matthew and luke have have something different which one got it right which one got it wrong both jesus traveled around speaking to lots of different groups of people and they would ask questions and similar topics would come up the big questions would come up again and again and so jesus doesn't change what he's saying he just changes his emphasis or how he's talking about it i get the privilege of speaking to college students on a regular basis i speak to those groups differently than i'll speak to you mostly i reference a lot more memes that's the main difference but but i'm saying the same thing i just say it slightly differently so i want to look at jesus talking about the same topic uh just in a different area where we emphasize something a little different that i wanted to i wanted to bring out today so this is going to be luke 10 verses 25 through 29 you can read along on your phone or in your bible or on the screen wherever you want here's what it says one day an expert in religious law stood up to test jesus by asking him this question teacher what should i do to inherit eternal life jesus replied what does the law of moses say how do you read it the man answered you must love the lord your god with all your heart all your soul all your strength and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself right jesus told him do this and you will live the man wanted to justify his actions so he asked jesus and who is my neighbor did you catch that that that that when he starts off with love god with everything within you this cat was like oh amen yeah i'm i'm down with that that that's no problem at all but my dude as soon as he talked about loving other people was like can we talk about that part can we talk about the part about loving people who wait who is my neighbor not not who is god or how much i love god he wants to talk about the neighbor and that's easy for me to understand god's perfect god loves me despite the fact i don't deserve it of course i want to love god back no question but but people people are a different story god never cut me off on 695. god never lied to me or betrayed me but people uh they they let me down all the time they hurt me recently i uh i bought something from from an online marketplace i won't mention which one but uh but i bought something because it was something i wanted it was a real good price and it turned out total scam didn't ship it at all i got to wait a month now before i before i apply and get my money back i got to love that dude that dude who ripped me off who treated me like i was worthless i was just a pile of money for him to to lie and cheat and steal me out of i gotta love that dude i don't i don't want to i wonder if this lawyer when he said i know i know the scriptures say love your neighbors yourself but let let's define who neighbor is i wonder if he had somebody in mind i wonder if he was thinking of somebody who he was like i don't want to love that person can we can i make sure that person's outside of the equation of who i have to love what's the extent i got to do it this reminds me uh actually in matthew 18 jesus tells the disciples you have to forgive everyone and peter peter's first question is how many times i got to do it what's what's the minimum number of times that i can forgive and you're still happy with me jesus what what do i got to do in order to just get by because loving other flawed imperfect people is not something any of us wants to do forgiving them loving them all the same difficult i would even i would go so far to say that that's even true here among us in the house and online a quick poll for both in-person and online people how many of you attended lighthouse before covid hit before kovic got shut down at least once oh a whole bunch online throw it in the chats i know usually we're like who's the guest i'm doing the opposite who's who's been here a little while so a lot of you have been here and probably i hope you would call this church your home you know it's been at least a year since that or around a year since that and and i hope you would say man i love the people of lighthouse church but i got a question for you those of you who've been here for a long time remember back when the parking lot was jam-packed and you couldn't get out for 20 minutes because people wouldn't move and they wouldn't let you out of your parking spot did you love them then what about when you came in and found someone had reserved 87 seats in one of the roads and none of their people were here but they were like no these are safes and you end up like sitting on the floor with concrete or something did you love them then some of you some of you who are new are like wait are these terrible people around here no these are wonderful people but we're imperfect people we're flawed people online peeps i hope you say i love my lh online community my online fam but uh what about when they start trying to sell you stuff on the lh online facebook page what about when they start putting up political stuff on the in chat stream during a service so they go off on an angry diatribe or you're just like i just love them so much look at how angry they are love love love love no in that moment it's tough it's tough to love people the idea of loving people is great i think we love the idea of loving people and then we gotta love people when they're when they're acting like a jack wagon that's tougher right that's a whole lot harder and jesus knows this but so does that lawyer and the lawyer knows jesus isn't saying i just want you to have kind of a general loving attitude towards people jesus made it personal right the scriptures made it personal the lawyer saw that it made it personal love your neighbor that's not general that's very specific and so this lawyer immediately is like let's let's put some boundaries on this and so to respond to that jesus tells a story it's it's he responds directly after the scripture we just read this is the next verse here's what it says jesus replied with a story a jewish man was traveling from jericho from