Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sas takes.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Sick, Please join me in reading the Dex's call worship.
(04:23):
The earth is the Lord's and all that is in
the world, and those who live in it for.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
God in the world, and.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Who shall send the gill of the Lord, and who
shall stand in John's holy place?
Speaker 5 (04:40):
Other cars their souls and lift up your heads.
Speaker 6 (04:52):
Okay, and you lifted up inch of doors, that the
King of Glory may come.
Speaker 7 (04:57):
In or or.
Speaker 8 (05:04):
Or its s.
Speaker 9 (05:41):
S S.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
S S sus S S.
Speaker 10 (06:15):
Six s sp audis.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Ses ses.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
You wanting.
Speaker 11 (07:42):
Please perfectly, Heavenly Father, we enter your house today in.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
All of your power. As the old wing of Creator.
Speaker 11 (07:52):
We also come through these doors of different joys and burdens,
and we were grateful for your open arms. As worship
today we simply ask for that you open our hearts
to your word, allow us to fill your spirit and
be guided by your hand. Please continue to watch over
us as a congregation, as a community, and perhaps even
(08:15):
more so today as a country. These things we ask
in Jesus name and talks and prayer, ah.
Speaker 12 (08:24):
R I would be nine name I e mind I
will be gone as it is, and get.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Us to say my day and get us.
Speaker 13 (08:38):
As passes as needs to trust pass against us, and
maybe signs and tap I feel a stream him and
how in the little right grow man spe s.
Speaker 6 (10:06):
S S.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
S S s s.
Speaker 11 (10:41):
S s s.
Speaker 6 (10:53):
S s.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
S sarspe.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Something.
Speaker 14 (11:51):
It's so, Will you please pregnantly can the father or say?
(12:54):
We come to you with hearts filled with gratitude for
the abundant blessings you get us every day.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
All that we have is yours.
Speaker 14 (13:03):
We thank you and ask your blessing. All these gifts
we give back to glorify and further your kingdom.
Speaker 13 (13:11):
May we be joyful givers in response to your love
and grace, and may we share that same love and
grace with others.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
We ask these things in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 15 (14:05):
S make see.
Speaker 6 (15:50):
Me have a scripture, making you point me in prayer,
makes you scott as we come to you this day,
in the middle of summer, already caught from all the
things that are going on in our world, already warm
from the weather that seemed to be making us more
than usual.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
We come to you this morning to pray for our nation,
for our people as a society.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
We're thankful for the safety for Former President Trump would
read the loss of the life that took place last time.
We ask of God that you, as the Prince of Peace,
would surround us with your love and your presence and
(16:40):
your spirit and help us as a people that are
so quick to say such bitter things about people who
think differently from us, or vote differently from us, or
look differently from us, that we just continue to escalate
and escalate and escalate a language. We are people with
(17:09):
far too many deaths and robberies in our nation, even
though things are better than they have been in my
own lifetime. We ask for God you would help us
as a people and we as Christians who follow you,
(17:29):
to be people who would cultivate graciousness so that we
would treat one another decently and with respect, especially when
we disagree about things. We ask the Lord that you
would continue to watch over former President Trump and President Biden.
(17:52):
We think of our own Carol Miller, and for all
those who are run international office and ask you to
keep them safe of these days ahead, for our own
Steve Leaders, and for all those who are running for
state lawses, that you would likewise keep them safe.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
And help this moment to be a time when we
as a nature would ask ourselves. Is this the pathway
we want to take?
Speaker 6 (18:22):
Can we not find another way? We ask the Lord
that you would show us the way towards peace.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
We pray to God not just for our.
Speaker 6 (18:39):
Leaders people who are in elections, but just ordinary persons.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
As we go about our.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
Day and driving on the highways and drives you fast
and cut people off, that you would help us to
be more gracious, to be kind, and when.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
Something doesn't go right at the grocery store, or at the.
Speaker 6 (19:02):
Loans or the home goods store, that rather than berating
the poor clerk that's at the countertable, that we would
lower our temperature.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
In all sorts of ways. For God, we are a
society that is too much on edge.
Speaker 8 (19:25):
Help us.
