Good morning, everyone. Take your Bibles.
Open up to the Gospel of John chapter 15.
John chapter 15. That's page 958.
If you're using one of the Bibles in the seat around you,
if you don't have a Bible, please take one of those.
That's our gift to you today. I want to welcome some people
who are joining us. First of all, I want to welcome
our family a forward Kitchener who are joining us for our
sermon series this month. And we also have a group of
students from Heritage College and Seminary who are here
joining us today. They are down here near the
front. Everybody wave.
Good to see you guys. Glad to have you with us.
And I want to make everybody aware as well that we have
another baptism service coming up.
It's so amazing to see what God is doing in our church family
and more people coming to faith. And so on October the 5th here
in Cambridge is going to be a baptism service.
We're also going to have a baptism service for those of you
in Kitchener. We're going to have one in
October as well. So if you have not yet been
baptized, just text the word baptism to our text number and
we will make sure that you get set up for our next baptism
service coming up in a couple of weeks.
All right, in honor of our friends from Heritage who are
here today, let me ask you this question.
How many of you would say you were really good students in
school? None of the Heritage students
raised their hands, which is kind of awesome right now.
I think some of us like we thrive when we're in school and
we're kind of, we just love sitting listening to somebody
teach us and lecture us and we just love, we're academic in
nature. We love, we feed off of the
academics of school. Others, others of us are like,
how fast can I get out of this classroom and just go and live
the real life? And we've learned by doing.
Some of us are wired to just do things and that's how we learn.
The truth is we need both. We we need both to be taught
what is right and the right way of doing things.
And we also need to get out there and experience some things
and learn by experience. Like for example, when you
learned how to drive, there is the classroom information that
you needed to get, which all of us hated sitting through.
All right, who's the one person that enjoyed driving school,
sitting in the classroom listening like all of us hated
guys like just let me get behind the wheel of a car and we all
think we know how to drive. We're given the information
about how to drive on slippery roads until the first time we
get out and drive on a slippery road.
And then we realized we didn't know as much as we thought we
knew. The first time for me was it
ended up in me rear ending the car in front of me, driving my
dad's car on his birthday with him sitting in the passenger
seat beside me. It was a tough way to learn how
to drive on slippery roads. One of the things I love about
the Christian life is that it is not merely God giving us a bunch
of information to know. It's not us sitting and
listening to a whole bunch of sermons and going to a whole
bunch of Bible studies, which are really important by the way.
We need the information of God's Word.
But the Christian life is always meant to be lived out.
It is a life that is not about an hour on Sunday morning, but
it is a way of life that we do 24 hours in a day, seven days in
a week, 365 days in a year. And so today we're going to
continue sitting at the feet of Jesus as he teaches us some
things, but then we're going to understand how he connects this
to the real world, what he's looking for in our lives
tomorrow morning and maybe even today after church is done.
But before we do that, let me just remind you where we've been
the last couple of weeks. We started a couple of weeks ago
in this series reminding ourselves that the Christian
life is not primarily about what we do.
It is what Jesus has done. That Jesus went and died on the
cross for our sins so that we could be made right with God.
There's nothing you or I could ever do to make ourselves right
with God. Last week, though, we talked
about how that's not the end of the story.
That God's desire and design for our lives as humans and as
Christians, is that your life, my life, would be increasingly
fruitful. What that means is that our
lives are increasingly looking and sounding more and more like
Jesus over the course of our entire lifetime.
But fruitfulness, this idea of fruitfulness doesn't happen by
us working harder and saying, I'm going to manufacture
fruitfulness in my life. I'm going to prove to people
that I'm a Christian. Jesus says that you can only
bear fruit if you abide in Christ.
So we talked about how abiding is this love relationship.
It's a love relationship where we receive God's love for us.
We rest in His love for us, and then we turn it around and
express our love to God in return.
And that's what it means in part to abide in Christ.
Well, today we're going to continue working through this
teaching of Jesus about what it looks like to abide in him.
So open into John chapter 15, and I want to begin reading
where we left off last week. In verse 9, Jesus says as the
Father has loved me, I have also loved you.
Remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you
will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands
and remain in His love. I have told you these things so
that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
This is my command. Love one another as I have loved
you. No one has greater love than
this to lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I do not call you servants anymore because a servant
doesn't know what his master is doing.
