Value 2: Action Oriented

Manuscript Template

Title:  Value #2: Action Oriented

Focus Statement:  

Function Statement:  

Tweetable Phrase:  

Main Text:  Matthew 21:28-32

Supporting Text:  Matthew 21:1-22:14, John 3:16, Matthew 20:26-28, Joshua 24:15

Redemptive Closure (point to Jesus):  Matthew 20:26-28

Benediction:  Joshua 24:15

WELCOME

Good morning!!! My name is Ryan Hanson, and I have the honor of serving here at The Light KC as the lead pastor. I’m so glad you’re here with us.

‌Welcome to those joining us online. We hope you're doing well and hope to see you in person in the coming weeks.

And a special welcome to those joining us for the first time. We’re so glad you chose to be here.

ME/INTRO - Tension

So...Have you ever been asked to do something you knew was wrong?

My first job out of college was TRANE Heating and Cooling. I was hired as a mechanical engineer. The department I was hired into was a modification group. So, when a customer had a need that fell outside of Trane’s standard product offering, we took a standard catalog commercial air conditioner, we took it apart and re-built it to meet the customer’s specific need. I was hired to design the modifications that needed to take place.

We had a dozen or so engineers, and each of us were assigned an area of expertise to become the “go to” people for. I was assigned the refrigeration system and acoustics (sound). So, my job was make sure that every time we modified the refrigeration system or the acoustics of the units, we were using the best parts and procedures to get the best performance we could.

We’ll I was young, just out of college, and within the first year I was there, I had a problem. We had modified some units to operate quieter than they were originally designed to operate. On these particular units, the customer paid for a certified sound test to prove we could achieve the sound levels they wanted. The math looked good, but the test failed. We were a few dB over in a few of the octave bands. This was a problem, and the salesperson (an old gruff individual) was quite upset.

He came to my desk with the sound report and told me to change it. I said I couldn’t. He pushed back, asked if I knew how to use a PDF editor. I said “yes” but told him it would be wrong and that I wouldn’t do it. He then went on to “educate me” on acoustics, saying that the acoustics are never actually tested once the air conditioner is installed on the building, and since we were very close, it would not be a problem. They just need the paper to submit to their city to appease the local code that is in place. He told me to change it and walked away from my desk.

I had a choice to make. I was a 22-year-old, at my first job, being told to do something by the most senior person in the building that I felt was wrong. I could do it, because I technically knew how. Or I could stick to what I believed and refuse, not knowing what consequences I would face in doing so.

WE - Tension

You may not have been asked to do anything quite so clearly questionable as I was, but we are asked, or tempted, to cut corners all the time.

Get to your car at the grocery store and realize you missed scanning something at the self-check out

Find yourself in a situation you don’t want to talk about so you tell an “innocent” white lie to move the conversation along

Hands free is not working in the car so you end up replying to that text while driving

Borrowing your family or friends streaming passwords to watch TV or buy something with free shipping

Maybe rounding in your favor on timecards, breaks, or doing personal things while working from home

The reality is that, as Christians, we’re called to live by a higher standard than what is acceptable in our culture.

We’re called to live lives that honor God and represent His Kingdom, Values, and Love to the world.

How we live our lives matter

It is not enough, as a Christian, to just believe the right things, we are called to take ACTION on everything taught in the Bible and that the Holy Spirit convicts us of

So, are we acting in a way that communicates...

Fruits of Spirit - Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-Control

as well as

Humility

Forgiveness

Courage

Compassion

… to the world?

But...how do we do this?

Since, nobody is perfect, except Jesus, if we cut some corners here and there, does it really matter?

These are the questions I’d like to talk about today as we continue our series titled “The 5W’s of Church”

We’re in week 3 of our 7 week series, we’re going to go over our church’s mission, vision, and values to answer

WHY - THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH exists

WHO - we are as a local expression of the church, The Light KC

WHAT God is calling us to do as His church

WHY we feel God put The Light KC WHERE He has in Overland Park, KS

and...HOW - we as the church feel called to live out the mission and vision God has given us

I hope you’ll be able to join us each and every week for this series as we break down the mission, vision, and values that a group of 16 of you came up with earlier this year and look forward to what that means for us and our collective future.

Week 1 we discussed our Mission and Vision. To review:

Mission (Why we exist)

To reflect the light of God’s love and grace to everyone, everywhere, at all times.