Speaker 6 (19:27):
Show us how we, as your followers, can be instruments
of your peace in this society. That we could be
instruments of your kindness and your graciousness, so that we
could pay forward deeds.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
Of kindness rather than ratchet up the harsh birds.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
Well, God, we pray this week especially also for Vond Edwards,
who has been an integral part of our congregation now
for seven years, and for this call he has received
to become a pastor at first Baptist done law.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
We pray that in the weeks that Spot is.
Speaker 6 (20:17):
Finishing up in his ministry here this week while he's
a calumn with many of our teenagers, and when he
returns as he finishes up, we will have ways affecting
him for his ministry and celebrating this opportunity that you
are giving him, this new.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
Step up in responsibilities.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
You have prepared him, and it's time. Even though we
are sad about his departure. We pray for Katie Shall,
who is today being announced in her new congregation which
she will become pastor in a matter of weeks. We
pray for her safety and her family safety. Is a
(20:59):
come back to Huntington this weekend as we read about this.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
Place that Shall.
Speaker 6 (21:05):
We go into this next week hearing about this new
calling she's received. We celebrate with her, but also greet
her departure and the departure of her family. We ask you,
God that you had less both of these persons who
have been part of our congregation for years into their
new miniseries, and then we as a congregation send them
(21:28):
off with gratitude and thanksgiving and with encouragement for the
days ahead.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
For those who will.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
Meet tonight for the church counsel begin thinking how can
we take next steps ahead These changes affect us as
a congregation. We ask that your wisdom will be with
them as parents of you youth meeting in a couple
of weeks to talk about all that they will face.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
The fond's departure. Then again we ask for your grace
and your guide hand.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
Remind all of us that ministers do come and go,
but churches are always here, and that you're always bringing
in new leaders to carry on ministries of your faith communities.
Help us in these times of transition to trust you
most of them.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
All.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
For all persons in our church who are facing surgery,
or recovering from surgery, or having other health issues, mental
situations are running with depression, addiction, partach all the ways
at which we heard as the people, we ask your
arrangement surrounding them and strengthen with them. Help us also
(22:44):
when we have moments of excitement and enjoy and our
enjoying this summertime season at ball games and school vacations,
that we take time to.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
Celebrate these moments and to breathe this air deep.
Speaker 6 (22:59):
Whether it will be tougher days ahead as they're always willing,
and following them wonderful days ahead as they're always willing.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Did the roller coaster of life of Lord be our
guide in hand in Christ?
Speaker 6 (23:15):
Jesus be prayed, Oh man, our scripture passages this morning
comesor Matthew's Gospel chapter eighteen verses is.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
Twenty one through thirty five. You're the Lord of God's heaven.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
Then Peter came and said to him, Lord, if another
member of your church says against me, how many times
should I forgive?
Speaker 5 (23:45):
As many as seven times?
Speaker 6 (23:48):
Jesus said to him, not seven times, but I tell
you seventy seven times, or seventy times seven times.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
For this reason, the kingdom of Heaven may.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
Be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
With his slaves.
Speaker 8 (24:08):
When he began the reckoning, one of him owed him ten.
Speaker 6 (24:11):
Thousand talents, was fought to him, and as he could
not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold together
with his wife and children and all of his possessions,
and payment to be made.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
So the servant fell on his knees before him.
Speaker 8 (24:28):
Saying, have patience with me, and I will.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
Pay you everything.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
And out of pity for the man, the lord said
to his servant, released him and forgave him his dead.
But the same servant, as he went out, came upon
one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred DENARII,
and seeing him by the throat, he said, painity what
(24:57):
you owe me? And then his fellow s servant fell
down and pleaded with him, had pass with me, and
I will pay you. But he refused, and he went
and threw him into prison until he could pay the debt.
Speaker 8 (25:13):
When his fellow servants saw what had happened, they went and.
Speaker 6 (25:18):
Reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then
his lord summoned him and said to him, you with
your servant.
Speaker 8 (25:28):
I forgave you all the debt because.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
You've pleaded with me.
Speaker 6 (25:31):
Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant
as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his
lord headed him over to be tortured until he would
pay his entire debt. So I had only father, will
(25:54):
also do every one of you, if you do not
forget you're a brother or sister. Good humans. The meading
of God's holy world, they got blessings for our humans.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
And understand.
