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"Here as in Heaven."
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Welcome to Garden Church podcast. We're taking a break from a revelation series while our lead pastor, Darren Roundson, is on sabbatical. During this time, we're gonna continue to push into the Garden's mission of creating resilient disciples by working our way through the Sermon on the Mount. Over the next few weeks, we'll have some amazing pastors from all over the world coming to impart their wisdom and insight on what is the most influential and profound sermon ever given. Enjoy.
Ramin Razavi:Well, Garden family, we are in our Sermon on the Mount series, but today we are taking a beautiful I'm not gonna call it a detour, I'm calling it a special destination via our dear friend pastor Jordan Verner. Let's show some love to pastor Jordan. Pastor Jordan and Darren have been friends for a long time. I had a chance to get to know them over the last couple years and God is just doing a powerful work at Riverhouse Church in Boise. God's doing a powerful work in the Werner home as Jackie and Jordan have just welcomed their second child one month ago.
Ramin Razavi:So what an honor. Baby Carmel Yes. Has joined Naomi to make up the the burner clan. Indeed. And so Jordan's also got some of his team here today, we just wanna honor you guys and say thank you for coming and joining us.
Ramin Razavi:Let's just honor them, thank them for coming. And let's just extend a hand as we we pray for Jordan. Holy Spirit, thank you for your presence with us. Oh Lord Jesus, thank you for the deep love that this man has for you. Thank you Lord that there's been time stewarded in the quiet place.
Ramin Razavi:We pray now by the power of the Holy Spirit that would come out in public display. We pray Lord that the word that he's carrying would be met with faith. We ask you Lord to create the soil of our heart to be ready and prepared to receive it and to bear a hundred times for the life of the world Lord. We pray for your glory to come today Lord. We love you Jesus and pray this in faith.
Ramin Razavi:Amen and amen. Amen.
Jordan Verner:Good morning Garden Church. It's a joy to be with you. Your family's grown since I was here ten months ago. My family's grown since I was here ten months ago. So you're getting more glory.
Jordan Verner:I'm getting less sleep, but that's the way of the Lord. I'm really honored. We do have a team. Had a team who's down here in Orange County All Week. We just sent 70 people from our church all over the world for spring break, and one of the teams came to Orange County.
Jordan Verner:There's a special member of the team that I get to honor today because my mom is here. So and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you and your prayers and your deep love for Jesus. So I honor you. I'm your fruit. So I'm I'm sorry, crying now.
Jordan Verner:Dang it. Wasn't expecting that. Yeah, I was. I'm I'm so grateful to be with you. Grateful for my wife and watching.
Jordan Verner:I just got a picture of my my two and a half year old is holding her one month old sister watching me watching me on TV. So I'm a celebrity now for my kids. I'm eager to share with you this morning and I'm just gonna pray and then we'll open scripture together if that's okay. Holy Spirit, come. Would you make real, would you make potent and powerful the living word of God?
Jordan Verner:Your word sharper than a double edged sword that pierces divides between thought and intention, bone and marrow. Would you go deep into us Lord with your healing penetrating gaze. God, would you would you do what only you can do? Only you have the power to change human hearts and we open our hearts before you and say, Jesus, speak to our hearts and continue the work of new creation that you begun on the cross and resurrection of Jesus and then in us through the Holy Spirit. Lord, we love you.
Jordan Verner:We humble ourselves before you and we say, have your way. And if you partner with that, say amen. Amen. Well, I want to speak this morning. Want to speak into your identity of what it means to be God's covenant people.
Jordan Verner:What it means to be chosen and favored by God and and a huge component of what it means like what it means to be righteous. What, what, what, what do we do with our calling? The the marking as it were the the chosenness of being part of God's people. It is a enormous blessing and it's an amazing responsibility. It's like uncle Ben with Spider Man.
Jordan Verner:With great power comes great responsibility. So I'm going to hopefully reveal a little bit of the power of what it means that you're part of God's people. God's chosen covenant people and also some of the responsibility. I'm going to challenge you today. Is that okay?
