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Real conversations about following Jesus when life doesn't slow down — from a pastor who's still figuring it out too.
So can I ask you a question that really made me uncomfortable when I was doing some study recently? Who walks into your church that changes the way you feel? Not necessarily in a dangerous way, just kind of makes you uncomfortable. Maybe it's someone who is poor and doesn't look all that that wealthy and you just feel weird around them, or maybe it's the single mom who you know their life is a mess and you don't really want that to rub off on you. Or or maybe it's the the wealthy person who's got it all together, and you kinda resent that.
Pastor Greg Rains:Or maybe and this one's probably the hardest one. Maybe it's just the person you overlook and don't even realize is in the room.
Kristi Rains:Yeah. I find that really interesting because most people are always saying that they're not judgmental. No one wants to admit that. But deep down, I think we really all are to some degree or the other.
Pastor Greg Rains:I think we are too. And as we look at James chapter two, James basically says that that says something about what's going on inside of you spiritually.
Kristi Rains:Okay. So why does God take favoritism so seriously?
Pastor Greg Rains:Why does God take favoritism so seriously? I mean, that's that's a hard question, but if you look at scripture, you you see how it plays out all through scripture. God doesn't show favoritism, and I don't think he wants his people to show favoritism. If you're a follower of Jesus, he wants you to look like Jesus, and Jesus always gravitated towards those who the world said is not worthy. You look just look at the disciples.
Pastor Greg Rains:None of those disciples would have been who Jesus as a teacher it's not who he would have chosen if he was going by the world's standards. I mean, you know, I've talked about it before, I think you've talked about it or know about it. You studied it. Back in that time, all Jewish boys would go to sit under a rabbi until they were a certain age. I think it was like 12 years old, something like that.
Pastor Greg Rains:And then at that point, they kind of get tested. You know? Are you good enough? And the rabbi would say, yes or no. You're good enough.
Pastor Greg Rains:You're not good enough. If you were good enough, then you would continue on with the rabbi and continue learning. If you're not good enough, they kick you to the curb and you have to go and just live a normal life. All of the disciples were not good enough, and that's who Jesus chose.
Kristi Rains:Right.
Pastor Greg Rains:So that's how God wants us to be. He doesn't want those who are the least of these, however you look at it, to be left out just because the world says they're not good enough. God looks at them and says you're good enough.
Kristi Rains:Right. That's that's pretty deep. All of those the disciples who changed the world are the ones who were just kicked to the curb because they weren't good enough. So why do we do this? What what makes us be so judgmental?
Pastor Greg Rains:Well, I think it's because we look at people and want I mean, we look at them, and we may not even realize it, and I guarantee none of us actually say it out loud, but we look at people and like, what are we gonna get out of that person? And it could be all kinds of things. It could be you need status, so you gravitate towards that person who's going to help you in your job or going to help you in the public eye get more status. Or maybe you're just I don't know. You don't have any self confidence, so you gravitate towards that person who makes you feel special and kinda makes you feel like you're worth something.
Pastor Greg Rains:We we we really just gravitate towards what gives us comfort, what gives us what we need. It's really it's really gravitating towards those people who kinda fill that gap that we don't think Jesus fills for us.
Kristi Rains:When we've talked about this before, gravitating toward the people who are the, you know, maybe the rich people or the shiny people, that's foreign to me because I I don't want to be near those people. I don't wanna be near the famous or the influential.
Pastor Greg Rains:So you don't like rich people?
Kristi Rains:Only if they give me money, I guess. So I guess I do need something from the But I if I walk into a room, I'm looking for someone that I know, and I'm looking for someone that seems similar to me in personality or I I don't even know because I want to be comfortable. I wanna feel included,
Pastor Greg Rains:I
Kristi Rains:guess, part of that. And I guess that just is something deep in me that apparently I'm not getting that from Jesus. I'm not letting him give me that. So that.
Pastor Greg Rains:Yeah. Well, I think you and I are similar in that because when I go into a room I mean, just look at church on Sunday morning. I gravitate towards those who I know the best, especially if I haven't seen them since last Sunday because I wanna talk to them. You know? What happened to you this week?
