MISSION FRIENDS: A PIETIST WAY TO BE HUMAN | PEOPLE OF THE COMMON GOOD | PASTOR PRESTON | FEBRUARY 5

Lake Ridge Community Church Podcast

Hi there. My name is Preston POUTEAUX. Welcome to the Lake Ridge Community Church Podcast. This is where we share some of our messages from Sunday mornings. So we're glad you're here to listen.

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We'd love for you to join us in person. We meet on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m at Our Lady of Wisdom School here in Chestermere. At our core, we're a community of people, so we gather on on Sundays, but we also do a lot in the week. Together, we are people learning to follow Jesus and love our city. So to learn more, visit lakeridgecommunity.com.

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Hope to check in and visit with you soon. Take care. Thanks for listening.

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Let's pray together. Father, you are good to us and we love you. Give us imagination, for your spirit is speaking to us today. May we find a new way. Show us the way.

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Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Amen.

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There is grace for this journey of faith in Jesus. You have a God who deeply loves you. He has thought of you before the creation of it all. He has made you nothing about you as a surprise to Him. Maybe sometimes you raise his eyebrow, I'm sure, but he has even accommodated for that, and it is good.

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We are on a long journey over this whole year to talk about what it is to be human in the hands of a loving God. And it's exciting and it's good. But maybe on your journey of figuring out what it is to follow Jesus and take a look at a world around you that is in shambles, you might pause for a second and come up with a strategy for being a Christian in a broken world. This is a little bit what we're going to talk about today, our journey, and I'm going to weave all these pieces together. We are talking about what is the mission, friends?

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A pious way to be human? We are in the Covenant Church, which has its roots in Piatism. We're going to unpack that for us a little bit here. But maybe you are standing there and reading the news. Maybe you're like me.

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I look at Twitter every day to see if Ukraine has finally got the Russians out. That's that's pretty much what I use Twitter for. And as I do, I go through a long, winding journey to figure out what to do in this world. What does following Jesus have to do with all the complexities of my human existence here? I'm going to show you five ways to start, and I'm not going to comment on them except to tell you what they are.

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And you might put a pin in some of these and go, oh, that's me. When I started following Jesus, that's how I thought the world would get changed. These are from a guy named Richard Neighbor. And Richard Neighbor, he might be rolling over in his grave when he sees how I summarize something that was deep and complex theological stuff into something as simplistic as I'm about to present it. So if you know a neighbor scholar, say, yeah, Preston probably butchered this, but I think that he might actually think that I did a pretty good job here.

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I'm going to show you five. He calls them different things, but I'm going to call them this. The first one on the far side. This is dealing with a world that's crazy. And you decide to follow Jesus.

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You might decide to be what's called what I call through Nebra. I call it a bunker Christianity. What is that? A bunker Christianity. The world is very bad.

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Very, very bad. And so I have found Jesus and I have found a safe tower, a safe bunker to go and hide. It has a four foot thick door. I'm going to get in it and close it. I know Jesus says, love neighbor, but have you seen my neighbors?

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They're crazy town, right? I'm going to live in a bunker, and hopefully pretty soon God will, I got a ticket to heaven, so God will extricate me from this terrible world and we'll be done. That I call Bunker Christianity. It's all bad. We hide, we separate and protect ourselves from the world around us.

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The next one. So if that's bunker Christianity, here's something I call bleeping Christianity.

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Bleeping Christianity. Yes, the world is bad, but we'll bleep out the swears, right? As long as we close our eyes, keep our head down, we have to go in the world because we need to work. We have to go in the world. And I guess God does say love neighbors, but I'm only going to really love certain ones.

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And really, if there's something bad, if we bleep it out, cross it out, create a veggie tail, subculture for it all, we can kind of close our eyes enough and keep our little circle healthy. Some permeable walls to let some people in, but we keep it clean. Close your eyes and figure a way through that's. The second one, third one, chainsaw Christianity. The world's kind of half good, half bad, right?