I've called you friends because I've made known to you
everything I have heard from my Father.
Here's the big idea I want us to keep in mind through the service
this morning. Abiding in Christ requires
loving one another the way that Jesus has loved you.
That abiding in Christ is not something that's limited to your
quiet times of praying and reading your Bible.
It's a real world, everyday decision to say I'm going to
live every part of my life in obedience to Jesus.
That's what Jesus says in these verses.
And now for Jesus, he's making that first connection of what
does it mean to live in real world everyday obedience to him
by saying it looks like loving one another.
There is quite often this disconnect with a lot of people
between loving God and loving one another.
We for some reason think of these as being in two completely
separate boxes in our life. We we have this inability to
kind of see them as being united as one command.
We, we treat them like, I can love God, but really be annoyed
with other people at the same time.
For, for example, if you've ever had an argument with your family
on the way to church, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
You could be upset, you could be frustrated.
You could be yelling at your kids because they're just not
behaving this morning. And then you walk in the doors
of church and the music starts playing and the pastor starts
preaching. You're like, Hallelujah, I love
you Jesus so much, right? And that's not loving God in
that moment. In the eyes of Jesus, there's
this direct connection and link between your love for him and
your love for one another. When Jesus was asked what is the
greatest commandment, he said the greatest command is you love
God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength.
But then he said, the second is what like unto it that you love
your neighbor as yourself? When Jesus says love one
another, I want you to think about it this way.
Think about it in terms of family.
Think about it in terms of your family and our Christian family,
our brothers and sisters in Christ, because Jesus is
specifically talking about within Christian community.
Yeah, you can take this idea of loving one another and apply it
to all kinds of relationships, but he is specifically talking
about within the Christian family.
The Bible has about 59 commands to talk about one another's in
Scripture, and all of them refer to how we are to relate to each
other as Christians. And so in order to become
increasingly fruitful with your life, you have to love one
another, but not just in this generic sense of going, yeah, of
course I love everyone, not just in that generic sense, but at
the standard that Jesus has set that that's what he says, love
one another as I have loved you. And so in these verses, we're
going to see from Jesus three very specific ways that he's
displayed his love for you and what that means, what that looks
like in the ways that we are to love one another in the same
way. Here's the first one.
Loving one another means your desire is for the ultimate good
of the other person. In your heart of hearts, do you
really want what's best for the other person?
In verse 11, Jesus tells us that the reason he's saying
everything he's saying about abiding in Christ is that His
desire is for his joy to be in you and for your joy to be made
complete. He he has this motivation of why
He's wanting you to abide in him, because Jesus already knows
the joy of living a fruitful life.
He already knows all that he receives in being in unity with
God the Father, and He wants you to experience the exact same
thing. And I, I don't know if you've
ever thought about Jesus as being a happy person before.
I, I, I think most of us, we thought of Jesus as being kind
or gentle or caring. Maybe we thought of Jesus as
being bold and courageous. But I've not heard a lot of
Christians talk about the word happy when they talk about
Jesus. But what Jesus is saying here is
I want my happiness. I want my joy to flow into you.
That's my desire for you. In Hebrews chapter 1, we're told
that God has anointed Jesus with the oil of joy.
John Piper describes Jesus as the happiest being in the entire
universe, and I wonder how our view of Jesus would change.
If we view Jesus as being happy, I wonder how our view of being a
disciple of Jesus would change if we saw that abiding in Christ
means that Jesus wants to take his joy and have that flow into
our lives and overflow out of our lives so that we are happy
people. Everything that Jesus desires,
why he loves you is because it is for your good.
So think about, think about the people sitting around you today.
Think about the other Christian friends in your life.
Think about your own family or even your own marriage.
How often are you driven by the idea?
What would be the best thing for the other person?
I don't mean the casual, I mean always driven by the thought
what would be the best for them? Think about those times where
you get into a disagreement with someone.
How often when you're going to be honest before God?
How often when you're in a disagreement with someone, are
you really looking through the lens of what would be the best
thing for that person right now? Not very.
I don't do it very often. When I'm in a disagreement with
someone, it's usually like, I just want to prove you wrong.
I'm not always sitting there thinking about what is genuinely
the best thing for this other person.