jerusalem down to jericho and he was attacked by bandits they stripped him of his clothes beat him up and left him half dead beside the road by chance a priest came along but when he saw the man lying there he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by a temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there but he also passed by on the other side then a despised samaritan came along and when he saw the man he felt compassion for him going over to him the samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he took care of him the next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins telling him take care of this man if his bill runs higher than this i'll pay you the next time i'm here now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by abandons jesus asked the man replied the one who showed him mercy then jesus said yes now go and do the same okay a little context those two groups jews and gentiles or jews and samaritans i should say we're about as opposed as you can get if me and you were living back in that day and age and we're both jewish and i call you a samaritan probably we're throwing fists like like them's fighting words right there so let me ask you a question what is the categorization what is the group of people that if i called you one you would consider punching me right in the face right now and then imagine jesus told a story and made them the hero and your people are the bad guy that that's real personal right that's not general disloving people that's getting pretty intense because jesus tells the lawyer that's who i want you to love the people who even the idea that you're one of them would make you fight mad love them he essentially says anyone you love is your neighbor your neighbor is anyone you treat with love that's a paradox anyone you love is your neighbor anyone uh who's your neighbor you should love it's jesus saying once again he says this so often stop trying to find the minimum stop trying to find the minimum that you have to love people this is this reminds me anybody who's a parent here hopefully this will sound familiar to you unless maybe my kids are a little crazier than i thought love my kids but uh but when when my wife and i give our kids something they don't want to eat they turn into fbi hostage negotiation terrorists people whatever and they're like how many bites i got to eat and we're like all of them all of the bites all of the food on there and then they'll be like how about three bites we're like no no no seven seven bites they're like the best i can do is five bites that's all i can follow and give you and we'll be like okay all right five bites but they gotta be five full bites and then it starts all over again how much is a full bite how many kernels of corn on the fork two kernels of corn fill the fork with corn fill it up and they fill it and then miraculously from here to here an earthquake happens and the corn just falls all over the ground all over themselves everywhere they end up just shoveling like three pieces of corn they're like i'm done i'm good i'm out of here that that's that's kind of what we do that's what the lawyer's doing where he's like how many neighbors i gotta love give me give me a number here cause i don't love that person jesus is saying your love should actually make neighbors out of people you wouldn't otherwise be neighbors with that's a whole different ballgame the negotiation that i'm talking about that that lawyer seems to be trying to do let me read for you what paul says to the church in ephesus this is ephesians 2 14. paul wrote this for christ himself has brought peace to us he united jews and gentiles into one people when in his own body on the cross he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us the people that you want to hate that you're like i want the line of who i have to love i want them on the other side of that line jesus destroyed that separation on the cross in his own body he told us to love our neighbor and then he provided a way for us to love that because he was recognizing i get it there's a wall hostility there loving past that would be difficult maybe impossible part of the work of the cross is to tear that down so when you say i can't love that person or that group of people jesus says and paul says yeah you can because of the cross it's not about you the cross has the final word as we were singing not our hate or our preferences or our comfort or our convenience the cross does so jesus says to this young lawyer essentially i want you to find that place where there's a wall of hostility between you and somebody else and i want you to replace it with love i want you to make them your neighbor man some of you are like i wish i hadn't come today already i am not saying this is easy absolutely not that's why in the new testament paul writes over and over again to believers to people who are joined in faith about how to love one another about how to be in community with one another because fam if we can't do it inside these four walls we ain't got a shot of doing it out there amen yeah i mean we got people in here who you know we love we're brothers and sisters in faith we we still get on each other's nerves sometimes because we're flawed in perfect people but we got to learn to love here because otherwise how in the world are we going to be able to live out jesus tearing down walls of hostility outside of here and so and so what i want to do for the remainder of the time i have with you today is i want to look at some practical handles that paul puts on doing this on how to how to tear down separation walls hostility within a community together of faith so that we can learn to do it out there outside of this training ground so i'm going to be reading from ephesians 4 a few different things but you can find lots of practical examples all through the new testament like i said so ephesians so the first point i think paul makes and i think i think what paul says ties in really closely to the story of the good samaritan that jesus tells the first point is this