May 28: Anxiety & Faith

Those I believe all the announcements and so now as we go into our sermon series, I am really excited about this one. I know that's the word that I just used all the time. It's usually true that I am excited about what we do is a church and I'm excited about how I get to the desert with you. And are you focus this year has been on loving our neighbors. And so we spent a few weeks in January, talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan which is Jesus's longest died conversation about what it means to love your neighbor. And we reflected on the fact that your neighbor is nothing more complicated than the person who is near you. It literally means the person who lives next to you, the person who stands next to you works next to you shops, next to you, whatever the people near you, are your neighbors, and you are called to love those people. And then we looked at the life of Abraham for a few months, as the first person that God Called to love his neighbors and we looked at the successes and failures and the lessons in Abraham's Journey. And then over the last five weeks, we looked at the Gospel of John and our main focus. There was on trying to understand how this radical focus on others can be sustainable in a life that it feels like. We don't feel like we don't have enough resources for ourselves. We talked about how it did actually involves a different kind of life. This what got Jesus calls eternal life, which is a life that is sustained on giving and sharing and receiving life from God and sharing with others, rather than trying to accumulate and hold onto resources, and Survive, by what we can own and control. So, for the last 5 weeks, we took this really narrow focus on the person. The individual and what loving others means for me as an individual today, we're going to start a series of going to take us to the other end of the spectrum. We're going to talk about how loving our neighbors is actually. Also the way that we transform, not just ourselves, but the world, and it has been the greatest cause for transformation in the world in the past 2000 years. and, The reason we're talking about this is partly because maybe because it fits in with the, the trajectory the wrong as we talked about, loving our neighbors, as I was trying to decide what to do next. I realized that it needed to be something sustainable that I could do. While we're also preparing for convention and I'm doing all the other things that trying to keep all the plates spinning, right? It's all want to pick something that I'm already very familiar with that isn't going to cause require a lot of new research and this was the obvious place we to go because what were the talk about today? Not only is it actually something to talk about a convention but it's also at the very core of why I am a pastor It's at the very core of of what drives me as a person and what makes me excited to be part of the church, I'm going to tell you a little bit of my backstory if you if you are not familiar with this part, when I went to college, I studied politics, my bachelor's degrees in government. I graduated at the top of my class, I was very well qualified to go on into a political career and I ultimately decided not to. And the reason I decided not to had to do was an experience that I had. A couple of things that I did as astute as a college student, was my sophomore and junior year, I was an intern with the Washington State Legislature. And then my senior year, I was a lobbyist for the Student Union at Eastern Washington University and my junior year, it was great of 2007. And it was it was the heady days of 2007, right? When life was so much simpler but the economy was doing pretty well. And it was, it was a very positive and I came back as a lobbyist in 2008, And my one job was to keep tuition down because state colleges are supported by tax dollars. And if any of you remember what happened, fall of 2007 going into 2008, you may remember there was a little bit of a squeeze economically. The greatest state budget deficit. We had ever faced by a factor of like five and the feel of the state capital was completely different. It was a completely different place the year before and it all been positive and upbeat and and the the the the party rivalries have been kind of teasing. And everybody was getting along, there was on the same team and then there was enough money to go around and everything was different. Everybody was fighting. Everybody was angry, everybody was desperate, the amount of backbiting and betrayal that. I saw it was just, it was unpleasant are across the board and I came home after the session and I went home to my church and it was like a 50-person church plant. And I looked around this community and I liked it there some churches that are triage units where people who've been hurt by other churches or just by the world. They come into that church, and they get healed and that's just like the identity of that church. And that's kind of what we were. And I looked around that church and I realized I some more hope for transforming the world in that little 50-person Church Plant than I did, in all the Departments and agencies and everything that I had been involved in. Olympia. It had nothing to do with which party was in charge of which candidates have been elected. It was just looking at the powers and the motivations and everything involved in what the state government had. And then looking at the power and motivation and everything that the church had, I found so much more hope in the church. And that's when I decided,

To change my path and go to Seminary and that's ultimately the path that led me to becoming a pastor that I never actually really got out of my desire to change the world. I just decided to go where the real power in the real Hope was