Speaker 7 (27:46):
Me spec as shops.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Open as.
Speaker 6 (29:08):
Matthew, with the way that he collects his parables from Jesus,
sets up this terrible with two short stories about forgiveness.
We only have time in this sermon to discuss one
of the setups, and it's the one that immediately goes
into this parable.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
And actually also find it the more interesting of the two.
Peter asked Jesus, how three times should I forgive somebody?
Peter's a very big, flooded guy. He's a very generous guy.
He says, should I forgive them seven times?
Speaker 3 (29:44):
See?
Speaker 6 (29:44):
Peter understands that forgiveness is one of the core values
of following Jesus, and he's even better to do that
when somebody eats his sandwich while he goes back to
the counter to.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
Get somewhere napkins, He's prepared to forgive him.
Speaker 8 (30:02):
When someone lies to him.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
About being busy when she wanted they want to be
with him, He's.
Speaker 11 (30:08):
Prepared to forgive.
Speaker 6 (30:10):
When his friend is late for the seventh time, leaving
him stranded for an hour, He's ready to forgive him.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
But then next time he's late, he's.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
Gonna relay in joy it because he's done it seven times.
Speaker 8 (30:30):
Except Jesus.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
Doesn't affirm that. He says, no, I'm telling you not
just forgive seven times.
Speaker 8 (30:40):
I'm telling you forgive.
Speaker 6 (30:41):
Seventy seven times, or seventy times seven times. Anyways, it's
more than you can count, whichever way you read it,
because Jesus doesn't want us to keep a talent sheep, adding.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
Up, if we've hit seventy seven times.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
Or four hundred and nine twenty times, that wasn't the
point of his statements. Seven days, after all, a symbolic
number in the Bible, a sybomic.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Number that meant completeness. So I say, if Jesus is
saying what Peter says, should I forgive.
Speaker 6 (31:19):
Somebody completely seven times?
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Jesus is saying no, beyond.
Speaker 6 (31:27):
Completeness, completely beyond completeness.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
Then, according to Matthew, Jesus tells a parable.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
Where nobody forgives seventy times seven times.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
And nobody wins.
Speaker 6 (31:47):
It's a morality tale of how being ungracious.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
Can turn everything into a downward spider. In the parable,
one servant was.
Speaker 8 (32:04):
Unable to pay the king is money.
Speaker 6 (32:07):
The amount ten thousand times. Where's a fairy tale number.
It's a madup number. It was so large everybody heard
Jesus's parable knew.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
It was a fantasy.
Speaker 8 (32:22):
It would be like saying that a regular working.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
Class person, Oh it's somebody a billion.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
Dollars, that's a billion with a B, and that they
would have to pay it off or they go to prison.
It would be impossible to pay off, and it would
be impossible to collect.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
How many of you all are ready to pay a
big a dollar day? Anybody? When the servant pleased before
the king.
Speaker 6 (33:00):
It says, being patient with me, I don't hear anything.
Everybody heard the story. He knew he was just saying.
Speaker 8 (33:08):
He was just hoping.
Speaker 6 (33:09):
There is no way to pay this all. This was
an impossibility. He would never pay it back. He would
be able to pay it back next year or next century,
if he could live long enough.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Not.
Speaker 6 (33:24):
A surprise of the story is that the king, the lord,
forgives this debt, forgives this huge debt that he has owned.
Upon being forgiven. The man who's had his life being
given back to him probably goes outside about his life
(33:47):
and sees another servant who owes him somebody, and he
immediately says, pay me back what you hold me.
Speaker 5 (33:57):
This servant always to him the equivalent.
Speaker 8 (33:58):
Of a couple of which is not nothing, but it's
not a billion dollars right.
Speaker 6 (34:07):
In sometime he could have paid that debt all Instead,
the servant, who had just been given his life back,
who had just been forgiven a debt he could never
a pay, tells this servant, this fellow servant like him,
if you can't pay me right now, I'm sending you
(34:27):
to prison.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
We assume off the person's.
Speaker 6 (34:33):
Taken to prison, because what happens in the story is
this does not happen in a vacuum. Some other people
see what happens, some other fellow servants, and they are
horrified at what.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Had just happened.