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But guess what? If we work together, we can cut out the bad parts, right? We can slice out the parts that are bad. And if we do this really well, we'll actually remove the bad and keep the good. And we've got to now work out what parts are cut out and what parts are kept, right?

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Chain cells, zoom zone. We're going to go through bit by bit as the church and figure this out. Have you put a pin in yet? Are you stopping in one of these? Here we go.

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Next one. Number four. I call this power suit Christianity, right? What does a power suit do? They know that the world isn't all bad.

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In fact, if I put on my power suit, if I figure out I can use the world's ways, I can use the world's techniques to get Jesus's accomplishments done, right. The world actually has some pretty good things. Like if we just vote for the Republicans or the Democrats, we are going to figure this out. Power suit Christianity. If we can get in places of power, then we will be in control, right.

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If our nation was only just ever Christian and we got there and we had enough people operating there, we would be good. God can use the bad things of the world to his advantage and recreate the world in a better way. At the very least. If I'm a lawyer or a businessman or parent, jesus has some little hot tips to help me get through things, right? I'm mostly of this way, but the pro tips of Jesus give me the advantage.

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I have some values advantage going on on my side if I follow Jesus a little bit. And the last one, hot tub Christianity. I like this one. Look at this. Chill dude.

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Whatever happens, happens. I don't want to look any different than my neighbor. I want to look like the world around me. Right? The world around me is going this direction.

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Well. Jesus helps me just go with the flow, dude. Right. All is well. I just soak in whatever feels good.

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I don't look any different than the culture around me. I am exactly like it in every way. If you were to put a taut tub Christian beside anybody who wasn't Christian, you would not really see a difference. They would be about the same. So you see from bunker Christianity all the way through, nebras points these out.

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He has different ways of talking about them in his Christian culture book. You have probably read it and we get to the other side with hot tub Christianity. What do you think? What do you think?

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Who are you? Or maybe it's easier to point figure out somebody else. Who is that Christian that you know, that you really don't like very much, right? Are you frustrated with the hot tub Christians that you know, oh, they're just caving in, right? Are you frustrated with the bunker Christians who is hiding away from the world or somebody in between?

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Richard Nebras points these five out. How do you go forward with it? What do you think is the right answer? Which is the best way? Is there another way?

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I think sometimes we have to pause and wonder at how Jesus is helping us navigate the world around us. And in this room I almost wonder if we have somebody in every one of those camps in one way or another. And so when we encounter each other, we go how are these people navigating the world? Why do they see it differently than me? Well, the pietists are these people who were dealing with the same things that you are in the world.

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But it was a long time ago so they didn't have running water or electricity, which made it just a little bit harder. But they still had great challenges around them in the world, and there were very major challenges. And there's a story, it's one of the starting stories of pietism. And I've shared this one other time, and a lot of people talk to me about it, but it's a story of a woman named Maria Nil's daughter. I came across it again as I was reading, and I wanted to share the story again.

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They called her Mother of Val Farm, or Mori Val, and she was a widow, mother of six, who in Sweden at that time. If your parents owed money to somebody else, you could give them your kids as a servitude to pay off your debt. Yeah. So your children would essentially become slaves to someone else, and they could be in that state for a long time. But if the parents passed away, these children, instead of going to an orphanage, they would go and they'd be in some sort of indentured servitude or even slavery to somebody else.

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And this woman, a mother of six, she was deeply moved by Jesus, and she saw this happen. And she probably she probably didn't know neighbor's construct, but she was probably looking and going, I could hide in a bunker and be away from these kids.

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I could maybe just keep my eyes closed. I could say, oh, this slavery is whatever. I could move all the way down, or maybe I could join in and buy a couple, too. They could be helpful around the house. Right?

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What do you think she did? She was so moved by the person of Jesus that she did something that I think is outside of these. Her response to a world of cruelty and sin and shame and anxiety was to serve it, to serve the world. And she went and she found these kids and she bought them and bought their freedom and took them into her home, and she made her home their home. She didn't make a big political statement about it.