When you're at church on Sunday, do you ever think about what
would be the best for the other people that are sitting around
me? Or is your primary interest?
What am I getting out of today? Now, because I love you and I'll
give you the benefit of the doubt, I think most of us do
have people in our lives that we go.
We genuinely want the best for that other person.
But this command to love one another is all-encompassing.
It's not like just for your little group of people.
It's an all-encompassing command that we are to have this desire
for every single person wanting the best for them.
Now here's what else we need to consider.
When Jesus desires your good, it's not the same thing as
agreeing with you on how you would define what would make you
happy. Like Jesus never showed up and
come to give every person what they felt was going to make them
happiest. He came to give them something
even better because he knew the joy that he was experiencing was
even better than whatever they were going looking for to give
them joy. And so he says, I want to give
you my joy. I want to give you my happiness
because it's better. Sometimes we're going to see
Jesus when we read through the Gospels.
We'll see Jesus showing up and giving people what they think
they need in the moment. But a lot of times you're also
going to see Jesus show up and he's going to teach people
something different than what they think is going to make them
happy. Sometimes He is there to
graciously care for you and provide for you in a moment, and
sometimes He's there to also correct you.
He is, as John chapter 1 says, filled with both grace and
truth. Jesus loves you enough to always
tell you the truth, not because He's out to get you, but because
His heart is that you would be able to experience the same joy
that He has. And I think this can be such a
lost part of what it really means to love one another
because all of us, whether we want to admit it or not, we lean
into grace or truth. We are naturally wired as people
to kind of like, I love to tell people truth or I'm a little bit
more gracious with things. Rarely are we filled with both.
Like some of us, some of you in this room, you are wired for
confrontation. There.
There are some of us who all we want to do is be angry and
challenge everybody all the time.
We always want to tell everybody else what they're doing wrong.
And if that's you, if you find yourself as being I am the truth
teller to always tell everybody else what they're doing wrong.
You need to check your heart and your motives and ask yourself
the question, do I really actually care about this person?
Do you really desire the best for the other person, or do you
just want to be right and get them to say that you're right?
Always remember that even when Jesus corrects his followers,
it's because his desire is for their joy.
Many of us are. We're wired the opposite way.
Like we hate any type of conflict or disagreement at all.
So all we do is we always give in to whatever the other person
thinks is going to make them happiest, whatever they want.
Imagine if we did that with kids all the time.
Like for those of you who are parents, imagine if every time
your kids said this is what I want, you said yes, dentists
would be far richer people than they already are because of all
the candy that would be eaten, right?
We all inherently know that we can't say yes to everything that
everybody wants. But sometimes because we're kind
and we're caring and we're compassionate, we just kind of
let everybody go along with the flow, even if it's actually bad
for them. If you really want the best for
another person, sometimes you have to speak up.
Loving one another is going to mean that your deepest desires
for the ultimate good of the other person.
Here's the second thing Jesus teaches us.
Loving one another means sacrificially serving others.
Look at verse 13. Jesus says no one has greater
love than this, to lay down his life for his friends.
I want to give some context to where we find ourselves here in
John chapter 15. This is part of what is called
the Upper Room discourse. We're sitting in the middle of
the conversation that Jesus is having with his disciples the
night before he is about to be crucified.
For three years, every single day, this group of disciples,
this group of friends of Jesus had spent every single day with
him. They laughed together, they
cried together. They've seen miracles take
place. They've seen people's lives
change together. But nothing that they had
experienced to this point would compare to what was about to
happen in the next 24 hours. Tell me something.
What would you think about willingly getting arrested,
beaten up, spitted on? That's not a word.
Spitted, spat on, flogged, humiliated, and brutally
murdered for the sake of someone who's going to live 2000 years
later. I don't know any person who
thinks like that, but that's what Jesus did for you.
He willingly went to the cross, you and I.
We are sinners by nature and by choice.
And the Bible says every single human being is in that place and
we all deserve the judgment of God on our lives.
But it also says but Jesus. But Jesus lays down his life in
your place. Jesus takes the judgment that
you and I deserve. And why?
Because he loves you and He wants the very best for you.
He gives his life so you can have eternal life.
If you're here today and you don't know Jesus as Lord and
Savior of your life, I want to invite you to consider Jesus, to
consider that your life is not about how much you can do to be
made right with God, but it's what Jesus has done on a cross
to pay for your sins. And you can receive this gift of
eternal life by repenting of your sin and turning to Jesus
and putting your faith in him today for your salvation.