The reason I tell you that story is because that's at the core of what I want to talk to you about today because in the Western World, we have this idea that the world. If you want to change the world, then you turn to statecraft statecraft is the term for using the power of the state in order to shape the world in order to fix problems. So, if you want to change the world, if you want to make the world a better place, you need to control, who's in the White House, you need to control. Who's in the Supreme Court, you need to control who's in the state legislature. The governor's house Congress. You need to control the laws that they're passing. We need to be in control of power, so we can shape the world. The way it needs to be not was the assumption that I had going into college. And what I realized coming out of college, was that in scripture? It's not statecraft that changes the world, it's kingdomcraft, it's the power of the kingdom of God, that really changes things. And one of the things we struggle with, when we try and ask when we go to the Bible, looking for instructions on how to change the world and we bring to our normal assumptions about how the world gets changed is the Bible doesn't talk in those terms and so we have to force it to say the things we want. And that's why there's a million different perspective on what it means to be faithful American Christian. Because we're constantly forcing it into our our own ways of thinking around learning from the Bible. So what I want to do in this series is that wants to look at what the Bible tells us about how God equips us to actually change the world and where to find as it has a lot more to do with loving your neighbor than with controlling other people with power. Today we're at, we're actually also going to be basically following the overall, story of the Bible, it in about five weeks. And today, we're going to start at the beginning. Just good place to start, and we're going to be talking about anxiety and faith.

read me looking at where this mentality of trying to use this power mentality came from and if we're going to ask you, what is the problem that our societies, the human societies need to solve and how do we go about trying to solve them? They're going to start with the first political Society in the Bible. Anybody know who founded the first political Society in the Bible? I know, you know, Casey, my wife, we talked about that, although I've also priest on this within the last couple years. So we remember,

Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the Land of Nod East of Eden Cain, may love to his wife and she became pregnant, give birth to Enoch Cain. Was then building a city and he named it after his son Enoch. First city is built in Genesis chapter 4 by a gentleman named Cain. Why did Cain build the first city? What turns out if we rewind a little bit was robbed at the end of his story. So let's rewind a little bit, he's afraid. He says he says to God my punishment is more than I can bear today. You are driving me from the land and I will be hidden from your presents. I will be a Restless Wanderer on the earth and whoever Finds Me will kill me. So we built this city because he's afraid of getting killed because you've been sent out to wander and being want and wandering me to very vulnerable and apparently people have a reason to kill him. So he's afraid of wineries, afraid of invulnerable. So we both know why is he, why is he wondering, why is he afraid? If we rewind a little bit more turns out that Caine has a brother. These are the first Brothers, by the way and Kane said, he was brother Abel, let's go out to the field and when they were in the field, he attacks his brother Abel and killed him. He was the first murderer. It's okay if built the city because he's exposed and vulnerable, and afraid of getting killed and disposed of on the front of it, he killed because he murdered his brother and God told him. Well, now you got to run for it that you can't murder people and then just hang out, that's not how it works, you or you're going to be on the Run. Okay, now, why did Cain kill his brother? Let's rewind a little bit more. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. A table also brought an offering that portions from some of the first one of his flock. The Lord, look with favor on a table and is offering put on Kane and his offering. He did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and his face was down at the Kane murdered table because God accepted Abel's offering and not his own. Here's a question.

Why did he kill Abel over that? But who rejected his offering? Got right. Who should I mean, if he should be mad at anybody, who would it be? And what did Abel actually do to Kane nothing? Right, so, that tells us something about Kingsman 2 mentality. He is not actually concerned about his relationship with God. Right? That's not the issue because murdering Abel does not fix his relationship with God, right? There's no way that he thinks killing his brother is going to make him good with God. He killed Abel because he's concerned about competing with his brother or it doesn't matter whether she's on, good terms with God. So much, as whether he's on better terms with God than the competition. So, there's two ways that he could fix this situation, right? He could either, You could either. Get on better terms of God than with Abel, which is, we're going to require a lot of work and a lot of trial-and-error or it'll kill the competition. So this whole thing grows out of Kane's attitude of scarcity. The word I'm going to use scarcity, which means that in his mind, there is not enough to go around. At some point. There won't be enough to go around. And when push comes to shove, he needs to be a head, right? He needs to be winning cuz there is no actual threats. That Abel poses to Cain. Accept the fact that Abel is is winning in some kind of comparison and Kane wants to make sure that whenever push comes to shove because inevitably apparently it will that he is the one in front that he's ranked. Number one, Cuz there isn't enough for two people. Does this is also the same mentality that goes into the building of a second City. Anybody know what the second city was?

