Where We Are, Where We're Going

do they just have all short people preaching while i was gone or what because this thing was on the ground did the kids preach what geez [Laughter] well like i said uh i've been gone a little bit and uh i just wanted to first thank the staff we have such an amazing staff of this church for holding down the fort and uh it's not my church it's jesus church and it's never been more clear to me in my life after this uh five weeks that i took off and um thank you to my board our board's amazing and they just affirmed a lot of stuff um of why i needed to take a break and really it was just i had to i got to clear my head a little bit i have spent so much time researching and information and all kinds of stuff that i just needed to just kind of get a childlike faith again in jesus and it was wonderful it was wonderful i had made a lot of promises to my family that i hadn't kept so i kept them to my son and to my wife my kids so the first two weeks were just me hanging out with my family and just honoring some of those things that i said i would do and then the last two weeks i had all these plans i was gonna go away and get off and by myself i did none of them uh i sat on my porch for four to five hours a day with jesus that's all i did um the longest i went was one hour without talking and my wife was praise the lord right one hour i just sat there in silence um and just listened and a lot of it is just because i i need to i need to just kind of figure out like where the church is going um you've heard me say a lot that there's a reformation happening right now in the big c church and there is there is i've never believed it more um and so today is going to be a little different if you're new with us this is good though because you kind of get to hear what we're about and and just some of the directions that the lord is taking us as a church and as a staff and as a board and so really this is actually one of the first sermons i'm ever doing where i don't have notes i have some some four things that i want to cover but i just felt like i just spent so much time with christ i just wanted to trust christ that his heart would come out to you and that my heart would come out to you guys and so this could go terribly wrong i don't know but i have a few bullet points that i want to cover just things through my break that the lord really just really put on my heart and there's just one key word that kept coming up and then when i came back with the staff a couple of the staff like affirmed this that this word has been on their heart and it's the word compassion compassion how many times did it say jesus looked upon the people with compassion and we live in a compassionless society right now and a lot of us have been wrapped up in this as well myself included and so first i just want to talk a little bit about my journey and and kind of just what's gone the last few years but really just where i've kind of landed and settled and um i just i just felt in my spirit there was just some things that were off in what we were doing and i don't mean sinful i don't mean like that i just mean like the big c church there's just been some things that have gone down that i could no longer just look past um and it didn't come by me just reading a book guys it didn't just i didn't get a book and all of a sudden change this this came about four years ago where i just i was sitting on my porch that's where god beats me who somehow and uh i i literally laid everything before christ even if it cost me my job even if it costs me everything because that's what repentance is repentance we've made repentance into such a terrible word like feel shame that's not what repentance means it means i'll co-align your thoughts with god that's what it means how god sees you and how you see god and so i laid everything down i laid my patriotism i laid my politics i laid my theology i laid everything down at the feet of jesus and i said i want what you have i want what you have and i don't want to be a pastor and i don't want to be a christian where i i can proclaim all these good facts and all these good scriptures but then there's this whole other way that i'm leading my life i don't want that i want everything that jesus says we can have and the main thing jesus says we can have is peace that passes all understanding a peace in our hearts and in our minds and so that was huge for me when i just i just laid everything down at his feet and what i realized for all of us is that this whole two years with the covet stuff like we've never been through something like this and what it's done is it's drawn out all of our fears all of our idols everything is what it's doing and i say that for myself that i there's so much information out there there's so many voices out there like you can read one article and then you can find another article that completely contradicts that article and social media has made everybody an expert right everyone's an expert on this and if we just get down to the real root of it everyone wants everything to go back to normal my problem with that that i realized was did we have peace and were we happy and when we were we kingdom focused before covid before covet and so i need i want to repent to you guys there i was afraid i was afraid i was it was it was a time of fear and it was an impossible situation for us the minute i said we all need to wear masks a lot of the right wing patriots were gone and they've never come back because they thought it was tyranny let me just be very clear you guys this is not christian persecution i have read the early church fathers and what they went through this is not christian persecution this is a big old world mess and everyone wants things to go back to normal but let me also be clear that kovid is a time that the church can really shine and i'm not trying to put anybody down this is not going away anytime soon the best is not yet to come yet we are in this for a little bit longer and the lord keeps doing it so what is our response going to be to this what is our response going to be to this whole thing what the last two years have done for me personally is it sucked out every last bit of fear and fundamentalism that i had every last bit because in the scriptures it says 306 times do not be afraid how many days are in a year do