Celeste Contreras: Welcome to the Sandals Church podcast. My name is Celeste, and I am part of the team here at Sandals Church. We are so happy to have you join us today as we listen to this message with Melody Workman teaching from our gospel of Matthew series. If you've enjoyed our content, consider leaving us a rating to help this podcast reach more people. But for now, let's get into the message.
Melody Workman: Alright. I wanna ask you, how many of you guys like going to the movies? Like going to the movies? I love going to the movies. Sometimes, don't even care what the movie is.
Give me my snack, put me in a recliner, in a dark room, leave me alone. Okay? I'm I'm about it. But a few years ago, my husband came home and he announced to the whole family, we were going to the movies that night. Y'all know what it's like to take a whole family to the movies.
This was gonna be special. So, I said, are we seeing? He goes, there's a new Star Wars movie out. I was like, oh, okay. I'm not I'm not a big Star Wars fan, but he was.
He was stoked. And I said, can you like tell me the story again? Because I get Star Wars and Star Trek mixed up. And Yeah. So he's told me the story line before, but like I hadn't fully gotten it.
So we get in the car, we're on our way to the movies, and he's telling me the whole storyline again about Star Wars. I'm like, okay. And he then he makes this one request. He says, babe, just just try to stay awake. Okay?
Like to so you can get it. And I'm like, I'm gonna do my best, but you're not the boss of me. So, we get in line, we get food, I get snacks, I get my recliner. I have a movie blanket because it's always cold in the movies. This place is packed.
Everybody here for the Star Wars movie. We get in the theater, lights go down, the movie comes on, the whole thing, and I decided to take a nap. My body just had its way. I dozed off for maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. When I wake up, no lie, the whole theater is riveted by what is happening on the screen.
I mean, no one is moving. No one is chewing. Everyone is leaning up from their recliner watching this scene unfold. I look at what's happening on the screen and I'm riveted. I can't even believe what this scene.
I'm looking around. I'm like, oh my gosh. So, as quietly as I could, I lean over and whisper to my husband, Indiana Jones is in Star Wars? Plot twist. And I have to tell you that I've been married for a lot of years and my husband looks at me with love most days.
In that moment, he looked at me and said, go back to sleep. Like it because I didn't get it, clearly. And I still don't get it. I don't know who side one lady goes with and who the the masked voice. I don't know.
I'm sorry. And I don't wanna offend any Star Wars people, but I've tried to get it, but I I haven't understood the story. And you know what that's like. Someone that you love tells you something and you forget. They've told you again.
They tell you the third time, the fourth time, the hundredth time. And sometimes we just don't get it. It's funny because when we get into the passage we're in today, the end of Matthew nine, I've heard this passage my whole life. Jesus is talking about something in this passage that to be honest with you, I haven't gotten in all of my years of following him. But here's the thing, Jesus talks about this very thing more than he talks about anything else.
So I feel like it's important that we get it. I feel like if I lined up a bunch of Christians and said, well, what do you think that means? We would get a myriad of answers. But listen, I follow Jesus with my life and I know a lot of you follow Jesus with your life. So I actually think it's crucial that we understand what he is talking about when we get to Matthew nine thirty five through 38.
So read this with me. It says, Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area teaching in the synagogues and announcing, this is the phrase, the good news about the kingdom. And he healed every kind of illness and disease. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, the harvest is great but the workers are few.
So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest and ask him to send more workers into his fields. Jesus, would you help us get it today? We lean in, we want to know, we want to understand, we want to follow you as best we can in Jesus name. Amen. Here's point number one.
I must understand what the kingdom of God really means. Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven interchangeably in the gospels over a 100 times. That's how much he's talking about it. That's how important it is. Matthew four seventeen it says, from then on Jesus began to preach, repent of your sins, turn to God for the kingdom of heaven is near.
Luke four forty three, but he replied, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God in other towns too because this is why I was sent. Another passage in Luke, it says, Jesus being grilled by the pharisees on when the kingdom of God would come answered, the kingdom of God doesn't come by counting the days on the calendar. Nor when someone says, look here or there it is. And why? Because God's kingdom is already among you.