Jordan Verner:High challenge creates high level leaders and that's what you're called to be. Someone that would influence the name for the world for Jesus in a significant way. I'm going to challenge you, hopefully inspire you and we're going to create space for the Holy Spirit to minister to our hearts at the end of this time together. So I'm going start Genesis eighteen nineteen. This is God speaking about Abraham and Abraham's family.
Jordan Verner:If you remember Sunday school, father Abraham had many sons and I'm one of them and so are you. So let's just praise the Lord. So this is talking about us. Alright. So Genesis eighteen nineteen for I have chosen him.
Jordan Verner:I've chosen Abraham so that he'll direct his children, his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Say right and just. Right and just. By doing what is right and just so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he promised him. What's the context of this call?
Jordan Verner:The context of this verse. Right? Is that Adam and Eve were in the garden. They sinned, came under the curse of death. They were exiled from Eden.
Jordan Verner:They traveled east. Say east. East. The next 12 chapters of Genesis, they go really really far east and it is a tragic down roll, downward spiral. The image of God that was gifted to humanity immediately upon exile starts violence is gone against it.
Jordan Verner:Human indignity, injustice, oppression, cities are full of wickedness and evil. God laments over his creation of humanity. It was that bad. Everything is spiraling out of control and in the context of this cascade. This out of control cascade, East Of Eden, deeper into depravity.
Jordan Verner:God calls to a man called Abraham and he calls him back westward. He says, I'm calling you back to the vision of human flourishing that I created. When I formed you as my image bearers, male and female. When I put you into the context of community. When I called you to be my image bearers in the earth, my priestly representatives that would make me known on this planet.
Jordan Verner:He says, I'm calling you westward and I'm calling your family to be a family that would do righteousness and justice. Hebrew words be the word righteousness. It's a relational righteousness. Don't think rules. It's not I'm calling you to be the rule keepers.
Jordan Verner:It's I'm calling you to be a community that in the context of your relational ecosystem, the image of God in every single person would be valued, dignified, honored. It would be equality. It would be this beautiful beautiful community where the image of God is fully expressed in each individual part that would reveal the glory of God through the way that humans relate with one another. That the holy trinity of heaven would be mirrored in the way that we do relationship. Justice, Mishpat, it's this word it's it's it is the scripture does speak to justice as like a retributive justice at times, you know, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
Jordan Verner:But the scripture actually speaks beyond retributive justice to this idea of restorative justice. The parable of the good Samaritan is a great example. You know, he doesn't he doesn't go and beat up the guys that beat up him. He goes beyond. He goes to this vision of actually stepping into the pain and the brokenness of what that injustice created and and seeks to bring healing and shalom and restoration to what went wrong.
Jordan Verner:In the passage, I have a little side note, I think this is key but I was reading Good Samaritan with my daughter this week, two and a half year old. The end of it she looks at me and goes, dad we need to be like that guy. I said, you're right hon and then she and then the guy had an orange hat in the story, she's like, you gotta get me an orange hat. I was like, alright, alright, you're a little she's a little fashionista in the making, I'm like, I see what you're doing right now. Your mom your mom taught you that.
Jordan Verner:Alright. So so tzedakah mishvah, righteousness and justice. Relational righteousness where God's image is honored and we would actually relate to one another as a family that looks like his family, the Trinity. And justice, we'd be those that carry restorative justice. He's calling Abraham's family.
Jordan Verner:He's calling us to be these type of people that would journey westward back to Eden, back to the vision of flourishing, why God created us in the first place. Right? The scripture continues, you get to the law. The law, you'll see righteousness and justice everywhere in the law, but how it manifests is specifically God's concern for those on the margins of power, those on the outside of privilege. And you'll see this all throughout the law, but here's a couple examples.
Jordan Verner:Leviticus twenty three twenty two, when you reap the harvest of your land, don't reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner residing among you. I'm the Lord your God. Right? He's calling for financial margin.
Jordan Verner:The equivalent of this would be don't spend all your money on yourself. Create space in your budget for the poor. Modern, you know, it's like budget your money. You're like, wow, that's a little intrusive. Lord, oh, he's intrusive.
Jordan Verner:He's a God of covenant. Right? He's saying, don't forget about the poor. See the unseen. He's talking about tithes in Deuteronomy 14 saying tithe.
