So hey there, good to see you and welcome to this place that we call DCC. If you are new here my name is Greg, I’m a part of the team here at DCC, usually up here at this point in the service, but I wasn’t here last weekend. Stacy and I actually spent a big part of the weekend with our oldest daughter Sydney, her husband Keith and my two grandkids Decker and Maverick. They are growing up so fast. I haven’t shown you in a while so let me show you. Here you go. While we were there we learned that Decker has been punching and trying to choke out kids at Day Care. His mom is horrified, in my mind I’m thinking future Navy Seal. So that’s where I was last weekend and as always I’m pumped to be back and we are pumped, jazzed, and thrilled to have you with us this weekend and that is especially true if you are brand new. If that is you we want you to know that regardless of how your story reads, regardless of what you believe or don’t believe, even if your grandkids are not as good looking or as cool or maybe as mean as mine, you are safe and welcome in this place. You really are in a room full of people who are just like you and we hope you feel and experience that in your time here with us today.
ILLUST> Back in February 2015 I traveled with a few of our DCC team over to Southeast Asia to visit our mission partner Exodus Road an organization committed to rescuing children caught in human sex trafficking around the world. So we would grab dinner every night and then head back to the hotel to talk through our plan, pray ourselves up, get the necessary surveillance equipment in place and then head out into the streets at about 10 pm to investigate and hopefully locate victims of human trafficking. The first night, the first hour or so didn’t result in much. It began to feel like we might be wasting our time and then there she was. She was dressed in the same bikini as the other girls in that brothel but something was different. She had braces on and looked to be about 13. She unlike the others stayed close to the mamma son who led her to the dance floor. When she tried to step back the mamma son shoved her back on and pointed to a pole. She grabbed it and stood there looking down at the floor. Some other dancers sitting with the men in front of her put their hands to their faces reminding her to smile. It was obvious that she was terrified and did not want to be there. Everything in me wanted to intervene and rescue her in that moment. We couldn’t. All we could do was gather intel in hopes that she might be rescued at some point in the future. As I watched her I couldn’t help but think of all the churches that refuse to get on board with Exodus Road because sharing the gospel, the good news about Jesus, God’s plan of salvation is not their first priority. Maybe I’m wrong, but in that moment I couldn’t help but think that we seem to be really confused, to have a distorted image of what God really cares about and who He really is.
If you haven’t been here before we are in a series that we are calling Distortion talking about this distorted image that we all tend to have of God. On this journey we’ve talked about the fact that God is not the angry punisher ready to zap us whenever we screw up, that he is not a republican or a democrat, he’s actually not political at all. Then last week Morgan talked about something we don’t often think about when we think about God, the nurturing, caring, comforting mother heart of God. While that’s a bit disruptive, it is something that I have been really navigating personally in my own life and story for the past year or so. It really is life-changing stuff, and I would encourage you to stay in the tension of that. So, today, as we jump back into this I want us to talk about this, God and salvation. We sing a song in church world with a lyric that says our God is a God who saves. While that is true, what if God can’t be contained in the small salvation box that we tend to put him in? What if he is about so much more than just that? That’s what I want us to talk about in the time we have left together today. So, let’s do this…
If you brought a Bible we are going to be in Matthew chapter 25 today. If you would like a Bible to follow along in but don’t have one, they are on the back tables. Or you can just hit our app, the YouVersion app, or you can just read along with me off of the screens. Okay, so here we go, Matthew chapter 25 beginning with verse 31…
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
So Jesus says that someday he will return and sit on the throne and all people in the world will be separated into two camps, sheep and goats, sheep on the right, goats on the left. Since Jesus has used the sheep analogy to describe his followers in the past, followers of Jesus on the right, others on the left. Going back to two weeks ago, some of you are like exactly, followers of Jesus on the right, that’s why I am a republican. Ank, that’s jacked up and not at all the point. So, what is the point? I think that what Jesus walks us through here points to two myths about God, distorted images that we need to clear up today in our ongoing effort to see God as he really is. The first one is this…
MYTH #1. GOD’S MAIN GOAL IS GETTING SHEEP TO HEAVEN. As a kid growing up in a very conservative legalistic church for me it was all about being saved. It was all about making the cut. I took what Jesus says here and interpreted it to mean that whether I ended up a sheep or a goat depended on me, my actions, my ability to control my behavior and manage my sin. What God wanted most from me was fairly simple in my mind, make sure I get to heaven, and tell others about him so that they can too. After all, John 3:16 says that God loved the world so much that he sent Jesus so that we can have eternal life. If you read on into verse 17 not to condemn the world but to save the world through him. In Luke 19:10 Jesus said that he came to seek and save the lost. It seems to be about, it’s pretty easy to make the case that it is all about being saved, getting saved, it’s all about getting sheep to Heaven. That’s why it is so important that we talk about this.