And for those of us who are already believers and followers
of Jesus, this kind of sacrificial living is what it
looks like to love one another. This is our standard.
One of the most subtle lies that's become normalized in
families, friendships, and churches is this.
Just do what's best for you. Because what we usually mean
when we say that is do whatever is going to make you feel most
comfortable and most safe. Imagine where you and I would be
today if Jesus just wanted to be safe and wasn't willing to die
for you. Like, let's get really practical
with this marriages. I know in a room this size with
this many people here in Cambridge and in Kitchener, I
know it is inevitable. Statistically, there's going to
be marriages that are struggling and going through it right now.
And the Bible calls us to love one another as Christ has loved
us. So what does that look like?
Hey, man, it starts with you. It starts with me.
The calling on our lives as husbands is to love our wife
like Jesus loved the church. That's the standard, to live
with a sacrificial love for the sake of our wife.
Now, for every wife who's in the room who's saying yeah, give it
to them. Kirk, I want to remind you of
this. The command to love one another
holds for you, too. What does it look like for you
to love your husband with a sacrificial love?
For some of us, even not in marriage but in any type of
relationship, loving each other sacrificially might mean
forgiving them for something that they've done to you.
Forgiveness is hard. Forgiveness requires a sacrifice
because you're not able to get any retribution from the other
person when you forgive them, like you can't get anything back
from them. You're just forgiving them.
You're absorbing the full weight of the pain, but that's how
Jesus has loved you. Some of us, we're at the stage
of life with aging parents. Think about what does it mean to
sacrificially serve your parents?
There's a significant time and emotional investment that's
there. Why do we love each other this
way? It's not because the other
person always deserves it. It's because it's what Jesus did
for us even when we didn't deserve it.
Here's another one, volunteering at church.
There's a lot of people who buy into a mindset that says
something like this, Sure, sure, I'll help you out with something
and so you sign up. But there's always kind of this
little asterisk with I'll help you out with something.
It's a limitation. It has to fit my schedule.
So maybe I can squeeze in an hour or so once a month.
Maybe I can make that work for you.
It needs to be something that's not too far outside my comfort
zone because like my comfort is the 1st and most important
thing. I want to be really clear to
everyone here at Forward we, we don't ask people to volunteer
because as Christians, volunteering is not the way
things work. As Christians, we live more in a
conscription place. God has given every single
Christian gifts. First Corinthians chapter 12
tells us those gifts that have been given to you by God are
with the expectation of you using them to build up the body
of Christ. It is not something we volunteer
for. It is something we say yes to
Jesus about. We are called to be servants.
It's not optional for Christians.
One of the ways that we express our love and grow in our love
for one another is by being a part of a serve team here in our
church. And So what that means is that
for some of you, it's going to take up some of your time.
You might have to drop some other things so that you can
serve. Maybe.
Maybe you won't be able to watch 9 hours of football on a Sunday.
For some of us, it's going to mean getting uncomfortable
sometimes, that you're going to do things that make you push
yourself outside your comfort zone.
Sometimes you're going to end up getting close to people and
you're going to become emotionally invested in their
lives in a way that's going to feel heavy and hard and
difficult. And that's the reality of
sacrificially serving one another.
Now, as your pastor, I also need to say this.
Some of you are wired in such a way that you buy into
sacrificial serving to such a degree that you've maybe dropped
some other things that Jesus has commanded you to do.
You're not spending as much time with God.
You're not taking time to rest. So some of us, we need to like
slow down a little bit on the sacrificial side of serving and
some of us need to ramp it up. And only you and God know where
you're at on that. Here's the third thing that
Jesus teaches us about what it means to love one another.
Loving one another means being a friend who speaks the words of
God to others. When it comes to friendships, I
think most of us are looking for this.
We're looking for people we can have fun with, people we have
lots in common with, people that we can be honest with, who
support us in the tough times of life.
And those things are amazing and great, and they are gifts for
you. But I think quite often our
friendships and our relationships are missing one
piece of the puzzle that would take them to a whole other level
that would help us to love others the way that Jesus has
loved us. In verse 15, Jesus says this.
