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Welcome to the Hope Community Church! Hope is a multi-site church community with locations around the Triangle in Raleigh, Apex, Northwest Cary, Garner, and Fuquay-Varina. We are here to love you where you are and encourage you to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ! We strive to speak the truth of the Bible in a way that is easy to understand, helpful in your current life circumstances, and encouraging. No matter who you are or where you come from, you are welcome here!
All right, did everybody have a good, uh,
4th of July weekend?
All right. All right. Settle down. Settle down.
You know, I found that that holidays,
they can be key reminders, um, from our calendar
to remind us of things that are really, really important.
Like when we think of the 4th of July, we think about
and are grateful for our freedom.
We look back to Memorial Day
and we think, oh, the people that sacrificed so
that we could have that freedom and,
and do the fireworks in the neighborhood
and catch stuff on fire, right?
Okay, so we're off to a little bit of a slow start.
That's okay. But then with the Christian calendar,
we're reminded of Christmas, the arrival, the arrival
of Jesus, we celebrate his birth.
And then Easter, his death, his burial, his resurrection.
I don't know about you, I don't know about you,
but I'm, I'm a little bit surprised of how often that I need
to be reminded of stuff.
I, I mean, it's, it's all the time.
On, on, on my windshield of my car.
I've got a sticker that reminds me, it reminds me
of when I need to get my oil changed.
I, I and, and then doctors
and dentists, I mean, they're,
they're relentless, aren't they?
They, they don't only call, but they text
and email they call text and email.
They don't want you to, and to miss those appointments
and Amazon is quick, they're quick to respond
and say, Hey, you know, you left something in your,
in your cart, you should circle back around.
But then this happened to me just the other day
and I found it a little disconcerting.
I I received a notification on my phone.
I received a notification on my phone, listen,
from my air conditioner.
It, it's true. I got this notification from my air
conditioner that told me I needed to clean its filter.
And, and to be fair, it, it is disconcerting.
I think we've seen movies about stuff like this is
what happens when it starts going bad.
But nonetheless, this is a good,
probably a good wise move on the air conditioners part,
because this was not on my radar.
This would've went undone.
But come on, let's think about why do we need
to be reminded?
Why do we need constant reminders?
Come on, we're busy, we're distracted,
and at the end of the day, we we're just forgetful.
We, we just forget stuff.
We details get lost in the frenetic pace of life.
And since it's been a little bit, let me remind you
that we are in a series that we've been calling field notes
and we've been walking through this letter written by Paul
to a guy named Titus.
And the gist of the letter has been for Titus
to set things in order, set in order, the things
that we left undone.
What, what, what Titus has been charged with, what Paul
is writing to the guy that he is mentoring, that he is,
you know, this is the guy on site doing this stuff.
I I need you to get the churches organized
and get them healthy on the island of Creek.
This is what his purpose was.
This is what the letter is about.
This is what he's reminding him of,
and he's been stressing that sound doctrine.
We've talked about this, that sound doctrine leads
or good doctrine leads to or results in Godly living.
And we've said throughout this series that this is
so important because what we believe impacts how we think
and which impacts how we live, which impacts
how we influence the world around us.
So this is really, really big.
And so today we're moving into the third
and final chapter of the letter to Titus.
And we're gonna be looking at the first 11 verses.
So let me read those for us as we get started
beginning with verse one.
Remind them, remind them to be submissive
to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready
for every good work, to speak evil of no one,
to avoid quarreling, to be gentle,
and to show perfect courtesy towards all people.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient,
led astray slaves to various passions
and pleasures, passing our days in malice
and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
But when the goodness
and loving kindness of God our savior appeared,
he saved us not
because of work's done by us in righteousness,
but according to his own mercy, by the washing
of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit
whom he poured out on us richly
through Jesus Christ our savior.
So that being justified by his grace,
we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
The saying is trustworthy.
I want you to insist on these things so that those
who believe in God may be careful
to devote themselves to good works.
These things are excellent and profitable for people,
but avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions,
and quarrels about the law
for they are unprofitable and worthless.
For a person who stirs up division
after warning him once, then twice,
have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person
is warped and sinful,
he is self condemned.
