And if this is your
first time joining us, you could not have
chosen a better time because today you are going
to learn something important about us, our churches, and why we do what we
do the way we do it. Now, as you might imagine,
the response to our decision to suspend weekend services
for the foreseeable future was met with varying reactions. So I wanna spend a few
minutes today talking about why we've chosen this particular
path, and not as a defense, but because our decision is
actually connected to something central to the Christian faith, that while it's important,
in normal times, it may not seem all that
relevant or as relevant. Now, for example, if you
have never had a flat tire in the middle of nowhere
in the middle of the night, chances are you probably have
not dropped by a dealership or looked up a YouTube
video that explains how to change the tire on your
particular vehicle, right? Not because it's not important. It's just not that
relevant right now. Generally speaking, we learn
on a need-to-know basis. So today, here's
something we need to know. And here's something
specifically we need to know about our faith that has been
highlighted by recent events. So I wanna discuss our church's
response to the pandemic as an illustration
of a larger point, a point about which Jesus is,
well, He is crystal clear. A point that should inform
and influence the posture I think of every local
church at all times, but perhaps, especially
in times like these. Now in our current climate,
there are three dynamics that have merged to create
really a perfect storm of confusion as it relates
to something Jesus taught and Jesus modeled. And the first of
these three things is, and this isn't new
information, right, everything, everything is
politicized, everything. There are no neutral
topics right now, right? I mean, school opening
has been politicized, mask, protest, the virus. And my favorite
is Anthony Fauci. I mean, three months
ago, four months ago, Republicans loved him. Now Democrats claim him and a
lot of Republicans aren't sure they trust him anymore. So again, there are
no neutral topics. Apparently, there aren't
even any neutral people. The second dynamic that
adds to all this confusion is the cancel culture, right? I mean, if you say one
thing I don't like, or if you say one
thing I disagree with, I discount everything
you've ever said, and I discount everything
you've ever accomplished in your life, right? Now this isn't new. We just haven't had a phrase that captures this
unfortunate dynamic before. And I've certainly been
on the receiving end of the cancel culture. In fact, if I'm honest, I've been on the receiving
end from some of you. I've gotten quite a
few voicemails, emails, and actual letters to my home from long-time church
attenders who are leaving or who are telling me
they're leaving our churches because of our decision
to suspend services for the remainder of the year. And whenever I get a voicemail
or an email like that, or a letter, I always
ask my assistant, Diane, to track down a phone number. And I call almost all of the
people who have responded, especially those of you who've
been involved for a long time and raised your kids
here and served here. I've called just about everybody that I can find the
number for, and I listen. And in 100% of the cases,
this is so interesting. And some of you are
actually listening today or watching today I hope. In 100% of the cases, once I call and convince
them that it's actually me, they begin the
conversation by telling me how much the church
has meant to them and how much it's meant
to their children. That one gentleman, when I finally convinced
him it's really me, he immediately went
into this amazing story, and these are his
words, not mine, about how I saved his marriage. But now that I have
bowed my knee to Caesar, since I refuse to take a stand, since I'm more concerned
about being popular than calling people to
repentance, they're out. After the message, I did
call This Human Race, you remember that, same thing. Andy, clearly you have embraced
a left wing Marxist agenda so we can no longer call
this our church home. And so in all of these
conversations, I respond with, okay, so let me
get this straight. You've loved and served in
and supported our church for, in many cases,
eight, nine years, and after one sermon,
come on, after one sermon that you disagree with
or took to mean something that based on our
church history, I clearly did not
mean, you're out? Now the good thing is this, these conversations always
end on a friendly note. And then I add, well, I
guess this is a good time to leave our church, but it is
a bit hard to leave a church that isn't meeting anyway. We chuckle and then we hang up and I hope they
don't actually leave because I don't want
anybody to leave our church. Okay, so that's the first two, but there's a third element