He says, I've called you friends because I have made known to you
everything I have heard from my Father.
Here's what Jesus is saying. I want to distinguish between
you being my slave and you being my friend that, that there is a
difference that is going on here.
He he could have, he could have just gone and said, this is the
command. Just do it.
Any parents in the room ever done that before, right?
Just do what I told you to do. And what Jesus is saying is
that's not how I approach this relationship.
I don't approach it from a just do this because I said So.
What he's saying is I'm coming alongside you and I'm calling
you friends now and I'm explaining to you the words of
God the Father. Everything that God's taught me,
I'm teaching you. And his whole point is, I'm not
only telling you what to do, but if you, if you walk with me, if
you pay attention to how we've walked together over these
years, you would see that I've been telling you and showing you
why these commands matter. The difference between being
Jesus, seeing you as slave and friend is not just that he gives
you a command, but he tells you the why and the heart behind the
commands that he's given. And then he says, I call you
friend. Jesus is committed to speaking
the words in the heart of the Father so that you and I can not
only understand what God wants, but we can understand why God
wants it. A friend talks about the words
of God to each other. Like, it's really easy to have
an opinion of what other people should do.
Most of us, to some degree, are experts in opinion.
It's a lot of fun sometimes to share your opinion with other
people. Like you know exactly where
other people are making their mistakes, you know exactly what
they've done wrong, and you've got a wonderful plan for how
they should correct it. And I'm sure that most of your
opinions are very logical, but I promise you, they don't begin to
touch what people really need to hear.
And that is they need to hear the words of God.
For the people that God brings into your life, you are given a
sacred trust to not only care for them, but to care for them
enough to speak God's words to them.
Not not as a weapon to get them, but out of a heart that really
wants the best for them. If you're a parent here today,
every single day your kids are bombarded with messages.
Will you love your kids enough to make sure that they are
taught everything that God has to say?
Many of us in this room, we have someone in our life who is
really struggling right now, really going through it.
Whether it's your spouse or a child or a friend or someone who
sits near you at church, you need to speak the words of God
over that person. I cannot begin to tell you how
many times when I am going through a rough spot in life.
It's amazing how many people have wonderful opinions about
what I should do. And it's amazing how life giving
it is when people say, hey, here's a Bible verse that just
came to mind for you. Imagine if we were to like lower
the temperature on our opinions and increase the temperature and
how much we talked about what God has to say to each other.
How much more life will we be speaking into each other's
lives? That's what Jesus came to give.
He came to give us life, and you're only going to find it in
Him. As we think about all the ways
we're called to love one another, there's one thing
that's really clear. If we're going to grow and
loving one another, it's going to require being truly connected
to other people. Like it's very difficult to
really love each other if you don't ever spend any time
together, if you never talk to each other, if you're not
invested in the lives of other people.
It's really difficult. Like imagine if Jesus would have
just said, hey, I love you, trust me, I love you, but I
think I'm going to hang out in heaven instead of going down to
earth. But that's not what he does.
He willingly leaves heaven to come and live on this earth
amongst us as an expression of His love for us.
He left all the glories of heaven for you.
There's just something about being in the same space as other
people that's going to force you to really grow in understanding
what love looks like. Because the more that you
interact with other people, you're going to discover
something. Most of them don't think the
same way that you do. And the temptation in our
current culture is, I'm just going to walk away until I find
the people who do think the same way that I think about
everything. But guess what?
Most of us don't really think the way that Jesus does.
And he still loves you. That's the standard.
I, I can honestly tell you, I did not really begin to
understand what it meant to love one another until I got married.
There's just something about being in the same space with
another person day in and day out that you suddenly start to
discover, hey, we don't think the same way.
And we're going to have to figure out what it looks like to
love each other. And 31 years later, I'm a slow
learner. I'm still trying to figure it
out. Some people have some Christians
have this mindset. Hey, I've got my people.
And so we limit who we're going to love to the people who think
like us and like the same things that we like.
But that is only a small piece of loving one another.
That's called living inside the space of your social media
algorithm. Loving one another means loving
everyone who is in the family. Over the last couple weeks
alone, I have watched things happen in our culture that
should never happen amongst Christians.
I have watched Christians calling each other names,
intentionally creating division in churches over politics, and I
am not going to stand up here and talk to you about right or
left in politics. What I am going to say is this.