What is Jesus talking about when he is talking about the kingdom? Some people say, well, he's talking about heaven, where we're gonna go when we die. Some people say, well, he's talking about the kingdom of my heart. He's the he's the king of my heart. Listen, when we talk about the kingdom, I want us to think more in terms of authority rather than a locality.
Through Jesus listen. God's authority and power have come onto the scene. Through Jesus, God's power is being unleashed. Why was this such good news? Because Jesus was born a Jew to a lowly Jewish mother and Jewish father who were being severely oppressed by a Roman government.
There was unlawful taxation. There was rigid control. There was unlawful crucifixion. Remember when Jesus was born and the wise men came to king Herod to to worship this baby king, and Herod got jealous and just decreed that every two year old male from Bethlehem would be slaughtered. It was an unfair, unjust rule and reign that they were under, and then Jesus comes onto the scene.
They were longing for a new way of life, a new king, a better way of life. And Jesus comes onto the scene announcing the good news of the kingdom to people who really needed it. But what sets Jesus apart is Jesus wasn't just talking about the kingdom. He was doing the work of the kingdom. It says, he healed every kind of disease and illness.
In this, Jesus reveals he's not just a dreamer, he's a healer. He's not talking about something in the far off distance. He's not just a preacher, he has the power. The kingdom of God was here as it was prophesied in Isaiah which these which these people would know. Isaiah said, and when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind.
He will unplug the ears of the deaf. The lame will leap like deer and those who cannot speak will sing for joy. They had heard prophecy about the kingdom and now they were in the presence of the kingdom. Because why? Because where Jesus is doing the work of God, there is God's kingdom.
Where the followers of Jesus are doing the work of God, there is God's kingdom and that is good news. How do we live out the good news of this kingdom? By loving our enemies, by healing the sick, confronting evil, feeding the hungry, forgiving those who wrong us, living and serving as an active member in the community of Jesus. I want you to think about something. There's an estimated 660,000,000 evangelical Christians in the world right now.
What would the world look like if all 660,000,000 evangelical Christians decided to live like this? In fact, what if we abandon the idea that we're just here to share our faith every now and then, and we should be sharing our faith and telling the good news. But what if we're actually called to be good news? What if we decided to be good news people? N.
T. Wright who was one of the most brilliant New Testament scholars alive says this about the kingdom. He says, it's not just a future hope, it's a present reality impacting how Christians live and engage with the world. The kingdom of God is about God's reign characterized by love, justice, and healing and it is manifested through acts of service, compassion, and confronting injustice. Isn't that good news?
Imagine how that good news would impact your life, where you work, your family, your neighborhoods, your community. In fact, I want you to think about something. What are you like when you receive good news? You're getting more back from the IRS than you thought. The surgery was successful.
Nothing but sun on your wedding day. LeBron is not getting traded. Like, imagine how you are when you get good news. How do you feel? Like, how do you respond?
Now, want you to ask yourself this question. When your coworkers see you come into the office, does that feel like good news to them? When you get home from work, when you show up at the extended family barbecue, the question we have to wrestle with is, is my life good news? I was so challenged by this. So challenged by this.
And I and I asked myself this question, Melody, what gets in your way of living a life that is good news? What gets in our way? And here's where I landed. I think that we all, if we're honest, have our own micro kingdoms. Our micro kingdoms get in the way of the macro kingdom, his kingdom, and keep us from living out this life of being good news.
Fun fact, I'm short. I know you didn't know. And, I have a lot of experience with things being in my way. Now, I can stop drop and roll so fast, you know. But the highest shelf in the grocery store cabinet in my kitchen, it's a problem.
It's a problem for me. And a few years ago, my husband and I went to this show. The theater was incredibly beautiful, but so antiquated. It had not been modernized at all. And so he had to sit on the aisle because he's a lot, you know, taller than I am.
And I was like, fine. Like, I can sit next to you. And everything was great until right as the curtain went up, two dudes, like mountain men, sat right in front of both of us, him and me. And so my beautiful view of the stage was now someone's back. He was wearing a flannel.
I do remember that. And my husband's like, do you wanna switch? I'm like, you got mountain man number one. I got mountain man number two. Like, I'm just gonna have to put my head on your shoulder and like try to do my best.
