Let Us Rise Up & Build Series

Good morning. The Great Commission says to disciple by teaching them to observe (or to do) all

that I've commanded you. Our mission at GraceWay is disciples making disciples. That's why we

have two events next weekend. I want you to know about those. They're not just events that are

placed on the calendar for fun, but they're part of our mission.

We have a men's meeting next Saturday morning at 8:30. I’d encourage you men to come out.

It's about learning how to be disciples. We do that every month. But this is the Saturday. So men,

put that on your calendar for the Saturday at 8:30. And then the women are doing a planning

meeting for a number of events they're going to do. That meeting (the Hearts, Hats & Hellos)

meeting is next Sunday at 3:00. So I encourage you women to be a part of that so that you can

help plan some of the discipleship activities that will take place over the next year. Two

important events that are going to happen at GraceWay. Part of our mission for discipleship to

move us to be the people that God wants us to be.

How many of you received the email that I sent out this week called The Pass It On email? How

many didn't receive the email that I sent this week? Raise your hand. Okay. Would you please

stop at the information table outside and make sure we have your email address correct. Because

we want to make sure you get that email. It is an email that shares the information about last

week's sermon so that you can pass it on to others. Maybe you know someone with broken down

walls or someone who's struggling in their lives, and they would benefit from that sermon from

last week about a mission-oriented view of life. So get on that email list and then take time to

think about who might benefit from this message that I heard last Sunday. Or maybe you didn't

hear the message. You can listen to it yourself.

Let's pray together.

[PRAYER] Heavenly Father, we come before you now with anticipation, knowing that you're

the one who speaks to us and you lead us. We are opening your word, recognizing that you are

going to speak to us today. We don't know whether it's something big or something small, Lord,

but we know that you're going to speak as we look at your word. We thank you for the privilege

that we have to have the written scriptures in our own language. And we don't take that lightly.

When we open your word we recognize that you're speaking in a way that will change our lives.

We ask for your grace now as we do just that. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Today I want to talk about real life. In fact, I want to talk about faith in real life. I want to talk

about faith that isn't just a Sunday faith, but a faith that we take into Mondays. In fact, I thought

about calling this Monday Morning Christianity as the title of the sermon. I didn't choose that. I

chose a statement later on in the passage for the title for this sermon. But the point is, we need to

learn how to take Jesus home. We need to learn how to take Jesus into our lives every day.

Because the reality is that the things we talk about today among Christians and the people that

we enjoy spending time with is a challenge when we take this home into our homes where there

are people that are difficult to live with, or at work where people are challenging at least, or

neighbors that are hard to get along with. What do we do with our faith in those moments? How

do we respond? How do we respond to people who seem to have issues in their lives and

somehow we're affected by those? We didn't do anything wrong. We're just trying to do the right

thing. But other people have issues and it creates tension in the whole dynamic. That's what

we're going to look at today.

See, I think sometimes people have a belief in their heart that if you become a Christian,

everything's going to be better, you're not going to have any problems. But we know that when

you become a Christian, that doesn't remove all of the problems. It does give you a huge resource

library, a huge power source to address challenges in your life. So we're very grateful for what

God does when we become a Christian. I like to ask young people when I'm working with them,

are you a Christian? And many of them will say, “Yes,” and I say, “Oh good because now we