For a Christian, the name of Jesus is the only name by which
this world can be saved. We cannot be rescued by any
political party. And for us to ignore the command
to love one another so we can get our political opinions
across is wrong. And we if we have committed
that, we have to repent of that sin.
See, when Jesus died on the cross and he builds his church,
Jesus is creating an entirely different community in in a
world that has always been fractured, that always feels
like it's falling apart at the seams.
In a world where some people go, the divide is too great for us
to ever get on the same page. Jesus enters into the equation
and he becomes the great equalizer.
Jesus enters onto the scene and says, all of you, I don't care
where you land on the political spectrum, you're all sinners and
you all need God's forgiveness. And at the foot of the cross,
we're all equal. And when Jesus dies on the cross
and he creates this new community, he sets the standard
for this new community called the church and says we are
called to love one another. That we're to be so different
than all the division that's in the rest of the world.
That the rest of the world looks at us and says, what's up with
these people? Jesus says the world will know
that you are his disciples. How?
By our love for one another. Our love for one another is what
is going to distinguish us and create a whole beautiful,
powerful new community that Jesus came to bring.
If you really believe that there is no other name by which this
world can be saved than Jesus, then you'll be far more
passionate about being obedient to Jesus than you will about any
other preference belief that you have.
If you're going to increasingly bear more fruit with your life,
it is going to require that you abide in Jesus.
And if you're going to abide in Jesus, it's going to require
being obedient to Jesus. And if you're going to be
obedient to Jesus, it's going to require that you love one
another. It's not optional.
Oswald Chambers puts it this way.
He says being a disciple means identifying yourself with God's
interests in other people. And as a church, we want to help
you live this out. So right now, for those who are
at Forward Kitchener, I'm going to turn this back over to Pastor
Steve and Kitchener to walk with you on how to live this out.
And right now, I want to invite some guests up onto the stage
with me. Zach and Jen Rickson and Curtis
Heaton are going to join me up here on stage.
If you guys could just welcome them as they join me.
Thank you, Paige. And for those of you who are in
the room here, could you pull a brochure that's in the seat
around you? And that is something that we
use. We talk a lot about our mission
of making disciples of Jesus who love God, love others, and serve
the world. And there's a lot of activity
that happens here at our church, but there are some really
critical things that we need to put into practice in our life
that are the most important things for you to put into
practice in your life if you want to grow.
We talked last week about loving God.
And if you want to grow and loving others is what we're
going to talk about here today. So first of all, when it comes
to building your family, we have a number of different resources
available for you. I want to encourage you, if your
parents talk to Neil Moody, our children's ministry director,
talk to Brittany and Nate, our student ministries directors,
they'd love to get you resources to help you with your families
and to be able to grow and loving each other at home.
But these three are here to talk about a couple of other ways for
us to live out what it means to love one another.
And Zach and Jen, how long have you guys been coming forward
now? It's been 4 years now.
Four years. So you came in during COVID?
We did in. A steak, Absolutely.
All right, that's good. I said the C word.
I probably shouldn't have said that.
And I know that when you came to the church, you jumped into a
discipleship group fairly quickly.
What led you to jump in and join a discipleship group?
So we had always wanted to be part of that at our old church.
And when we moved to Cambridge for about four years, we were
still going to our old church and it was about a 45 minute
drive away. And work schedules and in that
distance made it very difficult to join a group, even though we
we always wanted to. And so it was right in the
middle of COVID. I think it was probably the
second time we were here. We were.
Sitting at the back because we were new, right?
And everybody was still massed up and distanced and the service
ended and this this guy turns around and he says, what are you
doing the rest of the day? I said, watching football and
peeling off wallpaper. And that was Dave Van Weingart.
And about 20 minutes later we were in there.
We were in their group. And we've been been part of it
ever since. So that's amazing.
How has being part of a group helped you to really grow in
your love for others? Yeah, it's been very different
for both of us. One of us is very extroverted
and makes friends a little bit easier.
We have very different gifts and I think that group really helped
me see that. Well, we do have different
gifts. God has designed us for the same
thing, and we needed that close connection and the design of
group. We're not made to be an island
and we really needed that, both of us.
Yeah, that's amazing. I I know that when you are wired
differently can take a little bit time.
Were you hesitant at first to join a group?