Babylon. Now, you know what is Babble, but actually in the Bible is exactly where it is just Babble on. And after the flood, there's the whole world is in one language in a common speech and its people movies where they found a plane in Shannara and settle there. And they said, come let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole Earth. So they are afraid that if they scatter, they're not going to make it there, vulnerable and they're afraid that there isn't enough to go around it. So we need to concentrate as much power as we can together. We need to build a tower. We need to build walls. We need to be secure so that we can defend ourselves from the scarcity of the world. This is the mentality behind both cities and it is the mentality behind the communities that we built. We think that the problem is scarcity, that there isn't enough to go around. Now, if the problem is scarcity, then what is the solution?

The solution. If the problem is scarcity is to get control of the resources to get control of how things are distributed to, protect yourself from people who may want to take from you. The only solution to scarcity is force. This is why they built cities, this is why they build walls. Because it protects them. From people who may want to take from them. And this is actually the logic that is built into Modern Nation States as well as in our founding documents. For instance, in the Declaration of Independence, says we hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life happiness to secure. These rights governments are instituted among men, we have rights those rights are constantly being threatened. We make governments to protect ourselves from the threats to our rights. Same thing as says in our constitution We the People United States in order to form a more perfect union. Establish justice insure domestic tranquility provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves. And our posterity do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America. The assumption is that all of these things are under threat. These things will not exist, unless we create them, or protect them with Force, because there isn't enough to go around

It's all we need to protect ourselves.

This seems as obvious as the nose on your face, right there isn't enough to go around. We need to protect ourselves. We need to turn to force. And so, when we as Christians go to the Bible, looking for the Bible, to tell us how we're supposed to participate in our society is in our communities. And how we're supposed to create change, we go with this mentality and we try and get the Bible to give us the right answers about how we're going to apply the biblical at. They can biblical principles to this modern challenge of controlling the world so that we can get the scarce resources into the right place. That's our mentality, right? And then what ends up happening is we get this broad range of answers of, how do you turn, how do you take biblical ethics and work them out, through our power structures? Here's the problem with that. The Bible does not actually share those assumptions. The Bible does is not built on the same logic until we don't approach the Bible within its own logic. We're not going to get biblical answers about how we are supposed to shape the world around us. First and foremost is to recognize, is that according to the Bible, scarcity is not the problem.

God's grace provides everything we need.

So at the very beginning, this is the first thing that God says to humanity. God bless them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number feel the Earth and subdue, it rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature, that moves on the ground. Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it, they will be yours for food. Did you all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the sky? And all the creatures that move along the ground? Everything that has the Breath of Life in it. I give every green plant for food and it was so what he had made and it was all very good. So he tells me two things. Number one, I want you to rule the Earth and number to, I've provided everything you need for that to happen. This is actually what it means when he says it was very good, very good. Doesn't mean it was perfect. If it was perfect, there will be no room for Humanity to do anything to subdue. Anything, we talked about this before they actually like God inviting them to his pile of Legos and saying, let's play together. Let's build things but there is work to do the things to be built, but what he's saying when he says it's good, is it has everything it needs, right? We have everything we need in order to sustain Humanity flourishing and and subduing the Earth and creating the world that God and God wants it. It's a working system. It doesn't need anything else. It is sufficient it is good, right? The problem is an end. Maintains that attitude all throughout all of these stories. It's this countermelody running through the stories with every person doubts, God's grace. God continually tells him know, I'm still taking care of you. I'm still taking care of you just trust that I'm taking care of you. So for instance, Kane is afraid that he is losing his competition. With his losses competition with his brother. What is God saying this before he killed Abel? They

