Lane Gilbert: Good morning. They let me get up here again. This is 3 weeks in a row. Don't know that's ever happened. So I I don't know if Latham is in a spot where he can hear what I say today.
So, but that's okay. He's gone, and I won't get in trouble till he gets back. So, let's dive into it. And today's scripture is from Micah chapter 6 verses 6 through 8. Let's hear the word of God together.
With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with my thousands of rams, with 10,000 rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, oh mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Amen. So, if you haven't been here the last couple of weeks, I'm gonna get you caught up real quick. So this is the cliff notes version, and, I talk fast a little bit like an auctioneer.
So if I'm going too fast, they slow down, but I won't be able to see you because the lights are in my eyes. So, we have been having you're good. I I was supposed to pray at the end of the scripture, guys. I messed that up. So let's pray real quick.
Father God, thank you for an opportunity to be here. Just bless us with your presence and bless our lives with your presence and help us lean into that. Amen. So that's on me, guys. Y'all can put that on my while you were gone, Latham.
This is what Latham did. Alright. So, I told everyone that I wish I could take everyone that walks through the doors of this church for a cup of coffee. Right? Because I love to have conversations.
I love to know people. I love to hear their story. And I believe in asking questions. I ask questions because, 1, I have ADD and it's hard for me to track. So if I'm asking you questions and I know what questions I'm gonna ask you, it helps me stay engaged without telling you about the one time that I called a squirrel.
But also when you ask questions and especially this is our 3rd cup of coffee. So if if you haven't been here for the other ones, just pretend, right, that we are really getting to know each other. And so now it's not nearly as awkward when I ask you questions. And so so in the 3rd week, I wanna ask questions because I think that when you ask questions and you ask good questions and you listen to people and you ask them about how they feel about God and you ask them about their gifts and you ask them what they like doing, you begin to see who a person is. So this week, the questions I would ask you at our cup of coffee and then I'm gonna ask you now are, what is something you do well and enjoy doing?
One of the things you learn about me is I ask a really easy question at the at first, sometimes it's ridiculous. Right? Would you rather would you rather fly or be invisible? You know? Who would win in a fight?
You know, a pirate or a ninja? It's always pirates. And so what is something you do well and you enjoy doing? Just tell me, like, a thing that you maybe you do for a hobby. Maybe you do it for for a living.
But what's something that not only do you enjoy, but you believe that you're good at? Because I like to ask you an easy question. So when I ask you this, they're like, slowly build. Right? So then I then I would ask you, what is something that either fires you up or really bothers you?
What is the thing that you can't walk by and see this happening and just ignore it and do nothing? Or what is the thing that when you see it happening, you get excited and you wanna join out? The next question is one that I use in different, like, slightly different phrasing for a lot of different things because, it helps me it helps me determine what's people are passionate about. So if you work with me, I've asked you, you know, if money wasn't an issue and no one would tell you no, what would you do? And my answer is always, I would build a lazy river around the church.
Y'all have heard me say this before, because I believe in the evangelism opportunity a lazy river would accommodate for us. Also, I live next door, so I could just float in it all day. But if if we had just met and you don't work on staff with me, I would ask it like this. If you had $1,000,000 and I told you you had to use it or give it away, who would you give it to? What would you use it for?
And if you gave it to someone, what would you want it to be used for? And all of those questions build up for me to learn what you're passionate about. Right? Because we've talked about, like, what it means to to know God and to realize that we always have the opportunity to stand on holy ground. We talked about how important it is to begin to learn and understand your gifting.
Like, what are the things that God has gifted you with? But passion's a little different because passion could be like, this is the thing I really like, or this is the thing that really moves me. So I'd say, how could God use the things you are passionate about to bring change into the world? And since this is our 3rd cup of coffee and I know everyone about this time time, right, I ask it the same way I ask the final question every time, what are you gonna do about it? What difference does it make?
I have, been in ministry full time for over 2 decades now, and the biggest portion of that was in student ministry. So I wanna share a story about a student that was not here. This was another church I I served. Her name was Hannah. Hannah was not a kid that had grown up in the church.
Hannah was a kid that her parents called me and said, hey, mister Gilbert. I already knew it was gonna be bad. My wife and I would love to to schedule some time to come by your office and and talk with you about our daughter. I had seen the kid before, you know, I'd seen Hannah before, but she had never been to anything. And so, I was like, alright.