I had about 10 reasons I could have spat out right away why it
wouldn't have worked. OK, All right, So what would you
guys say? Now, for anyone who's here who's
not in a discipleship group, why should they think about joining
one? I would say I wish I was wearing
Nikes or something because I'd say just do it.
And I would really, I would really encourage everybody to be
part of it. And I would really encourage
everyone not to say no. When God gives you what you
prayed for, it's not always going to be on the night that's
convenient for you. You know, you might have to rush
through dinner. You might have to get the kids
packed up. You might have to get a sitter.
It might not seem like something that's convenient.
I promise it's worth it. So when God gives it to you, I
think it's really incumbent upon all of us to not say, yeah, but
this, But what about those conditions I asked you for,
Lord? What about that perfect scenario
that I asked you to put together for me?
We prayed for it. God gave it to us, and we just
felt compelled to to jump right in.
And I would encourage everybody, if you feel that that's a part
of your life that's missing and maybe you don't know it's
missing yet, we've been very, very blessed individually and as
a couple to be part of a group. And we'd encourage you to join
one as well. That's awesome.
Thanks. Also joined by Curtis Heaton
over here. And Curtis, you've been around
forward longer than Zach and Jen.
Do you remember how long have you been here?
14 years. 14 years. September.
Yeah. All right.
And you're a busy guy, you got a family and life is crazy and
hectic. And because you don't have
enough time with kids, you decide it would be a good idea
to start serving in kids ministry.
And could you just talk a little bit about like what leads a guy
who has a very busy life, full life to say, yeah, I'll, I'll
serve in kids ministry. Yeah, well, you summarize it
well. My life is busy, I have 3 kids
and you'll probably see us running around in the sanctuary
after the service. We try to tire them out before
we get home for Sunday afternoon nap.
But yeah, I if it was up to me, I wouldn't have picked kids
ministry. But as you summarize well, Kirk,
this morning it was about walking in obedience to Jesus.
And I remember being in a season, it was about a year and
a half ago in my life where I was transitioning out of 1 area
service and looking for a way to get involved.
And I prayed one of those dangerous prayers like Lord
direct me to where you want me to serve.
And I remember we were doing one of these ministry spotlights and
Deb Thompson was up here talking about how they needed guys to
serve in kids ministry in preteen specifically.
And I felt the Holy Spirit kind of nudged me.
And I was like, that would be like pretty low on the list for
me. And then I'm thankful for my
wife because later on that day she was like, Hey, remember when
they talked about, you know, serving in preteen?
I felt like that would be a good fit for you.
I was like, OK, here we go. And it has been a real blessing.
And, and like I said, it was just walking in obedience.
I think, you know, I like maybe lots of people looked at serving
as like a little bit like a hobby, trying to find something
that I I enjoyed or might enjoy being involved in.
That's not the way we should look at it.
We need to look at where are the needs and where is God calling
us to serve? How has serving kids men grown
your love for others? I'm sure it's grown your
patience, but how has it grown your love for others?
Yeah, God's giving me a lot of reasons to grow in patience in
my life. But one of the things that has
been so enjoyable has been just investing in kids, investing in
the younger generation. It has been such a joy.
It is. It's hard, it's hard work, it's
tough ground sometimes working the soil of of these kids
hearts. Some of them are very energetic
and not the best of listeners, but you know what it has been.
I've just seen God at work and there's something about
ministering to the heart of a child like we are.
We have such an opportunity raising up the next generation
Kids are so they're just like sponges.
They absorb so much. And so I've just been so blessed
seeing the little ways that God is showing up in in our ministry
and, and the love that I've experienced just in being able
to serve in that way has been so wonderful.
Yeah, that's amazing. Church.
You can text the word group or text serve to our text line, and
you can get some more information on how you can get
into a group or join a serve team.
I'm going to ask the worship team to come on out here and
we're going to close in a moment.
I just want to say a couple of words, you guys.
Thank you for joining us. Church, would you stand please?
We're going to sing, and as we sing this song, I want us to not
just sing a song, but I want you to really reflect on how this
represents the way that Jesus has loved you and think about
what does that mean for you today and tomorrow and the day
after. And as a way of life to go, I
live to love others the way that Jesus has loved me.
Let's sing and reflect on what Jesus has done for us.