Speaker 6 (34:51):
The others see what takes place, and what happens next
is quite interesting. They are not chip in and bail
their friend out of jail. They do not start a
go Fundy page to pay off his debt. Their aim
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is not to help their friend just unjustly was placed
into prison.
Speaker 8 (35:19):
They want to give the guy who put it there,
and they.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
Will offer the only person make thing who can make
a difference back to the lord, back to the king
who will do this.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
They would come a taddle tailors. Your kindergarten teacher would
not a prem of this. The tatlehadles make a big
impression on the king.
Speaker 6 (35:47):
He is enraged that this man hadn't forgiven this incredible debt,
goes off and takes his his compassion, his charity is
his generosity, and turns it.
Speaker 8 (35:58):
Into me.
Speaker 6 (36:03):
And against the first man brought back to his court.
When the merciless man is brought before the king again,
he has brought these with these words, should you not
have had mercy as I showed you mercy?
Speaker 8 (36:22):
But that was the last mercy was in the story.
Speaker 6 (36:26):
He has then given a short sentence of worse says
that you've given before. His lack of generosity has cost
him deeply, and at this point of the story he
loses his future.
Speaker 5 (36:43):
Well, he's not the only one that loses in this story. Now,
frequently this parable is taught like an allegory you didn't
realize you're gonna get an English lesson to.
Speaker 6 (36:57):
The Allegories are stories where characters or parts.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
Of the story means something else.
Speaker 6 (37:08):
George Orwell's Animal Farm is maybe one of the better
examples of.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
A modern aligorry.
Speaker 6 (37:15):
When this parable is taught as an aligorry, typically we
imagine the king or the Lord to be God.
Speaker 8 (37:25):
God is the one.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
Servant comes to God is the one that forgives.
Speaker 6 (37:31):
And if an evangelical creature is the one teaching this lesson,
the servant who owes the.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
King money is you and me right, we owe this King,
we owe God a debt. We cannot pay all the sins.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
Of our life, and thankfully the King forgives us the servant,
our debt.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
We cannot pay Jesus's death un the cross.
Speaker 6 (38:03):
And then we are told, now we've accepted God's grace,
to go out and to forgive of others as.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
We've been forgiven. Anybody ever heard a preacher create this
terrible this way? Or here it says, well, to teach
your teach you less this way. Put your hand up.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
I've heard that way.
Speaker 5 (38:20):
I'll put my hand out. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (38:22):
That is fairly typical.
Speaker 6 (38:24):
Over the past fifty years in Baptist churches around his country.
Speaker 8 (38:30):
The moral of the.
Speaker 6 (38:30):
Allegorium is that once God forgives sinners of their sin,
they must forgive those who sin against them lest they.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
Lose their gift of grace from God.
Speaker 6 (38:43):
All of this reinforces evangelical theology and.
Speaker 5 (38:47):
Encourage us to forgive others, which is not a bad thing.
It's good to forgive other people.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
The problem is.
Speaker 16 (38:59):
This per is not an allegory, it's a parable. The
point of parables was written in different ways.
Speaker 6 (39:11):
The point of a parable is to get to a
single moment, a single ending, a moral.
Speaker 5 (39:17):
Of the story at the end that's supposed.
Speaker 6 (39:20):
To tell you what the teacher wants to say. It's
kind of the gotcha moment. It's kind of a harm moment.
So if we received this parable as a parable, what.
Speaker 5 (39:35):
Is Jesus trying to teach us.
Speaker 8 (39:39):
Let's go back to the story.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Now.
Speaker 6 (39:41):
Remember that the way Matthew places the story in his Gospel,
he sets up the parable with that little saying that
Peter said, Jesus, I forget for somebody seven times?
Speaker 7 (39:54):
Is not enough?
Speaker 5 (39:55):
Can I just sadly any time, to which Jesus says
to seventy times seven.
Speaker 8 (40:03):
Or more than you can can. So that's the set
up for this parent.
Speaker 6 (40:10):
And then in this parable, nobody forgives it but twice
in the story, right, I mean, the King the Lord
forgives once and is a big forgiveness, but it's still
only one time.