Jordan Verner:Deuteronomy fourteen twenty nine, so that the Levites who have no allotment or inheritance of the own and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied So the Lord your God may bless you and all the work of your hands. I see this, you see this repeated emphasis again and again and again. I'm gonna read a couple of verses from Deuteronomy chapter 10. God's speaking, he's he's reminding them starting in verse 12 of of their of their favor in his side. He says, you know, and and now Israel, what does the Lord God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, walk in obedience, to love him, to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I'm giving you today for your own good.
Jordan Verner:To the Lord belongs the highest the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth, everything in the earth, yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them and he chose you. He chose you. Their descendants above all the nations as it is today. Circumcise your hearts therefore and don't be stiff necked any longer for the Lord your God is God of Gods, Lord of Lords. The great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality except no bribes.
Jordan Verner:He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves the foreigner residing among you giving them food and clothing. And you're to love your those who are foreigners for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. He's saying you are favored, highly favored, the God of everything, the God of the heavens and the earth that has everything. I chose you. But as I've chosen you, favor is for the sake of.
Jordan Verner:Don't forget the poor. Don't forget the foreigner. Don't forget the ones who are prone to the oppression and the injustice in the pagan society. You're part of Abraham's family. Those that would do righteousness and justice and journey westward.
Jordan Verner:Let's go to the prophets. The prophets are quite a quite a position to be a prophet. Prophets were called to they encounter the Lord and then they were sent to either the leaders of the people or the people to rebuke the people for being unfaithful to God. And this was their pattern. They would confront the king.
Jordan Verner:They would confront the people. They confront whoever it was. Say you're being unfaithful to God. You are disloyal to Yahweh. And this is how I know.
Jordan Verner:There is injustice and unrighteousness in the land. This is the pattern throughout all the prophetic texts. They use different images, different metaphors, different people groups, but they are confronting Israel, God's covenant people saying you're not being faithful to the covenant. You're not living into your identity as Abraham's children. You need to repent.
Jordan Verner:You need to change your ways. You need to come back into loyalty to God and then you need to live out righteousness and justice. Here's just one potent example of this. It's the book of Jeremiah chapter 22. Jeremiah is called by God to confront the king of Israel.
Jordan Verner:The king of Israel is king Josiah's son. Josiah was a reformer, a revivalist. He read the law, repented, turned Israel back to loyalty to God, and walked in righteousness and justice. But his son hardens his heart, turns back to pride, goes into idolatry, leads the people astray, and Jeremiah is sent to confront this king. How would you like to have that call from the Lord at your morning prayer time?
Jordan Verner:Go and confront the king. I I don't know. I I don't know. Jeremiah, thankfully, he's faithful. Fire in his bones, you know.
Jordan Verner:So chapter 22 verse one. This is what the Lord says. Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and proclaim this message there. Hear the word of the Lord to you king of Judah who sits on David's throne. You, your officials, and your people will come through these gates.
Jordan Verner:This is what the Lord says, do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor, the one who's been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. For if you're careful to carry out these commands, then kings who sit on David's throne will come through the gates of this palace riding in chariots on horses accompanied by the people. But if you do not obey these commands declares the Lord, I swear by myself this palace will become a ruin.
Jordan Verner:You're like, is God having a bad day? Why so harsh? Because he is speaking to the king of Israel. The leader of the people chosen by him to represent his image in the earth. And he's saying, you're acting like pharaoh.
Jordan Verner:And I my heart can't live with you the ones favored by me not revealing me rightly through what you say but what you do. The rebuke continues in verse 13. Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his own people work for nothing, not paying them their labor. He says, I'll build for myself a great palace. I've met this guy.
Jordan Verner:I've seen this story. I'll build for myself a great palace with spacious upper rooms. I'll use favor for me. So he makes large windows and he panels it with cedar, decorates it in red. Hear the Lord.
Jordan Verner:Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Does it make you favored to have more and more fill in the blank? Did not your father Now he starts speaking to his father. Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just.
Jordan Verner:So all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and the needy and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me? Declares the Lord. So the prophets confronted Israel for their idolatry, their injustice, their unrighteousness.