not be afraid and i'm not saying that to shame anybody i'm not saying that to because i was afraid but we got to come to a point where do we really believe this message do we really believe we won't die do we really believe in the resurrection of jesus christ do we actually believe that christ took humanity in his death and raised us up with him do we believe this i have never believed this more in my life than i do right now but it took this season because when everything's going comfortable we can sing praises and we can say all this like faith stuff but man has this exposed a lot of that in us but we can get it we can have it through jesus christ our lord i have never studied the bible more i have never believed in jesus more than i do right now i have never dug deeper into the greek into everything than i am right now and i have never believed this message more but i also believe there's some ways that and again i'm speaking in major generalities too but there's also some ways that we can be really kingdom focused really kingdom focused and i don't mean by putting a bumper sticker on and i don't mean by posting something on facebook that's not necessarily kingdom focused we can actually be a church of compassion of compassion i was watching all the 911 stuff you know and and it's 20 years later right you're like holy cow it's still to this day when you watch that you're like wow and i'm watching these firefighters go in while everyone else is running out and i'm like are we going to be a church are we going to be a people that throws more gas on the fire or are we going to be the firefighters going in to rescue people because we already know we're good with god we already know we should not fear death are we going to continue to divide divide divide divide or are we going to help are we going to heal that's what this last couple years have done it's exposed all of us because all of us want to divide and we keep getting these little camps i'm in this camp you're in that camp and then we scapegoat the other camp it's your fault that's not what the church is supposed to be so here's what i did i have sought church history basically and what i started doing is i just started looking at these beliefs that we grew up with now if you're a new person here and you're like i've never been to church like whatever i actually think you have an advantage because you don't bring a lot of this stuff with you but if you've been in church a long time i'm going to challenge some things because i started looking at church history and like where did we get some of these beliefs where did we get some of these practices and i started tracing them back all the way to where it started and i don't say this to offend you i don't i mean it just god still used all of it but a lot of the things that we have believed and practiced are only about 400 to 500 years old because there was a church split from the east and the west and the west was over here and the east was over here and there was a massive church play and so some of these theologies and some of these things that we have done are there they're not they're new they're not in the orthodox faith they're not in the faith that was handed down to us and so let me just walk you through a little church history the jews the rabbis they would get together you were not allowed to open the torah without ten other rabbis with you because they believed in the community they believed that christ was taught or that god was talking to them yahweh was talking to them and they took it so serious that they weren't going to let rogue people go and create doctrines they were going to challenge each other they were going to be with each other and the early church practiced this first off 98 of the world was illiterate at the time of christ so they couldn't just pick up their bibles and read it so they picked it up the early church fathers would get together and they would discuss these things and they would hash these things out that is the faith that is handed down to us it took and that cost them their lives you guys they were martyred for this and the roman governments finally saw okay well we can't control this because it's it's blowing up this faith is blown up but they were a little upset that these christians weren't joining the military they were a little upset that these christians were allowing them to kill them for their faith and so around 600 a.d emperor justinian who is now known to be like a really bad guy he brought all the church together and he says okay here's what we're going to outlaw and he started outlining certain practices in the faith and we lost him we lost him and it's no coincidence that the dark ages happened right after that and so then what happened was a bunch of churches um like augustine and luther and all those guys they started creating their own theologies the problem was they were by themselves they were by themselves creating some of these theologies there was no real checks and balances with anybody else and so this group went over here and this group went over here and this group went over here and 32 000 denominations later here we are and this just keeps happening in america this group thinks their theology is right so then they move over here and they start a church and it just keeps splitting and splitting and splitting and splitting and splitting and so let me just be very clear the protestant church of america and what we practice and believe we are in the minority in the world some of the things that we're we're practicing the other churches in the world are like what are you guys doing and here's why and it's it's it's it's in all of us we think the world revolves around the good old usa we're 200 years old we think everything revolves around us and it doesn't it doesn't there's a whole other church out there there's a whole other church and so what happened then was because there was a split we started creating commentary bibles and stuff you have commentary bibles it's one guy telling you what to believe and so we just pick it up we pick it up and we pick it up and then we started dispensationalism all this end time stuff you guys that we were raised with started in the 1800s started in the 1800s and we created dispensationalism what that means is we can unlock these codes and figure out the end times and it