Pastor Greg Rains:Let me tell you. There's something dumb my kids did. It's hilarious. Or this movie I watched, those kind of things. Those who I just have these regular conversations with.
Pastor Greg Rains:And it's not that I it's not that I intentionally gravitate away from anybody. I'm just drawn to those people who I'm closest to for whatever reason. We have our we've clicked. We just have a relationship. I think I think you're similar in that way too.
Kristi Rains:I am. I am. So why do you think going back to God using the disciples to spread the gospel, why do you think that He uses the the unworthy or the overlooked or the the poor to do some of his his work, I guess you could say?
Pastor Greg Rains:Well, I mean, there's I don't guess we'll ever fully know, but if you look at it I mean, say say all the disciples were those rabbis or those students or rabbis who rocked the superstars. Well, you could have looked at them and said it was all them. It was all because they were brilliant people. But it's they would have got the glory, I guess, is the way to look at it. Or I don't know, you look in the modern world, if he if he only uses people who are wealthy he can use wealthy people.
Pastor Greg Rains:I mean, let's not mistake that and say, you know, if you're wealthy, you're cut out. That is not what scripture teaches. But if that's all he uses or if he only uses famous people or he only uses people with some sort of stage, they get all the glory for it. But if he uses someone who has nothing, doesn't have a dime, someone who is terrible at communicating, who can't stand up on a stage and give a sermon, someone who has trouble making friends, someone whose lifestyle is just, I don't know, what we would call sinful and anti biblical, if he uses those people, I mean, that's a pretty powerful thing that you I mean, you have to look at it and say, that's God doing that.
Kristi Rains:If it's more attention.
Pastor Greg Rains:It's definitely not that person.
Kristi Rains:It's out of the ordinary. It's not expected, so that makes sense. So going back to the church, who is an overlooked person? Who coming into your church, who is overlooked, and how do we not do that? What what's what are some practical ways that we can open our eyes and open our hearts to find that person and include them, I guess, is the word.
Pastor Greg Rains:My maybe I've just kinda got rose colored glasses, but I don't feel our church intentionally overlooks anybody. I think I mean, I really believe the people in our church and I think in a lot of churches, if not the majority of churches, it's not an intentional overlooking of someone. I just think we get caught up in our own lives and our own world, and we're naturally drawn to certain people. So I don't think it's anything intentional. I don't think someone walks through the door in most circumstances, and we look at them and say, don't want to talk to that person.
Pastor Greg Rains:I don't want anything to do with that person. They have nothing to offer. Unless it's someone I think this does happen. If someone's living in a lifestyle that we know is sinful and that we just feel really uncomfortable being around, then in that case, we might look at them and say, I don't wanna be a part of that. Joby Martin, who is my favorite pastor right now, I shared this in my my last sermon, he talks about a story where he when he was early in ministry, he was having to work part time as a pastor or an associate pastor.
Pastor Greg Rains:I'm not sure what role he had. And to make ends meet, he worked part time in a gym as a trainer. So he started a bible study, and this lady starts coming to the bible study, and it turned out she was an exotic dancer. And Joby's like, hey, come to church with me. She goes to church with him, and the way he tells the story, she says that was the place she felt most judged out of anywhere she'd ever been in her life, and she never walked through the doors again.
Pastor Greg Rains:He said nobody said anything to her. She could just tell. Nobody was welcoming to her. They weren't greeting her, that she saw the stairs. I mean, they knew who she was.
Pastor Greg Rains:I think in those cases, we convey it because we're like, oh, they probably shouldn't be in here till they get their junk together.
Kristi Rains:Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think that we are so much harsher with other people's sins than with our own?
Pastor Greg Rains:Well, because our sin's okay. I mean, really, if we're harsh with our own sin, it makes us feel terrible. But if we're harsh with other people's sins, it makes us feel better.
Kristi Rains:Makes us
Pastor Greg Rains:feel better.