Sounds great. I met with them. So they came without their daughter. And they said they they told me about Hannah and how how she'd been a lot of trouble in school, out of school. And they felt that she was in a real turning point in her life.
I believe she was a freshman. She was around 14. And they looked me in the eye and said, she's gonna start going to youth stuff here and church and everything. I was like, okay. I did ask them if I was gonna see them that Sunday and they said, no.
No. We're just we're gonna we're making her go to church. She has a friend that's here. This felt like as good a one as any. I was like, man, you know, you're really pray building me up right here.
She's gonna be here every time that you have something. Go ahead and sign her up for every trip. Let us know how much we owe you. And I was like, okay. Never been in a situation like that before, but but Hannah started coming to church and she despised everything we did.
Everything. I mean, you could not do anything that she would say, oh, that was good. And you could see it on her face. She she especially did not like me. And, so we went to camp and worship was too long, worship was too short, the games are dumb, the games are, still dumb.
Dinner was terrible. One morning, she just didn't show up for worship, and I assume she just slept through it. Now she walked a mile and a half to go eat breakfast at Chick Fil A because the food was terrible at the camp. And so, like, mission trip, it's either too hot, it's too cold, there's too much work to do, there's not enough work to do, I'm bored. I'm tired.
I mean, it was relentless. And I felt terrible because I was like, man, you know, maybe I need to talk to her parents again. One of the things though that she was good at is, she didn't mind taking pictures and she would take these wonderful pictures. Some of you grew up have always having a supercomputer in your pocket. Okay?
But this is the early, between, like, probably 2,008 ish. So camera phones look made everything look like a Bigfoot sighting, and like you really couldn't tell. So she had a really nice camera and she would come and take pictures. And it was a picture of her friend. She would get back and she would put these collages together and I thought, well, if if Hannah is going to be miserable whole time we do things, then then I'm gonna put her to work.
I said, Hannah, we got that mission trip coming up. We're doing a day camp, and then we're we're working on this church that really just needs a lot of maintenance and stuff. I don't want you to do any of that. Just take pictures. She's like, you just want me to take pictures?
And I I need to really emphasize it was like, you want me to take pictures? Like, I'd ask her to cut her hand off. Yeah. Just take pictures. The only thing I ask is please just take pictures of everyone so that it's not just the picture of you and the 2 girls that you dislike the least.
She's like, okay. I can do that. And so the whole week came by and several times she's, you sure, you just want me to take pictures? Yes. Just take pictures.
Got back. She she sent me the pictures. She printed up. She made a collage of our trip. This beautiful slideshow, all these things.
We printed them up. We hung them in the hallway. She did a great job. I do a terrible job of pictures. I usually can't remember to take pictures.
And so we had all these beautiful pictures. We hung up. We had a had a hall, and we put all our mission trip pictures in this hall. It's called Mission Alley. And so there was an event coming up where we we hosted a prom for some folks living in an assisted living facility.
And they said, Lane, will you come take pictures? Your pictures are so good. I'm like, I didn't take those. So I was like, but Hannah did. She said, do you think Hannah will take will take pictures for us?
Because they really wanted it to feel, like, important and special. And so Hannah came, she set up a photo booth, then another event happened that was very similar. She set up a photo booth for that. Then we had a a Christmas mission, and she did photos for that. And then she was taking all the photos for our youth trips and all our photos for, like, the adult mission trips, and she was going with the adults on their mission trips and just taking photos.
Her parents started to come to church. I mean, this sounds like the greatest success story ever. Right? But what happened was, like without over complicating it is I found the thing that she enjoyed and I found the need in the world that she could fill. She took pictures for kids that were graduating high school that couldn't afford senior portraits.
She did them. We printed up their graduation invitations because they couldn't afford to have them printed on our our church copier because it was color. And she came alive. She quit complaining about mission trips and started asking for when the next one was. Like I said, her parents began to attend church with her.
She still takes pictures today. I do believe I should get 10% of everything she makes for the rest of her life. But I say that because I think that that not only has God gifted us with his presence and ability to to walk on holy ground, he's not only gifted us with gifts and specific spiritual gifts, but he's gifted us with passions, things we care about. And when you take all those things together, and you mix them all together, and you get in the spot where, like, she was, where your passion lines up with a need, things really start to happen. And so I wanna I I want you to hear that story so that you'd know this context of Micah was this.
Judah had become corrupt, and they believed that they could buy God's favor. No big deal, you know, I'll just buy some blessings. There are times that I have thought, man, that'd be easy. Right? Like, I'll just take an extra job.