was this way that like we said each age god acts differently and he doesn't here's my point jesus comes along and he says here is the kingdom of god matthew 5 6 and 7. here is what the kingdom looks like that wasn't an inauguration of the kingdom this is what the kingdom has always been it's always been the meek will inherit the earth it's always been blessed are the peacemakers and for some reason because of dispensationalism we have now thought well at some point jesus is going to be like well that whole grace thing didn't work time to bring on the fire this is the kingdom of god that will be forever and ever and ever and what this has caused in me and a lot of christians is i i like matthew 5 6 and 7 but now we've mingled this kind of american doctrine with it and jesus said you must give up your lives to follow me you must give up your thoughts you must give up all this to truly follow me and so while i was gone um i did an inner healing class it was called inner healing and it was just focusing on why do we get triggered by the things we get triggered and you know what what why do we react in certain ways and what's the pain in my own heart that then when you don't deal with your pain you lump it on to other people right and it was mind blowing to me at this whole thing because she put up this graph and i think i put it up i'm pretty sure but it's just the difference between a mindset there's a genesis 1 model and a genesis 3 model and basically the genesis 3 model is what we grew up with in the christian church and what that means is is you're a filthy sinner you're a piece of garbage but praise god for jesus and what it's done is it's actually separated us from other people we started making camps the good guys are in this camp the bad guys in this camp and in america we love justice we love when people get what's coming to them but jesus comes along and he talks about redeeming all things and jesus worked in a genesis 1 model and the difference with that is is notice how you and me are on the same level you and me are on the same level as the rest of humanity that there are no tribes there's one tribe under the lordship of jesus christ and so what we've done i've done this i have done this like we've even there's a theology it's calvinism and their their first point is total depravity humans are totally depraved how many of you have kids and look at them and say you are absolutely gross and disgusting from the day you're born now they kind of prove it a little bit as they get older but you don't talk to your children that way you don't talk to your kids that way you don't believe that about your kids but we thought we were actually honoring god by making us look terrible what father wants his kids to look bad so he looks good now yes i believe in sin yes i believe we're messed up i totally believe that but what is the root of this what is the root cause of this jesus comes along and he says well you're all made in the image of god and so the good news is recapturing genesis 1 the restoration of all things and that is why the church for so long has hurt people it's hurt people i've listened to podcasts after podcast after podcast now of people who have been severely wounded by the church severely wounded and it's not just a side thing because what happened again is church became a business it became a business it became defending it at all costs including letting some people be left behind for the sake of the church and that is not how the early church was the early church was not like this i believe now what's kind of gone on is because and this is a great podcast but he said a lot of like the big big church pastors and i'm not saying they're bad guys i'm really not we're all caught up in the system they just preach moralism it's not really deep theology because most pastors know theology divides people and so a lot of it i listen to all some of these big name dudes it's just moralism they're saying here's the good here's the bad here's how you do the good i'm like that's impossible that's impossible and it just became black and white and i am never convinced more that jesus worked in the gray when i see jesus he would walk up to a roman centurion guard and be like he has more faith than anyone in israel can you imagine if you were a jew and heard that but then he walks up to a woman at the well and the disciples are like uh we're out and he ministers to a woman at the well jesus christ is the one we follow we follow him we do not follow the american version we do not follow the bill of rights we do not follow the constitution those are side things we follow the kingdom of god what jesus tells us is what we're supposed to do not moses not elijah not god was working through that time but jesus says i'm the one you are to follow and the reason we struggle with that is because following jesus is incredibly hard but did he ever make any bones about that did he ever like just say don't worry man it's going to be so easy you're going to figure this out through one through text one through uh 10 steps and you're gonna get this here here's seven ways to a good marriage he never did that and so what it's done is it's created this culture and church where people show up to church again i'm saying a big wide brush okay and they come and they want just how do i have a good marriage how do i make money how can my life be the american dream and so pastors are doing it one through five one through seven seven ways to healthy living seven ways to this and then you read what the disciples went through in the early church fathers and it had absolutely nothing to do with that it's about an inner walk with christ and that takes time that takes effort that takes humility that takes repentance it's a daily thing jesus did not come and say i give you ten ways of life he said i am the life i am the life and it does it it takes an effort it takes closing out and drowning out a lot of voices to follow the voice of jesus what's happened is we've created a patchwork system in the christian church if you can know the right answers if you can say the right christian language then you're in and we're not being formed internally by this message we're not letting jesus absolutely overturn our lives and our spirits and actually following christ again big wide brush but there's so much more to this