be compassionate let me read ephesians 4 26 and 27 paul writes this be angry and do not sin do not let the sun go down on the cause of your anger listen to this do not give the devil an opportunity listen paul's not saying i want you to be angry get angry everybody what he's saying is people are gonna make you angry people and their imperfections are going to rub you the wrong way he's saying that's going to happen he's saying but you can't allow that to give you an excuse to to respond inappropriately to sin against them you can't you can't look at people and go i love you when you deserve it when you stop making me angry then i'll then i'll be happy to do that if you're waiting for someone to own their junk before you love them i gotta tell you god didn't do that with you are you asking somebody else to be like jesus perfect when you're not being like jesus perfect that ain't gonna fly the good samaritan when jesus tells us the story the good samaritan doesn't say ah i would help you if you weren't jewish he didn't rely on those lines of separation and the reason again is the cross here's what paul says to the roman church in romans 5 8 but god showed his great love for us by sending christ to die while we were still sinners you can't hold people to a higher standard than god gives to you paul in the midst of saying be angry but don't sin one of the things he's saying is do not create new divisions right that's can we just be honest in the church we've done a terrible job at that if you if you google churches right like the number of denominations if you go to wikipedia and type up you know christian denominations it is an almost unending list of just divisions we have created paul says through the cross we should be doing the opposite tearing down those divisions now now i want to give a quick caveat before i move off of this i am not telling you that love has no healthy boundaries okay if someone is harming you wronging you if you're dealing with abuse right now get out of that situation okay there's a reconciliation that needs to happen but it starts with with getting out of situation but you can love someone even as you have healthy boundaries i want to i want to make sure you heard that i don't want you walking out of here being like i just got to be a doormat for for anyone that's not what i'm saying to you but you can love even in the midst of any divide any reckon any situation that needs reconciliation jesus says go to those places where there's hate replace it with love be ready to help someone when they do not deserve it because jesus didn't say fix your neighbor you hear me he said love your neighbor somebody over here just looked at somebody else was like yeah here's the second thing that paul says in so far as is practically engaging with what jesus is calling us to do be helpful here's what ephesians 4 28 says the one who steals must steal no longer rather he must labor doing good with his hands so that he may have something to share with the one who has need i wish the dude who ripped me off online had read this verse right if i could find him i'd send him this one here's what paul's saying it's not enough to say well i don't hurt my neighbor anymore. he didn't he didn't say just stop stealing and you're good he says stop stealing and find ways to benefit and to bless you've got to replace it in the story jesus tells the priest and the temple assistant if we modernize that we could say the the pastor and the deacon who walked by they didn't hurt the dude but it's not like another temple assistant went through his wallet again and was checking him out and was patting him down for valuables he didn't do that they didn't hurt him anymore but we don't celebrate them in the story jesus's point wasn't a plus didn't didn't hurt him anymore that's not where it's at the example was the man who had compassion who put him on his donkey who paid his own money to care for him who salved his wounds that's the point that's who jesus says this is what i'm looking for you to do i uh a couple weeks ago actually last week i think i had an opportunity that came my way that's that's similar to this i was uh so so i live in i live in catonsville and um and i was driving from a house over to giant and uh there's a road in case if you only think about catonsville there's a road called valley now valley is an interesting road in that it kind of cuts through like a real foresty area there's no street lights um it's real narrow and uh and there's a few houses just a few houses like cut into the woods like this hilly wood side and there's like a deep ravine between um the road and and and any land over there it's like a 10-foot ravine so every house their driveway starts with a bridge like a 10-foot bridge to get to their house i was like if i lived there i'd make it a drawbridge and you'd come over my house and you'd be like tc i'm here and i'd be like i'm going to lower the drawbridge for you and it'd be really cool sadly i don't have a drawbridge anyways so i was driving on valley and i'm coming up on wilkins so there's a major street light and as i get there as i said there's no street lights my headlights catch something off to the side of the road and and i stopped it was late there was no cars around and i was like did i just did i see what i think i saw and i backed up and put my headlights forward and sure enough there was a dude like laying on the side of the road it was dark it was cold raining wet everything and he was kind of sitting up moving around okay and so i got out of my truck and and i went over to him and i said sir you are you okay he was like yep like i don't i don't think you are but i said i said you know what's going on and he said oh i'm trying to get to the west side men's shelter the homeless shelter that's up a hill from where he was at and we've actually worked with it a few times part of lighthouse family and i said um i said oh i said can i can i give you a ride up to it he said oh yeah yeah yeah and i said okay i'll give you a hand up he's saying his back was hurting i said