I'll go mow a yard and then I won't have to do the other stuff. But Micah helped them to be aware of what God wanted. Because what God wanted was reconciliation, but through the awareness of sinfulness. They thought, like, if we can just buy God's favor, we don't have to acknowledge our sins, we don't have to make a lifestyle change or anything, we just gotta save money. So the next time we need to buy God's favor, we'll have the money put aside.
And these verses that Micah shares with us are a little bit they are summing up earlier prophets, Like, Amos had called for justice. Hosea had emphasized kindness and mercy. And Isaiah urged obedience and walking humbly. And so the people are coming and they're they're expressing their desire to be at peace with God. So they asked Micah how to be reconciled with God and they say, with what shall we come?
And Micah's like, worship prayer pure hearts. And then they ask, what do I have to do to please God? That was the question of the day, what do I have to do to please God? And the truth is, is that still the question? What do we have to do to please God?
And if we're honest, like real honest, both with other people and ourselves, we're not so different. Right? We're not so different from the people of Judah thinking that we can earn God's pleasure and love. We're not so different thinking that we can do enough good stuff to offset the bad and therefore, it is not dependent upon God. Nope.
It's just given to us. Right? I told told you last week that this church loved me well. Welcome to me well and loved me well. And now there's an expectation.
I know what you're capable of. Everyone knows what you're capable of, but that's the truth. Right? This unearned grace is just given to us and we can't earn it. We can't buy it.
And if we're not working to earn anything from God, what do we do with this life that God's given us? That love and grace, we have to share it. Right? Because it was given to you. You didn't buy it.
You didn't save up and get it. It was given to you. So we share that love, we share that grace with others. And and Micah shows us that that we do this by loving mercy, doing justice, and walking humbly with God. Mercy is not a word that we use in, like, our everyday languages or maybe you do.
I I don't. Right? So it's a little hard for me to define mercy. You know, in some ways, this whole series could have been called practical discipleship because I think we talk a lot about discipleship, but I don't think we ask enough questions. And I think sometimes we use so many church words that we really are just walking away confused.
That may just be me, but either way. So mercy, I I I looked up mercy and some of the ways that it's translated, there's another word that's also very similar and but but both words don't really encompass what they're trying to say here. And so mercy and kindness are kind of linked, but kindness is not a big enough word. Right? And mercy can sometimes be too big of a word.
But if I did, I'll let you off the hook and I just tell you, it's just kindness. Right? You're all like, well, I smiled at somebody yesterday and so I'm kind. Done. Check.
Doesn't count though if it was somebody that cut you off in traffic and you were like, I hope you get a ticket soon as you go around a curve. I hope you get a flat tire through gritted teeth right while you're still smiling. So it's a little bigger than kindness and then and then the the word mercy is just sometimes can be convenient. A lot of the ways to look at this is that, like, when we show kindness, genuine kindness and genuine mercy, it's because we have the option to not. Right?
And it's that that mercy and kindness are shown when we had the option to do something that was hurtful or caused more pain or we had the option and even even the right, right, to not show someone mercy. So it can get confusing, but but that's the idea. So I want you to think that that this is the base level. This is where you start. And like I said, this church has done a great job of loving me over the years and welcome me over the years.
So so no one can say, well, I can't do that. That's too hard because you already messed up. You already let me know. I told everybody. And so now everyone knows.
Now there's an expectation. You were welcoming and kind and loved me well, so now the expectation is that you have to do that. And that goes into acting justly. Right? And the reason why I ask you questions over coffee about, like, what are the things that bother you?
It's it's getting into this. What is the thing that happens in the world that you wish you could do something about it? Even better, what are the things that you see happening that you can't just stand by? And the reason why that is important is because the mercy part, that is a 100% an expectation. If you follow Jesus in any way, mercy is where you start.
Mercy is extending love and grace to other people because you didn't deserve it and they don't either, but you're gonna give it to them anyway. But then this next step is like, how do you really shine hope in these dark places? A lot of times, we we say stuff like that, like, be the light be the light in a dark place. That's true. But sometimes you need to be such a light that the dark place is now lit up and will be forever.
And if it ever goes dark again, you're coming right back. It's a reminder that we are called to an active faith. We are called more than just being kind people. We are called to move and to do work in the world and to change things all for the glory of God? All for the for the grace that was shown to us?