When we look at the first word in, in verse one,
we find the word remind.
This is a command and it carries the idea not just
to remind once, but to keep on reminding.
There is to be this rhythm of reminding,
reminding, and reminding.
And so this gives us the idea here
that this is not new information.
When, when, when Titus is charged to bring this to him, it,
it should look somewhat familiar to him.
They should have heard of this stuff before.
So Titus, his responsibility is to refresh their memories.
So what is it that needs to be refreshed?
We look back at verse one, remind them
and just so we know who the them is,
the them is the followers of Christ
that are on the island of Crete.
And if you're trying to think, well,
is there any more information on that?
Maybe roll back to chapter two when he is talking
specifically about the old, old men, the old women,
younger men, younger women.
So that group, this is who he is en encouraging.
Paul is encouraging Titus to remind, remind them, he says
to be submissive to rulers and authorities.
He's speaking of those
that make up the different levels of government.
The followers of Jesus should live their lines,
their lives in line with the duly appointed
government authorities.
See, we have to remember that God is the ultimate authority.
He is sovereign and he is the one
that put this group of guys in place.
See, but the credence in the context, we have to understand
what is going on and what is in the heads
and the hearts of the people that he's dealing with
and doing life and ministry with.
The credence were notoriously turbulent.
The these were some tough people.
They were often involved in insurrections
that resulted in murder, in mayhem.
This is what's going on here.
They had a reputation for lack of restraint.
And so Pastor Titus, hang in there.
Oh boy, this is what you got to work with. Remind them.
Remind them to uphold social order as much
as it depends on them to help them
to be obedient in their actions.
Help them to be ready for every good work.
Notice that we see that
so often in this good work, good work, good work.
Be prepared to do good work, be prepared,
be eager, not reluctant.
When an opportunity presents itself as followers of Jesus,
we can't be passive,
but we should always, always, always be on the lookout
for positive involvement and contribution in society.
Paul is stressing
that we should have an ambitious pursuit of good works.
Now what's your take on that?
When you think about that, are your eyes open?
Are our eyes open to opportunity?
Do we, do we see things that need to be done?
Are we ready to do good?
Uh, for example, if we see something that needs to be done,
are we willing to be the one that does it?
If we see a need that needs to be met, are we ready
to meet that need?
Are you willing to engage?
Are you willing to be involved understanding that,
that we should be active in serving
because we have been served by a mighty savior?
The reminders continue.
In verse two, he says, remind them to speak evil of no one.
And in the relationships that we are in,
don't slander, don't insult.
Use your nice tone of voice.
Don't be malicious in
what you say about someone or something.
Because again, the credence, they were a rough lot.
They were a rough lot and, and, and they had a tendency,
and maybe you know someone that's like this,
but they had this tendency to grouse, grumble and complain.
Maybe you don't know this type of person.
Maybe you're extra spiritual.
But these people were known as people who grouched
and grumbled and complained.
Paul says, remind them
to avoid quarreling instead of being combative.
Be peaceable. Instead of being offensive
and argumentative, be kind.
And if you have your Bible there
and you look a little bit more to the margin,
what you'll see is he's saying, don't bite your friends.
Be gentle. Be gracious. Be considerate.
We are to show perfect courtesy towards all people.
I love the way Eugene Peterson,
he paraphrases this when he says this, these first couple
of verses, he paraphrases it this way.
He says, remind the people to respect the government
and be law abiding, always ready to lend a helping hand.
No insults, no fights.
God's people should be big hearted And courteous
are those things that describe you
When you walk into the room, what's the reaction of everyone
that's that you're walking into?
What do they look at? What do they think?
What do they, are they looking for exits?
Are they trying to, oh boy, here they come.
In other words, the question is, what is it like
to be on the other side of you?
Have you ever given thought to that?
What is it like to be on the other side
of you In verse three?
Those of us that are followers of Jesus get a,
a jarring reminder of our past.
And it's a really a grim reminder of why we need a rescuer.
Verse three, it says, for we ourselves were once foolish.
That means, and this again,
this is probably none of us, right?
You exercise poor judgment,
act like you don't have good sense.