ILLUST> Everything changed in my life when I began to understand what happened as Jesus starts his ministry in Luke chapter 4. We don’t have time to read it today, but study it for yourself. So Jesus goes back to his hometown of Nazareth and goes to church. When Stacy and I were in Israel last year we went to Nazareth Village. They have built a replica of the synagogue in Nazareth. Let me show you a photo. So the tiered seating would have held 300 or so people, in other words the whole village in Jesus’ day. Jesus stands up and goes up and reads the scroll from Isaiah 61 that says I have come to bring help and hope to the poor, oppressed, blind, prisoners, broken hearted. He walks over to his seat and says yeah, tht’s talking about me and sits down.
Now, let that sink in for just a second. Jesus is saying this is what I came to do, here’s what it looks like, I came to bring good news to the poor, to help the oppressed, help the blind see, and to set captives free. Think about this moment in the life of Jesus. I’m not trying to be critical but if you listen carefully to what he is saying it doesn’t sound very evangelical at all. He actually sounds very liberal. These sound much more like social justice issues than they do salvation issues. Jesus doesn’t sound at all or look much like a modern, born again, evangelical, American Christian. Exactly, that’s the point and that’s the problem.
Jesus says this is what it is going to look like and then he goes out and lives it out. When you track his life you don’t see him ask for a confession of faith after he heals someone or helps them. He invites them to follow him. He uses his life to manifest the truth and power of God’s love and who God really is. We take the truth that Jesus died for our sins so that we can get to heaven and make that the all important thing, really we make it the only thing. Everything else is optional, ornamental, auxiliary, and unnecessary. Have we reduced what God really cares about to something far less than what it really is? Let’s keep reading…
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Okay let’s talk about this for a second. So the King is having a talk with his sheep. He seems to be pretty proud of them. It is obvious that their relationship with the king was a primary focus and concern. Which is great, and it’s good, and I highly recommend it after all we are told that the greatest commandment of all is to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. But, if we stop here, I think we can easily be left with the wrong impression, if we stop here we can be left with a distorted image of who God really is and what he cares most about. It leads us to myth number 2…
MYTH #2. GOD’S MAIN CONCERN IS WHAT SHEEP BELIEVE, WHAT THEY SAY OR DON’T SAY, AND WHAT AND HOW THEY PRAY. So what is the king pointing to here? It’s not heaven, it’s not someday, it’s not salvation, he is pointing to relationship with his sheep. As we read this our challenge is that we are not in a position to do this kind of stuff for Jesus, we can’t give him something to eat, drink, or wear. So what do we do with that? Great question, I think we translate it into something that we can do. I think that we just translate that into beliefs, behavior, and prayer. God’s main concern becomes what we believe, what we say or don’t say, and what and how we pray. Is it? The sheep are commended because of their focus on the relationship with the King but they had the ability to do things in the relationship that we can’t. So, how is this relationship thing really playing out in our lives and stories as we sit here today?
ILLUST> Stacy and I actually got home late Saturday night last weekend. So on Sunday morning I just sat in my gym shorts on the couch with my coffee and watched first service. As I was watching it this thought came over me that I should just get dressed and come in for second service. Just as I was feeling that Morgan, who was speaking for me last weekend, said that I was not going to be here last weekend because I was modeling Sabbath and rest and a healthy rhythm of life. I remember thinking well crud, now what do I do. After the service was over I found myself struggling with the whole rest, silence, and replenishment thing. Restlessness was a better way to describe the next few hours for me. So Morgan called me on Monday to see how the weekend was for me. I said I didn’t really do a lot once I got home. I wrote in my journal, read, watched the service, watched some NBA playoffs, worked out on the elliptical, took the dog for a walk and lounged around. I was honest with him, that was really hard for me. I had to fight the restlessness. He reminded me of something that Dallas Willard once said. Don’t scratch the itch. When it comes to intentional time with God it’s important that I not scratch the itch to get up and get busy doing something else.
Does anyone else struggle with that? Yeah, I really have to work at it, which is interesting and a bit ironic because I have really had some of my best mountaintop kind of moments with God when I have forced myself to be still. Whenever I slow down and carve out time God just has a way of showing up. It has happened at every Ransomed Heart Bootcamp I have ever attended and at my Crucible Project weekend too. Guys, if you are coming to our Men’s Retreat this next week it is very likely to happen for you. I love those kind of moments. Even though I struggle being still I still look forward to my next mountain top moment with God. Having said that, what I have learned is this, there’s so much more to it than just that. We are getting ready to see that. Here it is verse 37…
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Do you see what just happened? Something just shifted. Up until this moment it has been all about the King and his sheep, the future of the sheep, his relationship with the sheep, but now the King reveals a key part of what that relationship is really all about and what it is supposed to look like. Not only love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we talked about it two weeks ago. All of the other commandments are summed up in this, love your neighbor as yourself. It is not just about you and I having our eyes on Jesus. It’s about you and I learning to have the eyes of Jesus for everyone around us. God’s goal is not just getting sheep to heaven, his primary concern is not what we believe, how we behave, and what we pray. Jesus makes it very clear for us here. If your view of God doesn’t line up with this I understand but it is a distorted view because this isn’t a myth, this is absolute truth…
GOD’S HEART IS ALWAYS ABOUT RESCUE. In Luke chapter 19 when Jesus says that he came to seek and save the lost the Greek word for save is one of my favorite Greek words of all. That word is sozo, it means to heal, cure, make better, to deliver, to rescue not just to save in a salvation sense. Jesus confronted oppression, he brought good news to the oppressed, he liberated people, he touched lepers, he spoke well and honored women, he spoke well of non-Jews. Jesus was clearly about more than just heaven, more than just someday, he was about sozo, he was about rescue.