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She wasn't like everybody else. They probably rolled her eyes and said, how are you going to afford it? You're a single mom. But she said, I have Jesus in my heart, and I am deeply moved by what Jesus has done for me, that I am stepping out into the world to be like Jesus, to serve a broken world. Her inner devotion turned into external action, and she became a servant of these children and the system around them.

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She served these kids neither a bunker Christian nor a hot tub Christian. She was what I'm going to call a tea towel Christian. What do you do with a tea towel? You wipe up spills, you set the table, you put something in the oven, you pull it out. She was serving the world.

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She didn't know how to solve the big problems, but she stepped in because she believed that the way of Jesus solves the world's problems. So I'm going to call this I have a slide for it. I call it servant Christianity, tea towel Christianity. I'm going to coin it here, right? Other people have.

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I'm just using it. Jesus washed the world's feet when his disciples came around a table. One of the first things he did at the Last Supper was he got on his knees and he wrapped some cloth around him and he pulled out a tea towel and he washed his disciples feet. He said, this is how you navigate a broken world. You serve it, you touch it, you pray for it, you bless it.

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Jesus then sacrifices himself for it. Like Maria Nil's daughter, she saw how Jesus gave his life up for another as the ultimate act of servitude. And she or she was giving up the comforts of her life to serve another. These carry the story of God in it. Let's unpack a little bit of scripture here and get a sense of something.

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Hebrews, the book of Hebrews was written for anxious Christians. Anxious Christians. Do you feel like an anxious Christian? I got some low level anxiety going on. I am there.

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And when I enter the book of Hebrews, maybe sometimes you enter the Bible thinking, I'm just going to tell you something that you don't got all altogether here. Maybe you go in with some anxiety. But the book of Hebrews was for those who thought they had to add something to the story of God to spice it up. For the bunker Christians who weren't enough to just follow Jesus. He had to go hide away from the world.

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The bleeping Christians, the chainsaw Christians, the power suit Christians, the hot tub Christians. This author of Hebrews reorients the people to a way of walking together with Jesus in the Jesus way in a broken world. And so the covenant, the early covenant people, these pietists, they called it a kind of common faith for the common good, a kind of faith that saves us from getting in the way so we can get on the way. I'm going to say that again. They came to the discovery of a kind of faith that saves us from getting in the way so we can get on the way to get at this, to get at serving like Jesus.

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How can we possibly serve this world? A world that's so contrary to life, so contrary to joy, to peace, to mercy? How can we love without anxiety? How can we possibly step into the chaos? How can we live another day for this?

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I think Hebrews unpacks the faith of Jesus people in the world, and they use this phrase called the priesthood. Now, what do you think when I say the word priests? Maybe a person in a big gown, maybe swinging an incense thing, right? Whatever your image is of a priest, maybe wearing a clergy collar or something? Well, the image in Jesus time was actually a whole class of citizens who worked in the temple.

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Their job was to keep the temple quite pure. They were gatekeepers. They were door openers to the life of God and the life of people. People, of course, are messy. God is pure.

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And in between were priests. And what they started to do in Jesus day is they were working harder to keep the door closed than open. If you came to the temple, you had to go through many layers to be clean enough to get into the life of God, right? And this is all set out in scripture, and we can talk about why that is, but it's set out in such a way that suddenly you could not easily go in unless you sacrifice something, unless you were holy and righteous and pure, you couldn't get in otherwise. And even then it got to a certain point where the Gentiles, the non Jews stayed way out.

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The Jewish women could get a little bit closer, and the men I don't know, it should have maybe been switched around, but anyway, the men were allowed even closer. Maybe this is where all the problems came in. They should have had some other ladies in there running the show, right? Anyway, so they got a little closer and closer and eventually it wasn't even the men were good enough. It was only one person a year who could really go right in.