guys and i promise you jesus said there's freedom in the kingdom there's freedom in the kingdom so then what happened is in the 1940s the billy graham stuff came i think god used it immensely i don't hear me putting down saint billy but it became all about your personal choice to follow jesus just make a decision everything was about making a decision and so then we started adding a bunch of fear tactics to make you make a decision because then we can say okay well at least at least they're in and jesus says i'm redeeming this planet guys it's not just about you saying a prayer it's not just about me saying a prayer so i can get out of here that's escapism he says i want you fully invested into the mess of this world and the kingdom is like a seed that sprouts the kingdom is this whole other thing that's going on and so he said here's the kingdom of the world here's the kingdom of god there's peace in the kingdom of god but this individualism took over we are so about our rights and i think they're good but it has anything that goes against our comfort now anything that goes against our comfort we fight against it because it's all about us it's all about us our individual freedoms our individual this i do not find that in the bible i can't deny it any longer i do not find it the new testament he's like think of others think of others think of others give up your rights why not be wronged we're so far off this you guys and i'm not shaming you please don't hear me shaming you it's me too because we've been raised in this system we've been raised in this thing the bible always says christ died for his church not just you the early church fathers were so amazing here's what they prayed and they were the most non-judgmental people when you read them and by the way they were surrounded by the roman empire you think what's going on now with us is bad this is child's play compared to what the romans were doing and they believed in god's mercy so much and they believed that they were just as screwed up as everybody else they didn't walk around judging people they just didn't they said how can we help how can we help here's what they would pray they prayed for the salvation of all mankind you know why they said remember the lord's prayer on earth as it is in heaven and that what do we pray that your will be done your will be done and then paul said it is god's will that all should come to repentance in full knowledge of the truth so every day they prayed lord your will be done to save mankind your will be done to save mankind that's what they prayed and it was this amazing there's a reason that that church exploded during hard times there's a reason because they were so invested in people and community and the kingdom here's a crazy story and most of these guys were rich and their land got taken from them because they became christians and there's this amazing story from gregory of nanzianzen and he had three different places and the government said the romans said okay you deny christ or we're taking your land and he says okay hold on can we save one of those pieces of land to build a hospital like instead of being that upset he said okay well let's do something good with it and all the christians got together and built a hospital and many romans came to know jesus because of that they were they they were so kingdom focused they were so non-self-focused the early church fathers did not really talk about sin that much except for pride and self-centeredness they believed every sin started with pride and self-centeredness thinking that we are better than our fellow man and so they would pray and they would repent and they would repent great story this group of monks um one of the monks sinned he went into town and sinned so they called the head monk to want to punish him they're like we got to punish this guy so the head monk puts a basket on his back fills it with sand and walks the whole way to the monastery with the sand coming out his basket and they get there and they're like why do you have a basket on he goes it was filled with sand and they say we see no sand and he goes i know that was my sins falling out behind me as i come here and because i don't see them anymore we are not going to see our brother's sins anymore either whoa like whoa they were fully convicted about the truth of sin but they saw themselves as fellow sinners and they saw that mercy and grace is what was going to change and it did listen to what isaac of nineveh said he says make no distinction between rich and poor do not find out who is worthy and who was not let all people be equal in your eyes thus you will be able to influence even the unworthy for good the lord ate at the table of the tax collectors and harlots he did not keep the unworthy at a distance he wanted thus to draw all mankind to himself therefore consider that all human beings even if infidels or murderers are equal in worth and honor and that each one of them in virtue of his nature is your brother even if all unknowingly he has strayed far from the truth how did we get from this how did i get from this to cussing out the guy at subway for making me wear a mask that guy didn't make the rule okay jared from subway probably made the rule how did we get here how did we get here my rights my stuff my dream me me me me me and i'm just as guilty i'm just as guilty consumerism has crushed the vision of the church it's crushed it how did we get from stephen being stoned i mean i'm preaching to myself man you got stephen who's sitting there being stoned for being a christian and he looks up and he sees christ stand up which means christ was like i'm there man and before he dies he says father forgive these people for what they're doing how did we get from that to you touch me you talked to me wrong i'm going to burn you down how did we get here one man writes this he says consumerism turned the church into a service provider i want good preaching i want amazing worship and i want great kids programs would we go to a church if it was just a bunch of ragamuffin jesus followers gathering around a table trying to love god and love their neighbors now one of our core values at zootown is excellence we want excellent worship i'll tell you a funny story i went to the greek orthodox church on my break and i was highly considering getting rid of the haze