Kristi Rains:It's a whole
Pastor Greg Rains:lot easier for me to look at that person and say, they are terrible than for me to look at myself and say, I'm a pastor, I still got a bunch of issues.
Kristi Rains:Right. So how do you think if Jesus was in our church and somebody that made us feel uncomfortable came in, what would he do?
Pastor Greg Rains:I think he'd go straight to them. He'd welcome them, probably give them a hug because we're in the South, and he'd be living by those standards in the culture. I don't I think they would feel like they were the priority in the room. Whereas someone who walked in the room and was arrogant and thought they were they had it all figured out, I don't think he would ignore them, but I think he would I mean, just look what he did with the Pharisees. I think he'd tell them, hey.
Pastor Greg Rains:It ain't about you. Right. He goes to the broken people. For whatever reason, we avoid the broken people.
Kristi Rains:I think because they just are
Pastor Greg Rains:It's kinda scary, I guess.
Kristi Rains:It's scary. It makes us uncomfortable. It might make us look more inwardly to ourselves and see how broken we are.
Pastor Greg Rains:Right. Nobody wants to do
Kristi Rains:that. No. So how do we make ourselves act like Jesus when we encounter and it's not just, like, the people who are apparently poor or living a lifestyle.
Pastor Greg Rains:No.
Kristi Rains:It's not like that. It's we could be uncomfortable with someone that's totally in opposition of your beliefs of certain things politically, or, you know, they might be very on the liberal side of thinking, and they might be very combative
Pastor Greg Rains:Yeah.
Kristi Rains:If you start talking about something like that. And and I know that's not usually talked about, you know, before the church service and on Sunday mornings, but just in life, how do we show love to those people that we just don't want to deal with because they're just so opposite from us?
Pastor Greg Rains:Practically how you do it, I guess it depends on every situation. But I I think we gotta go into every time we meet someone, it's so hard to do this. But our mindset needs to be that person has value and I need to show them in respect to that value. Whether I agree with them or not. Right.
Pastor Greg Rains:Whether I feel comfortable around whatever they're doing or not. They've got value. I also gotta go in knowing I mean, you talk about differing views and lifestyle, those kind of things. I don't have it all figured out, so there's a pretty good chance. Maybe I've got some of it wrong too, and they've got some valid views.
Pastor Greg Rains:So it's really arrogance for me to say, well, their views are they're just way off, so I'm not gonna talk to them.
Kristi Rains:We're being very righteous ourselves.
Pastor Greg Rains:Yes. I guess when we approach somebody, especially somebody new, mean, it's somebody we know, I guess it's a little different, but when you're approached with somebody new, you just gotta go you've gotta have that attitude. God loves them, and I'm gonna love them, and that's gonna look different in every person you meet. But it's it's a mindset change.
Kristi Rains:Yeah. We're all created in the image of God, and He wants all of us to come to Him. And we've gotta stop looking through our eyes and look at people the way that God looks at people. And that's a big take in our little humanness.
Pastor Greg Rains:It is. And James talks about in chapter two how when we don't approach life that way, when we approach someone or don't approach someone because of scripture calls it favoritism or or showing partiality, depends on which translation you got, that it comes from evil motives and how he says it. And I thought it was interesting when I was studying that passage. The word that he uses there, it's not a word that even existed in their vocabulary because that's just the culture at that time in the Roman world and that what they were living in. Favoritism was just the way you lived when you were looking to get something out of every relationship.
Pastor Greg Rains:So he had to make up a word to convey this is what Christianity looks like. I I thought I'd never actually heard that before until I started studying that passage. And I've studied that passage a bunch, but this time, for some reason, that came up in multiple sources, so I guess the Lord wanted me to know that. That's just really interesting because it really points to how upside down the whole idea is of how approaching not just that area, but Christianity in general. It's just approaching all of life the opposite way of how we think it should be approached.
Kristi Rains:And, honestly, in our our world, in our culture, not talking about Christianity, it's exactly that way now.
Pastor Greg Rains:Yeah.
Kristi Rains:It's it is. It didn't you favor who can do something for you. You favor the shiny, and you stay away from the shabby. And Christianity, again, it still hasn't changed. It's upside down.