Like what are we doing here?
He said, don't be like that disobedient.
This is unruly behavior in general.
Think of this as rejecting God's commands.
And it's basically, if I had to say it,
it's basically the idea of having the attitude
of you can't tell me what to do.
Come on. Maybe you've heard somebody say,
you're not the boss of me.
That's what's going on here.
We are led astray, we're deceived, we're misguided.
And as we saw at the end of the,
the last message in this series, without Jesus,
we are al we will always, we will always selfishly choose
what feels good to us.
Without Jesus, we will selfishly choose what feels good
to us passing our days in malice and envy.
And it's not that we just want good
for us, but we want evil.
We don't want it to go well for anyone else.
And in the culture, in the culture,
and maybe this is still true today,
this was not an occasional, occasional problem.
This was characteristic of how they lived.
This is what's going on, hated
by others and hating one another.
Animosity just flowing from the sin nature at the core.
It just bubbles out.
You bump into somebody and it gets on 'em. And I get it.
None of this is flattering.
And maybe you're walking in and say, wow, super excited.
We got here for this. I get it, I get it.
In fact, as we move toward the good news part of this,
it does reveal this massive problem.
Our past actions expose a helpless predicament.
We need to be rescued from ourselves
and from our selfishness
or as the theologians call it our depravity.
We need some help.
And here's some good news, here's some good news.
And it's our first field note this week.
And it's a good reminder. Remember, God can change a person.
God can change a person.
You think about who's writing this letter,
if you know a little bit about Paul,
Paul was not always tracking in a good way
and fact he was against Christ.
He was hunting down people that claim to be followers
of the way he was even involved in murdering some of them.
But yet, God showed up in his life and transformed him.
He moved him from being a murderer to being a missionary.
God can change a person. And you may not know the name
John Newton, he lived most of his life in the 17 hundreds,
but he had quite the colorful past.
He was said to be immune from no sin.
Wow, no sin. I mean, they were all fair game.
And he, he, he said that he delighted
to lead others into, into temptation.
He called himself a ringleader in blasphemy and wickedness.
He gambled. He dabbled in witchcraft.
He was sexually promiscuous.
And not only that, he was also the captain
of a slave trading ship.
He was a rough man with a dreadful pass.
And maybe you're thinking because I mean, this is
where we have to go, like, well, what can God do
with somebody like that?
Like what do you, I mean, they, they, they're so bad
that they're like over the edge badness.
What, what do you do with that?
But God, by his grace broke into his
train wreck of a life.
And while you may not know the name John Newton,
you will certainly know the lyrics
and the words to his famous song, amazing Grace.
How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found was blind.
But now I see it was grace that taught my heart to fear
and grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed?
And I get it. And maybe you're thinking, okay, well Paul's,
he's like a biblical hero.
Of course he gets it right. John new, that's so long ago.
I don't know. And
and so maybe you're skeptical, you're,
maybe you're skeptical 'cause you're thinking, I don't know.
Can God still, is God still interested?
Can God still change a person?
And maybe you've been investing in somebody,
you've been praying for somebody
and you've been hoping that they would make a move
and you've been looking at it and you,
and you don't see any progress
or maybe the person that you're thinking about
and you're hoping to change, and you're here tonight
and you're here this weekend and you're listening
and you're saying, one more chance, one more chance,
one more chance, because you don't
know if God can change you.
I would say to you, don't give up. Don't give up.
Don't give up. God may surprise you. Amen.
A young couple came over to our house,
this is several years ago now.
They came over and they wanted to discuss spiritual issues.
And me and my wife were like, yeah, we, I mean, we like
to discuss spiritual issues.
So they showed up and, and,
and you could tell that the husband,
he was the outgoing one.
He was very friendly. He, he, he seemed open,
he seemed genuinely interested in Jesus.
And then, you know, as we were hearing his story
and then we stopped and then we turned to his wife.
Um, not, not so much there. She had strong opinions.
She had strong opinions about the environment.
She had strong opinions about the church.
She, she, in her head as she was expressing it,
she seemed somewhat compelled by God, but she was not.