Jordan Verner:But they also prophesied of a day that was coming. Of a king who was coming in. The next chapter, chapter 23, Jeremiah describes the coming Messiah, the coming Jesus. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David, a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. And that day comes, it dawns and Jesus arrives.
Jordan Verner:He goes to his hometown, he goes to the synagogue, he opens the scroll and he reads from the book of Isaiah. He says, the spirit of the Lord, the spirit that liberated you, that led you out of Egypt like a fire by day and a cloud by night, the spirit that that that multiplied bread in your midst, the spirit the spirit of power, the spirit of healing, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of God rest upon me to do what? Preach to the poor. To proclaim freedom to the prisoner. The recovery of sight to the blind to release those in oppression.
Jordan Verner:It's like set a commish pot. And Jesus shows up on the scene and he spends his time not in the places of power. His own brothers say, if you wanna be somebody go to Jerusalem. Go to Jerusalem if you wanna be somebody great. He's not hanging with the elites.
Jordan Verner:He goes to the poor, the marginalized, the women, the children. The Bible is without rival in the ancient world. It's the only text that gives names to the poor. The fact that we know the name of a blind beggar named Bartimaeus. Why would you give names to the poor?
Jordan Verner:They don't write history. They don't change the world. Yet Jesus is in no, I'm here to go after my image where it's being marred in the earth. I'm seeking out the lost. I'm seeking out women who've been bleeding and outcasted for all these years.
Jordan Verner:So I'll stop the show just to bring her up and say, you're a daughter of Abraham, an image bearer of God most high. He is seeking out. He's with the poor. He's with the hurting. He's with the marginalized.
Jordan Verner:He's living righteousness and justice. He's like doing it. It's like he's fulfilling everything the prophets were speaking of. One day a lawyer comes to him says, hey Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? He's trying to pull him into a theological debate.
Jordan Verner:This is what rabbis did like which part of the law, which command out of all the 613 commands is the most important so that we can build our systematic theology around that. We don't do this today thankfully, but they still did it in Jesus' day. Right? So he's Jesus, what what's the greatest command? And Jesus replies, way he often does, he doesn't answer the question, he does whatever he wants and he actually gives him two commands.
Jordan Verner:He says, here's the two commands. He pulls them from far different parts of the Torah. He says, the first command is the love of Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. He speaks of Hesed. He says, the the foundation of covenant faithfulness of righteousness in God is is that you would be absolutely loyal to God all the days of your life.
Jordan Verner:Loyal to God in a land of idols. Loyal to God out of all the voices crying out for your loyal. Yes, your love would be bent towards God all the days of your life. But he says the second one's like this, just like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Jordan Verner:Loyalty and then righteousness and justice. I found that some of the mistake in the church, the liberalism, when we get into the liberalism, it's almost they conflate love of God with love of neighbor. So somehow we can fall into this thing of thinking that to love the poor, to love people is to love God. That's not that's not what Jesus is saying. We're called to a unique love relationship with Jesus.
Jordan Verner:Right? So you can swing this way. You can also swing the other way, which is almost like there's this there's this temptation to think that fulfilling tzedakah and mishpah, fulfilling God's love for the poor happens by osmosis if you just love Jesus really well. It's like if you just spend enough time with Jesus, you automatically fulfill righteousness and justice. It's like how?
Jordan Verner:I don't know. But it just flows out of me. I think love of God and love of neighbor, they're both muscles that have to be exercised. They're not exercised. They do not grow.
Jordan Verner:Challenge with loving God is that he's holy. He doesn't change. So you'll have to challenge with loving people. They're not holy. They change all too often.
Jordan Verner:You have to learn how to love them like God loved us. Both muscles. Briefly, we'll go to the epistles. James, true religion, still love the orphan and the widow. Keep yourself unstained by the world.
Jordan Verner:First John three sixteen through 19 through 18, by this we know what love is. Jesus laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. Anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need but withholds his compassion from him. How can the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us love not in word and speech but in action and truth.
Jordan Verner:And this is probably the kicker for me is Galatians two. There's this epic meeting of the church that Paul's describing. He gets called to the big boys in Jerusalem. He's been church planting across the Mediterranean preaching to the Gentiles. Testimonies are making their way back to the apostles in Jerusalem.