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And even then it wasn't enough. Why am I talking about priesthood while Hebrews begins to break down something for us, this language of priest and this act of opening a door between God and the world actually was turned on its head. And in one Peter two nine, it says that you are a priesthood of believers, the whole church, you are all priests for God. And that for people would have been like what? You have a job of showing the goodness of God, not to protect God from people, but to turn around and be the people of God, bringing the hope and goodness of Jesus of God into the world.

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You are priesthood. You are the usherers of the goodness of God into the world. And the book of Hebrews takes all the anxiety out of this. It allows us to become people who serve Hebrews. One begins with this.

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It says, God promised everything to the sun, okay? The sun radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God. He sustains everything by his mighty power. It starts out and says, there is one priest, there is one who reflects God. Not one man going in, but there's one man who's coming out, and his name is Jesus.

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He reflects God and he's stepping into the world. And then the writer of the book of Hebrews begins to unpack this even more. And it is the most liberating thing I think we can hear today. Hebrews 414 goes on and it says this since. So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe.

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This high priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for we all faced no, for he faced all the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we receive his mercy and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrews turns it around. It's not going into the temple to encounter God, but the great High Priest is from there.

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And he says, ah, I know you are weak. I know you do not hear the voice of God in the way that you would hope. And so Jesus, he becomes this great high Priest who is on the journey out. And here's what he does. He steps into the world and he shows us how to step into the world.

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He knows we're weak, he knows we're tempted, but he did what he what we couldn't. He is sinless, utterly sinless. He is pure and blameless. He is holy and he has stepped into our world. So Hebrews ten, it breaks it down even more.

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I'm going to take us on a journey here. Hebrews 1014 says this there he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by the one offering, he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. Jesus, by this sacrifice on the cross, he enters into the world and he is the one who has made the sacrifice. Instead of people having to come into the temple and make a sacrifice and cover for themselves and try to make their world right again, jesus is the one who comes out and his sacrifice is enough.

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His sacrifice covers people so they can go around not feeling the shame and the guilt of their sin, not wondering when they're going to get out of the bunker and into the world, but invited in to become also priests too. No more sacrifices are needed covered. Your visa bill is paid in full. You owe nothing more. He laid down his life for the world.

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It says in verse 18, so we are forgiven. It is done. This is the great hope of Jesus, is that he has been the ultimate priest for us. He has covered us. And so it says in verse 16, so therefore then let us approach the throne with confidence.

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We can wander right into God's space. I remember my dad worked at an office growing up, and I would go through and there was layers of secretaries that he had out front, different people, and I would go through and I would just wave at them all. I'd go right in. Even if dad was on the phone with some up and up super power person, he'd put the phone down and I could go right into my dad's office any time of the day, and he'd always put his phone down and say, hey, I got to call you about my son's here, right? And he'd put it down.

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I remember when Kelly used to work as one of the many people out front, and she said to me, he's kind of scary, that guy. He is working hard. He is like the boss man in the corner office. And then we got married, and she saw my dad in his underwear, and it was like, whoa, this has changed everything, right? Yeah.

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Who hasn't?

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Something changes. I because I'm my dad's son, I'm allowed to go past all the important people and get right into his office, and he gives me his full attention. And then, guess what? When Kelly married me, she went from not just being some employee somewhere, but she went and she could come right into my dad's house. She becomes his daughter in law.

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She's allowed in. I'm allowed in. This is the reality of it. And in Jesus, we are allowed right into the very center of the life of God. And we can go by anything we think is a barrier and be like, hello.

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No, I am here as a child of God. I'm adopted. And, yes, I'm a Gentile. I wasn't a Jew. I'm a bunch of things.

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Yes, I'm a sinner. I got a lot of issues. But guess what? I'm allowed to go right in. Right in.

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And there is nothing blocking me because what Jesus has done.