let me give you a hand up so i gave my hand up and uh and he had a walking stick that was huge it looked like um from donatello from the ninja turtles his bow staff and i was like there's a 50 50 shot i'm getting mugged or something i'm he's gonna hit me with that thing but i get him up and i pull my truck up open the door and get them in put this bag in it is sticking and i was like i should probably i should probably you know call and so so i put in one of my earbuds and i called my wife and i was like hey just so you know i'm gonna run a few minutes late i found the dude on the side of valley and i'm gonna i'm gonna take him to the shelter and they were silenced for a few seconds she was like this is your wife did you mean to call me i was like yes i picked a dude up on the side of the road and i'll be home in a few minutes and she was like oh okay okay okay i got you you're afraid of being murdered i was like yep i want to make sure that you're on the line if that happens and so uh and so i drove the dude up the hill and it's blocked off and i was like huh meanwhile my man i figured this out pretty quick drunker than anyone i've ever encountered in my life and uh and he but he's thanking me he's being nice but i'm like oh yeah ain't no problem man and uh and and we get there and it's blocked off and he was like you got to go around i was like okay so i come back out and i had to drive all the way around this area and i get to the other end i'm like i'm on i'm on gps trying to figure it out my wife's in there like you want me to google something i'm like it's fine and i think the other side and this one has concrete barriers not letting me in i was like should we walk like what what do we he was like no you got to go back to the other one i was like we were just there i'm pretty sure it's closed like 90 sure but he's starting to get a little agitated and i was like we'll go back we're fine that's fine we'll go back no problem and we get back and i figured out there was a checkpoint like across the parking lot and then and then we had to drive around inside see he wasn't super clear about that part and and and and i dropped off and and as we were getting close that's when he started saying some super inappropriate stuff like just just getting pretty raw with some of his opinions on the world outlook that we're not i can't repeat any of them to any of you but you know what i didn't do i didn't tell the dude you get out that that's offense of what you said get out of my car i tried to love that dude now listen i know what it sounds like i just told y'all here's a story that jesus said guess what you guys this is crazy i did the exact thing he said recently like look at me i'm a jack wagon plenty of times way more often than i'd like to admit i'm a very selfish person way too often but in that moment when i saw that dude i could not drive by and just go well didn't hit him with my truck a plus didn't hurt him worse that's all right you know why because i was just telling you guys that when i was hearing about this series i was in a moment where i i was i was struggling emotionally with my soul i was metaphorically on the side of the road emotionally and not only did jesus minister to me and love me but brothers and sisters especially part of the staff here just love don't me just pick me up help me lo lo you know what they did they showed me charity they honored me they lovingly confronted me and they reaffirmed their commitment to me all those things we talked about in that last series how could i then turn around and see someone who needed me to be a neighbor and say peace out no thanks i couldn't do it in that moment and i got to live out that ministry because of the ministry jesus did to me and my brothers and sisters did to me how wrong would it be for me to be a dead end of mercy and grace just to take and take and take and have no concern for whether anybody else gets what they need or not i've talked to i've talked to people here at lighthouse volunteers especially who they've done crazy things like cut back their hours at work or reduce responsibilities at work so they could serve here the body of christ many people give financially you work hard for your money but you say i'm going to invest into the kingdom of god because i want others to meet jesus i want to make sure we're reaching the lost and making disciples there are people who um when we do mission trips which you know what we'll do at some point again who will use vacation time precious vacation time and travel out of the country to make sure people hear about jesus that is incredible that is people loving their neighbor as themselves i love that that it talks about when jesus sometimes talks about he says love your neighbor as yourself because it that's very personal right what would you do for yourself do it for others when you're using your time your skill your resources your connections to bless others man what you're doing there is is you're saying hey before i encountered jesus everything i did was for me i stole you know metaphorically for me but now i'm gonna use what i have to benefit and bless others that's incredible um so that brings us to the last point in this whole series and i think i think it summarizes everything we've talked about for the last several weeks and even before that i think the series before that and the last point paul makes the ephesians is this he says be holy let me read for you what paul says in ephesians 4 30-32 he says this and do not grieve the holy spirit of god by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption you must put away all bitterness anger wrath quarreling and slanderous talk indeed all malice instead be kind to one another compassionate forgiving one another just as god in christ also forgave you when paul talks about the cross having the final word he talks about the cross tearing down walls of hostility he says this this is the end result and he says when you give yourself over to bitterness and anger and slander when you refuse to choose kindness and compassion and