Kristi Rains:Yeah. That's that's interesting because you you hear about the culture. The culture the culture is still evil.
Pastor Greg Rains:So I wanna put you on the spot now. You're like me. You're kind of the quiet person. You don't like to be the center of attention. Who can you look back on that's kind of pulled you out of that and said, you got something.
Pastor Greg Rains:God wants to use you in this way or just showed you respect and it made you feel worthy? I know you were not expecting that question.
Kristi Rains:No. My eyes welled up just trying to think of it. And I I don't even I don't think this was on a Christian basis. I don't I don't even know if she was a Christian because I didn't even know what a Christian was in the fifth grade. I remember, golly bum, Greg.
Kristi Rains:You're making me cry.
Pastor Greg Rains:Ratings gold. My
Kristi Rains:fifth grade teacher, missus Isabelle Hague, she just took a, golly, I'm gonna have to get a Kleenex.
Pastor Greg Rains:It's okay.
Kristi Rains:She she just took a she, like, noticed me.
Pastor Greg Rains:Yeah.
Kristi Rains:And she, I don't know, she made me feel special. Golly. Don't like you right now.
Pastor Greg Rains:Sorry. I'm not supposed to put you on the spot. I know. Well, I'll share my story. I I shared it in the last sermon that I preached too.
Pastor Greg Rains:So if you were there, you know the story. But mine well, there's more than one, but this is the one that really kind of sticks out because it led me to where I am now, was I was not the guy that wanted to be on stage. I didn't wanna I mean, the idea of people looking at me while I talk was terrifying. It's not what I wanted to do. But I didn't wanna serve.
Pastor Greg Rains:Know? When I was a teenager, I didn't wanna do anything. I just wanted to sit in the back, be quiet, not be noticed. But as I started getting in my twenties, we were married, I did wanna serve. We served everywhere in the church.
Pastor Greg Rains:We we were willing to serve, and I felt like I needed to do more. Preaching was not it. And our pastor at the time, Scott Thomas, at Beaver Dam Baptist Church in Knoxville
Kristi Rains:Halls.
Pastor Greg Rains:Well, Halls. I think the address is still Knoxville, if I remember right. He kinda singled me out. He kinda he started mentoring me. There was another guy that mentored me named Wiley Jones.
Pastor Greg Rains:He mentored you some too, so we know Wiley. But Scott's the one who called me out and basically said, you need to preach. I don't remember if it was those words, but I do remember him as we started talking about it, and I started slightly warming up to the idea thinking this is way off in the future. I remember the phone call. You're preaching Wednesday night.
Pastor Greg Rains:We we had a Wednesday night church back then. It's like, how? I I haven't prepared anything. I don't know what I'm doing. He's like, you'll be And, I mean, this was so long ago.
Pastor Greg Rains:We found it a couple years ago. It's on a cassette tape. And I got well, I do have a way to listen to it now because you bought me that boombox for Christmas. But before that, I had no way to listen to it. But I do remember listening to it years after, and I'm like, what was that
Kristi Rains:about? But Kinda like I'm gonna feel about this podcast.
Pastor Greg Rains:Yeah. But, no, he he planted that seed, he kinda pushed me out and said, this he's probably thinking this may be a train wreck. I don't know. But for some reason, I guess God led him to push me out, and I'm sure he did it with a bunch of other people. But look where that led.
Kristi Rains:Uh-huh.
Pastor Greg Rains:You know? Worked with student ministry as a volunteer and then as a student pastor for like twenty years. Planted a church, obviously not just me, there were what, 24 of us, something like that, planted the church we're in now, But I've been pastoring that church for seven years. It really roots in that one time he said, oh, you're preaching Wednesday.
Kristi Rains:Right. So these little what seemed little at the time to to him probably Yeah. Not Right. You.
Pastor Greg Rains:I'm sure he never sits back and says, look at what I did. That Right. There's a church planted because I pushed him to preach. Right. He may not even remember he did that.
