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Has anyone ever seen the movie The Net with Sandra Bullock?

It was a movie made in 1995 about a woman who came across something in her work that “she wasn’t supposed to see” and the people who don’t want this information to get out slowly erase Sandra Bullocks character from ever existing and replace her with another woman from their company who is helping some assasins find her to kill her.

-Identity theft

-Ordering everything online meals, groceries,

-Everything for work is done online or by phone so people only know you by your voice

-Their are many pieces of the movie that are made for hollywood, but it seemed as though the movie were kind of prophetic in some ways looking back. And th producers might have been noticing some social trends even at that time.

American Sociological Review

In 1985, the General Social Survey (GSS) collected the first nationally representative data on the confidants with whom Americans discuss important matters. In the 2004 GSS the authors replicated those questions to assess social change in core network structures. Discussion networks are smaller in 2004 than in 1985. The number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled. The mean network size decreases by about a third (one confidant), from 2.94 in 1985 to 2.08 in 2004. The modal respondent now reports having no confidant; the modal respondent in 1985 had three confidants. Both kin and non-kin confidants were lost in the past two decades, but the greater decrease of non-kin ties leads to more confidant networks centered on spouses and parents, with fewer contacts through voluntary associations and neighborhoods.

What if I were to tell you that God never intended us as individuals to take his name to the whole world

What if I were to tell you that even missionaries don’t take the message of Jesus to the whole world

2 Corinthians 5:11-21

2 Corinthians 5:11–21 ESV

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

John 14:15–21 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

John 14:

What does it mean for us to see people as God sees them?

How do we view people or understand who people are?

-Physical Characteristics

-conversations start to recognize thinking patterns

-Political views

-Talk enough or around them enough we can start to see what people value…spending of time and money on specific things.

-Over time you can “know” a person based on your collective experiences with them.

-Things we can take in with our senses and make judgements based on what we receive

How does God view people or understand who people are?

-Mixture of parent child and marital relationship

-Parent Child

-Just being thrilled they are alive

-Babies are first born and we are enamored with everything they do

-They look at you for the first time

-touch your face with their little hands for the first time

-First words wow we are so impressed

-First steps and we throw a party

-If we see them make mistakes we love them because we know they have a good heart and good intentions

-Marriage

-enamored ......you love being around them, morning breath doesn’t matter, hair always looks beautiful, everything that person does is fine just they way it is.........our love for that person changes the way we see reality in terms of who they are or their flaws

-When you are apart from your spouse you are looking forward to the next time you see them

-Maybe someone says something that sounds negative about your spouse you start to get defensive and think thats my husband or thats my wife how dare you.

Do you know know that God is enamored with you?

-everything you are and everything you do is seen through the lens of His love for you?

Thats why in when Jesus was talking to Niccodemus he was trying to help Niccodemus see God in the way that he should have been seen all along......

That’s when Jesus tells him

John 3:16 ESV

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

John 3:16

If we agree that God loved us so much to send Jesus and that his death and resurrection is the only way we can hope to be in the relationship that he always intended for us to have with him, then that puts us relationally married to Jesus.

Isnt’ that good news? you would want to be with someone that is enamored with you and sees the real you even if you can’t always express that real you?

God already did all he can do that is his responsibility to reconcile..............

Eerdmans Bible Dictionary RECONCILIATION

The restoration of a harmonious relationship between two parties;

The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary (Revised and Updated) Reconciliation

a term indicating a repaired relationship between persons or groups who were formerly at enmity with each other.

Maybe the people we run into need to have their understanding of who God is Restored........SHOW PIC OF HOUSES

This old house....it is amazing for me to watch contractors take a house or part of a house and completely restore it

-Dull floors sanded down become vibrant again

-what was beaten and tattered is brought back to life

Through your life people can look at you and see a restoration of who they thought God was, to the vibrant truth of who he really is

Maybe this is what you can do for someone who has a wrong view of God

Another step beyond that.....maybe a person within your influence has a completely broken view of God

-Wrong information

-they were purposefully or accidentally lead to believe the wrong things about God and as you listen to them talk you realize you aren’t talking about the same God.

-When we live in the way Jesus asks us to live the people who even see our lives from a distance will start to be changed by the way we live and interact

Even all the way to the person we might only meet once because God has put them in our lives for a period of time when we live in close intimate relationship with Jesus we are no longer “evangelizing” we are telling people about our most favorite person in the world that loves us so much.......

Remember these questions?

What if I were to tell you that God never intended us as individuals to take his name to the whole world?

What if I were to tell you that even missionaries don’t take the message of Jesus to the whole world?

God sees where you are and he asks that whoever comes across your path you share this good news with them and invite them into community.

People in our culture today want to belong to something other than their own family........

-Organizations that do good works are not suffering

-Travel Ball leagues still going strong

The communal idea of what Jesus wants for the church is what our world longs for and we get to show them through our lives and our words that what they are looking for is found in Jesus.......and they can live in community with people who also are in relationship with Jesus.......we call it the church.

We have the greatest role of all time telling people that God is ready to love on them.....all they need to do is see it and receive the love he gives them.

We need to see how and where God is moving........

John 14:15–21 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

John 1

If we take time to seek God and listen to what he is telling us......HE WILL SHOW US.

because you see we are still being reconciled to God as we spend more time with him His presence will change us

-being with him will change us

-being with him will change the way we think

-being with him will change the way we talk

-being with him will even change the way we see others

Our PERSON X out here is someone’s spouse, family, friend.......what if they need to hear the good news from someone who is not closely connected to them?

Our message we get to share with the world is the best news in the history of man kind this message of reconciliation or repaired relationships.....we as the messengers need to be careful that we don’t change it by how we deliver his message.

What does it look like for us to carry a message of reconciliation to a person?

What does it look like for us to carry a message of reconciliation to a neighborhood where you live?

What does it look like for us to carry a message of reconciliation as a group of people to our city?

If we could learn to love without discrimination and division and give the Holy Spirit permission to love everybody we run into through our lives, then we would have a revival on our hands! The world would stop and look to see what God is doing!

Bottom Line: Jesus asks us to be ready to bring our acquaintances and people we don’t know into a relationship with Jesus through the witness of the Spirit in our lives.

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