Vision (Who we hope to be)

To be the family of God, where all people are welcomed, loved, invited into a saving relationship with Jesus, and sent to live out their God-given purpose.

Last week we discussed our first value: Faith Fueled

This week we’re going to continue looking at our values, walking through the ACRONYM F.A.M.I.L.Y.

Today we’re going to talk about our second value: Action Oriented.

If you missed the previous messages, please feel free go to our website, TheLightKC.org, to catch up.

As we begin, please turn with me to [Matthew 21]

We’ll have the scripture on the screen, but if you have a Bible with you, or Bible app on your phone, I’d encourage you to turn to the passage and follow along. There is nothing that replaces having God’s word in your hand.

AND... if you don’t have a Bible, we have Bibles under the seats. If you don’t have a bible and would like one, please come see me after the service and I’ll get you one you can keep.

Let's dive in.

GOD - Text

So to get a picture of what the Bible teaches on the importance of HOW we live our lives, I want to focus in on an interaction that Jesus had with the Pharisees in Matthew 21-22.

To set the scene, Jesus is entering Jerusalem for the final time. He is doing it as the promised messiah King from the Zechariah 9:9 in the Old Testament. The passage starts...

Matthew 21:5–11 NIV

“Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ” The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

This will be the final week of Jesus’ life.

Jesus knows this.

So, everything He does during this week is intentional.

He was sending a message to everyone who was paying attention, continuing to cement the message He’d been preaching throughout his ministry to, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” (Matthew 3:2, Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:15).

He was telling everyone that He was the King described in Zechariah 9:9, and was coming to Jerusalem to ACT within that Kingly role.

So, I ask you, what messages are your ACTIONS sending to the people in your life who are paying attention?

How intentional are you with the messages you send through your actions?

Do your actions, point people to Jesus and faith in God?

Or do your actions tell the story that a person who claims to be a Christian is, in reality, no different than anyone else?

*** Jesus was sending a clear message about WHO he was, but Jesus is not done.

The passage continues with Jesus going straight to the temple, to the area where the Gentiles, non-Israelites, were designated to worship.

But instead of there being Gentiles, that area of the temple was full of business people selling animals for the Israelites to use in their sacrifices.

Jesus understandably did not appreciate this and in Matthew 21:12-13 we read...

Matthew 21:12–13 NIV

Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, He consistently taught His disciples to love everyone, including the gentiles.

Jesus...

Told parables of the Good Samaritan

Healed the Roman centurion’s servant

Healed the Canaanite woman’s daughter

Spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well

Healed a Samaritan leper

Jesus consistently taught that His followers were to love everyone, even those who don’t believe the same things they believe, or are from different ethnic backgrounds.

And Jesus’ actions backed up His teaching.

So, when we see others who are suffering, do we help?

If they believe differently that we do, or have a different background than we do, do we ignore their pain, or do we follow Jesus’ example and help anyway?

Or, do we live lives that people watching would consider self-centered, only worried about ourselves and others exactly like us?

*** It is at this point in the passage, that it takes an odd turn, shifting focus on an event on the road when Jesus wanted a fig from a fig tree.

Matthew 21:18–19 NIV

Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.

It may seem harsh for Jesus to curse the tree.

It would be easy to understand that there may be no figs on the tree if Jesus walked by the tree out of season.

But...this occurred during the spring. Fig trees should have edible green figs even before the leaves appear in the spring (Taksh).

This fig tree had leaves, but no fruit.

It wasn’t producing as it should.

As Christians, we need to ask ourselves, are we producing the fruit that we were created to produce?

Or, like this fig tree, are we just existing, taking up space, without contributing anything positive to those around us?

*** This series of events comes to a head in the next section.

It is here when Jesus’ actions get questioned by the Chief Priest and elders

His ACTIONS have been noticed, and the Jewish leadership don’t like what they see.

The interaction goes as follows:

Matthew 21:23–27 NIV

Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?” Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?” They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

When was the last time that someone came up to you and asked you why you were doing what you were doing?

Has your obedience to Christ, caused those who witness your ACTIONS to question your motivation and WHO is directing you to do what you’re doing?

If we’re living the life God calls us to live, this should happen.

*** Well, even though Jesus didn’t answer their question directly, the next section is an indirect answer to their question.

Jesus doesn’t answer “whose authority” He has, but instead He tells a parable of two sons to get these leaders of the Jewish religion thinking.

Matthew 21:28–32 NIV

“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ “ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

In this parable, Jesus is comparing two groups of people.