forgiveness you grieve the holy spirit of god that that's important we should hear what he's saying here that there's no middle ground there's no well i don't love my neighbor but i don't hurt him so i just i kind of do my own jam i just kind of do my own thing it's telling me that what jesus told us again he's not joking he's not saying hey i want you to love god and then if you feel like it love people like it's extra credit hey love god a plus people you know if you want bonus bonus content there he's saying it it has to all be the same thing and it's why we need a strong core i'm going to tell you i don't know if you all have experienced this through through these messages and and the devos we've been doing with the core and just leaning into what jesus has been doing but like i told you for me when my soul got poured into by jesus and my brothers and sisters i had i had to stop to that guy when you have a strong core you won't be able to do anything but look for ways to show compassion and to be helpful and to be holy because you'll just be bursting with the life jesus gives you and you'll know i can't i can't be a lake i got to be a river you'll be looking for ways to help others it'll be a goal i am i have to tell about a story about running that's in my contract every time i speak i have to as a runner i have to talk about running but uh let me tell you real quick about about what this looked like in my life okay similar to what we're talking about with having this healthy spiritual core when i was like in high school and then in my early 20s i was the dude who i had energy all day i could run all day never stop thought that was what everybody did didn't realize it would change heads up anybody who's young i didn't know it changed until one day i was late in my 20s and i got invited to a pickup basketball game and i i like like like by this time you know late 20s so i've got kids i've eaten a lot of food gained a lot of weight and uh you're like you know like like i was like 147 pounds when i got married i was i was way past that and uh and i got into this game and uh and and at the end of warm-ups for this game i was gassed i had never been gassed in my life like hard trouble having trouble breathing legs felt like they're filled with metal and i was useless the entire time it was a wake-up call for me that oh oh i'm out of shape i didn't know i could get out of shape but i'm out of shape and i want to be in shape for my kids when they're doing sports or running around i want to be able to do that and so that's why i decided i need to get in shape and i'm going to start running so so i started running and uh the block i lived on in arbutus at the time was .6 miles and i could run once around that block very slowly and i was done i was like okay and then the next day i was like let me go a few more houses farther then the next day after that let me get to the end of this street the next day let me make that that that turn until eventually after about three weeks i was running like two times around the block and i was like okay all right all right all right and then i just stopped because i didn't enjoy it i didn't want to um didn't really have anything goading me along other than i had some passion for a minute then it went away and i did nothing about six months now six months later i was like okay i gotta get serious this time i'm gonna start running again i started again for a week and i stopped again and i realized okay this isn't working i don't have the internal drive just to just to keep running doing something i super hate still do by the way and so i signed up for a race one of those crazy adventure races where you're crawling through mud under barbed wire jumping over fire climbing hay bales called the warrior dash and uh it was it was a 5k and it was eight months later and i got four other people to sign up with me because i know myself i'm a competitive person and i knew on that day i will show up also i'm a cheap person so if i pay money i will show up for something so i was like i paid the money so i know i'm going to show up and i got other people show up because i knew on that day i'm gonna show up and either i'll be ready or i'm gonna embarrass myself and it works and i trained like a crazy person for eight months i over trained way way over trained for that thing they showed up and i was ready and i did great but i understood something about myself that if i didn't sign up for another race i would lose it all so i immediately signed up for another an even crazier race and i just kept doing that and doing that because i knew if i didn't have a goal i would have no drive to stay healthy i'm not the guy who's like i just wanna i'm gonna stay healthy to be healthy can't do it i need a goal listen if you walk away from this series after leaning into the holy spirit being transformed heart mind and soul to love the lord your god through what he's doing in you you got to have some kind of goal otherwise it'll just be like that was nice that was a good three four weeks and then but what am i going to do with it you got to give yourself a goal do you look at our world and say i am genuinely not okay with how it is and i want to make a real and practical difference do you say i want to be part of the solution and not be part of the problem because that will require a healthy core but i would say the goal you should give yourself is find a place where your neighbor is in need where your neighbor needs compassion where your neighbor needs someone to be helpful or your neighbor needs to meet someone who's striving to be holy by the power of the holy spirit because when you get to that place then you'll know why i need jesus i need a healthy soul heart and mind in order to do that setting that goal can not only get you moving but it can keep you moving put yourself on the hook i don't know if for you if that looks like leading a small group i don't know for you that looks like going to our website outreach.lighthouse.church getting involved in community outreach i don't know if that looks like