I couldn't see. I I I would kind of catch parts of the show. I could hear the music, people clapping. I was in the room. I was in the vicinity, but I was detached and disconnected from what was going on.
And this is what our micro kingdoms do with the kingdom of God. We're in church. We're in the word. We're close to it. We hear about it, but our micro kingdoms are in the way.
Amen. What is your micro kingdom? It's what consumes you, your time, your energy, your focus. It's what we're living for regardless of whether we'd want to admit that or not. Here's what I call micro kingdom living.
It's living for the lesser. The lesser kingdom. The lesser meaning. The lesser impact. The lesser purpose.
Here's some familiar micro kingdom mottos. Some of your micro kingdoms are built around comfort. Your motto is as long as I'm okay. What drives you, what fuels you, what consumes you is making sure that everything in your little world is convenient and comfortable for you. Some of you, it's money.
The mic the motto of your micro kingdom is more is better. So you're up every day. You're you're driven. You're focused. You're consumed with making more money.
That's what's got your heart. For some of you, it's relationships. If they love me, then I matter. That's all you're consumed with, driven by, focused on. You don't even know who you are outside of a relationship.
For some of you, it's politics. If my side wins, everything will be better. That's what you talk about. It's what you post about. You're in that twenty four hour news cycle.
My micro kingdom is control. I wanna be in control. I don't want things to be out of control. And so the model for mine is, like, I just wanna be safe. I just I want everything around me to be safe and taken care of.
And let me tell you, when I'm when I am consumed in my micro kingdom, my life is small and my prayers are small because everything is focused on me. Let me tell you the motto of the kingdom Jesus was talking about, on earth as it is in heaven. On earth as it is in heaven. What consumed Jesus, what he was living for, what he was talking about and traveling and announcing everywhere he went was that he was being and bringing God's reign, God's goodness, God's godness to the earth. And there isn't better news.
And there isn't a better motto. And this message was so important that Jesus was not still. He was busy. He was traveling, healing, and announcing. Why?
Because of how much people needed to hear this message. Look at verse 36. It says, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. This is point number two. I must learn to see people the way that Jesus does.
The compassion of Jesus. Some time ago, was speaking at a women's event and as the day was wrapping up, there was some women who wanted to talk and so I was meeting them and hearing a little bit about their stories. And there was a woman standing off to the side like she wanted to talk but she wasn't sure. And so I walked over and I said, hi, what's your name? She looked at me and then she put her head down and she was kind of awkward, kinda shy and she finally looked into my face and told me her name and then she said this.
She said, I'm a prostitute. And I have to be honest, I kind of froze in that moment. She didn't say I was, I had been, I left that. She said, I am a prostitute. And in that brief second, I prayed the quickest prayer.
I said, Jesus, what do you wanna say to her? Because I didn't know. And I stood there and it was like in that briefest moment, Jesus allowed me, he just pulled back the curtain a little bit and the pain behind her eyes that carried a story that I didn't know, that carried woundedness that I didn't know, that carried choices and regrets and pain that I didn't know. I caught it in a flash and I heard myself say to her, Jesus loves you. Yeah.
Because he does. Yeah. We're so it's so easy for us to to look at sin and call it things and have feelings about it and and we should, we should hate sin. We and and that's all true. But it's easy to feel a certain way when we don't know a face or a name connected to it.
So what is it like for Jesus who made every face and knows every name? Please don't miss this. The ministry of Jesus wasn't fueled by condemnation for their sins, but rather compassion for their souls. John three seventeen says this, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Let me make this abundantly clear.
Jesus hates sin because Jesus loves us. He hates sin because he loves us and because we know what sin does to us. Like, we're honest, sin makes us stupid. You know? Like, that no.
Let's do that. That's gonna be awesome. Oh, crap. That wasn't awesome. It always sounds good.
Always feels good. You guys can judge me for this. I don't curr. But a Big Mac tastes good to me. It just does.
It tastes good to me. And don't send me your like, don't email me with all the ingredients and all that. Like, I'm gonna send it to somebody else. It's a guilty pleasure. I don't have them all the time.
But a few months ago, my whole family was gone, and I've just felt this freedom. I'm like, I'm gonna DoorDash myself a Big Mac. I got it with extra Mac sauce because that's how you do it. That's how you do it. And I enjoyed it.