Speaker 5 (40:24):
And then the man who's.
Speaker 6 (40:25):
Brought back to the king a second time. He is
enraged and punishes this man viciously. Said he's going to
torture him for the rest of his life.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
The King's mercy only goes so far.
Speaker 6 (40:50):
What starts off as a wonderful story, a story of
God's grace, a story of mercy, a story of forgiveness,
ends in meanness. The servant had been gladly forgiven, learns nothing.
Speaker 5 (41:03):
His heart is untouched.
Speaker 6 (41:05):
He returns evil for good, cruelty for kindness, hatefulness for compassion.
Speaker 5 (41:13):
His lack of generosity sets.
Speaker 6 (41:15):
Off a cascade of events in which nobody waits. The
unforgiving servant ends up being tortured for the rest of
his life.
Speaker 8 (41:30):
Not what he is, Hebrew saw, but the man he
sent to prison is still in prison.
Speaker 6 (41:39):
Yes, everybody self righteously got a bad guy, But then
look the poor gun hide in prison.
Speaker 8 (41:46):
He's no better off than he was and worse off
than he was at the beginning of the story.
Speaker 6 (41:54):
The tittle Tales kind of have their reputations ruined. Right
kindergarten teachers looking, they'll believes it teaches them better than
that what everybody knows. These are folks just looking out
to get other people, not to help people who need it,
(42:17):
and the king the war.
Speaker 5 (42:20):
Of course, he never gets his money back, gets all gone.
Speaker 8 (42:24):
But now rather than being.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
A generous benefactors.
Speaker 6 (42:30):
Possibly is true, character is revealed as a vicious, merciless
man who becomes enraged when his offering and generosity is
not return It's like this monarch in the story goes
from being kindly old Queen Elizabeth to him and ruthless
(42:54):
Vladimir friend.
Speaker 8 (42:56):
In the end, everybody loses.
Speaker 6 (43:05):
Jesus' morality tale tells us that ungraciousness spreads like wildfire
and destroys everything it touches. It's a danger to families,
to marriages, to churches, to businesses, to school communities.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
It's dangerous for communities and nations.
Speaker 6 (43:26):
From months of the past decade, I have wondered if
we've been living inside of Jesus as terrible as we
can give you an escalated the ungraciousness in our media,
the way we treat each other when we drive on
the roads, when we talk to the kind clerks behind
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the counter or waitresses just trying to get through the day,
and yet we snipe and the yellow.
Speaker 5 (43:59):
Things because our Hamburger, how a little bit of red.
Speaker 13 (44:02):
Beating it.
Speaker 11 (44:05):
Right.
Speaker 8 (44:05):
We're seeing this fright all around us.
Speaker 6 (44:09):
We want to blame the politicians or blame the mediums
and all of us. This is un gratefulness, ungenerosity. It
is spreading like wildfire. We like the title Tales of
the Story. We like them because they get the bad guys,
(44:30):
and we're all about getting the bad guys.
Speaker 5 (44:34):
We're not doing anything but the good guys. Rather than
anything to build up our community. We are tearing apart of.
Speaker 6 (44:45):
The fabric of our society that our children and grandchildren
are going to have to live here.
Speaker 5 (44:53):
I won't be around for that future, but they will be.
And we are all losing.
Speaker 6 (45:07):
What happened last night to former President Trump and by
Center and Brown, for all those who are industry, it's terrible.
Speaker 9 (45:15):
And awful and sane.
Speaker 5 (45:18):
And I've already heard it, no doubts you've already heard
this or read this of papers. People have said, this.
Speaker 17 (45:22):
Is not who we are, and I wish, I really
wish that was true. But until we realize this is
who we are and we.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Have to change it.
Speaker 5 (45:38):
We have to turn to God's grace to change it.
Until we're willing to face that this is who went
to continue and to continue to escalate it. We don't
need any more tattle tailors. We don't want any more generous.
Speaker 6 (45:57):
Turned vicious kings. We need peacemakers. We need people to
be cultivating graciousness.
Speaker 8 (46:07):
And grace into their lives. We need the Christian Church.
Speaker 18 (46:13):
To be the church again, because far too often Christians
are the very people who are escalating this ungraciousness that's
pervasive in our society.