to this perfect storm. And this third element has
been around a long time, but it raises its
divisive head even higher during political seasons. And it's the one I
wanna directly address because it's the one that
intersects specifically with our faith. It's actually a
version of Christianity and it's a version
of Christianity that I have worked very,
very hard to help us avoid. And it goes by a lot of names, but I'm just gonna refer to it
as Culture War Christianity, Culture War Christianity. This is the version
of Christianity
consumed with winning. The version that sees itself
perpetually under attack. And consequently feels
the need to attack back. It requires an enemy
for sustainability. We could talk about
that, but we won't. And here's the thing, I
am intimately acquainted with this version
of Christianity because I grew up
with this version. Again, I have purposefully
purposely attempted to lead in such a way that
we avoid it at all costs because I am convinced that it
is a perversion of our faith. And not only is it a
perversion of our faith, it actually sets the church
up to be a tool of politicians rather than the
conscience of the nation. And Jesus, I guess
looking into the future and seeing where
we would be today in terms of the state of
the church, the church, especially the
church in our nation, we have been called to be
the conscience of our nation. But this version is a version
that actually defines itself by what it's against, by
what it's standing against, a version that sees the
church is always under attack by the government
and secularism. It actually forces the church
into a defensive posture. It comes across as if
it's more concerned with winning than loving. It's fueled by the fear
of losing something. And I call it a
version of Christianity because it does not reflect, it does not reflect the
first century Jesus version of our faith, worse. It actually represents
the opposite of what Jesus
taught and modeled. Now this, I hope, doesn't
come as a surprise. Our churches skew conservative. And as far as churches
go, that's a good thing because liberal or hyper
progressive or activist churches often, not always, but often
eventually allow an agenda to erode their commitment to
the centrality of the gospel. And when I say gospel, I mean specifically that
we all have a sin problem that all have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God. We have a selfishness
problem that we need a savior and that Jesus is the
savior who literally, physically rose from the
dead to punctuate His claims about Himself and
about His Father. And in many cases,
liberal leaning churches, like culture war
conservative churches, have their own way of recreating
and re-imagining Jesus in the image of their agenda. Now, once you abandon
the divinity of Jesus and our need for a savior,
this is so important, you actually abandon the
foundation of morality, justice, and the dignity
of the individual. And you know what
you're left with? You're left with
majority morality, where the majority determines
what's right and what's moral. And that is a dangerous thing. It's a dangerous place to be
as a nation or a community. And ultimately, do you
know who suffers the most? Women and children. So we dare not
abandon the claims and the resurrection of Jesus. And theologically speaking, churches who hold a
high view of scripture and who defend the
divinity of Jesus and the literal bodily
resurrection of Jesus are considered
conservative churches. So we are conservative
theologically, but we have not, and we will not embrace the
far right leaning approach to our faith that
is in it to win it and more on what I mean
by that in just a minute. So you know, and I've
told you this before, you can raise a lot of money
and you can sell a lot of books on the far left
and the far right, but you cannot, you cannot
solve problems there and you can't love
people well there, and you won't find Jesus there. And if it's up to me, I will ensure that you
don't find us there either. So at this point,
you may be asking, hopefully you're asking, so Andy, where are you
getting all of this? Are you just kind of
making all this up? And what in the world does this
have to do with our decision to postpone our services? Glad you asked. During His earthly ministry, everybody, everybody wanted
Jesus to take their side, to take a stand
against the other side. And He refused. He refused because
both sides were fueled by a common assumption
that He refused to embrace. And the assumption
was simply this, the assumption was that
power and resources are to be leveraged primarily for the benefit of the
powerful and the resourced. I mean, people on both
sides, both groups held this assumption,
that power and resources are to be leveraged
for the primarily for the benefit of the
powerful and the resourced. And Jesus refused to play
their game of tug of war. He refused to take