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Hebrews three one takes this good news and it says this. And so, dear brothers and sisters who belong to God and our partners with those called to heaven, think carefully about this jesus, whom we declare to be God's messenger and high priest, for he was faithful to God who appointed him. Dear brothers and sisters who belong to God, we now belong to him. We are now part of the Fellowship of the Rings. We are now journeys on this.

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We are now brothers and sisters. Not just one person, but we are a crew. We are a team. We are a tribe. We are now a clan of people who together get access to God.

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What does this look like? Why is this important? Why am I talking about this today? Well, the early Piatus, they love this idea that they were priests. They were part of those who were opening the doors of God's family to the world.

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They were pulling back the shutters and the curtains. They were cracking open doors, and they were all able to go to God and then step into the world. Go to God and step into the world. In fact, priests were considered servants in ancient times. And their clothes, they were servant gowns, stoles were tea towels, and they would serve by setting the table for worship.

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They would set a place of worship, and they would set out a table, and they'd say, everyone's around everyone's, welcome to Jesus table. And these priests were tablesetters. They were saying come. Come to the table. These pietists took this very seriously.

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They loved this, that they too could be priests in the world, that Maria could be a priest in the world going out to find these kids and say, you are welcome. You are freed from your slavery, and I serve you, and that's going to change your life and mine. Come. Jesus is for you. They are priests revealing and responding to the presence of God in the world God loves.

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They are spreading the feast of hope, love, joy, and peace in the world that has none. They're not concerned with running to a bunker. How can I serve at a table when I'm hiding in a bunker? They're not firing up a chainsaw to cut something out of a world that they think has all gone bad. They're setting a table.

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They're serving it. They're wiping up spills. They sure aren't sitting in a hot tub. They're out there getting involved. They look different than the world around them.

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The world's selfish. Not these people in their service. They give up their whole lives. They were connecting God's world to our world in every sphere of life. And people called them weird for it, but they said common places are now holy places because of Jesus.

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Sweden and the new places that they're coming to. These people were movers and shakers because they would serve. That was the way that they saw the world changing. And each person could do this. Every single person was given the gift to be able to do this.

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One Corinthians two seven Calls talks about gifts for the common good. Every person has a tea towel and a handful of something to serve. Every person can. Each person is a priest with a tea towel. And they're serving up delicious goodness for all.

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They're opening all the doors to God's goodness and saying, everyone is welcome. Every home a table, a gathering place of sacred celebration. In fact, they were distraught. They called the early pious. They called horrid.

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That only the clergy got to be priests, that only the clergy got to set a table. Only the clergy could talk about the good news of Jesus, and everybody else just had to sit there. They said, this is horrid. This is absolutely not how it should be. These early piatists, they became pastors.

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Their pastors first modeled and then reminded and then challenged and invited all the people to use all their gifts as the full priesthood of believers. The Church of God fully activated to live out their faith in real ways. No pastor was sending people to a bunker or a hot tub. They were saying, no, let's get around the table and serve up a feast of God's goodness where we are.

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The church, according to Christopher Gertz, that does not have a common priesthood for the common good will and I quote, turn lay people from full participants in the mission of the church into fickle consumers and idle spectators, he says. Gen. Hatmaker says this framework sets leaders and followers up for failure, creating a church centric paradigm in which discipleship is staffled and program driven. This slowly builds a consumer culture wherein the spiritual responsibilities transferred from Christians to pastors, and it's a recipe for disaster. Did you know that it might serve my ego really well if I'm the center Lake Ridge and it will destroy me and destroy us all.

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I'm going to name it. Did you know that if I am the only one bringing my gifts to the table, it will destroy me and you, because you will not get to do what you are called to do, which is to be the servants of Jesus in your place. You are each as gifted as I am. I have particular gifts, but you are each as gifted, and you are being called to step into your gifts, into your world, and to be servant. Tea towel christians along with me.

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I might show you how. I might teach you how. You might come to me for advice. But this is Lake Ridge is yours to carry. So what does this mean for living this one and beautiful life?