it's drying out my throat i'm like do we really need haze right i mean like do we really need this and is this just a show it does create an experience then i'm at the greek orthodox church and the guys walking around with the smoke and i was like oh the original haze machine i love it but here's what it did here's what consumerism and the american church has done it's divided the body of christ and it's made it all about you and all about me instead of being like how can i make kids in the zoo better it's like well they need to get better so i can come uh what and what it has done personally in all these pastors that i've talked to it's created this weird pressure for us that we have to entertain you and we have to fix you and it's one wrong sermon and you're gone my job is to lead you to jesus christ i am an under shepherd jesus is the shepherd i am not here to fix your life i can't fix my life i am not here to give you 10 steps of how your marriage can be better my advice to you is stop being a selfish jerk that's the only thing i got are you clapping for your husband right now are you okay and so and what it did is we had to prove to the congregation god is here and it's always people it's always the amount of people it's always you know the amount of programs that doesn't mean god is here god is here because he lives in every one of us was jesus a successful mega church pastor y'all he lost one we have to change this we have to fix this because this i want this for you this beautiful beautiful thing that's been just coming up in my heart it's just the love of god it's the love of god i love what greg boyd said he says if your view of god is sounding too good to be true that means you're moving in the right direction this isn't a place to fix your life this isn't a place for good moral teaching because if i call you out on sin you can call me out on sin too i mean that's just how it is we all got it this is a place of compassion this is a place where weary souls come to know they're loved to know they're forgiven to know that god has not abandoned them that's what this is about one man writes this he says the american founder's idea of individual freedom is not the same freedom offered to us in the humanity of jesus christ what christ offers is not freedom from others from our limitations or from the realities of the world but freedom for all these things as self-giving love that's the freedom he offers us and so we've made we've made following christ too easy and i don't mean in a religious way i'm not putting religious baggage on you but this is a lifetime if we truly believe he's the king and he's our savior it's a lifetime of mystery seeking him it's not a systematic theology book that says we've figured out god it's the god of the cosmos the god who knows you more intimately than you know yourself it's sitting in your car on your porch wherever it is and putting the phone away putting everything away and just listening to god listening to him two more politics i don't even know where to begin with this we've all made a lot of mistakes let's let's admit that okay this has divided the church so so bad so bad and we're all very opinionated in our beliefs myself included myself included only in 2021 could a black man running for governor in california be called a white supremist and then attacked by a woman in a gorilla mask what is going on what is happening but i want to say this and i'm not going to focus too much on this we're all way too invested in this we all are donald trump walks out and he holds a bible up upside down by the way irony of that when i saw donald trump do that i i got i got sick i got sick to my stomach he is playing you and i'm looking in this bible that he's holding i'm like do you know what it says in there bro however a couple weeks ago president biden walked out and quoted isaiah 40. they're playing you so here's my thing we have taken this and we've merged it with the kingdom of god the whole book of revelation was warning us not to merge the two that's the whole book of revelation and what's happened then and again i think i think a lot of christians were right that this the moral majority in the 80s man with jerry following them that was really bad that was really bad because we're going to say that the government is going to fix spiritual problems that's ridiculous that's ridiculous but then to my progressive friends you're just as invested in this you're just as invested four years ago the border was a crisis and there was little kids i saw all my progressive friends posting pictures of those little kids and they were mad at donald trump four years later it's still going on a lot of you are kind of silent now what am i telling you to do it no no but what happens is when you attach yourself to a person you have to defend that person because your ego's now wrapped up with your vote so you don't defend anybody but jesus christ we don't defend anything but the kingdom of god and it is ruining the faith it's ruining it because we're mingling these two together and it's wrong so what did the early church do this is crazy okay they had abortion in rome it was fully legal they never went to the government to try to change any law whatsoever because they said there's that kingdom and then there's this kingdom so what did they do they walked out and told the church yes the world is doing this but we don't do that and then they went and rescued aborted babies out of the dumpsters every sexual thing that was going on in rome they didn't go out with signs preaching and posting stuff on instagram they said well we don't do that they just showed a difference that's all they did so here's what we're gonna do at zootown okay if you want to if you're serious if you're serious pro-life and you want to adopt a child please let us know because the church is going to pay for you adopting that child that's what we're going to do and if you think the gop is real serious about abortion if they were real serious about it they'd make adopting a child a lot cheaper than abortion oh i said it let's stop looking to them to fix this world what are we doing like honestly everyone who hated donald trump that's fine that's your opinion is there more peace now than another guy's in i mean in all honesty and i don't think the average person actually cares about those kids