Kristi Rains:Right. Yeah. It's just like planting little seeds. It's talking even sharing the gospel, you you plant the seeds, you may never see the fruit from that. You you may never see that person again, but you still gotta plant the seeds.
Pastor Greg Rains:How many times do you look back on all the students that we worked with in the twenty years? And I can think of names and I'm not going to throw any out there, but you think of them and you're like, when they were in student ministry, you thought their future's probably not real bright as far as walking with the Lord, but they've remained faithful or they've stepped up into some role in the church. Can you think of those without naming names?
Kristi Rains:Oh, yeah. I can.
Pastor Greg Rains:Well, you think of the opposite too where you thought this person's got it all together. They're gonna be a champion of Christ. And now they've just drifted away.
Kristi Rains:Drifted away. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's lots of names that come into my mind. And when some some of them that I'm thinking of have just gone through horrible, horrible times, horrible things, horrible decisions, and breaks your heart at the time.
Kristi Rains:But some of them have just, like you said, stayed faithful, kept kept going, and and now their lives are a lot more focused on the Lord now. It's really beautiful on those stories. On the other ones, it's sad. But their life's not over yet, but they could still come back to the Lord.
Pastor Greg Rains:I mean, that's our story or my story. You weren't thought you were a Christian when we got saved, but you you weren't
Kristi Rains:When we got saved.
Pastor Greg Rains:When we got married. Oh. Then you got saved after we got married. But that's my story. You know?
Pastor Greg Rains:Kinda drifted from the faith probably because I married somebody who wasn't a Christian. No. I'm just kidding. It wasn't cheap. Oh, put right on the I can't Honestly, I probably drifted because I didn't wanna I knew when I was a teenager, God was calling me to ministry, and that was not what I wanted to do.
Pastor Greg Rains:So I would say that's probably why I drifted if I really got down to the root of it.
Kristi Rains:You were running.
Pastor Greg Rains:I was running away from what God wanted me to do.
Kristi Rains:I just had Forrest Gump flashbacks at you. You were running.
Pastor Greg Rains:You have Forrest Gump flash Forrest Gump flashbacks, and I think of Jonah. So I guess I'm the spiritual You're the pastor. Powerhouse.
Kristi Rains:I'm just your why. So back to James.
Pastor Greg Rains:Yeah.
Kristi Rains:It there's a a part of it that says that mercy triumphs over judgment. Tell me what that means. First of all, what's mercy?
Pastor Greg Rains:Thank you for making me have to answer that one. Well, mercy is when God doesn't give you what you deserve, which for us is eternal punishment. So he shows us mercy. He doesn't give us that. Grace is the opposite.
Pastor Greg Rains:It's when he gives you what you don't deserve, which for us is eternity in heaven with Jesus Christ. So grace and mercy go hand in hand for a Christian. If it stopped at mercy, while that would be awesome that we don't get the punishment that we should have, that is not the full Christian life. So that is a blessing. God showed us mercy.
Pastor Greg Rains:We gotta have grace too or we don't have all the hope that we have, so hand in hand. You look at that idea that mercy triumphs over judgment, that's exactly what it is. I mean, before I met Jesus, I knew the name, but I didn't know Jesus, and I was Jesus' enemy. That's something we talk about a lot at our church, and that's a terrifying thing to think of. Not when you're in the middle of it and you're like, okay.
Pastor Greg Rains:But when you think of after you became a Christian and you realize I was his enemy, that's terrifying. But he showed me mercy, and that triumphed over all that judgment, he beat the judgment with the mercy that he showed us, and the only way he showed it to us is by giving his life in our place. He took that for us. So for us, when we live that out as a Christian, mercy over judgment, we have to do that for other people. And that doesn't mean we gotta go die for other people, although you never know.
Pastor Greg Rains:I mean, who knows what the world's gonna bring in the future? It may be something we deal with as believers. But as it stands right now in our world, most of us don't have to die for our faith and for other people, but we do have to get uncomfortable for them. We do have to go into those places that we just don't wanna be so that the gospel can get there. And maybe that looks like you're going on a mission trip, or maybe that looks like you're going down to the homeless shelter and just given some time, Or maybe it looks like you're getting in church and you're serving in an area you don't feel like you should serve, that you're just not equipped for, like children's ministry, student ministry.