Speaker 6 (46:31):
George Barnes's research firm has been a reliable pulling in
service of evandolical churches and organizations for the past thirty years,
and I've watched their work closely as my career has
followed what they've been doing. He's reminded for being insights
and evadentical Christianity that.
Speaker 8 (46:47):
Otherwise I don't think I would have.
Speaker 6 (46:50):
Warner's Research firm has been same for a decade that
the biggest reason young people are leaving the Christian Church
in all the statistic safetis in drones because they think
the Christian Church is judgmental and hateful.
Speaker 5 (47:10):
Or as I would use her today's servant un gracious.
Speaker 6 (47:17):
Rachel Health Evans was one of those young people raised
in a conservative.
Speaker 5 (47:21):
Non denominational church. She was enthusiastic about her.
Speaker 6 (47:25):
Faith and zealous for reaching people from Christ in her
teenage years and in her college years until she began
listening to her peers. She started a blog in two
thousand and seven when she was twenty six, and it
took off.
Speaker 5 (47:43):
She heard really in drones for the first time what.
Speaker 6 (47:47):
People outside the church think of Christians and the church,
and how insiders of the church were in damaged by
the church and.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
Left and said they would have never come back.
Speaker 6 (48:00):
Rachel wrote five books before her tragic death in twenty
nineteen at age thirty eight from her morgan reaction to
an infection.
Speaker 5 (48:10):
She left a young husband and two young children. She
wrote five books before she died. My favorite was Searching
for Sunday, in which it tells.
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Her faith journey of being deeply involved in her church
at Tennessee growing up, but which didn't appreciate her questions
and when she began questioning things, it only got her
in more trouble with the church. She finally left that
church and then finally the Big Sea Christian Church altogether,
(48:44):
but she had become a famous blogger and maybe was
the most famous non church attending Christian in the country
fifteen years ago, and so people said, well, here's about like.
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There's about my church.
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It's not like what you've experienced.
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And before long she had whole sorts of ideas of
churches that were gracious and breathed God's grace into their communities.
One church that she mentioned in Searching for Sundays was
a church in Colorado that was quote dedicated to helping
hurting and hungry people find faith, hope, and dignity alongside
(49:30):
each other. And in your church covenant they said, we
are old, young, rich, poor, conservative, literal, single, Mary getting strength, evangelicals, progressive,
over educated, under educated.
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Certain, dally, hurting, thriving.
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Everyone is safe here, but no one is comfortable.
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Though her husband and she did not move to Colorado,
it was church like that that helped her realize what
a gracious church looked like.
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So thankfully her story ended with her rejoining the church.
Speaker 6 (50:18):
For the past six weeks, I've been preaching about cultivating
practices of habits that can give us the wisdom for
living in these divisive, ungracious information age days. The first
three weeks I talked about gratitude and wonder and enjoying.
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They are all what I call the thanksgetting trio.
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The key to this, this nice shooting trio, is living
in the.
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Present, which means you work at paying attention to what
surround you.
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I remember, I'm talking about looking at the world with
soft eyes, which is a phrase we talk about bringing
all in when so often today we are just laying
your focused on what's right in front of us. Looking
at the world of soft eyes helps us see the
wonder of the world from the natural wonders of.
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God gave us to even the appreciation from the complex
society living.
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This gives us strawberries and the grocery.
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Store almost all year long.
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And which can provide a package that you ordered from
your phone just twenty four or forty eight hours ago
at your.
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Doorstep and every day.
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All these things happen.
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Because good and ordinary people are just doing the right thing.
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And we forget about them.
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Right.
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But if we see the world of soft eyes and
live in the moment, suddenly we have.
Speaker 6 (51:44):
The wonder and we are thankful and grateful, and we're
joyful because we're living in the moment and we're not
comparing ourselves to everybody else on our social media feelings.
And the last three he's been preaching about forgiveness and
awareness and resiliency. And last thing I mentioned how this
(52:07):
Harvardstuit is but eighty six years long. Said the one
thing that stands out that keeps us more resilient way
for love, everything else is relationships. Those of us who
commulate relationships have to resiliency.