I just, I don't know about Jesus and his church
and I certainly am not buying my need
for a rescuer.
And so we listened and we had the conversation
and then, you know, then it was time to go.
And then they went and then they left and we shut the doors
and the doors barely shut.
And I look at my wife, I look at my wife
and I say, well, you know what?
I think the husband, he may have a shot.
There may be something that God has to work with there,
but the wife, no chance.
No chance. Because from my view, I just didn't think
that she could change.
And a few weeks later, she approached me again
and informed me that she had accepted Christ as her savior.
And not only that wanted me to baptize her.
And as I tell you more and more stories and you learn more
and more about me, you find out, boy clay,
sure is wrong A lot.
I it's true. I was stunned. I was stunned.
And what God was teaching me
that I could never limit his ability to change a person
for me, I had to be reminded, my perspective had
to be refreshed, my eyes had to be reopened.
It had to be reopened to God's amazing grace
because a follower of Jesus as a follower of Jesus,
God's grace still amazes
Paul writing to the believers at Corinth.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new, new creation.
The oldest passed away, behold the new has come.
But how does this happen? What makes this change possible?
And that's where Paul goes Now as he goes to verse four,
and actually, I mean this is a big deal to me
and about maybe two other people in the entire church.
But verse four through seven is actually one sentence
in the original language.
It's one long sentence.
And essentially it's a cradle summary.
It's a cradle summary, a doctrinal summary
of the doctrine of salvation.
And what we see beginning in verse four is a divine response
to the human condition because of God's goodness.
Look at verse four. Because of God's goodness
and loving kindness, our savior appears, our savior
appeared to appear to become gloriously vision, visible
to shine in a dark place.
And Jesus' appearance could be seen not only in his birth,
but in his life, but in his death and in his resurrection.
And then we come to verse five.
Now understand that this sentence started in verse four,
it we finally reached the main subject
and the main verb in verse five.
And it says, he saved us.
This is, this is what the whole sentence hangs on.
He saves us these three words sum up the greatest news
that the universe has ever heard.
He saved us not
because of work's done by us in righteousness,
but according to his own mercy.
And this is challenging because this strikes at our pride,
because we like to think that we have a part
and a role to play in this, that we can save ourselves,
that we can do something that's somewhat good.
But Paul is reminding Titus that we can't save ourselves.
God alone is the basis for our salvation.
God alone justifies the unrighteous and
therefore we have to understand
that we have no moral high ground down on which
to look down on anyone.
Jonathan Edwards, American theologian says it this way,
that we contribute nothing to our salvation except the sin
that makes it necessary.
That's what we bring to the table, a big box of nothing.
The prophet Isaiah says it this way,
that our righteous deeds, the deeds that we do that are,
we think, hey, well here's as good as it gets.
He says, they're a polluted garment. We need some help.
Paul goes on and says, by the Washington of regeneration
and renewal of the spirit,
Paul is pointing out the new birth
and new life that we have in Christ.
And we seen the, we are reminded of this
and see this demonstrated when we practice baptism.
When someone says, I want to be a follower of Christ
and I want to go public with it,
it is put on demonstration by baptism.
And they're standing in the water.
And what do we do with them?
We take them back and they go underwater.
And it symbolizes that they're dying to their old way
of life and they're in water.
This is a picture of the purification of it.
Now, do we leave them under Some,
a little longer than others?
Maybe, but we don't.
We raise them to to, to walk in newness of life.
This is a picture, a picture of this transformation
that Paul is talking about.
The sentence continues into verse six.
He's talking about the Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us
richly, richly through Jesus Christ our savior.
Paul was highlighting the fact
that we are not given the spirit in dabs and dribbles.
It's a full poured out stream. God is generous.
He's not holding back from us.
And what he gives us is totally overwhelming.
And I think it's interesting,
and you need to notice this as we're reading our Bibles.
You don't find the word trinity, but you see it right here.
Who's doing the pouring out? God?
What is being poured out The spirit? Through who?
Through Jesus, the sons.
And so there you see God the Father, God the Spirit,
and God the Son, all in one place.
And then this theologically rich
and important verse ends in verse seven.