Like, I enjoyed that Big Mac. I had so much extra mac sauce. I was dipping my fries. I did get a diet coke to bounce it out. I felt good.
Didn't feel any shame, no regret, till about 03:30 in the morning. My body woke me up to say, we don't do that anymore. You're not who you once were, Melody. And for the next hour, I deeply regretted the Big Mac. Didn't say it's gonna stop me from doing it again, but isn't that what it's like with sin?
Sin is fun till you have to get drug tested for work. Sin's fun till you get pulled over for a DUI. Sends fun until someone has to look at your phone. Sends fun till you show up at a Coldplay concert. Sends fun.
It's real. But here's the thing. Sin doesn't just make us stupid, sin makes us suffer. The stupidity of our sin causes us to suffer. And when that happens, Jesus is saying to us, do you think they could use some good news people in their life right about now?
Hey, Jesus can bring resurrection from your ruin. Hey, Jesus can heal the holes in your heart. Jesus, hey, good news. Jesus can make masterpieces out of messes. What kind of people in your life right now could use some good news?
The compassion that Jesus felt, we need to understand what that word compassion actually means. It was a deep gut level emotional response. It was a visceral reaction to the suffering of others. It shows a God that's deeply affected and emotionally stirred by their plot. Don't miss this.
Often leading to action. It reveals a God who is intimately acquainted and deeply moved by the suffering of his people. Here's what we learn when we see the compassion of Jesus, that feeling bad isn't the same as doing good. This is often where we stop, that there's no place in the life and ministry of Jesus where his compassion did not lead to action. Why?
Because this is what it means to be good news people. Point number three is this, I must learn to see myself the way that God does. Who is Jesus with right now while he's doing this ministry? He is with his disciples. I can't tell you how many times when reading the gospels, I wish the disciples were wearing body cams.
Because you just have to know that every day they're like, what's he gonna do today? You know? Like, they're on the boat, Jesus is sleeping, mouth breathing, you know? Oh, well, he could probably clear his own sign and says he is the Lord. Feeding the 5,000, like, they were just every day.
And they were like, oh my god. He's he's spitting in mud. Someone's gonna see. He just called Lazarus out of the grave. But imagine when Jesus would turn to them and say, hey, I'm leaving, but when I'm gone gone, you guys are gonna do this.
They were like, what? What? Who? Me? Jesus, do do you know who I am?
I often wonder how we see ourselves when we read what Jesus calls his disciples to do. He might put an opportunity in front of you and you say, Jesus, do you know who I am? In my forties, I've had to learn more about eating right minus the Big Macs. Okay? I get.
I know. And so I call these things diet dupes. Like, if you really like this, you should eat this. If you really like this, you should drink this. And it's like because this is not good for you, but you can have this and it almost tastes the same.
And some of these make sense. But some of these, we've gone way too far. Okay? The vegetable we are asking way too much of is cauliflower. Okay?
We are asking ridiculousness of cauliflower. Be my rice, be my mashed potatoes, be my puree, be my pizza crust, be my couscous, be my best friend. Cauliflower. If cauliflower could talk, it's literally looking at us saying, do you know what I am? I am a mid stinkbot vegetable.
Okay? Cauliflower's not buy one, get one for you. It's like, just take it. Okay? We've taken the whole cauliflower thing too far.
But I was in a restaurant a few months ago with a friend, and this blew my mind. Okay? Nice restaurant. Right under the filet mignon entree, you guys. Okay?
Cauliflower steak. That is so offensive to a cow. I just How in the world? And I have a really hard time, non shocker, not showing on my face what I'm thinking in my head. And I'm going off to my friend.
She goes, no, it's a thing. She's like, for vegans, vegetarians? I like, are you serious? She goes, yeah. You guys, I went home that night and I went on YouTube and I watched a Michelin rated chef whose family has gone vegan make a cauliflower steak.
And when he was done, I was hungry. Okay? It was incredible. He took this mid stink butt head of cauliflower and turned it into a delicious steak. A reminder that something so ordinary, so bland on its own in the hands of a master chef can become something amazing.