This Is What God Says. Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do, what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do, what is right? Sin is crouching at your door, it desires to have you and you must rule over it. It was what he said. He's basically saying to Cain. Why are you upset about what's going on with Abel? This isn't a competition. You don't have to be table, you don't have to be first, it easy, you just have to do what's right? Just do the right thing and don't worry about Abel. But if you get into this competitive mindset thinking that you need to be first sin is ready, and it is going to grab you If you are not careful, soon is going to grab you. The whole thing is just don't give into that mentality. Unfortunately, he doesn't trust what God's telling him until he murders his brother, but even then God continues to respond with Grace because when God says, I have to go on the run now you can't just stay in your Society. After you've murdered people expect things to go on. Kane is afraid. He says, well somebody's going to kill me. God says not. So anyone who kills can you will suffer Vengeance? Seven times over the Lord, put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So notice The Mark of Cain, we often think that The Mark of Cain is a curse and it's actually being used that way to Great destructive ends as it's actually been told. It's been said that dark skin is does curse of Cain. The mark, whatever the Mark was, it's not a curse, it's a blessing, it's a sign of protection. It's a sign of God's grace. That he's going to protect Cain and Kane doesn't need to worry. Right. There ain't nothing. You need to worry. He's going to go through something very stressful but he doesn't need to build a city to protect himself. God is going to protect him. The cane doesn't trust. It. So he built this city and it's interesting that the same thing continues to happen with the Tower of Babel is what did God say to the people building the Tower of Babel when no one is family. Got off the ark. What did God say to the family? He said, be fruitful and increase in number and fill the Earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on the beasts of the earth and on all the birds in the sky. And on every creature, that moves along the ground. And on all the fish in the sea, they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you every green plant, just as I gave you the green plants. I now give you everything. Was that sound like That sounds like Genesis 1, right? It's a city like we didn't lose God's grace. In the fall is the same thing that he said in Genesis 1, he's still saying in Genesis 9th, and it's also the same thing that Jesus is Saint. Matthew 7 asking, it will be given to you seek, and you will find knock. And the door will be opened to you for everyone who asks receives the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks the door will be opened. Which of you. If your son asks for bread, will give him a stone or he asked for a fish, will give him a snake. If you then though, you are evil. Know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your father in Heaven? Get good. Give good gifts to those who ask him. You think we have a generous father who gives two people what they need? So the grace never goes away. Now, I know what you're thinking, especially if you were raised being taught that, you have to clear your plate at dinner because they're starving kids in Africa, right? There's one thing we know for sure there are starving kids around the world and so, how can we say the god provides what we need? We know there's poverty, we know there's need, we know, there are problems around the world. How can I possibly say that will first of all, I'm not saying this because I think that I'm saying this because it's what I find over and over again throughout the Bible. But second of all, keep in mind that this is not say that God gives to every individual directly what they need. It says that he gives to humanity what they need. And what I'm saying is that Humanity has a secure Supply in.

Do you ask if there's a secure Supply from God? Then how could we ever end up with need in the world? Well, let's talk about a little story. We all live through The great toilet paper shortage of 2020.

You better remember this? Empty shells. Full carts. People stockpiling. This is very hard to explain these empty shelves because here's the thing toilet paper, one of the most secure Supply chains in the United States at the time, turns out one of the last things will lose in Apocalypse is our toilet paper because it's all made domestically. It's made the United States. It's made from wood pulp and water which we have plenty of. We now have to import and its Maiden World towns, which were the least affected by covid. So how did we end up with these empty shelves? Well, there was an increase in demand because people were going into lockdown. So we are spending more time at home so they needed more home. Toilet paper. And so that it was an increased amount of 40% but buying went up 70%. There were days that toilet paper sold 700%, more than I had the same day the year before. People were Panic buying and some very quick thinking psychologists they managed to grab. He was there were stockpiling, toilet paper and run psychological test on the bid and ask them why they were buying more toilet paper, but they tested their personalities. And what they found was, the people who bought more toilet paper were not bigger families, they didn't have an increasing need for toilet paper, they were more anxious personalities. They were more afraid and that fear made them afraid that at some point. The toilet paper may go out. So I'm going to get as much as I can. Now to make sure that my toilet paper Supply is secure.

