Absolutely Inseparable and Essential

A1 quick announcement. I just remembered as I was taking prayer requests that I forgot to make, is that next week is the district conference. So I will be down in Indianapolis Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So on those days you can still get a hold of Jamie or two or one of the elders in the church if you need something or if you get in touch with me, I will get in touch with them. But just know, I won't be here till Thursday night, which we do have our elders meeting and I will be back for that Thursday night. So keep that in mind.

So last week, we talked about what gives us away, you know, what is it about us that identifies us as followers of Christ. What is it? That people noticed that when they see it in us, when they see it and how we act, how we talked, how we treat people, that they know We're a follower of Christ.

You know, that kind of naturally leads to the question to wonder, you know? Okay. Once you realize that we are Christian

How do they react to us?

You know, if we look in scripture, we see that, you know, most unbelievers loved being around, Jesus. They enjoyed his company, they even sought him out at different times and they invited him to come to their homes and even to their parties as we know that he was invited to a wedding feast.

But sadly today, most unbelievers don't even want to be around Christians.

You know, unbelievers in Jesus day. If you'll remember the story and scripture, they tried to bring their friend, who is sick to see Jesus, but they couldn't get there because of the crowd. So they literally tore a hole in the roof. So they could lower their friend down to him. Man, that was a group of unbelievers but they wanted to be with Jesus their friend to be healed by Jesus that much.

Sadly enough. Sometimes we see unbelievers. Now, you know, climbing out windows to get away from us.

Why is that? You know what did Jesus show them that we don't what do we lack that he had? I think it's because he showed them Grace.

And because of that, Grace people sense that Jesus loves them even when he might be speaking difficult words to them. They still knew that he loved them. Yeah, he was full of grace and truth. He was able to attract people kind of like a light attracts moths or bugs. People just were naturally drawn to him. And I believe it's because of that combination of grace and truth that he always showed them.

you know, sometimes I think as Christians, we forget that what we believe. Can sound a lot like fiction to those who don't believe. I mean, we do believe in a miracle, right? We believe in a lot of Miracles, we believe that, you know, God decided to come to Earth in human form and was born to a virgin and, you know, he lived and performed all these Miracles and then when he was crucified on a cross, three days later, he rose from the dead and defeated death.

To those who don't know what the Bible says, who have never had that opportunity? That all just sounds like a trailer to the next Hollywood movie. It doesn't sound like something real something that they can believe in hope and trust in

And what we have to realize is that nobody is drawn to something which they think is just totally incomprehensible.

If they don't have a frame of reference for it, it's hard for them to believe it. To address this with a lot of churches have done is they've decided up here. Stuff. So let's make it easier for them. So, you know, instead of putting the cookies of Truth on the top shelf, in the cookie jar, they decide to put it on a lower shelf where people can get to it and that's good. You're part of that is, you know, we have to realize sometimes when people come into a church for the first time and into a church service experience, a lot of things that they've never experienced before.

If we hear offertory, we know what that means. If we hear.

So sometimes we have to eat a realize that being a church family, a group that gathers together a lot. We have some of our own phrases that we use. And that just confuses people didn't imitates him. So there's times when we need to refer to things in other ways to make it easier for people to understand. And that part of moving, those cookies of Truth down is good. The problem comes, when we begin to water the truth down.

Because we can make the truth easier to understand without watering it down. And that is the trick there. Other churches try to just make people feel more comfortable.

In the way that they do it is they make the decision to never talk about Sin. Even if you never talk about, sending you never offend anyone, right? Cuz no one's ever upset because you never call anything that anyone's doing wrong. and what they end up doing, is they end up replacing truth with tolerance, lowering the bar so that everybody can live, however, they want to live and everybody can be happy and everybody gets in There's no price of admission for anyting. And we can all go home feeling just as good about ourselves as we did when we walked in.

She know Jesus said in John, 15:23 member what I told you. A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. Also, if they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.

You know, something is wrong. If all unbelievers hate us But something is also wrong. If all unbelievers like us, You know, if we accurately demonstrate Grace and Truth, the way that Jesus did, some people are going to be drawn to us. And some people will still be offended by it. Just as they were by Jesus. I mean, that's what he was meeting in that passage, you know, even though he came speaking truth, only showing people Grace.