Jordan Verner:He gets called to Jerusalem to come and humble himself and present his gospel to them. So it'd be a little nerve wracking if I put myself in Paul's shoes. Be like if Darren called me. I'm coming back from sabbatical early to make sure what you're preaching is good. Lay it before me.
Jordan Verner:I'll be like, wow. I'm a little, insecure right now. Like you know, so Paul goes, he lays it before them. They they they process together and he says, he they extend the right hand of fellowship to me. They recognize that I'd received an apostolic ministry to the Gentiles just as Peter to the Jews.
Jordan Verner:He said, but they only asked this one thing. They only asked us one thing that we would remember the poor. I find it interesting that it wasn't that they'd remember Caesar. Don't forget about the Roman elites. Don't forget about those that are in power.
Jordan Verner:We don't need reminders about those who are in power. If I hear another person tell me how their Joe Rogan is just on the edge of becoming a Christian, am like, I know there is enough people praying for Joe. We don't need reminders to remember Joe. But what we need reminders for is to remember the poor because it's like there's something there's something in the proclivity of the fallen flesh nature that is just bent away that we the blinders that we don't wanna see it. We don't wanna see those are on the outside of the power, the hurting because it's gonna cost us something if we see it.
Jordan Verner:It's gonna cost us something if we really catch God's heart for what God's heart is bleeding for. If we really catch that it will change us. It will move us. It will we will be compelled with something that won't allow us to stay comfortable in our little worlds and our nice things and our nice houses and our 2.5 kids and our 2.5 cars and whatever it is. We won't be able to stay there anymore because we'll be compelled by the heart of God and the love of God.
Jordan Verner:So
Jordan Verner:remember the poor.
Jordan Verner:Garden Church, your church in revival. You're a church that even within the body of Christ is being favored, is being chosen, is being lifted up by the right hand of Jesus.
Jordan Verner:Use that favor well. Remember the poor. Would you remember the poor? Can I just exhort you? Remember the poor.
Jordan Verner:I'm gonna offer reflections on three barriers that they're cultural barriers. They're also just human barriers that that that keep us confined from really being able to step step into our identity as covenant people and live this out. And I'm just gonna offer some reflections to hopefully challenge you. I'm gonna create a space for some repentance. We're gonna actually humble ourselves before Lord and ask Holy Spirit to write the law and the prophets in our heart.
Jordan Verner:So offer reflections on faith, holiness, and love. Right? Faith. We have to we have to recognize that our faith, our confession of faith, Jesus is Lord, is not about a privatized spirituality. It's a public witness.
Jordan Verner:I don't know if you've tried this recently, but anytime I do I read scripture public places sometimes and I always get looks. I always just have this feeling like dude get that thing back in your prayer closet. Like it's like people look at me like I have explicit material out sometimes. It's like why are you pulling that out in a coffee shop? Why do you have that on an airplane right now?
Jordan Verner:Like that's that's your thing you do with Jesus at home. Great. You love Jesus? Great. But keep it keep it at home.
Jordan Verner:Right? Because we are living in a secular culture which means like the public domain is contested right now and it's like the pressure is to keep the church in the four walls of the church and to keep your faith inside your own heart. But the truth is when we confess Jesus is Lord of all. And when we confess that we mean that his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his gift of the Holy Spirit was not just so that he could change our hearts on the inside and we become good moral people. It was that his resurrected body is prophesying and saying, this is the beginning of the new creation.
Jordan Verner:Nothing is beyond redemptive power. No person, no place, no situation. I'm gonna make all things new and it started in my resurrected body and it's gonna be continued through my church until the day I return again and finally make it all new. But in this in between of the now and the not yet, we are working and laboring with Jesus to continue the public heralding that Jesus has raised from the dead and our faith is meant to be lived out loud. This isn't a call to renew your Instagram account and really give vigor to making sure you're posting Christian things.
Jordan Verner:This is a call to do righteousness and justice. Jesus says, you're the light of the world. That men would see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven. You are called to represent God's heart for his image peers. That people would look at your life, they'd look at your works, they'd look at your ethic, they look at the way you spend your money, the way you spend your time, the way you live your life.