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That keeps us going to face whatever challenges we have.
How do we keep relationships by forgiveness.
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There's not a marriage, a friendship, a business relationship, a church,
a school, a business community that doesn't make it through forgiveness.
As bishops that's been two two said, there's no forgiveness,
there's no future. And how do we work on our
forgivenessess by being aware, aware of what's going on inside
(52:56):
of ourselves and knowing that we stepped our boundaries and
went over and said too much and we need to
apologize and to.
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Be aware of our friends and what's going on in environment,
and just trying to understand people.
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So when they bark at us or yell at us,
we just kind of take it in and say to
no one, I'm sure she's having a badness.
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It's not about me.
Speaker 6 (53:18):
Forgiveness, awareness, resiliency.
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This forgiveness treat of.
Speaker 6 (53:23):
And the thanksgiving treat of me if we're working on
cultivating those, we are cultivating grace and graciousness.
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Into our lives.
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And our society desperately, desperately.
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Hates this.
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In our parable today, being unforgiven, ungracious sets off a
cascade of events in which everybody loses.
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But you know, Jesus also tells the parable.
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We're being gracious also.
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Sets off a cascade of events.
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Where everybody wins.
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Know this parable will the parable of.
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The good Samaritan where a Samaritan who was in love
Jewish persons, in.
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Jesus nay, couldn't stand Samaritans, Republicans, and Democrats love each
other far more today than what Samaritans and Jews saw.
Speaker 5 (54:18):
On each other back in those days.
Speaker 6 (54:19):
Okay, I please understand this. This is the key to
the story, right, and this is American. He's traveling in
Jewish territory and he sees a man he can tell
about the lady he's dressed there, that he's a Jewish person.
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But he's injured and he's dying, and he's beside the
room and he says.
Speaker 5 (54:35):
I have to help my graciousness. I am suring myself.
I want Melcolm. He gives him. First day, he puts
him on his donkey, and he takes him to the
next town, the next Jewish town, and he takes him
to an end and the end if probably would not
have left. The Samaritans sleep in the house that night,
but he lets it in because he sees the gracious
(54:57):
he sees what he has done.
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And the innkeeper, who knew need of this Samarican, whom
he would never talk to a onl.
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He listens to him and he says, I'll take care
of the man. And when the Samaritan says, can you
take care of his care and pay for it? And
when I come back this way, I'll repay you. If
they had met the street, they met our earth talking.
But graciousness beget graciousness. And this innkeeper, this good.
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Innkeeper, trusts this Samaritan, and he says, I'll take care
of the man, and everybody wins.
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Can we be a church?
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Can we be a painful that spreads graciousness into our lives,
into our community, into our society. Rachel Hildaddam has lost
the church, and then she found the church through graciousness.
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Wouldn't it be great?
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And every church was a place where everyone was.
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Safe, but no one was comfortable resting on their lawls,
not caring about the problems.
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In their community, settling in their own cities. Wouldn't it
be great if we were all safe but not comfortable,
ready to allow to change the world for God? Could
we be that kind of church? Could we be that
kind of people?
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A man.
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In our tradition, we had our worship with a head
of a commitment. When we invite you, if you've.
Speaker 4 (56:48):
Never made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, we
was ophis the other day, you want to design you
want to be baptized as a father of Jesus, to
be part of our maregas.
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Maybe you've been a Christian, but you're looking for a
churchill who could hope this given place that can mean
or be you to be part of it.
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I'll be about the table we've all stayed together and
saying or want to be Christians, says we don't have
a number.
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I'll be guessing it's all to the oldest thing. I'll
find out with good Let's stay together and say.
Speaker 19 (58:04):
Say Francis, you go back out into the world, persevere
(59:37):
in prayer, rejoice in.
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The Lord in all things, and overcome evil with good.
Speaker 8 (59:48):
And as you go back out of the world, know
that God, the creator of the.
Speaker 6 (59:52):
Universe, has alway repair away for you and Jesus the Christ,
walks the side of you. Ever except with the way
Holy Spirit. God's unconditional love will surround you and protect
you through whatever you face this week.
Speaker 5 (01:00:08):
So go down in peace.
Speaker 15 (01:00:10):
Ahmen.