either end of the rope. As I've reminded you
on multiple occasions, He was the king who came to
reverse the order of things. Paul said it best. And we looked at this
passage not too long ago, but apparently we need
to look at it again. And again, remember the apostle
Paul has the advantage point of being on the other
side of the resurrection. He spent time with Peter. He spent time with James,
the brother of Jesus. He spent time with John. So the apostle Paul gets his
information from eye witnesses as they described
what it was like to spend three or three and
a half years with Jesus. And now the apostle
Paul describes for us how they described Jesus to him. And here's how he
described your savior. Jesus, who being in
very nature, God, the people who were
closest to the action were absolutely convinced
that Jesus was God in a body. The apostle John was
convinced that God is love, not because of what He
experienced in the world, but because of what He
experienced for three years with Jesus, because Jesus
was love personified. Hey, you wanna know
what love looks like? You wanna know what
love acts like? You wanna know what
love sounds like? Just follow Jesus
around the gospels. Paul continues, who being
in very nature, God, did not consider equality
with God something to be used to His own advantage. In other words, and
this is disturbing, but this was the differentiator. Jesus did not play to
win the way that first or even 21st century
people define win. Jesus played to lose. And I'll be honest, that
doesn't sit well with me. It's not very American,
I like to win. We are wired to win. It turns out Jesus was
not against winning. It turns out He was playing
a completely different game that had completely
different rules, with a completely different win. Jesus played to lose
so that the other team, that would be me and
that would be you, Jesus played to lose so that
the other team could win. This is why He never took
sides because the other sides, neither side was willing
to lose for the sake of the other side. Paul continues, he says this, rather again,
talking about Jesus. He made Himself nothing. He made Himself a nobody
and nobody on either side of the other two sides was
willing to do that either. Everybody wants to make
themselves a somebody. Everybody wants to make
themselves something. Jesus made Himself nothing. Jesus refused. Jesus refuses to attach His name to the
what's-in-it-for-us party. The party that
insist on winning. The party that fears losing. The party or the person who
clings to rather than gives up. Paul continues. By taking the very
nature of a servant. What is a servant? A servant is someone who
wakes up every single day thinking about how to
better serve someone else. Someone who wakes
up every single day committed to leveraging
themselves, their resources for the benefit of someone else. Now, this is important. Remember, the apostle Paul is
describing Jesus of Nazareth. If we are His body,
if we are His body, if we are His hands and feet,
this should describe us. And this is why the church
always looks more Christ-like when we are defending
other people's rights rather than our own. The church always
looks more Christ-like when we are giving away
rather than demanding our way. And if that scares you, if that makes you feel like
you might lose something, if that makes you feel
like you may lose, then now you understand,
this is so important, now you understand
why Jesus' disciples refused to accept the fact
that He would be arrested, tried and crucified. I mean, He told them
over and over and over and they just didn't get it. I mean, because if
you're arrested and
tried and crucified, I mean, that's what losers do. That means you've lost. He told them over and
over what was gonna happen and they just didn't
have a category for it. In fact, as we've discussed
before, you remember, they're on their
way to Jerusalem. This is Jesus' date
with destiny, right? And the 12 are still
discussing amongst themselves who's gonna be number two and
number three in His kingdom once He wins, once He
defeats their enemy. Once that happens, which one
of them will sit on His left and which one of them
will sit on His right when he declares
Himself the winner? Which one of them will
wheel the most power, the most authority? In fact, it's even
worse than that. Luke in Luke chapter
9 tells us about, describes this incident
where they're going from, you remember our big map that we've used before from
Galilee to Samaria to Judea, they're moving from
Galilee towards Jerusalem and they decide to go the
shortcut right through Samaria. And so as they move into
the area of Samaria, Jesus sends a couple of
disciples ahead of time to a Samaritan village, to
secure lodging for the night, because this is gonna
take two or three days. So Jesus and the rest
of the guys are moving toward this village where
they're gonna spend the night and they look up and here