Some of you disqualify yourselves all the time. I can't do that. Let's let's talk about the disciple. Some of you say, I'm crazy. Well, Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene.
Come on. Melody, I'm still doubting. I'm following what I'm doubting. That's okay. Thomas was doubting after the resurrection.
Come on. I'm not I'm not really that popular. That's okay. When Jesus brought Matthew, the tax collector, into the disciples, those boys either bailed or brawled because they did not like him. Come on.
I'm a lot. Simon the zealot, Probably prone to some violence we don't know about, bro. Could have been out there. I'm just ordinary. There's nothing that special about me.
There was no more ordinary job than being a fisherman in the day of Jesus. And yet, this this convoluted ordinary group of disciples, Jesus said, I'm going to leave the greatest mission there ever was in your hands. Wanna know why? Because Jesus isn't asking you to be a super Christian, just a surrendered one. He doesn't need you to be something that you're not.
He can make you into everything he wants you to be. There's no such thing as a super Christian, but there's nothing God can't do with a surrendered one. And listen, this is why some of you don't serve. Because you look around, everybody's got it. I'm not that great.
I'm too busy. I've got a lot going on. I just come to sit. I just you have all of your excuses and yet we need to be real about when people don't serve what that does to the church. Listen to what one of Jesus' disciples, the one who messed up more times than he could count, the one who got it wrong more than he got it right, but ended up having a massive impact on the church in the New Testament.
Peter wrote this, God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. What are you doing with the gift that you have? How are you using who you are and what you have to serve others? Does God have your yes?
I hope so. Because verse 37 says this, and this isn't me giving an analysis, this isn't pastor Matt giving an analysis, This is Jesus saying this, the harvest is great, but the workers are few. Number four, I must see myself as part of the solution. Let me explain what the harvest is great actually means. It emphasizes the sheer greatness and abundance of people, get ready, who are prepared and receptive to the gospel message.
It highlights that there is a vast opportunity for evangelism and discipleship underscoring the urgency of the mission. The harvest is ready. Yes. People are ready. You say, how do you know that?
Because of these words, for God so loved. If he loves the world, then he's working in the world in ways that we can't even see. Yeah. He's working all the time. He's moving in people to create moments of transformation.
He says in John five seventeen, Jesus replied, my father is always working and so am I. My friend Scott, we went to bible college together and Scott always had a vision and a heart for the marginalized, the oppressed, the invisible people To the point that years later, God called him and his wife into the deep deep jungles of Indonesia. To a tribe that had never been exposed to the outside world, had never even seen white skin. They had no written language. Scott and his wife, Jenny, went there with a full heart, called by God, ready to do his work.
But it took them not weeks, not months, but years to even be able to talk with him. Okay? Who wants to go with their spouse into a jungle where you can't talk to anybody else? Okay? Right.
Test your Christianity. And about year three, they were getting pretty discouraged. Caught thinking about calling it quits. They'd been there a long time, they'd done some good things, but this was just getting too hard. And Scott writes that one day he was on his porch of his hut that he had built and a man in the village had built his hut right next to Scott's, which was interesting but also a little concerning.
And Scott decided to have a conversation and as best he could understand why the man had done that. So he asked him, when we came here, why did you build your house right next to ours? And the man told Scott this story. He said, when I was about this high, my father had a dream. And in this tribe, dreams mean everything to them.
They dreams where they see and hear and feel in dreams is of incredible importance. And we woke up and we said, dad, tell us your dream. And he said, a man with white skin moved into our village because he had a great message to share. And after he shared his message, we became like family. The man looked at Scott and said, and keep in mind now, this man's father had died many years prior to Scott coming to the village.
He said, when you showed up, I knew you were the man in my father's dream and I moved my house right next to yours so that when you're ready to tell us this message, I'm the first one to hear it. The harvest is ready. God's working on the hearts of people deep in Indonesia, and he's working on the hearts of people in your cul de sac. People that you work with. He's working.
He's always at work. And we miss it sometimes because we miss what it says in verse 38. So pray to the Lord of the harvest who is in charge of the harvest. Ask him to send more workers into his field. Notice how Jesus describes this this overwhelming need of the harvest and doesn't say go, but he says pray.