How do we break the systems that cause the dark places? How do we get out of our comfort zone to help those who struggle in in ways that are unfair? It's going beyond kindness and doing something to bring forth the kingdom of God. And then we have walk humbly. Right?
You know, we have the benefit of of being in North Georgia. And when I was growing up, this whole area was considered the Bible Belt. I don't keep current with with history classes and stuff like that. But if it's the same, you'd have to drive a really long way. And I actually don't even know that that'll work to not find a church.
Sometimes when you drive real far out, you see more churches. And so a lot of the the the things that are true for other places of the country in the world aren't a 100% true here. Right? Like, it's not a big deal for you to say, I'm a Christian in this community. The schools are pretty open to, like, partnering with churches.
Lots of places are. Right? Like, you can walk downtown and be reading your bible. Nobody's gonna come throw a rock at you. I hope not, but probably not.
But that's not true everywhere. And so sometimes it can lead us into a little bit of arrogance. Right? Yeah. I love Jesus.
I love him a lot. I got a shirt says I love Jesus. I wear it all the time. I walk around town with my bible in my hand. I pray with people just just just randomize them.
Hey, I'm a pray with you. I'm not telling you you shouldn't do those things. But that didn't cost you anything. We've we've we're really fortunate that we we've been able to just not experience some of the negative perceptions of Christians that exist in the world. And the only way to write those perceptions, because sooner or later you will hit them, is by example.
This this walking humbly is is not walking in arrogance. It's not walking in and saying, I know everything there is to know about Jesus. I recently had a conversation with with someone and I had to I had to say, hey, listen. I I don't know that I wanna have this conversation right now. Like, we're friends and I believe something much differently and I don't know that that what you're doing is gonna change my mind, But let me tell you why I believe this.
And so then I shared what I'd experienced and and the reason why I believed a certain thing. Walking humbly is the acknowledgement that Jesus has made a big change in my life. And this is what I was like before. It's the, hey, today's a good day. It's really easy for me to be a good Christian today, but yesterday was terrible.
Yesterday is terrible. Someone flipped someone flew in front of me and I almost told them one way to Jesus with my finger. And then I gritted my teeth when I smiled at them and they knew I wasn't being kind. Walking humbly is acknowledging that we can't do it ourselves. We can only do it through God.
And it's being willing to show our whole selves. It's our ability to say, I need Jesus every day as much as I did the first day I met him. Some of us have have had the benefit of growing up in church and we've just kinda always known Jesus. But if we never if we told someone we've never struggled, we'd be lying. So walking humbly is is riding those perceptions through humility.
It's it's setting an example. It's showing that we are who we are because grace and love was poured out onto us. And that no matter how bad we struggled or how bad we worked, ultimately, the only thing that we can truly do is rely on Christ. So I say all those things because, again, I want you to think about those, like, what does that mean when I'm asking you the questions. What is something you do well and enjoy doing?
I think that god has a need for the things that you are passionate about. I think that that we've been gifted certain certain talents from God. And then and then those talents, you take that and you put them together with the fire that God has put on your heart. And then you find that need in the world that God has set, and that's for you to fix or to work in. So what is something you do well and enjoy doing?
Just so I know what you're passionate about. What issues really fire you up or bother you? I just wanna know what you're passionate about. I want you to to do these things because eventually, your heart will break for the things that break god's heart. The things that move god's heart will be the things that move your heart.
But it starts in that place where your gifts and your passions line up with a need in the world. If I gave you a $1,000,000, what would you do with it? How could God use the things you are passionate about to bring change into the world? What are you going to do about it? We ask these questions.
I'm gonna invite the band back up. We ask these questions of ourselves. Because we want to know what pleases God. We want to find that that need in the world where our gifts and our passions are the perfect fix. Let's pray together.
God, you have gifted us and blessed us in so many ways. There's really not a way we can say thank you well enough. And and then there's things in our life that we care about. It's things that we're we're passionate about. It's it's talents that we have.
And sometimes those don't seem like they line up. We we we love something or we're passionate about something and we're not sure how to use that, but, God, just like the gift of grace and your love, there's a reason. There's a reason that thing moves us. There's a reason there's a fire in our heart around that. Help us to find that need in the world that you've created us to fill.
We ask for the the strength and the discernment to do what Micah has asked for asked of us. Mercy, justice, walk humbly. We give of the gift of ourselves because you gave so freely freely to us when your son died for our sins. And it's in his name that we pray now. In Jesus name, amen.
Let's stand together and worship.