at the border they care that they're scoring a political point to trash the other person that is not the kingdom that's not the kingdom i want to be a group of people that says you are saved by grace too no matter what your political opinions are but we want nothing to do with that because we're going to show you what the real kingdom is and it comes with compassion it comes with compassion so i'm going to lead the way first off i am begging all of you to stop i'm not pointing one person out i'm begging all of you to stop talking about politics you can talk about it with your friends if it's cordial i am begging you not to post anything i'm begging you to stop talking about it so just be honest how much do you read usa today and cnn more than you're actually reading about the early church reading about the faith really i mean come on it's not even close at this point i am begging at zootown church that we are known for a group of people with different political opinions who are totally focused on the real king jesus christ i'm going to lead the way i have decided i am not going to vote in 2022 or 2024 i am not telling you not to vote that is your choice and this isn't a knock on the military or anything like that i am not going to vote in 2022 or 2024 because i want my heart totally focused on the kingdom i will not post anything but the good news i am asking this church to stop to be different because we serve a higher kingdom we serve a higher kingdom and again when i look at the early church they were just like yeah well the world's doing what the world's doing but we're about jesus and we're about the kingdom that's what's actually going to change things is it going to cost you yes yes but i'm going to tell you straight up a lot of people have not left the evangelical church because of communism and socialism i have not heard one they've left because we've been just as involved in all of this and they need to hear the good news so i'll wrap this up in just a sec the early church here's what they practiced they practiced repentance and humility repentance and humility that's what they believed was the the the goal and that's what they believe that's where the power came from the power the reformation is on right now and as i sought christ and it was affirmed to me from other people he is taking the church and he's bridging the east and the west church together he's uniting his family again because 32 000 denominations ate cutting it all it really is is one group of christians say well here's how we figured it out more than the other side no way man we are gonna practice repentance we're gonna and again repentance in the sense of we don't know everything lord line our thoughts up with you and we're gonna practice humility we're gonna practice humility of just not getting into the vaccine debate and the non-vaccine debate and because i'm not an epidemiologist i don't even know if that's the right word okay we are not experts on this we're not some of you might be congratulations that's awesome but is this really what we're going to continue to do for the next couple years as this goes on everyone's afraid everyone wants to go back to normal and we're just scapegoating each other now it's your fault no it's my fault a year ago it was my fault now it's your fault again we're going to be different and it takes humility this is a this is a movement friends this is a movement there are many many pastors leaving their denomination because they can no longer just sign up for some of this stuff i don't know if you remember hank hanegraaff he was the bible answer man for like 40 years on the radio uh here's a picture of him i think he just converted to the greek orthodox faith because after 50 years he realized these guys kind of got something that us western evangelicals didn't the orthodox faith can trace their salvations back to the apostle paul and he realized and he got totally excommunicated from the evangelical church now they think he's a heretic and all kinds of stuff right are we going to be a greek orthodox church no i'm not going to hang up icons for you to kiss when we walk in once you study why they do it i kind of get it i asked the greek orthodox priest that i was like what's up with like the mary and the icons and all that and he goes well the problem with you protestants is you think these people are dead whoa he's like we believe they're alive and then i asked okay what's up with praying to mary he goes well do you ever ask people to pray for you and i was like yeah all the time he goes why why wouldn't you just go to him yourself i was like because you think these people are dead are we going to do that no we're not but there's something that is missing in the evangelical church there's something missing and we're going to seek after the missing thing and we're going to put everything on the line for jesus christ here's one thing i really appreciate about the orthodox church as i've read these guys and they they gave up everything to follow jesus they separate people from their sin from who they are in christ the apostle paul told us we never judge people according to the flesh anymore and so when they would see people sinning or caught up in sin they said well that's just the passion of the flesh that's not who they are in christ and i think that's something noble because they can look past what people are doing and they can see a lost loved child in the image of god and i can tell you it's so freeing because again we are very very judgmental people as americans we can always find someone worse than us right and then there's that proverb where solomon said beware of beware of being happy when your enemy falls lest the lord turns his wrath on you humility we need some humility and we need compassion everyone's life story is different everybody grew up different and we keep trying to put everybody in this little box and jesus is like well i'm over there with them and i'm also over there with them and we need to have the heart of christ and sometimes the heart of christ is shutting my stupid mouth the heart of christ sometimes too here's the one shift we're going to make because this is just so huge for me we've been told too long in the church that you can't trust your feelings and you can't trust your heart we've told we've been told that faith means you're