Pastor Greg Rains:Or maybe he's calling you to preach and you don't want to do that. Who knows what it is? But when you look at mercy triumphing over judgment, that means we have to get uncomfortable so that other people can hear the truth of the gospel.
Kristi Rains:So going back to the favoritism vein of that, we have to step out of our comfort zone to show love and show mercy, even if like you said earlier, I mean, that person could just be living in this world of sin, and they don't see anything wrong with it. And but you've got to go in and show them the love of Jesus. You might be the only person that ever does that for them. You might be their only hope to hear about Jesus.
Pastor Greg Rains:One way we need to look at it is the way you just worded that kinda made this register with me. We can be pretty judgmental as Christians. Yeah. So we can go up to someone who we know is not living a lifestyle that is biblical, All kinds of things. And we can point fingers at them pretty harshly.
Pastor Greg Rains:But Jesus didn't do that. And don't take me wrong, for someone who doesn't follow Jesus, there is judgment. But he offers that mercy to everybody. So why should we ever look at someone and say they're too far gone, even if we don't say it out loud? I know that we probably look at people and say, they're living that way, can't God can't do anything with them.
Pastor Greg Rains:We don't say those words. That'd be wrong to say those words. We'd feel bad if we say those words, but we certainly act that way. When we refuse to go to those places and we refuse to talk to those people, and sometimes I hope it's not our church, but we refuse to let them be a part of what we're doing. There are standards.
Pastor Greg Rains:I mean, if someone's living in a sinful lifestyle, they are welcome to come in our church. They are not welcome to join our church. So there is some until that's taken care of because to join a church, you have to be a follower of Christ. So there is some standards, but we're still gonna love those people, and we're still gonna show to treat them just like everybody else, I hope. We're not always gonna get that a 100% of the time.
Pastor Greg Rains:So when you think about mercy over judgment, maybe that's really what it boils down to is we don't look at their sin. We just look at the image of God on them and share the gospel with them and pray that they get it and pray that God changes their life.
Kristi Rains:So practical steps of us that of Christians this week to and this this is just not only in the church building. No.
Pastor Greg Rains:Probably less in the church building. We're there one or two days a week.
Kristi Rains:So Right. And generally, who don't wanna know about Jesus aren't gonna come to church.
Pastor Greg Rains:True.
Kristi Rains:And they're out living their lives out in the world where we are. Practical steps. What can we do to step out of our comfort zone and show the love of God to people who make us uncomfortable?
Pastor Greg Rains:Well, it depends on your circumstance. I'll just give you an example of mine. I come out of the entertainment business before I was doing this. I did commercials, worked in theaters, all that kind of stuff before I became a pastor. Well, was still in ministry, but before I was a full time pastor.
Pastor Greg Rains:That was my last career path on the others that I also had before that. In that business, there are people living lifestyles that are not biblical in any business. But in that business, it's rampant. So I wasn't being intentional about it, honestly, but I just became friends with those people. I'd go have lunch with them.
Pastor Greg Rains:My motives at those time at that time probably was not let's get them to Jesus, but do that. Go be friends with them, have lunch with them with the motive of saying, I want them to know who Jesus Christ is. So I was halfway there. I think I could do better at that now, but that's the practical step. How do I show Jesus to that person?
Pastor Greg Rains:How did Jesus show himself to people? He went into their homes. He went and had meals with them. He had conversations. He went to where they were.
Pastor Greg Rains:He didn't say, You gotta come. He went to where they were. And then he said, Come follow me. He didn't say, Come to me, and then I'll teach you, and then you can follow me. He went to them, and then come follow me.
Kristi Rains:And we've talked about this multiple times over the years. If you go and, like you were talking about earlier, point fingers at sins, you got fingers pointing at yourself at the same time. But
Pastor Greg Rains:What's that? You point one at someone, you got three pointing back at yourself.