This was a huge things rather than they had to ration. Toilet paper. Completely secure Supply and we had to ration toilet paper. And what I what the Bible is saying is that this is not just some silly thing that happened in covid. This is what human beings do.

We do this all the time. We stockpile wealth, we stockpile food, we stockpile power, we stockpile weapons, we stockpile violently forced. We do this all the time to protect ourselves. We grabbed onto everything we can and we use it to protect ourselves.

And yet. The supply of what we actually need is secure, that's what the Bible is saying the whole scarcity mentality, it's not true. So what that means is the problem that our communities face is not It's not scarcity. It's anxiety. We are afraid of scarcity. Even in spite of God's generosity, God is generous and we were, we don't trust it, it's our fear. Not the lack of research but our fear of the lack of resources and are the selfishness that comes out of that fear. That causes the problems in the world.

I'm not fear, it creates generational, generational transformation in our community. Such that it, it it infects and corrupts us and after Cain killed his City. It takes a few generations for that Community to culminate in this guy named Lena Vitali suits, right? The first human song in the Bible and this is how it goes. It's a real real earworm. Zilla, listen to me. Why is it? Why Mike hear my words. I've killed a maid for wounding me a young man for Andrea meet. If Kane is Avenged seven times than Rain-X 77 times. What he saying they're in the middle, is he saying? Yeah, if a guy with a guy like punches me, I'm going to knock him to the ground. If I can't give me a paper cut, I'm going to kill him, right? Cuz it's exaggerated to let you touch me. I will destroy you. I do not take any grief from anyone at this is the epitome of the big stick policy. I will knock you down, so you don't get up. But notice what he says at the end, if Cain is Avenged, seven times seven times, Got these at all, but I'm going to avenge myself 77 times. You see this attitude, this, this this way that the anxiety comes pathological, so that he's completely obsessed with protecting himself from threats. That he actually thinks he can do a better job of it than God would do by a factor of 11. And that is the society about what you told, Millie says, later on in Genesis, the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth. And that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only Evil all the time. I need to strike them with a flood.

Notice that the problem is not that, there wasn't enough guy kept saying there is enough, You don't have to do this to each other but they couldn't trust him. And that lack of trust is what ultimately destroyed. Them, xanxiety poisons, our communities with Fierce, hatred, envy, and greed.

And here's the thing, we think the problem is scarcity, the problem is actually anxiety but if we think the problem is scarcity, then we bring all of our power to bear on and on scarcity is if the real problems anxiety is that could be helpful. Now governments Candy Hill ended. The Bible does say that there was a place for them to restrain evil because there is they there is a used for restraining the way people hurt each other, right? Like just like there was a used for controlling for the controlling, how much for the paper, two people to buy it. Be better if people just on their own, just didn't hoard toilet paper, but it was good because people hoarding toilet paper for someone to step in and say, alright, two rolls. I took two bags a day or a customer right there is used for restraining it, but that power is that power comes from anxiety. It's never going to fix it. Is it But if the if it's fear that the problem then bringing power to their on it is never actually fix it fear and power. Can I heal anxiety? They can only contain the symptoms. And this is why it's problematic for Christians to keep turning to power to try and solve The World's problems. When we know that the problem is not the supply, the problem is not scarce resources, the problem is humanity and our failure to trust God.

We're never ultimately going to change the world in meaningful ways simply by using power in different ways. We know that is Christians. The solution to anxiety, its anxieties the problem. The only way to really solve those problems is faith. Actually trusting that there really isn't enough to go around. Now, here's a challenge for you. Try convincing people of that without believing in God.

Pinstripe it, convincing people that they can just trust the material world to provide and it'll everything will be fine. It's not going to happen. And so if there is no God than that, scarcity is the best is accurate. And that's the best we can do.