just dumb like well just believe it god gave you a brain for a reason god gave you logic for a reason god gave you intelligence for a reason you're smart you people are smart i believe in you you know what the death kiss verse in all the new testament is it's when the apostle john said to his group you don't even need human teachers you are anointed by jesus christ you don't hear me pastors preaching on that do you you don't even need me up here saying this stuff you are anointed by the spirit of god you hear from god and i hear people all the time like well i just can't understand it yes you can if you took the time and you have the best teacher in all the cosmos the holy spirit you are smart people and faith is not the opposite of not knowing faith is researching and understanding things and then trusting it to be true that's faith you are smart people like the one verse i hear people quote all the time well his ways are higher than our ways that whole chapter is about god's grace that we're never going to figure out his grace as soon as you say well he's out or she's out he's like well there i am we're never going to figure it out but we need to come to a this is where we're going to be as a church i'm going to share some books that we that we should all read but it's not to necessarily just change your mind it's to really know this for yourself know it in here not just some preacher boy once every three weeks when you come to try to fix your life that's not it that's not it it's knowing this and understanding this and believing this one more quote he says often when people argue a point from scripture they simply quote what the scripture says but do not take into account what it actually means beyond the words that are written perhaps this is why so many in judea and israel failed to understand the meaning of the covenant itself and why they could fall so easily into idolatry we can even make christ and our following of christ and idolatry it can be an idolatry when we do it blindly without knowledge and understanding of what christ is and what he taught and demonstrated in his own life we cannot be the followers of jesus christ and slaves to the law at the same time there is a higher law than that which is written in the book it is up to us each of us and all of us to seek knowledge and understanding rather than following an idolatrous image of christ that we have created in our own minds or an idolatry of the book in our ignorance we sometimes set god the father in opposition to god the son to jesus christ and create an idolatry about both in the image imaginations of our own minds and hearts we do not seek knowledge and understanding to avoid this we cannot simply say i accept jesus as my own personal savior while we have an idolatrous concept of god and of christ burning in our hearts what that means in layman's terms is we can't just say i believe jesus christ and not actually pursue how he told us to live because then it's just bumper stickers and it's not working you and i both know it's not working what's going to work is this ragtag ragamuffin group of sinners at zootown church who humble themselves before the lord and say okay lord i throw all this out i submit to you that's where the power is going to come because the people are going to see our humility they're going to see our compassion in a world that is so messed up right now so messed up so many things right i mean is this what we're gonna be known for as christians that we're anti-mass that's what we want to be known for again how did we get from these guys being stoned to where we we're freaking out about a mask it sucks i hate it i'm with you man i'm totally with you as i'm dropping my kid off at school wearing a mask my heart breaks but this is a huge opportunity for us to toughen up a little bit it's a huge opportunity for us to say yes we are a part of this fallen nature we are a part of this with people i mean i read in the paper that group of christians who was protesting masks and one of the speakers says pull your kids at a public school so it takes the funding away from them yeah let's punish a bunch of kids come on guys we're better than this we're tougher than this we give up our rights so others may know the gospel let's do it man let's do it let's break from what everything else is going on out there let's break and let's focus on christ focus on christ focus on christ so we're going to go on a journey together this fall and we're going to just talk about the incarnation the birth of christ during christmas because that's one thing i've realized the american church has left out we talk about jesus birth once a year it's a part of the gospel that's the mystery of christ is the incarnation of christ and then next year starting at the beginning of the year i'm going to do a whole series on the bible like a five-week series on the bible and how the early church looked at it and how it was written and all kinds of stuff but i make you this promise if you will walk with humility repentance and mystery a whole new freedom and faith will come to your life it really will i promise you so here's what we're gonna do for one week this week i am asking you to not read the news i'm asking you to not get on social media and we're gonna do the same at zoo town church none of it and i'm asking you to really get focused on the kingdom of god and repent and again repent be like whatever lord what's what's your thoughts what's your thoughts what's your thoughts so here's what i did to keep me balanced um here's a picture of my phone and i put reminders on so feel free to pull out your phones these are the times that jesus was on the cross jesus went to the cross at nine o'clock in the morning and so every time at nine o'clock my phone goes off and it reminds me to repent because then i'm focused on my own stuff which helps me not judge my brother's stuff because really what we're doing is we're starting out by reading fox news or cnn and we're already judging the world we're already judging everybody so how about at nine o'clock we as a church get together and we focus on our need for mercy our need for grace at noon it's praying against those who are against you that's when he was being reviled it's praying against enemies in your life knowing that they're your brother and sister it's praying against people