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Well, first, I think it's to realize that you have a calling, that each person here altogether with those beside you, that you can fully grab hope of the truth. That your life is ground zero for seeing God in your life. Your life is ground zero for the holiest work that God can do. It happens here and now, not next week. Didn't happen four years ago when you went to that retreat somewhere.

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It is happening right now in you.

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It's happening in you. It's happening in me. This very moment and the next. You can serve your world and open up the doors to God's spirit. No anxiety.

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Whether you are good enough, Hebrews covers that. If you think I'm not good enough, Hebrews takes the anxiety away and says, don't worry. You don't have to worry about being good enough, smart enough, strong enough, fast enough. All of those things. Anxiety.

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Please be gone with that. Don't be afraid. Jesus got you covered. If you're wise enough, don't worry. You're you're covered by faith in Jesus.

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We can be a common priesthood for the common good. Chestermere has you. Chestermere has us. We are ground zero for the work of God in a broken world. Now, you might need to do some work to be a servant.

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You might need to learn a couple of things. I think if I today went and worked at Boston Pizza, I would be a terrible, terrible servant at the table. You'd be covered in spaghetti by the time the time is out. I know that. I'd be in the back kitchen.

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I I wouldn't know anything. You might have to go on a journey. Did you. Know, we have a youth ministry here, Lake Ridge. We love teens.

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You might say, Man, I feel called to love some teens. You might have to do some homework. You might have to read a book about teens. You might then have to learn some teens names and get to know their families. You might have to talk to some people about how to do teen ministry.

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And then you're going to have to be rejected by twelve teens before you get around to one of them going, hey, you are maybe kind of cool, but not really, but maybe one day, right?

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That's the journey of servant. When we take what you do and call it just volunteer work and say, come in and plug in here and be done. We are diminishing what you are called to do as God's people. And if you say, I do not have enough capacity, guess what Hebrew says you do? Hebrew says you're being given everything you need to serve.

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It's really hard to be a bunker Christian or a hot tub Christian, but to be a servant Christian, jesus shows us the way and we can step into it. But it might take a journey for you. You might have to take a class. You might need a mentor. You might need to go through a Bible study.

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You might need to change something in your life and move it around so that you are in a place to join the team of priests who are serving, to open the doors and let the hope of Jesus into our world. That might be work, but it is the good work. I bet it was very hard for Maria when she welcomed those kids into her home, but she knew no of no other way to serve the world than to serve like Jesus. So Jesus, this is what he does. He washes feet, he sets a table and he serves a world that hurts.

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He says, Come to the throne of grace and mercy and be transformed into the likeness of Jesus. And live not by your great skill or great anxiety, but by my gift to you. It's a gift to come and serve. How will we do this? Will we be pleased enough to have Preston serve as a priest?

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I hope not. I hope not. Will I be your pastor to remind you that you are priests of the city? Imagine what 100 people that's you could do to a city if you knew what you were about, if you knew what you could do with tea towels, if you knew what you could do with your one and beautiful life, to give it away and wash the feet of your city. You could serve kids, you could serve the poor, you could welcome newcomers.

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You could care for the addicted, the fearful, the ashamed, the proud, the sinners and the saints all served at this table and at your table. Something that I think that we might start doing soon is I think once a month we eat together at each other's tables every Sunday that I think we have communion. I'd love it if all of us went to each other's homes afterwards or something. I wonder about that.

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I'm going to end with this scripture and we're going to share and communion together.

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I want us to wrestle with this grand calling of being part of this grand team of people who are serving. Says this in John 13 before the Passover celebration. Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth and now he loved them to the very end. It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas, son of Simon Escariot to betray Jesus.

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Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got it from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash his disciples feet drying them with the towel he had wrapped around them.

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After washing feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked do you understand what I'm doing? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you're right, because that's what I am. Since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet you ought to wash each other's feet. I've given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.