But the only real basis for the kind of faith that can help us to change. Our scarcity mindset is Jesus.

Because Jesus not only taught cuz there are others who teach that God provides but Jesus proved it. Jesus proved that you can trust God's grace all the way to the cross.

Remember how Jesus handled his crucifixion? The guards came to arrest, Jesus to use power and force on him, and the disciples were upset. And so, what did they do? They try to use Force right back in Jesus says, put your sword back in its place for all. Who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do not, do you think that I cannot call him my father and he will at once, put in my disposal more than Twelve Legions of Angels, the how then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way. Notice he's not saying that, there's just some random pattern, that's just a clue that like, you know, like in the Old Testament says, there were Thirty pieces of silver. So Judas has to get 30 pieces of silver in the new touch. It could have just as easily been 15 or 50. It wasn't. The number that was important was just the fact that they are the same. That's not what Jesus is saying here. He's saying that this has to be fulfilled in the biblical way. According to the way God works in the world does later. He when he talks to Pilot. He says, my kingdom is not of this world, if it were my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place. He's not here, it's not using force and violence to get its way. He's going to submit to force and violence to prove that it doesn't ultimately win and Jesus. He goes to the Cross among many other things. The whole world is summarized in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But among all those things, one of the things he does is he proved that you can trust the Providence of God, the grace of God, to the very end and God will come through.

Are you can risk everything trusting God and you may even die in that process. And even death will not defeat God. Paul says about Jesus, this way, Jesus being in very nature. God did not consider equality with God. Something to be used to his own Advantage, rather, he made himself Nothing by taking on the very nature of a servant being made in human like this. Now, Jesus had that same scarcity. Mentality is not the same, like I've got a win. Would he ever have given up his godliness by his his place in heaven, we have made him. Would Kane ever have made himself last for another person. You see, this is Jesus not being competitive but living in God's grace, and being found in appearance as a man, but he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Your babe. God. To the point of letting himself be killed, which you would think would be the ultimate defeat of God's grace, right? Like when your dad is because while we were afraid of when were challenged to live in, God's grace as well, what if he doesn't provide enough money for me to keep my house, What if he doesn't provide enough money for me to finish college. What if he doesn't provide enough food for me to feed my family, and I'm not telling you to take like unwise risks and things like that. What I'm saying though cuz that can sometimes happen to what I'm saying though is that when we know the way God wants us to live and we ask will God take care of me through that. And then I'll look the way you wanted it to. We know from the Jesus's time in the Garden of Gethsemane that he wasn't excited about getting crucified, he would rather have not been crucified if that was an option. It wasn't but because it was the right way to go, he was willing to trust God to the point of even dying which should be the ultimate defeat of God's grace and yet what happened God is exalted into the highest place and gave him the name. That is above every name. That the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on Earth and under the Earth. And every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father, he raised them to life to eternal life that can never be taken away again. And he made him King over everything until the power. That actually rules over this world is infused with God's grace. This world is ruled over. It wasn't just designed with God's grace but it's been reconquered by God's grace.

It's the only way that we can actually fix the problems that really a foot Humanity, which is human beings. We are our own problem and it is mainly our failure to trust God and our compulsive need to protect ourselves that it take for ourselves. The only way to fix the problem with the problem is us is Jesus.

And if the only solution is Jesus and his trusting in the faith of Jesus, then only a church a community built on faith in Jesus rather than on Power and actually convinced the world to trust God. Because only the church can say we're here by the grace of God.

It is the grace of God that brings this Motley Crew of people together, right? Is the grace of God that keeps us coming back. It is the grace of God that is kept. People coming back to the church for 2009, coming back but flourishing, write this tiny little little Jewish sect illegal Jewish sect in from the course of Roman Empire took over the Roman Empire or liquid Constantine made Christianity legal. It wasn't. He wasn't that he did that because the majority of Roland's Russian Christian. It was a politically, good move for him because the church is blue, but not just in the Roman Empire, but all over the known world. Not through Power. But you're testifying that, if you trust in Jesus, the world can be completely different. It's not so much that God is going to save the world, but God has already saved the world and we just have to live like it.