The first son, who refused, but later did as the father asked, represent the sinners of the world. The prostitutes and tax collectors that the Jewish ruling elite hated so much.

The second son said he would do as the father asked, but never did. This son represents the Jewish religious leadership. They have all the rules down, they are very quick to tell everyone when they’re breaking the rules, but they don’t do as it says.

They don’t help the needy.

They don’t love their neighbor.

They don’t care for the foreigner

They put themselves on a pedestal and act exclusively for their own advancement

Jesus is directly calling these religious leaders hypocrites. People who say they believe something, that they don’t ACT upon.

So the question for us is, what son are we?

Do we struggle, but obediently do as God instructs in the bible and through the convictions of the Holy Spirit?

Or, do we say all the right things, but fail to ACT when God asks us to?

I find it interesting that the phrase in V28 “Changed his mind”, to describe the first son, is the same word used in the bible for “repent” and “seized with remorse”.

V29: “Changed his mind”

Metamelomai

repent / seized with remorse

When we screw up, are we “seized with remorse”, do we repent, turn from our sinful ways, and obediently follow the leading of God?

Do our ACTIONS align with God’s will for our lives?

YOU - Takeaway

I think if we were to sum up these series of events, it could be summed up as Jesus’ call for us to have

Integrity:

1. The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.

2. The state of being whole and undivided.

God doesn’t want us to be the 1st son (defiantly saying “no” to every request, but later reconsidering and doing what we’re told), or the 2nd son (agreeing, but never following through).

God wants us to be people of integrity; people where our thoughts, beliefs, and actions all align.

The call to be people of integrity is throughout the bible. From the Old Testament...

Proverbs 11:3 NIV

The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.

Through to the New Testament.

It’s even in the most widely known verse in the bible.

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The concept of belief as we think of it (mental agreement without action) didn’t exist back then.

To the Jewish listener if you believed something, you believed it to a level that required that you act upon it. Without action, you didn’t really believe in the first place.

WE / JESUS - Redemptive Close - Call to Action

So, let’s be people of integrity, who don’t just believe with our minds, but live out that belief through the ACTIONS of our hands and feet.

Remember what Jesus calls us all to be in Matthew 20:26-28.

Matthew 20:26–28 NIV

Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus calls us to live an undivided life, consistent in every aspect. Living out what we believe not only in words, but through ACTS of service.

So what is God calling you to ACT on this week?

What have you been feeling God call you to do, but have been resisting?

What is stopping you from ACTING this week, DOING exactly as God has led you to?

To conclude, if we’re going to summarize our second value, I would do it like this...

Value #2: At The Light KC, we will be Action Oriented. We won’t just believe in Jesus with our heads, we’ll be people who ACT on every command in the Bible and conviction from the Holy Spirit. We want our lives of faithful obedience to show the world who Jesus is, how much He loves them, and to represent the Kingdom that they’re invited to join.

PRAYER 

Will you join me in prayer...

SONG 

As we enter into our final song, I want to open the steps up front as an altar to anyone who needs God this week. The steps are open for you to pray to the God who is with you, who loves you, you wants to give you His peace.

‌

You may feel a hand on your shoulder as I or one of the elders join you in prayer.

BENEDICTION 

Joshua 24:15 NIV

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

This week...

Let’s commit to stop living divided lives, where our beliefs, words, and actions don’t align.

Let’s instead commit to being people of ACTION, where we don’t just believe with our minds, but live out those beliefs through the ACTIONS of our hands and feet.

Let’s follow Jesus' example to serve those in need, even if they believe differently than we do.

Let’s ACT on every command in the Bible and conviction from the Holy Spirit.

Quick reminder...

Digging Deeper Bible Study - Wednesday at 6 PM - Programming for all ages

Oct 11th - Fall Cleanup

Oct 12th - Chief’s vs Lion’s at my house

Oct 16th - Missions Night

If you’re new, please stop by our info desk, or see me. We’d love to say “hi” and get you know you a bit better.

I hope you have a great week.

Go in peace.

You are dismissed.

DISCIPLESHIP QUESTIONS (download into APP)

How can you align your daily actions with the integrity described in the sermon?

In what ways can you act on your faith at school or among your peers?

What practical steps can you take this week to ensure your actions reflect your beliefs?

Have you ever faced a situation where you had to choose between being honest and fitting in? How did you handle it?

Reflect on a time when you felt called to serve. How did your actions communicate your faith during that experience?