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I tell you the truth. Slaves are not greater than their master, nor is a messenger more important than the one who sends the message. Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them. Friends, will you come to this table? Come to a table for a God who washes your feet and says, welcome.

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Can you do this too? Can you do this thing and follow me? Can you wash others feet, too? Did you know Jesus washed Judas's feet? I think Jesus knew what was happening with Judas and he washes his feet.

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We aren't really supposed to pick and choose whose feet we're washing or who we serve. We change the world like Jesus by serving like Jesus. So will you come to the table that you might set the table for others? Will you let your life be a home for God's presence as part of the priesthood of believers who carries in you the very temple and presence of God with doors open to others? Will you do it in the Jesus way?

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Or do you prefer the power suit way? Chainsaw way, bunker way, bleeping way? Will we be this kind of community? Is it possible that you are the church? You are the presence of God?

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You are the priests of God? My role is simply a servant pastor who invites us all to take up the tea towel. So come to this table not because you must, but because you may. Not because you are strong, but because you are weak. Come.

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Not because of any goodness of your own gives you any right to come, but because you need mercy and help. Come because you love the Lord a little and would love to love him a lot. Come because he loves you and gave himself for you. Come and meet the risen Christ for we are his body, a priesthood who inhabit a universe of grace. Prince, we're going to eat at this table and I invite you to come.

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I'd maybe like to invite up our worship team to come and just play for us a little bit. I'd invite you to come and grab a little cup. There's some juice in there and I'll rip off a piece of bread and you can go and take it and sit down. We'll, we'll take it together. I want us to realize that we are the body of Christ broken, but the blood of Christ is a sacrifice for the world.

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And we, because of Jesus, get to be those who walk out into the world as priesthood, the priesthood of believers, common faith for common good servant Christians attell faith. Amen. Amen. Come, come to the table.

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Thank you.

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Christ alone cornerstone we made strong and singers love through the soul he is gone christine cornerstone we can make strong saviors love through the storm he is lonely

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my fellow priests, those who've been covered and forgiven. Those who have been given grace and abundant grace. Those who are always welcome at God's table. Those who are welcomed into the very inner family of God. All these things are true about you.

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You are created and loved and provided for. May this body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, may it remind you, may it may it nourish you and bring your whole heart and life into an imagination that you are part of this story, that he is in you. Amen. Amen. Amen.

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Please stand with me.

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Friends, this week I don't know what your homework is, but maybe your homework is this to try and serve. I don't know what that looks like. It's going to look different for every single person. You know what your gifts are, but I have a hunch that Jesus is nudging you to say, would you join me at the table? Would you pick up a tea towel and join me?

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The world sucks. It's hard, it's broken, but I know away. It involves washing some feet, it involves blessing, it involves setting a table. Would you join me in that? Friends, I trust that this week the Holy Spirit is going to show you some beautiful way that he's inviting you to be a servant along with him.

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I think in doing so, you'll join this beautiful group of mission friends who are joining with Jesus in this world. Amen. And you aren't alone. You're part of a community, right? You're part of a community.

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I'm not alone. You aren't alone. This is good news. May Lord bless you and keep you. May Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

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May Lord lift up his countenance upon you and grant you his peace as you go from here today. I'm going to pray now for our hot dogs because every hot dog needs prayer, right? Jesus, thank you for this community, for the tables that are set and for the ways that you come and serve us first so that we would be those who serve a world in need. May we be not afraid to be servants in this world. It seems small, but you showed us how.

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And may a world be changed because of us being servants in the Jesus way. Oh, Holy Spirit, this is a big calling to ask us to be servants, but may we do it. And may you empower us and give us eyes to see. And so bless our time together. May we see each other, serve each other, love each other and find you in doing so.

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So bless these hot dogs. Bless the ketchups and the mustards. May this be the place, the altar of our great love for each other and for you. Thank you for Dell and Pat. May this little lunch be a celebration of their years of service, too.

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In Jesus name we pray. Amen.