When we reduce God’s pursuit to salvation and heaven alone we really do lose something. When we read the Bible we find over 3000 verses that address poverty and our responsibility to do something about it. What do we do with that? Greed is the second most mentioned sin in the entire Bible. What do we do with that? Let me tell you. The gap between our average lifestyle in America and the poorest 25% of people in the world has more than quadrupled in the past 50 years. In that same period of time the percentage of our GNP that we give to the poorest in the world has decreased over 500%. And yet, if you were to visit the vast majority of churches in our country this weekend you are going to hear lots of sermons about Jesus loving you and dying for you. You won’t hear many at all on poverty and greed. Do we have a distorted image of who God really is and what he cares about, who he has always been and what he has always cared about? Listen to this Old Testament Law from Deuteronomy 24:19-21…
19 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. 21 When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow.
It’s not about the proper management of our sheafs, olives, or grapes. This is a demonstration of God’s heart for rescue for all people, especially for the foreigner, orphan, and widow people who are down and out, the vulnerable, the oppressed, on the margins, people that Jesus refers to in this passage that we are reading today as the least of these. A part of our challenge is this. We have a bad habit in church world of jumping to what we believe people need most and missing what they need now.
ILLUST> When I was sitting in that brothel staring at that 13 year old little girl I wasn’t thinking she needs Jesus or she needs salvation. While that is true, what was more true in that moment was this. We need to get her out of here. This is one the reasons I get so fired up about the 12% of every dollar that comes in here that goes out the doors before any bill ever gets paid. It’s not just that it goes out, it’s who it goes to. It goes to help the poor, orphans, widows, the oppressed, the most vulnerable, people who truly are on the margins in the world around us. Our partner Exodus Road rescues children who are victims or human sex trafficking, our partners Crossfire and Mercy’s Gate rescue the poor, the oppressed, families and people who have hit really hard times in their life with rent assistance, utility bill assistance, food, clothing, and supplies right here in Colorado Springs. Our partner Springs Rescue Mission provides food, shelter, showers, and services for our homeless neighbors. Our partner Musana provides food, medical services, education, help and hope for widows, orphans, and struggling families in multiple villages in Uganda. Our partner YWAM is providing food and sustainability through aquaponics projects in Khazikstan and all over the world. This Easter we gave over $20,000 to help foster kids and families in our city. Once again those who are most vulnerable and honestly often get over looked. Through our partnerships with other churches in the COSiloveyou movement in our city we are able to do even more.
There’s nothing like being a part of someone else’s rescue. If you are on mission with us financially in this place, you need to know, you are doing that. It’s all about lining our hearts up with God’s heart for rescue and watching what God does with that. So, yes we want you to discover and stay in your story, and yes we want you to have your eyes on Jesus and experience him in every facet of your life and all that he came to do for you. But don’t forget what Jesus points us to here.
ILLUST> A few months after I returned from Thailand I received a text message from Matt at Exodus Road. I just wanted you to know that there was a police raid last night. We got her. That little girl that you helped us identify has been rescued. You know, I have had several mountaintop experiences with God in my life. I have to tell you, that moment was at the top of the list.
We want that for you. We want you to discover your story and experience Jesus but we also want to invite you, actually it’s more than an invitation, we want to challenge you to live your life on mission, to learn to never take your eyes off of people in need around you. There is nothing like those moments in life when you realize that you have been a small part of someone else’s rescue.
Before we get out of here today I want us to take a few minutes to do something that most of us struggle doing, be silent and still. I’m getting ready to pray and then we are going to pass a tray with a little cracker and cup of juice representing the body and blood of Jesus. If you are a believer in Jesus take it whenever you are ready as the soft music plays. If you are not a believer in Jesus, aren’t sure, are confused, just aren’t feeling it or if you are but your heart is not in good space today just pass the tray on there is no shame in that. If you have never been here before as people take it you are going to hear some of those little cups crack. There are a lot of people here who like to do that as a way of remembering what Jesus said on the cross. It is finished. Our sin, yesterday’s, today’s, and tomorrow’s has all been covered by the blood of Jesus. That’s where our rescue begins. Let’s take time to remember and celebrate that but also to give some thought to the things that are going on in our lives where we could use the continuing rescue of Jesus, those places where we need more of all that Jesus came to do for us. Let me pray for us and then you take communion when you are ready as the soft music plays.