Some people didn't like it.

Problem is that when we offend everybody it's because we've taken on the truth mantle without any Grace. We just want a hammer people with the facts, right? Hammer him with the truth.

And we forget to show them Grace. But when we are on the other side of it and we have been nobody, it's because we've watered down the truth. All in the name of Grace.

You know, many people throughout the centuries have tried to reinvent Jesus, they've tried to spin his statements in scripture to make them, more appealing to the public, you know, they've tried to spend what is said, in the Bible so that it's more relevant to people. So that hit fits more with what popular culture thinks and believes.

Sure. There's one thing about Jesus that's

He is notoriously uncooperative. With all attempts, to repackage and reinvent, and try to Market him. But that's because he's full of grace and truth. So, when you try to alter that truth, anyway, it just doesn't work. in what we have to realize his churches as Believers in Christ is that Jesus isn't looking for image enhancers He's looking for followers, he's looking for us to follow him as servants. Not to walk in front of him as his public relations team. Jesus doesn't need that. He never wanted it. You know, when Jesus walked this Earth, many people didn't recognize him because he was not what they were looking for.

We read a lot of accounts of how people wanted a messiah who was going to come and basically overthrow all their enemies. They wanted a military leader who was going to come in and annihilate, the Romans and put the Jewish people back in control. But that's not how he came.

You know, they were looking for a messiah that was a powerful, lion bringing judgement on all their enemies. But they overlooked all the passages that talked about him coming as a lamb. Isaiah chapter 53 verse 7 says he was oppressed and Afflicted yet. He did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent. So he did not open his mouth.

The Lamb of Grace is the line of Truth. Sometimes we see him is one. Sometimes we see him as the other, but he is always both.

That's what I love about the picture that I put on the front of the bulletins. It kind of Blends that all together.

It shows that lion, it shows the lamb, it shows Our Savior who died on the cross for us.

Your grace and truth are the building blocks of Christ centered living. You know they work together and they work against each other to create this necessary tension.

It allows us to have spiritual balance and stability.

You know, that we thinks that Grace and Truth run in opposite directions. The truth is they correspond to each other perfectly.

No, Martin Luther said that the devil doesn't care which side of the horse. We fall off of as long as we don't stay in the saddle.

You know, we need to ride the horse with one foot in the Stirrup of truce and the other foot in the Stirrup of Grace. Using both to balance ourselves. The trick is finding that perfect balance, which isn't always easy. Definitely a challenge. You have told the story here before about how the church that I served at in Cody Wyoming. was serving breakfast one morning in our city park and the whole reason we were there serving breakfast was that law enforcement Personnel had come from all over the state and even some from Montana and Idaho had come to help at Cody because The Hell's Angels were going to have their yearly rally in Cody. It's a week-long thing and when they found that out, of course they put out, you know, two other police agencies around the state of hey, can you please send help will the police chief of Cody was the drummer in the worship band at the church and he asked if our church be willing to do a breakfast to show appreciation, to all these guys who'd come from all over. To help so we should sure not a problem. So, you know, a bunch of us in the church got together, you know, had a bunch of griddles and pancakes and frying up sausage and all this and bacon we're like Put up a big sign that says free breakfast. which you don't put that in the public city park that we learned that the hard way, but especially a town full of a lot of tourist, but We put that up there and something really unexpected happened. You know, the police officer.

We started having people from the Hell's Angels show up. And they came up to us, and they were nice and polite and they said, hey, is it okay? If we grab some breakfast? So, I kind of looked at the police chief, he collected me, we just both like, sure grab a plate. So we serve them too. And the beautiful thing about that was for the next few hours. We sat there and You saw the police officers and the members of this biker gang sitting together at tables eating breakfast. Eating pancakes, eating sausage and joy.

You know, we got through that entire week. With no incidents between the Hells Angels and the police. Nothing got tore up in town, nothing. I mean, nothing. And I believe that breakfast had a big part with that because they sat and they had breakfast with each other, they talked with each other, they did those things. So to me it was a beautiful thing and I think that you know, it really put a smile on God's face to see it happen that way.