And here Paul points out two results of Jesus's work.
First, we are justified by his grace.
We are justified, we are declared not guilty,
or we are declared righteous
by the sin bearing death of Jesus.
And we could add this as we think back to some of the things
that we've experienced in this series, we can add this
to the list, especially from the last message
where we encountered common grace, saving grace,
training grace, sustaining grace,
and ultimately finishing grace.
And now you can add to that list justifying grace.
The second result that we see is
that we become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Salvation results into the adoption, into God's family.
And you hear us talk about this all the time about being a
family of families.
You have your family, you know,
that makes up your people at your house.
But then when you become a follower of Christ,
you join a family of families.
And we're all in this together.
And grace transforms us from enemies into heirs.
And we have hope. And this hope is more than some
optimistic feeling.
It is more like a trust stance
towards this guaranteed future.
And that brings us to our second field note.
Remember, remember, remember God is good loving and kind.
God is good, loving and kind
because what we remember impacts how we respond.
And our circumstances can, can skew our perspective,
it can affect how we and what we remember or misremember.
And I found this helpful. And Tim Keller gives this prayer
of what happens when we forget.
And he's in the middle of this prayer and he says, I worry
because I forget your wisdom.
I resent because I forget your mercy.
I covet because I forget your beauty.
I sin because I forget your holiness.
I fear because I forget your sovereignty.
You always remember me. Help me to always remember you.
Amen. And we have to be really careful, careful here
because are we asking as we're trying to remember God?
What have you done for me to spark our memory?
And then we write down, you know, the things that,
or have we flipped the question?
Have we flipped the question?
And we're asking it this way
because our circumstances will do this.
God, what have you done for me lately?
What have you done for me lately?
Because when we switch to this question,
we put God on trial, we make our relationship
with God, the God of the universe, we make it conditional on
how well we think he performs.
And when he's not performing up to our expectations,
we're like, I got some problems with you.
But if we remember rightly, our
response will be very different.
I just encourage you to regularly pause
and reflect on what God has done for you.
And I'm not saying that this is easy,
I'm not saying it's easy,
but it should be something that we do regularly.
It's been a challenge for me.
And there was this one season that,
man, I was really struggling.
I mean, I was being acc cretin, I was grumbling and grousing
and complaining, grumbling, g grousing and complaining.
And then I, I, I realized that I had
to get away and get a word.
I have to get away and spend some time with God
and understand what's going on
because based on my circumstances,
things weren't going the way that I thought they should.
They, it wasn't happening the way I
had planned that it would.
And I feel like God was letting me down.
Have you ever been there? Come on.
God is not doing what you thought he should be doing.
And so it affects your mindset.
It it impacts your perspective.
And so I go to my wife and I like, you know what?
I think I need to get away and, and, and,
and go hear from God.
And she said, yes, you do.
It would be very helpful for all of us if you would do this.
She's a straight shooter, that one.
So what I did was I made arrangements to go
to a place called Fort Caswell.
It's down below Wilmington. Have you ever heard of that?
Ever been there? I I encourage you.
So, so I'm on my way down to Fort Caswell
and I'm barely on the property, barely on the property.
And my mindset, and I certainly, I'm not recommending this,
but I was grumbling and g grousing and complaining.
And so my attitude was, what do you want from me?
This is towards God. What do you want from me?
And I'm barely on the property. I'm still in the car.
I'm, and it,
and one word, a one word answer is what I get from him.
And I would like to say it was audible,
but it, it, it felt louder than that.
He said Gratitude, gratitude.
And what I was learning
and what since that moment till now, is that
that gratitude is deeply theological.
It's about recognizing, it's about
recognizing God's character, his power,
and his generous grace and responding to it
and knowing that without that I've got nothing.
Failure to be grateful exposes.
This is what I found out, the entitlement
of a self-righteous and self-sufficient heart.
When we remember all that God has done for us,
our response should be gratitude.
Our response should be gratitude.
And from that perspective,
we should become an aggressive blessing hunter,
always on the lookout where, where, where is God at work
that I could respond by being thankful,
always noticing evidences of grace.