And the nations of this world, no matter how good they are, cannot invite people into that. They cannot draw people into that, they can serve a function that God has ordained for them, which is to restrain sin. Restrain this order but they cannot actually transform and truly fits. What's going on in our society. And so as Christians, what we need to do is first of all, not get sucked into that scarcity mentality because that scarcity mentality is what drives our politics. And when you look around at how scared and desperate people are in every election cycle or Christians, any different

Does it seem like Christians are all that? LOL course, obviously remember that the news is going to report the worst of it. But they don't seem to have to try very hard to find that everybody in our culture, is afraid at every election and every Supreme Court appointee and every decision that gets handed down and every law to get stressed and we are just as afraid as everyone else. When the whole point of Our Testimony used to say that we don't need to be because the battles already won. The ending is already written. The world is already say that we just have to live like it and if people look at us and we're living like the world's, not all like salvation isn't already here. They're not going to believe it is.

This is why I loving our neighbors fearlessly and save the world will talk about this in a few. We can talk about this more specific like how it did that in the early Church in a few weeks. But loving your neighbor, being a non-anxious presence in your community can change the world proving to People by your lifestyle that you believe that God is in control. That can change your neighborhood. In his neighborhood. Can be changed communities. Can be changed communities. Can we change cities? Can we change Nations? Can we change the world?

It starts with our living or everyday lives with our neighbors and our friends. And in our communities, as a non-anxious, presence that believes that God really is in control. And Jesus really has won the battle.

As we close, I want to tell you about a new thing really doing this summer. Rachel mentioned last week that we're taking a break from Sunday school for the summer. And what I didn't want to just cut something out without having something else for us to engage in. And so, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be starting dinner groups. In a group. So very simple. You can get together with some people. You can have dinner. Because that is actually one of the most powerful things that people in the early church did what they had dinner with people and not just other Christians. They had dinner with people and they weren't jerks. They had dinner with the other, were generous with their food and they were generous with their homes, and they didn't feel the need to impress, everyone that walked in the door, they just loved each other. And we want to get you in the practice of that and maybe even create openings for you to invite community members, and neighbors into that. So, what all have you do is take your grow card from the seat in front of you or the seat in back of you, if you are in the front row, It's in the front row by the Holy Spirit stronger in the bathroom anyway, just write your name and some contact info and then write dinner group. And then just leave that on your seat will come by and grab them afterward. And what we're going to do is working to put you together into groups and we'll have you. And then we're going to have you meet together you'll schedule at yourselves during the the summer we can get together eat together and create spaces for Community to grow and flourish it for people to be loved in the Kingdom to be built. This is Kingdom craft and I promise you that doing this is more powerful than anything I witnessed when I worked in the state legislature in Washington. This has the spirit of God in it.

As we had to go into our final song, I want to invite you to consider what God may be putting on your car this morning. We believe that every time you hear the gospel, you have a chance to respond. One of the ways you can respond is by signing up for one of those groups. With the first thing is if you have not actually you have not actually joined with God in his grace and have not accepted his offer of generosity. Today is the best day to do that because your life the Christian life is not easier but it is better and it is infused with God's grace and it certainly last longer in the long-term. Write it last for eternity. And, and it is full of a what God has in mind for this world is so we encourage you. If if today was put on your heart, to give your life to him, to come forward and final song to talk to one of the ministers, afterward pet, eraser eye, or if you're online, contact a Christian that you know or trust contact the church office. Don't let this moment pass. If you're a Believer but you need to get more plugged in with a community that is seeking to transform the world through the power of the Kingdom. That's who we are seeking to be till we love for you to join our small groups to join. One of those dinner groups that you'll notice, there are other options, you don't have to only check one box on there. There you go, there's multiple boxes. You can check them out. Would love for you to get more connected with our church body. You'll notice also that there are blue card that say serve because another thing that we do to practice kingdomcraft is we serve others and we love others in there. A lot of opportunities to do that through this congregation. But encourage you, as we sing our final song to consider the next step that God is calling you to take it to commit to taking that.