He could have said go, but he says pray. Why? Don't miss this because prayer aligns my heart with his heart. Prayer becomes an invitation for him to change me so that I can reach them. When I give my kids a tour to do at the house, I don't ask them to pray about it.
I don't say, get up today. If you're burdened about the dishwasher, empty it by the time I get home. Pray about the trash. No. I don't ask them to pray about it.
I don't care if their hearts are aligned with my heart. Go do it. But in this, you know what Jesus is teaching us? This isn't a task. This isn't a chore.
This is the good news of the kingdom that everybody needs to know. And I'm challenged by this because I had to ask myself how often do I pray for people that I know, let alone people that I don't. You say, don't even know what to pray, 38 tells us. Ask him to send more workers into his field. This is where we have to have an honest conversation about what it in so many ways is killing the church and having a devastating impact.
It's the sedentary Christian. I want you to think about everything you've heard about living a sedentary lifestyle. The idea is that people who are sedentary are more prone to sickness and disease because our bodies are made for motion. Being sedentary increases the mortality rate by seventy one percent. Sedentary lifestyles increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and related mortality.
It's a big deal. But now think about it in our context, Christians who are sedentary are more prone to spiritual sickness and diseases because our faith was made to be mobile. Only seventeen percent of Christians shared their faith regularly. 64% of Christians haven't talked about Jesus with a non Christian in the past six months. And get this, 84% of church church goers say they want to serve, but only 30% of them have actually done it in the last year.
Church, we've confused be still with stay still. There is no invitation in the New Testament to be a sedentary Christian or live a sedentary Christian lifestyle. Do wanna know why? Because good news people are people on the move. When I'm in my micro kingdom praying my small prayers and living my small life and getting frustrated when God's not doing what I want him to do and I pray, God, why aren't you moving?
He's saying, why aren't you? Your micro kingdom isn't why I came. Too often, we're waiting for a lightning in the sky moment for God to circle somebody with his heavenly highlighter and say, go talk to them. And we're missing the regular, mundane, ordinary moments in everyday life, the opportunities that are right here, right now. And here's so here's what is so important for all of us to know.
When I miss the moments, I miss the mission. When I miss the moments, I miss the mission. I found myself in a place that I hate several months ago, is the hospital waiting room. Adam was having a procedure done on his heart. I was filled with anxiety.
My daughter was with me. We were the only ones in the waiting room, and she brought a coloring book. She heard that was good for anxiety and we were just coloring together, praying, listening to worship music, thinking about her dad and my husband. And as we were sitting there, another woman came in and sat across the waiting room. And I heard her get on the phone and she was crying and she was calling people to tell people that her mother had had a heart attack.
And she had been Christmas shopping and it happened in the store and they'd had to get an ambulance and she was going through the whole thing and then she was having a neighbor check on her dad who was disabled. She was filled with fear too, like me. And I heard the Holy Spirit say to me as clearly as I could, go ask her if you can pray for her. And I didn't. Not because I didn't care, but because I was consumed with my own stuff.
I was going through something hard. I was in there in my own fear and anxiety. It wasn't like I didn't care about her. I was just I was consumed, but I missed a moment and I regretted to just say, I have prayed for her so many times because I don't know what God wanted to do with that moment. But I also wanna tell you about a man named John.
John was in his late twenties and he was destroying his life with alcohol, hanging out with all the wrong people. Just his life was a mess. He was on a highway to hell. And something started to happen in John that was unsettling to him and unfamiliar to him, something he didn't even recognize, but it would make him emotional. And on one Saturday night when he was hanging out with his boys, he got so emotional that he asked to pull over and go into gas stations so he could get himself together.
He's like, what is wrong with me? What is happening to me? And his friend looked at him and said, maybe you need to go to church. He didn't know what church to go to. He didn't know a Christian.
But the next morning, early on a Sunday morning before church was even open, there he was sitting on the front steps of a church just waiting for it to open. When they finally got there, it was an old traditional Baptist church and they started off with Sunday school. So he walked into the back of the Sunday school and you know what? It was boring. And he just about left.
When the class finished, he was like, maybe I'll get over this. And he began to walk out and a man in that church saw him and said, why don't you come to service and sit with me? And John did. And he sat in that service and when the service was over and the pastor asked people to place their faith in Jesus, John did. And then John began to grow in his faith.