It changes your mindset when you realize the goodness
and the bigness of God and all that he's done for you
and how he's richly poured out grace, how do we look
around him looking for what's wrong
instead of looking for what he's done?
That's awesome. I think this is what the writer
of Proverbs 22, 9 has in mind when he says,
whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed.
And so I ask you, what do you see? What do you see?
Remember we have to remember that God is good
and he's loving and he, he's kind
because when we remember
that it rightly frames our circumstances
and rightly orients our perspective.
Are you grateful? Throughout this series we have said
that good doctrine leads to godly living.
And this is where Paul goes now in verse eight.
In verse eight, he says, this is a trustworthy saving
and I want, or he says, the saying is trustworthy
and I want you to insist on these things.
He's stressing the theological, the theological foundation
of verses four through seven.
He's, he's basically saying the fog
and the turbulence of life here is something that is clear
and stable that you can count on.
Be grounded in this memorize verse four through seven.
Remember the goodness and the bigness of God
and what he's done and what he's poured out for you so
that those who believe in God may be careful
to devote themselves.
And there it is again. Good works, good works.
Paul is urging Titus help the Crete
and believers be careful to prioritize good works
and know that good works are the result of salvation.
Not because not the cause of salvation.
Our works are significant.
Our works are significant
because they play a huge, huge role in our witness
to the world around us.
It's not that God needs our works. Our works do not save us.
But our neighbor definitely needs our works
because our good works, our good works
create goodwill.
And goodwill opens the door for us to share the good news.
Good works creates goodwill.
It makes people like what's going on here? What's going on?
And they begin to ask questions.
And it gives you opportunity
to share about the life changing faith
that you have in Jesus Christ.
Paul wants the cre and believers to do for others
what God has done for them.
He wants them to show up and share hope.
And beginning in verse nine, he, he really points
to some thing, here's some ways not to do that.
Here's some behaviors that you should avoid.
He gives four practices in verse nine
that are unprofitable and worthless.
This is what he says. These behaviors don't emphasize these,
they're not gonna get you anywhere.
They're a waste of time. Avoid foolish controversies.
Paul doesn't say avoid all controversies. Notice that.
Don't read more into the text than what's there.
He says, avoid just the foolish ones
because Jesus was quite controversial.
He was quite controversial.
Don't get bogged down in genealogies.
Focus on advancing God's work.
Don't get hung up in dissensions, in quarrels.
Things that create discord and strife.
The credence are being advised
to avoid entanglement in pointless debates
that are never gonna end in a good place.
And then Paul gets even more serious in verse 10
and 11 about troublemakers.
I would say these are the pot stirs in the crowd
and there are always gonna be some.
He says the for the person as for the person
that stirs up division, the person that's being divisive,
these are people that won't submit to the gospel message
specifically or sound doctrine generally.
And he's firm on this. He says after warning them once
and then twice have nothing more to do with them.
This requires attention
because this impacts the unity of the church.
It creates confusion and hurt. It has to be dealt with.
It can't be ignored.
And then Paul, even a finer point on this says the person is
warped and sinful.
They're off track and they're continuing
in their wrongdoing.
They are self condemn because they refuse correction.
And Paul, in this notice that he gives a process.
You don't just right off the bat, but you talk to him once.
You talk to him twice.
And the goal of this, and I know this sounds harsh
because remember, remember that Paul is writing to Titus
to set things in order.
There's a way to go about handling church business.
And I know this can sound harsh
and the goal of all of this confrontation is redemption
and reconciliation.
But these measures are necessary for the unity
inside the church and for the witness
and influence outside the church.
And this brings us to the third field note.
Remember, remember our actions,
our actions impact our community.
Throughout this series, we have said
that our beliefs impact our thinking
and our thinking impacts our actions
and our actions impact our witness.
Paul David Trips says it this way.
He says, belief in the truths of scripture
is expressed in the way you live your life.
Like you say you believe this,
do your actions line up with it.
And I would ask us, are our actions making Jesus
and his church compelling
or repulsive?
Come on, think. I mean, let's,
let's get a fine point on this.
When people think about Hope Community Church
and they watch how we act and how we do business
and how we carry ourselves, are they compelled
or are they repulsed?