you walking around to your neighbors knocking on the door and saying hi i just want to know if there's something i can pray about for you this week and maybe seeing if they have a church to attend on easter either online or in person and saying would you like to join me i don't know what that looks like but i know at least for me if i don't have a goal i don't do as healthy so if you want to keep what jesus is doing in you moving forward keep growing put yourself on the hook put yourself out there make a commitment there's a million ways to love your neighbor jesus basically just said get to it do it actually do it right put hands and feet to it the good news is you're not doing it alone jesus already loves your neighbor just as jesus died for you jesus died for them and that's why that wall of hostility can be torn down because that's where we can connect no matter what so so he here's all i'm going to ask from you is we we get ready to sing one more song and go forward i don't mean this in a bad way but i don't care if you walk out of here going that was a good message or that was the worst message ever i don't care either way if you walk out of here and you do something because of what jesus said i would do a backflip i would try to do a backflip it wouldn't go well but i'm willing to try do something do something with it don't be a good listener to what jesus says be a good doer of what jesus says at least try and let's see what the holy spirit does in you and through you in the midst of it amen you with me on that and i would ask you this at the end of this upcoming week let's just say by friday ask yourself put you know what i i'm gonna put a reminder in the phone guy or it doesn't happen if you're with me on that pull out your phone and on friday at noon or whenever just put a reminder that says how did i love my neighbor this week give yourself a go so you know on friday i'm going to look and see whether i love my neighbor so that this week you're looking where's someone who i can love who i can be helpful who i can be compassionate who i can be holy give yourself something practical and i'll tell you whatever it is whatever you do i'd like to hear about it if you want to message us call us jump on la's chat tell us if you want to post it on the lh online community page lh online family i i would i would love to see what you did to love your neighbor because jesus told you to because man that's where it's at again we started with we got to go out we gotta love people but to do that i need to be stronger inside i need jesus to transform me but when he does that we have to go back out so that we need to go back in so that we go back out it's a beautiful cycle that he created amen let's pray together jesus thank you that you loved us first that you loved us before we deserved it you continue to love us as we fail to earn it jesus you are holy to us helpful to us compassionate to us and you you are the model for the good samaritan you are the one who had no obligation but did not turn away our prayer o lord is that you would pour your holy spirit in us make us alive and jesus give us eyes to see our brother and our sister who is not yet a neighbor but who can be because of the love we can show because of the cross tear down walls of hostility use us o god in a world that's building those walls of hostility jesus help us represent the gospel that tears them down give us opportunities this week for your glory jesus we ask all this in your name amen stand with this church let's worship [Music] spirit breathing holy speaking truth when i can't find it [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] how great your love is [Music] oh [Music] brave how great how great is [Music] wow [Music] and what an incredible message from pastor tc how about you but i feel inspired and encouraged to look through my life and think how can i really love people the way jesus has loved me how can i love my neighbor as myself yeah it's been an absolutely incredible series and i've loved the devos that we've been doing every week after to really go deeper and so we've got our last week coming up this week of our core divas you can find that in the lh app or on the website and you know we say it often but stuff like this wouldn't be possible without the faithful generosity and giving thank you so much yeah it's amazing to see like how many people are partnering with us so that we're able to reach a lost and make disciples with absolutely incredible resources that we've never could have dreamed about yeah actually you know what's crazy is i gotta i got to talk to this sweet sweet lady named millie who's actually a part of our lh family but she is in texas oh wow as they were going through that whole snowstorm thing and the freeze and all that yeah it really miraculously provided for her but she was just saying how much those devos were encouraging to her wow and that is only possible the only way we can connect with millie is because of the faithful generosity of our church family yeah so thank you so much for those that partner with us yeah absolutely well hey we want to pray for you before we part ways so john would you pray us out absolutely jesus thank you so much that we're able to gather together as a church family wherever we're watching this whenever we're watching this i just ask your spirit would speak to us that your presence will be with us and you'd help us to truly love our neighbor as ourself and in so doing we would be the light that our culture that our family that our co-workers that our neighborhood needs that we would point people to you in your name we pray these things amen amen well hey thanks for being here at the countdown this month we will be back 9 50 next week maybe it'll be john maybe maybe it'll be someone else we don't know but hey we love you guys praying for you we'll see you back next week see ya you

Channel: Lighthouse Church

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Id: 2R-3ocobYZ4

Length: 79min 10sec (4750 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 07 2021