John got baptized. John got discipled. A few years later, God called John into full time Christian service. He went to school to become a pastor. Why am I telling you this story?
Because John is my grandfather. And I think about how that man not missing his moment has affected the trajectory of my life. We don't wanna miss the moments. The harvest is ready. People are ready.
I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but there is a theme verse for our church. When God planted the vision of Sandals Church in pastor Matt and Tammy's heart, he gave them a verse. Romans ten fifteen says, how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the scripture say, how beautiful are the feet of the messengers who do what? Bring good news.
The vision of our church is that we would all be good news people. People who bring, people who go, people who tell, people who share, people who pray, people who invite, people who love, people who care, people who serve. Listen, I say this in love. Sitters don't need sandals, but good news people do. I wonder if you know someone who could use some good news people in their life.
I'm gonna ask wherever you're watching if you have something to write with, to grab it, if you've got your phone or a piece of paper and a pen. Because for a moment, I want you just to imagine what would happen to Sandals Church if all of us decided to become good news people. And if God's brought a name to your mind, I just want you to write it down. Maybe it's your dad, maybe it's your mom, maybe it's a friend, a coworker, a neighbor, a roommate, a boss, an employee. Someone in your life that needs good news, that needs good news people.
I want you to write their name down. And for and for just a moment, we're gonna do exactly what Jesus told us to do. We're gonna pray right now. Jesus, you love so and so. You made so and so.
They need your good news. Invade their heart, Jesus. Invade their minds. Just pray over them if you know of a need that they have. But now we're gonna do something else.
If you're willing to say, Melody, I'm I'm nervous. I don't know fully what it means. I'm not sure exactly what it looks like or what God might ask me to do, but I'm going to give God my yes to being the kind of good news people he was and that he's called me to be in the life of this person that I know. If you're willing to do that, I'm gonna ask you to be courageous and I'm gonna ask you to stand right where you're sitting, wherever you're watching from. If you're willing to be good news people, would you stand?
Now, just imagine. Just imagine what happens in our church and in our communities and in our state and in the world if we all live out this vision of being good news people. For some of you, you need to start right where you are. We have kids and students in our campuses that need good news people, serving them and teaching them and telling them about this wonderful Jesus who wants to change their life. We need people who can smile.
I probably not me. To welcome people into the house of God. We need people who pray. You say, I don't know where to start. Start right where you are.
How can I serve God? How can I give you my yes? And then God, as I look out beyond our church, where do you need me to be good news? Show me, lead me, give me courage, make me more like you. As we pray right now, I'm gonna actually invite you to be selfish and pray over yourself.
Pray over your own courage. Pray over your own heart. Pray over your own motives. Pray over your own stumbling blocks. And as you pray, I will pray over all of us, Jesus, that you would make Sandals Church a church full of good news people.
That you would radically change our homes, our families, our communities, our neighborhoods because we have decided to take the message of your good news and bring it to the world. God, would you convict us when we are stuck behind the gates of our own micro kingdoms? Would you rid us of selfish ambition and living for the lesser? Would you create in us a heart and a desire to see more and more people come to know you, to follow you, to serve you, that there would be more stories like John in the world. Jesus, we know that you can do.
You are the master chef. You can make something extraordinary out of the most ordinary so we all give ourselves to you. Have your way in us and through us so that one day heaven will be the most crowded place. We know this brings joy to your heart so we give you our yes. In Jesus name, amen.
Christina Crowley: If this message spoke to you or any of the content that we create has served you in any way, I wanna encourage you not to miss this moment and to put it into action. When you give to Sandals Church online, you are literally helping to spread the good news, the gospel, the hope of the kingdom around the world right where you are. So would you prayerfully consider joining us, whether it's a TikTok video we create or a message just like this. Your partnership makes an incredible difference. You can go to sandalschurch.com/support, to give that way and just know when you do, it's so incredibly valuable. Thank you so much for joining us and God bless your week.
Morgan Teruel: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you want more content from this series, we have the YouTube playlist linked in the description. And if you want more information about who we are and what we do, you can go to sandalschurch.com.