This is a big deal because at hope we say
that we are a family of families that loves God,
follows Jesus and shares hope.
That's what we say. But what do our actions reveal?
And anyone that's in a family has
responsibilities for you personally.
You need to understand that community is key.
You need someone in your life that cares enough,
that cares enough about you to help guard
and guide you with the gospel.
You need somebody in your life to keep you on track
Because we're prone to drift, we're prone to wonder.
And for all of us, all of us in this room, in all
of our campuses, We have responsibilities
outside the walls of this building.
We are immersed in a culture that is not pro Christian.
We are immersed in a culture,
but we've been commissioned to engage the culture
with the good news of Jesus Christ Scholar Carl
Truman says it this way.
He says, the culture is most dramatically engaged
by the church, presenting it with another culture.
We're not mirroring what the culture is putting out.
We're offering something different,
another form of community.
And his point is, this is his point.
The point is that the church best engages the culture
by being counter-cultural.
Are we being different? Are we being Christlike
as we go out into the watching world
through our weekend worship and our weekday witness?
Because come on, think about it.
What if, what if we as a family, we as a family of families,
took our responsibilities serious?
Imagine what it could be like if we would remember rightly
and then be so motivated that we would show up
and share hope regularly, always on the lookout
to do good work so that we could create goodwill so
that we would have opportunities to share the good news.
Listen, listen.
The world needs us to show up and share hope
because if we don't do it, if we the church don't do it,
who's it gonna fall to?
We have a significant responsibility.
We have a significant responsibility,
but we have been empowered by the spirit of God to go out
and impact our culture.
Come on, let's lean into the responsibility
that we have been given by a mighty savior
and let's take to others what he has
so generously given to us.
Let me pray for us. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you,
thank you, thank you for your kindness.
Thank you for your tremendous grace and
because of the grace that you've extended to us,
may we be people that lead with grace in our families
and in our communities and maybe we be on the lookout
and sensitive to where we can do good deeds so
that we can have the opportunity to share the good news.
We thank you again for your goodness and your kindness.
And it's in the strong name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
Good works lead to goodwill.
Goodwill opens the door
to share the good news that'll stick with me for a little while.
I hope it sticks with you.
I wanna encourage you to let
that stir you towards some action this week when you
encounter the people around you, be that uh,
the your literal neighbor
or whoever the Lord brings into your view,
who he also intends you to see as your neighbor.
As you continue this journey of, uh, good doctrine leading
to godly living.
If there's anything we can do to help you take a step toward
that, that's what our next steps team is available out in
the atrium at all of our campuses.
Or again, if you're joining us online,
just drop a note in the comments and we'll be in touch
with you on how we can help you along the way as well.
Uh, one of the things that we do in family ministry is we
partner with parents for the growth
and development, the encouraging of the walk
with Jesus of their children.
And when it comes to our middle schoolers,
every single year, we send our middle schoolers away in the
fall to middle school small group camp,
which is a camp not just for middle schoolers,
but they actually go there with their small group leaders
for a full weekend where they get away from all of the chaos
and all of the devices and all of those things
and just dig in deep with
what Jesus is doing in their world and in their life.
And we wanna encourage you, if you've got a middle schooler,
sixth, seventh, eighth grade coming up this school year,
they need to be at MSM Camp.
It is September 5th through the seventh.
We've already got about a hundred students registered.
Uh, the early bird pricing goes through the end of July.
You can register on the Hope app.
So if you don't have the Hope app, be sure
to download it and get registered there.
There are a limited number
of spots at Camp Willow Creek in, uh, Willow Run.
Well not Willow Creek. It's Willow Run
and Willow Spring out in Eastern North Carolina.
That's where they'll be. It'll be a weekend.
They will not forget.
I've got two sons so far who've been to MSM camp
and it has been a life changing experience for them
and a deep connection point with their small group leaders
who they're with Weekend and out.
So we encourage you, get your students registered for that.
Uh, really before you leave or
before you sign off today, next week,
we are wrapping up our Field Note series.
So you do not wanna miss that, bring someone with you.
Until then, we love you and we will see you soon.