comes the two folks He sent to secure lodging and they're
coming back toward Jesus. And they say, Jesus,
these folks don't want us in their village. When they found out
that we are Jews on our way to Jerusalem, they don't want us spending
the night in their village. And how did the
disciples respond after three years
of being with Jesus? Here's what they said, "Lord, do you want us to
call fire down from heaven and destroy them?" Jesus, they are so offensive. They are not our friends,
they are our enemies. Would you like for us to
call fire down from heaven and destroy them? Would you like for us
to leverage our power in such a way that we win? Clearly, they don't
know who you are so let's teach them a lesson. Let's use our power to win. And if you've read
this passage before, you'll remember what Jesus said. The text says, Luke says
that He rebuked them. He uses the same term that
he uses to describe Jesus when He rebuked demons. This was His way of saying,
guys, not in my kingdom. That's not how it works. That's how everybody
else does it. But if you aren't
willing to lose, if you aren't willing to
go to the back of the line, don't even bother
getting in my line. I am the king who has come to
reverse the order of things. Don't touch those dials,
don't grab those levers, and don't push those buttons. That is not my kingdom. Now, let's go to Jerusalem
where I'll be arrested. And here's what
they're thinking. But Jesus, wait,
wait, wait, wait. "Jesus, if you're
arrested and killed, how are we going to win?" To what Jesus would
have smiled and said, fellas, that is how
we are going to win. I'm going there to
lose their game. And in doing so, we
will win the game that I have been inviting
you to play for three years. And so they go to Jerusalem. And the best possible person would suffer the
worst possible death to illustrate that even
the best possible person, even the son of man had
not come to be served, but to serve and to give His
life as a ransom for many. Even the son of man had not
come to win a game of tug of war between the kingdoms
of this world. He came to establish
a completely different
kind of kingdom with a completely
different set of values that operate under
the assumption that the last would be first
and the first would be last because in His kingdom, there is no first
and there is no last. And finally they get it. As they gather for
that final Passover, Jesus washes their feet and then they would stand
and watch Him crucified. And they would hear Him forgive
the men who crucified Him. And then they
would listen to Him as He promised a
criminal paradise. And then after the resurrection, it all came together for them. This is so important. And that first
generation of Christians, that first generation
of Christians refused, they refused to leverage
privilege or power for their own benefit. It was always for the
benefit of others. They were not in
it to win anything. They weren't even in
it to change anything. They lived selfless
lives in Jesus' name. They let go of the old way and they embraced
the law of Christ. And as Jesus predicted,
neither the gates of Hades or the legions of Rome
with all its imperial power could stop them. Jesus, how are you
gonna build your church if you're arrested
and crucified? Guys, that's how I'm
gonna build my church. The only question is,
will you follow me? Will you take up your
cross and not your rights, your cross and follow me? Throughout history when the
church has opted for the tools and the machinery of the
kingdoms of this world, the church ends up looking
just like this world. And the church ultimately
becomes a pawn. When the church
leverages the tools of the kingdoms of this
world, the church looks weak. It looks desperate,
it looks fearful. When we, the church, demand
our way, defend our rights, not as citizens,
that's different, I'll come to that in a
minute, but as the church, listen, we actually
abandon our distinctive, the distinctive that sets
us apart to begin with. The distinctive of we are not
in it to win it for ourselves. We are in it to
win it for others. When the church digs in
its heels in order to win on behalf of the church,
we've already lost. We've surrendered our
voice and our influence. We're just another organization
with a self-serving agenda. Now to be clear, as an American citizen, vote
for and stand for your rights and your freedom as
guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America. But when we speak as, and when
we act as the body of Christ, it must not be for our benefit, but for the benefit
of the community and the people in
our communities. If Jesus didn't
play the God card... Come on, think about this. If Jesus refused to
play the God card, if Jesus refused to exercise
His authority and His rights for His own benefit, then neither should we. Political parties, by
nature, are in it to win it. We all get that. The church is not, and