Kristi Rains:But there's really it's not even logical to point out their sins if they are not a follower of Christ.
Pastor Greg Rains:No. It
Kristi Rains:doesn't matter. Because they're not going to see anything right or wrong with whatever because they don't have the Holy Spirit helping them discern the afterup. So that's the most important thing, is just to tell them what Jesus did for them, what Jesus did for us. And then let the Holy Spirit do do the heavy lifting there. Yeah.
Pastor Greg Rains:That's it. And I don't want them to make it seem like I've got it all figured out, because I certainly don't. I am just as bad at this as everybody else, but I am trying to get better. And my goal is hopefully everybody I come in contact with feels accepted and feels loved, but I don't always live that reality. I'm just as bad at getting in my own head and it's never intentional, but sometimes it just gets pushed to the side.
Pastor Greg Rains:Any last things you think we need to add?
Kristi Rains:Do you think that deep down we think that God puts different values on different people even though we know as Christians Yeah.
Pastor Greg Rains:We think it does.
Kristi Rains:So I've
Pastor Greg Rains:actually heard Christians say that that I we knew one, remember years ago, who said he was God's favorite. Remember that guy?
Kristi Rains:I guess I've blocked it.
Pastor Greg Rains:We'll talk about it off the podcast. But he would talk about he was one of one of God's favorite people. And
Kristi Rains:That's a that's a bold statement to even say.
Pastor Greg Rains:And I think there are people who who look at it that way and look at it and say, God hates them, but he loves me.
Kristi Rains:Because of
Pastor Greg Rains:And I think some people actually say it.
Kristi Rains:And they think that because they're more righteous?
Pastor Greg Rains:They're more righteous. They're chosen per se, or that other person is just too far gone.
Kristi Rains:And that just contradicts the whole gospel. Everything about the gospel. So learn the gospel.
Pastor Greg Rains:It's more than learn it. It's live it.
Kristi Rains:Oh, yeah. Learn it and live it and quit spreading lies. I mean, that's just ridiculous. And
Pastor Greg Rains:it goes back to that mission statement we have as a church. Jesus said all the commands are summed up. Love God, love people. And he gives us the mission. He commissioned everyone to go make disciples.
Pastor Greg Rains:If you approach life with that viewpoint, I'm gonna love God and I'm gonna love people, which means God's first, people come above me, and in that process my goal is to get them to Jesus and to make disciples. If you do that, love God, love people with the whole intent, I'm gonna make disciples, you're good. Everything's gonna cover itself. So as we close today, I guess that's what I wanna leave everybody with. That's our mission statement.
Pastor Greg Rains:If you're not a part of Northview Church, that's what we believe, and I think that's what all Christians need to believe. Love God. Love people. Make disciples. And you've to do that by getting out of your comfort zone, by loving people like God loves people, which means their needs come above my needs all the time.
Pastor Greg Rains:Starts in your family, but it goes out to everybody. Ask yourself that question. How can I go make the world a better place and show somebody God's love? When you walk out the door for work today or for school today or tomorrow or whenever you're listening to this, how can I make the world a better place and show somebody God's love? And the whole idea is to get them to Jesus.
Pastor Greg Rains:Anything any last words?
Kristi Rains:You said it all.
Pastor Greg Rains:Alright. Well, that's it for this week. Thank you for joining us for the God Made Podcast, and the whole point of this is because Sunday doesn't fix everything. So join us next week. And if you liked this, podcast, if it helped you at all this week, do us a favor.
Pastor Greg Rains:Hit that share button, that like button, and hit that subscribe button because it helps more than you'd know at getting this to reach other people. So give us those metrics. Just hit those buttons, and leave a comment. Ask a question. Is there someone in your life God's leading you to?
Pastor Greg Rains:You don't have to drop a name, but is there someone God's leading you to right now that you need to go and show God's love to? Share this with them. Go have a conversation with them. Invite them to lunch. And, love God.
Pastor Greg Rains:Love people. Make disciples. That's what it's all about. So we'll see you next week for the next episode of the God Made Podcast.