Jordan Verner:And they would see the God whose heart is bent in righteousness and justice. They would see the king who sits on David's throne who does righteousness and justice. They would see a redeemed humanity. They would recognize Abraham's family. Those called to journey westward and do righteousness and justice.
Jordan Verner:So we've gotta change. We gotta repent and see that faith is not a private spirituality. Is a public confession that is meant to be lived with our whole lives. The world is watching. The world is watching you.
Jordan Verner:What do they see? Second is on holiness. There's just something about holiness. Holiness. And when we just say the word holiness, we're like, clearly, the way you say that reveals that you do not ever say a cuss word.
Jordan Verner:You do not watch secular TV. You do not listen to any radio station except for you know, like, it's like this it's like this other than, you know, wow, you must be so holy. You wear a one piece bathing suit when you go to the beach. You are so holy. We are so set apart from the world.
Jordan Verner:Aren't we so attractive to the world because we are set apart from the world. Right? It's like it's like we have this like negative interpretation that's like burrowed into the mind of the church. So this is what holiness is. Right?
Jordan Verner:We have to redefine holiness. The holiness is a relational reality. And holy means something holy means it's devoted to God. Means you're you're devoted to Jesus in such a love relationship that you look like him, you think like him, you walk like him. You know marriage is a relational covenant.
Jordan Verner:Yeah. And I'm married to my wife. And in case you didn't know this, I don't have sex with other people. I don't look at porn. I don't make huge financial decisions without talking to her.
Jordan Verner:There's a whole bunch of things that I don't do. But as I tell you this, you're you're not really wooed that I'm an incredible husband. It's not like, wow, what an incredible servant of his wife. Right? Some people are like, you know, holiness, it's just God just loves us.
Jordan Verner:There there are no don'ts. No. No. Those those don'ts. Just ask my wife.
Jordan Verner:There are don'ts. There are don'ts that I have to keep those don'ts. But that is the bare level. That's the c minus passing grade for like I'm maintaining the covenant relationship in my life. Don'ts are important, but they are not the substance of a covenant relationship.
Jordan Verner:It's the dues of my marriage. It's the things I've had to learn how to do. The dishes. And specifically, the dishes without her asking me to do the dishes. If I do it without being asked, it's like 10 x the impact.
Jordan Verner:You know, it's the diapers. It's learning to be attuned to my wife's emotional state because I know there's things that I can do to serve her in certain ways to to to ease her anxiety when she's having a hard time. It's it's learning how to communicate. It's learning how to give her grace when she's a little messy sometimes. It's all the activity.
Jordan Verner:It's all the doing that will define the quality of our marriage covenant when we look in the rearview mirror after a number of decades. It's not like, wow. Yeah. I didn't do all these things. I'm great.
Jordan Verner:I'm holy. No. My holiness, my devotion to my wife will be evidenced more through the activity than the inactivity of what I do in relationship with her. And it is no different in our relationship with Jesus. Holiness is not personal piety.
Jordan Verner:It is a relational righteousness. It shows that I am so intertwined with Jesus that the do's of my life. Right? Holy people don't do things that unholy people do. But even more so, holy people do things.
Jordan Verner:And the doing of what they do, that's a lot of dos. Do to do do do is righteousness and justice. We do righteousness and justice as God's holy people, as God's covenant people. We're called to make known and reveal through our lives the God who liberates slaves from Pharaoh. How are we making known the Messiah who went to a well in the middle of a hot day to meet a shamefelled woman that was trying to hide from her village?
Jordan Verner:How do we make that God known? That's what holiness is about. So we got a shift and then lastly, love. We are designed by God to grow in our capacity to love throughout life. I find this example helpful.
Jordan Verner:It's an emotional maturity timeline. It starts with an infant. How many people can an infant take care of? Zero. Let me fill in the blank.
Jordan Verner:Zero. Zero. They can only poop, eat, and cry. They can't even burp. I've spent more hours trying to burp my one month old daughter in the last month than I care.
Jordan Verner:I'm like, wow, I could really be praying, Lord. He's like, you are praying. Learn how to burp that girl. Right? You're doing righteousness and justice.
Jordan Verner:Right? So they can't take care of anybody. Then over time, I hear it's about four years old, you become a child and children can take care of how many people? One person. They can start to tie their shoes.