the church must never be. This is why, in my opinion,
this is why pastors and churches should never, ever publicly
align themselves with anything or anyone other than
Jesus of Nazareth. The minute we do, we
abandon our defining virtue, the defining virtue
of the kingdom of God. We abandon our commitment
to play to lose so that others might win. So church, church
people, Christians, we are not in it to win
anything for ourselves. We are Jesus' followers. Jesus, who being in
very nature, God, did not consider equality
with God something to be used to His own advantage. Rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very
nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in the
appearance of a man. He humbled Himself. Think about this,
He humbled Himself. He who was highest
became lowest. He who was highest
became lowest. He did not fight for His rights. He did not demand His way. He submitted Himself to evil men by becoming obedient to
death, even death on a cross, and the world has
never been the same. Remember, it was Christianity,
not the Republican or the Democratic party that
shaped Western civilization. It was the teaching of Jesus,
not our political parties that laid the groundwork for
our modern notions of justice and fairness and
dignity for all. So with all of
that as a backdrop, here's why we have
chosen our current course as a group of churches. It is not what's best for us. Our decision is not
what's best for us. The best thing for
us, for our churches, in fact, to be honest, the
best thing for me personally, would be to open up
as soon as possible. That would be a win for us. That would be a loss
for our community, both in terms of
what could happen and in terms of the
message it sends. So we are saying no to us as a way of saying yes
to those around us, because it's not about us. We did not suspend services
because of government pressure. There was none. We're not afraid. We're not bowing to social,
cultural, or political pressure. We've not bowed
our knee to Caesar. I've heard that so many times. So a quick history lesson, okay? And this is so important
for Christians to understand in this climate. We don't have a Caesar. The last Cesar died
in the fifth century. The government, our
government is not Caesar. A president is not Caesar. We have a we, the
people representative
form of government. The person at the top, come on,
they're here for a few years and they move on. Every four to eight years,
we have a new person. That's why it is a mistake. It is always a mistake for
a church to drape itself in the garb of either
political party. And it's why every American, it's why every American citizen should exercise their
ultimate freedom. A freedom that was,
well, it was unimaginable in the age of the Caesars. Every American should vote. And Christians,
Christians, you should vote in accordance with your law
of Christ informed conscience. Now back to us and
I'll wrap this up. Our decision to suspend
weekend services or gatherings was not politically motivated. It wasn't fear-based. It wasn't anti any
person or any party. As we stated at
the very beginning, at the very onset of COVID-19, this is how we are choosing
to love our neighbors. And this is how we're choosing
to love our neighborhoods, because that is what
Jesus commanded us to do. And that's what He did for us. We are erring on
the side of caution, but our churches are
certainly not shut down. So for those of you
who have written to encourage me to take a
stand, this is our stand. For those of you who've
asked where's your faith? This is our expression of faith. We are putting the
good of the community ahead of our enjoyment
of gathering together inside on the weekends. For those of you
who are convinced that we've given into
fear, let me assure you, that if the leadership of our
church was motivated by fear, if I was motivated by fear, we would have never
suspended weekend services to begin with. But, well, I'm not fearful,
to be honest, I am concerned, not for our survival. My concern is that we get so
focused on what we can't do, that we miss this once
in a life opportunity to do what we can and must do. Come on, you know this. Our mission has never been
to gather on the weekends. Our mission is to inspire
people to follow Jesus, right? And for us to get distracted
by what we can't do and miss out on this
unique opportunity to do what we can and must do, to miss out on this
unique opportunity to inspire more people to
follow Jesus would be tragic. And I know most of you
agree, so congratulations. You are doing the
difficult thing. You are doing the
courageous thing. You're doing the kingdom thing. You're doing the
others' first thing, the thing that is best
for people whom God loves and Christ died. Now I know some
of you are asking, so do you think every
church in America should follow our lead and
suspend weekend services? No, that's up to the