who have hurt you it's praying against that hard person at work or school or whatever it is and it's praying for them father bless my enemies and then at three o'clock it goes off again and this is when his side was pierced and it was water and blood it says came out and it was for the healing of the world and we receive this and say yes lord we receive your healing i've been doing this for four weeks it's amazing you will you don't even realize how judgmental you are until you start doing this and so i confess my judgmentalism to you i confess my boisterous opinions to you i confess my judgments of my fellow man who was saved by god's grace the same way i was forgive me forgive me i confess that i have lived in fear for two years i confess that i have wanted people to be hurt so i can get justice i confess all these things to you and i get asked all the time i know this is going along today it's all good right it's all good i get asked all the time what i believe the gospel is i believe the gospel is the prodigal son story i believe there's a reason that we keep finding new things in that passage i believe there's a reason that jesus made that the main passage and so here's what i believe about the gospel there was a young son you me who wanted the american dream and he wanted his stuff and he wanted to do whatever he wanted and so he goes to his father and he says father give me my inheritance now. and what he was really saying was father i wish you were dead i wish you were dead and so the father splits his inheritance with his two sons because he had an older son who had everything right but he split it and he wasn't supposed to so let me say this right there in that passage that is jesus's way of saying all are equal in my eyes you're equal i'm equal you all got different sins but i'm willing to separ or to split the inheritance with all of you because you're all equal in my eyes and the younger son goes off and he lives it up and he parties and it says that he lost all his money and then it says this it says he was eating out of a pig pen and he came to his senses in the greek it actually means that younger son had died he was dead and he came to his senses my friends that's the resurrection when we know we know that our father is good when we know that he can bring us back to life and it says the younger son was walking home and he was rehearsing what he was going to say here's what i'm going to say to my dad here's what i'm going to say to god that's a picture of religion that's a picture that something in us always thinks that we have to do something for the father that there's something in us that thinks if we get this book right if we have the right doctrinal statement if we do everything right then the father will accept us and he comes home and it says the father runs out to him and he doesn't even let that younger son say a word he doesn't say will you confess the five points to me son he says none of that he just receives him home so let me say this in the american church we've made that come to a sense's moment a one-time thing it's not it's an everyday thing every day my soul strays from god every day my soul wants something different than father every day my soul thinks something is gonna fulfill me it's everyday repentance where you come to your senses and the father comes out and he meets him and it says he puts the robe on him he puts the ring on him and he puts the sandals on him do you understand what that's saying that he was always a son he was always accepted he was always forgiven by the father just because he went and ate with pigs didn't mean that the father's view of him changed and then he slaughters the fattened calf then he slaughters the calf we have made it that he got he got crucified so he could accept this the crucifixion of jesus christ was proof that he did accept us he slaughtered the calf after he came home to say you're in you're good this is how much i love you and then he invites him in and throws a huge party but there was this older brother who was standing outside the gate and he says to his dad why would you let that liberal in why would you let that conservative in he doesn't have the right doctrine he hasn't said the right words he doesn't have the right mission statement he doesn't have the right flag he doesn't have the right anything and the father says my dear son your younger brother was dead and now he's alive come celebrate come celebrate and i believe that he left the door open so the older brother could hear the music and the partying going on and we don't know if the older brother went in or not but here's what i know for too long we have stood in the judgment seat of people and said well you're out you're out you're out you're out and there's a whole party going on in the kingdom and i want to be a part of that party and we will not be an older brother standing here saying well he doesn't have all the right doctrine as we do and he doesn't believe all the same things as we do and he hasn't even said the right words and he hasn't got baptized he hasn't done this and he hasn't done that i want to be a church that says there's a party going on and i'm glad everyone's in i'm glad the father has invited everyone to be a part of this and i'm going to go in and i want to party and parties get a little messy sometimes and you hear some things at parties that you normally don't hear but the father's there and that's where the father's at and that's what zootown church is going to be about today we're going to do communion and we're going to do it every day and the reason i put it up here is because i believe this unifies the body of christ when you stand behind your brother or sister you are acknowledging that you are in just as big a need of mercy as they are and that there's one father one baptism one faith for all of us this is where we're going and you have the spirit of christ teaching you but it starts with repentance and it starts with humility are you willing to today lay everything down at the feet of jesus and say i want to know your truth jesus i want your heart jesus do this in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen

Channel: Zootown Church

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Id: H12EDlI95LQ

Length: 59min 16sec (3556 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021