Jordan Verner:That feels like a pipe dream right now, but I'm believing in faith. Right? Then over time, a child grows and they step into this place. Miracle of human development, they become an adult. And how many people can adult take care of?
Jordan Verner:Two people. They can take care of themselves and somebody else at the same time. I think it took me like till I was married to really be an adult. And it's a miracle. All of sudden it's like, wow.
Jordan Verner:I have capacity to see outside of me. Then you get married and two adults are doing their adult thing, then you have a kid and you become a parent. And a parent now has a capacity to take care of themselves, somebody else, and one of these guys that are so needy and demanding of your time, your attention. They're so inconvenient. Oh, it's so costly.
Jordan Verner:So annoying. I can't golf as much anymore because I have to change diaper. You know, like, oh my gosh. But, you know, this is growing me into a parent. Then as you get really good at this parenting thing, your capacity grows and grows and grows, and you actually start to be able to take more and more needs.
Jordan Verner:People, you actually have the capacity to see yourself, your spouse, the immature ones, the ones that are hurting, the orphans, the widow, the painful ones. And as you do this, people start to say, you know what? You're an elder. You have capacity not just for you and your own house, but for a community, for a city. You're growing in your capacity of love.
Jordan Verner:Right? This is this is the emotional timeline, but it's true in the spirit. It's the same story in the spirit. Right? We we start in relationship with Jesus as a little baby.
Jordan Verner:Can't take care of anybody. We need to be fed. We need to be discipled. We need everything. And Jesus just meets us with this gracious first love.
Jordan Verner:It's like what we do with our babies. It's just like, I just love you. I don't know why you're full of poop. You burp all the time, but I like can't stop just doting. It's just love and love and love and love and love and love and literally the brain forms around the look on a parent's face as they're just delighting and delighting and delighting and delighting.
Jordan Verner:And my face is is is designed to literally shape my my little girl's world view into that they are ones who are delighted in and identities get formed into like, they're delighted in, delighted in, delighted in, my face is gonna look over their faces and then one day the day is gonna come and I'm gonna say, now now you're called to go. You're called to go and be a mother and a father in this world. And this is what God does with his disciples. He just delights in us. The face of Jesus gets revealed.
Jordan Verner:It's the glory of the gospel and we get swept into the love that I never felt so loved and never felt so seen in this face just marks us. It it just it just gets deeper and deeper and deeper into our hearts and this love for Jesus is then designed. There's a point, there's a moment when it is meant to overflow and we start growing with capacity and we start seeing that same face. But it's it's buried beneath the pain of faces that are that are dying, that are lost, that are demonized, that are broken. And it's the same face.
Jordan Verner:Jesus looks at us and says, do you love me?
Jordan Verner:Feed my sheep. Do you love me? Tend my lambs. Do you love me? Feed my sheep.
Jordan Verner:Our our love for Jesus is meant to give birth to acts of righteousness and justice.
Jordan Verner:So at a church in North Carolina earlier this year, Catch the Fire Raleigh, beautiful church, revival legacy, doing incredible things in their city. And I'm meeting all these people that are clearly poor, broken, marginalized, worshiping Jesus. Miracles are happening to them, and I'm I'm overwhelmed by the beauty of this church and the rich and the poor. And I have so many ethnicities, and I'm like, how did it become like this? And they tell me the story.
Jordan Verner:They take me to lunch with couple. They're like, yeah. You know, we were prod predominantly Caucasian church. We kinda had was our our own socioeconomic, you know, demographic, whatever. And years ago, she's like, yeah.
Jordan Verner:We lived in the the uppity part of town. She said, God started giving us his heart for the the ghetto. Like moving from Newport to Downtown Long Beach or something. I don't know. Sounds a little radical.
Jordan Verner:Yeah. It's radical. They're like, we're so moved by this thing that God was doing, like we moved. We sold our house and we moved like two streets away where we hear gunshots every night. We had little girls.
Jordan Verner:I said, then I was driving by this this motel all the time. I drive by it, and everybody knew it was a brothel. And she's like, would just weep. I would weep every time I drive by this brothel. Finally, after months of this, she said, just felt the
Jordan Verner:holy spirit. She said, you need to go.