But the sad part of it was that in the weeks that followed the church began to catch some backlash from all that. It seems that the city council members were upset that we would serve those people.

You know, so we were banned from ever holding any functions in the city park ever again. We were told. From other church leaders who said that we should be ashamed of the fact that we are making those people feel like they were welcome here.

And, you know, I believe those responses breaks the heart of our Lord and savior.

Then a few months later when our church was looking for some projects to go out and do cuz we always had a Sunday every year where instead of coming to the church we would go out and do projects in the community. We were looking for projects, we called the city. And we said, hey, is there anything you guys need done? I like what do you mean? Like while we're looking for service projects, do you have ways that we can serve you? It was a really long pause. They're like, well, we'll put you in touch with the parks and rec guy, you can talk to him.

So we talked to him and he gave us several projects to do if going and cleaning up. The parks and, you know, re mulching things, weeding all that sort of stuff to make the parks in town. Start to look good. Again, as the tourists started to come,

That morning when we showed up, he was surprised. Because I never thought you guys would show up since we told you can't do anything in the Parks anymore. I said, well that doesn't matter. We're still here to serve. And let me just say that after that we never had any resistance to doing anything in the Parks.

But you know, that was one of those things and I think it shows how sometimes we have to walk that tightrope between grace and truth.

You know, the truth of what we were doing by simply serving breakfast.

We weren't trying to offend anyone. We weren't trying it. We were just being thankful and grateful. And sharing that with others. But, you know, sometimes when you stand for truth, you'll be held in contempt by Some non-christians, and even some Christians. And then when you serve the other side, like we chose to do you'll and you show Grace sometimes your held in contempt by Christians. And even some non-christians. You know, when you try to live by this Grace and Truth thing that we are going to be looked at as you're not radical enough, it's just that tightrope balance. That is in our society.

But you know, that was the problem that they ever that they had with Jesus. And I've said many times to people and like, well, you know, there's only one man that never send and got everything right and the world crucified him, so I know my chances are pretty slim But you know, in Mark chapter 2 verse 17. It says, when Jesus heard this, he told them healthy people don't need a doctor sick, people do. I've come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.

Well, that's a lot of grace and truth right there, isn't it? Because some people hate truth.

It might seem crazy, but there are actually people who hate the idea of Grace.

Jesus loves both and we can't try to emphasize one or leave out the other without short-circuiting the way that Jesus really wants us to live as Believers. So you know, we have to make a choice.

Are we going to spend our lives trying to please the grace haters in the truth? Haters of the world?

Are we going to seek to, please the only one whose judgement seat will stand before Jesus who is full of grace and truth.

You know, we have to realize that And you know our decision as a church to take a stand on biblical. Truth It has been a costly one. And I'm not talking about the amount of money that we had to pay to the United Methodist Church in order to leave.

You know, I'm talking about the other things that it cost us.

You know, I was very excited to see you as we discussed it, as we talked about it to see the pretty much unanimous support of. The people in the church that this is something we need to do.

But as the weeks and months and days.

We've seen people fade in their Zeal for that.

and part of me believes that, that's because people, Don't want to pay the cost of continuing to Proclaim that truth.

Does he know if you continue to say no, I really believe what the Bible says. I really believe this is true. This is how we should live. That's going to offend some people.

Then other people are going to be upset because you say, you believe truth, but you're showing this person Grace, how can you do that?

So, it's costly. And a lot of people have shown that they struggle with paying that cost, and we've seen that as people have chosen. Do not continue to support that. But, you know, the thing, I think we need to realize this, the church is now that we've shown in our community.

That we stand on truth, that we stand on God's truth. It's now our opportunity to start showing them the full extent of his grace. That's what the world needs to see.

So it's my prayer that we can continue to make those decisions and continue to reach out in our community and to do whatever we can to show them that Grace. Please buy with me in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity to gather in your house into worship you. And Lord, I pray that as we go out this next week that you will help us to see those opportunities that you give us to speak truth. The Lord met R-Truth. Be filled with grace.

And Lord, may you help us to be able to show others Grace, without compromising your truth. We pray this all in your most, holy name. Amen.