leadership of each church as they take into
consideration the health risks to their local community. But I would encourage every
church and every church leader to resist the temptation to do
what's best for your church, if it jeopardizes the health
and wellbeing of the people in your church's community. So that's the why
behind our decision. Now, the next question is
what do we do in the meantime? I mean, your amazing
church staffs are already rolling out
plans even as I speak. One initiative that involves
all of us is Be Rich. If you haven't heard already, we launched Be Rich
on September the 13th rather than in November, the
way that we normally do it. And I'm hoping that Be Rich
2020 is bigger than ever because the need is
greater than ever. On the personal side of things, I wanna suggest four new
habits for you and your family during this season. Four new habits to
replace some good habits that, well, circumstances have forced us to
curtail for now anyway. And I suggested these to some
of you in an email recently, but I wanna go over them again. The first habit is this. I want you to establish a
new Sunday morning routine because for most of us, our
old Sunday morning routine just doesn't work anymore. And I want you to
establish a routine for you and your entire family. As you probably know, our
services open up at 7:00 a.m. So you don't have
to wait until 9:00. If you have kids at home, you can let them sleep while
you get up, grab some coffee and enjoy the service
before the kids are up. If you have older kids and enjoy watching
the service together, pick a specific time
and announce it to
them ahead of time. The second habit I
want us to stay in is our small group habit,
our small group routine. Again, circumstances
have forced most of us out of our small group habit. If you're in a group and your
routine has been disrupted, I want you to take the lead
and establish a new routine even if you're not the
leader of the group. Obviously it can be online,
in a driveway, on a patio, inside, but don't
give up on community. It is more important than ever. And then the third
habit is this. Keep your kids connected. Make sure you keep your kids
connected to the local church. Get your kids to our events. And if you have middle school
or high school students, encourage them to participate
in their small group. They're gonna love
some of what we do. They won't love everything we
do because well, they're kids. But don't make church
optional during this season and we will do our best to make their
experience exceptional. And then the last thing is this. I want you to begin
praying for your church every single day. For some of you, honestly, it
has never crossed your mind to pray for your local church. And why do I want
you to pray for us? Well, for the reasons
I've already outlined. I do not want us to be
consumed by what we can't do and miss out on what we can
and must do in this season. And specifically, I want
you to pray three things. I want you to pray
for innovation,
influence, and impact. I made it easy for you. Innovation,
influence, and impact. 25 years ago, our church
was one giant innovation. I say, let's do that again. Ask God to give us more
influence in our communities during this season and as
a result, greater impact. So think about it. That when we reopen
for Sunday services, there would be hundreds, maybe thousands of
adults and children who became followers of
Jesus in this season, because instead of sitting
around, waiting for a reset, we took advantage of an upset and we seized these
opportunities. And here's the thing,
here's what I know. If you will pray to that end, you will be far more inclined
to see those opportunities when they present themselves. We are all inclined to
see what we're hoping for. And we're all inclined to
see what we are praying for. So here's your takeaway
from today's message. Establish a new Sunday
morning routine, establish a new
small group routine. Keep your kids connected and
pray for your local church. Now close with this. As I've reminded you
on so many occasions, you're probably tired
of hearing this, but it's so important. Once upon a time... Imagine it, once upon a time,
a handful of disorganized, socially disenfranchised,
landless, technology-less Jewish men and women took
to the streets of Jerusalem with the most outlandish
message imaginable. But if it was true, it would have been the
best news imaginable. And as it turned
out, it was true. And that good news
changed the world. That good news perhaps
changed your life. It certainly changed mine. And here we are, and we
have no excuse, do we? But we have an
extraordinary opportunity. So come on, let's do
something remarkable. I have never been more
excited about church and I've never been more
excited about our church. And I've never been more excited
about partnering with you to inspire people
to follow Jesus.