Jordan Verner:She's like, so I didn't know what to do. I just made cupcakes and I went to this brothel with cupcakes. She's like, it was the stupidest moment of my life. She's like, I'm like, I'm sitting there like, what am I doing here? I'm just here at a brothel at night with cupcakes.
Jordan Verner:She said, we're just kinda like handing out cupcakes to people. And this woman comes running, she looks angry and she's like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're just from the church. We're here to bless people.
Jordan Verner:And she goes, you're from the church? She goes, yeah. She goes,
Jordan Verner:church people used to come here years ago. She said, I've been praying for three years that God would send more church people here that they wouldn't forget about us. She's gonna let me introduce you to everyone. And they introduced him, and like, then
Jordan Verner:we just kept going back. And we kept going back, and now it's,
Jordan Verner:like, ten years later, and they have this beautiful compassion work. And people are getting saved, and families are getting transformed because one lady decided to make cupcakes and do righteousness and justice. Every parent in this room, you know that you weren't ready to become a parent.
Jordan Verner:Little baby comes out and you're like, I'm not ready. Now I know. This is the design of our development. We our capacity gets overrated. And in the challenge of that being overridden, we find that there's something in us that has the capacity to grow.
Jordan Verner:This is what I feel the Holy Spirit's doing this morning. He is wanting he's offering you that if you would open your heart and let your boundaries down, if you would open your eyes and let the blinders off, that perhaps the spirit would override you with the capacity of God's love. That you'd be willing to repent and say, oh God, would you would you send your spirit to write the law and the prophets inside of me? Would you would you send your spirit to make me covenant faithful, to do in me what I cannot do for myself? So now I'm just gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna open space.
Jordan Verner:I must everybody close your eyes right now. If you say if you say I just there's something stirring inside. You say, wanna repent today, Jordan. There's something I need to repent. There's boundaries that I wanna let down.
Jordan Verner:There's blinders that I'm willing to let God take off. I wanna repent before God Almighty. I just I'm gonna invite you to stand right now. Something is happening. You're saying, I'm gonna partner with what I sense the spirit doing inside my heart.
Jordan Verner:Gonna invite you to stand. And if you're standing, it's just a public acknowledgment that says, God, I'm willing for you to do a deeper work in my heart. Repentance isn't a shame thing. It's a it's a hunger for righteousness thing. We're gonna have the worship team.
Jordan Verner:They're gonna come up. There's there's we're just gonna create a space for worship in this moment. If you're standing, I'm gonna invite you to do another courageous thing and to just come forward. This is your way of saying, here I am, God. Mark me.
Jordan Verner:Here I am, God. Put a bull's eye on my heart and I'm I'm I'm welcoming you. Some of you might be resisting this because it feels uncomfortable. When you are comfortable, God is often uncomfortable. But when you are uncomfortable, God is quite at ease because he is willing and he is able to do a work of change in our hearts.
Jordan Verner:I hear tears. Holy tears. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Just gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna read these prayers. These are simple prayers of repentance.
Jordan Verner:I wanna invite you to pray after me. It just says, Jesus, forgive me for any way I've boundaried my heart from experiencing your compassion. Will you give me your heart and compel me with holy unbridled love? Jesus, forgive me for any way I've been blinded from seeing the way your image is being mistreated in the earth. Will you open my eyes and give me your vision that I may see where you are calling me to serve?
Jordan Verner:Just gonna invite you all, whoever if if if this is Phil, there's maybe a few more of you. There's something there's a resistance. There's a fight going on inside of you to just invite us all to just humble ourselves low before the Lord. We're just we're gonna worship, and we're gonna lay hands on those that are coming forward. We're gonna let the team just lead us in worship.
Jordan Verner:We're gonna just welcome you, Holy Spirit, to come write the law and the prophets in our heart. Not by might or by power, but by our striving, but by your spirit, Lord. Would you do a work in this church and empower us from the inside out to fulfill the law, to follow the footsteps of Jesus, that we would be compelled by love and we would take God not just amazing church services, but we'd bring transformation to our cities, to our neighborhoods. In us, God, mark us today in this place, spirit of God.
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