Latest / Wesley at FSU & TSC / James 2 | Sunday Service | October 27, 2024

Transcript

James 2 | Sunday Service | October 27, 2024 · Wesley at FSU & TSC

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: A message uh that's gonna continue where we were prior to Beach Retreat.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we kind of took a little bit of a week off last week.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you showed up here at 11 last week, I'm very sorry we tried to warn you.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I hope you had a good time worshiping God by yourself.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: But uh we are gonna continue in this passage on in James, and we're gonna kind of go through it's a couple more weeks of this just so that we can walk through the book together.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: This week I'm gonna focus on what might be the most famous part of this book, which is the second chapter, uh, about halfway through or so.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I want to read these uh verses to you.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Here now the reading of God's word.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: That should hit you like a wall of bricks.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Claiming to have faith can't save anyone, can it?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine a brother or sister who is naked and never has enough food to eat.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: What if one of you said, go in peace, stay warm, have a nice meal?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: What good is it if you don't actually give them what their body needs?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way, faith is dead when it doesn't result in faithful activity.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, let's pray over the preaching of God's word.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: God, your word is a lamp into our feet and a light into our foot path.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: May it speak to us, may it speak through us for the establishment of your kingdom on this earth, oh God.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: We love you.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Meet us here.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: We pray this in your name.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So Hannah, put that photo up here.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I want to I want somebody to tell me what this is a picture of.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, New Year's Eve where Times Square.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just somebody shout out some things that stick out to you.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot going on in this photo.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: What'd you say?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Advertisements.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you've ever been in Times Square yourself, you know that it is uh prime market for advertisements.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: What else?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Confetti, a lot of confetti.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is probably right at the strike of midnight.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: What else?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Fog is good, yeah.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Gotta get the Haze machine, Ben.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what else?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: What else?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Beetlejuice, yeah.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed that too.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know what else I noticed over here?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Planet Fitness.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever watched New Year's Rock and Eve on New Year's Eve, which is oh, it used to be Dick Clark's show, and now it's Ryan Seacrest.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, because Ryan Seacrest needs to host everything on television, evidently.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know if you've noticed over the past uh let's say nine years, because I looked it up.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Planet Fitness has been the premier partner sponsor for New Year's Rock and Eve, meaning that they get to advertise throughout uh Times Square on New Year's Eve for nine years.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea how much it costs them.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I did try to look it up, and I will tell you also, it sucks because I Googled a lot of this, it's now all in my Facebook feed.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like Planet Fitness wants me to sign up like crazy, which I don't know if they're trying to make a statement.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to say something.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, they it's all over there.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I noticed that here.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's some other photos uh of New Year's Eve, a Times Square.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's coming now.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Magical.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you see that how everybody got those, like what do you call those?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: The boom whackers?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody got these boom whackers.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: They got these really cool um this is 2020.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: I know, yeah, I had to go back through time.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, these are they're really cool hats.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I guess they're cool.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone's wearing them.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I also saw this picture that stuck out to me of the the little what do you call those guys?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: The little blow-up guys, like wavy thingies.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is obviously 2021, if you notice the masks on their face.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um nine years they've been doing this.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why do they do this?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody tell me.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: New Year's resolutions.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: New Year's resolutions, because at the at the beginning of the year is the number one time when people start to make changes about their life.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It lasts about a week and a half, but like they start to make changes about their life right at the beginning, right?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: New Year's resolutions.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Would you believe that Planet Fitness has more people sign up leading up in the month or so before January 1st and then that first couple days than the rest of the year combined?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Wild, wild.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how they do it.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, they advertise on New Year's Recording Eve.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Second of all, it costs one dollar to sign up.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: One dollar, it does have like a 49-year,$49,$49 year,$49 a year commitment, but one dollar to sign up, and then it's as low as, do you know,$10 during New Year's Eve and$15 if you sign up when it's like expensive, right?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's the expensive.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: $10.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you can sign up on their app.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's super easy.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: They make it really easy to sign up, it's kind of like the New York Times, and really hard to cancel, right?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: You have to cancel in person.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: But they they do a majority of their business during that time frame.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it makes sense to advertise during that time frame.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is interesting because that means that Planet Fitness makes a majority of their income because of the impulsiveness of Americans, and they know the lack of follow-through.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now we all know, we all have subscriptions that we probably bought because we were like, that'll be a cool idea, and then we forgot to turn off for a few weeks.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the New York Times is on my mind because I didn't realize I was getting charged uh a lot of money per month before that.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I tried to cancel and they offered me a discount, which I took.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um Pump Planet Fitness does a majority of their business because of the impulsiveness of Americans and then also the lack of follow-through.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I guess what we could say is that our reputation precedes us.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are often, if we can be honest with each other, a people of great intention but no action.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: We are often a people of great intention, but no action.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, we want the best and we're willing to commit to the best.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: What we're not real great at, and this is not aimed at any single person in the room except for me, and then also you, we're not great at follow-through.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're just not that good at follow-through.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that this happens in other places too, not just in New Year's resolutions.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have we had a conversation with somebody?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: They've told us about something going on in their life, and we, you know, we're trying to be that good Christian friend, and we say, you know what, I'm gonna pray for you.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then we walk out the door and we don't give a second thought to what they just communicated with us.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as much as our intentions might have been good, we might have been in that space, ready to go, ready, ready to to advocate on their behalf to the Lord for that.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then we walk out the room and we don't really do it as much.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: The intentions are good, but the follow-through is bad.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have we promised a friend something?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Something, let's let's take the spirituality out of it for a second.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Promise a friend something and then uh forgot.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody done that?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to raise your hand.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, raise your hand and make me feel better.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, every everybody has done that.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: I am, if you ask anybody who works on our office staff, and I I said thank you to them earlier, so they will be able to tell you uh exactly the truth.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I am the king of unfinished project projects.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can I give you a really fun example?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Can we get a really funny example?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this isn't totally my fault, but I am taking the blame for it.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: In this section of the room, if you look over there, there's a set of lights that has had a cover off of it since early August.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: We don't own a ladder tall enough to get up there.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the only human who could have done it, who I won't mention his name, but he's definitely the tallest person on staff, got real scared when he got up there.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we didn't make it happen.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I there's so many things that just go unfinished.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: It I tried to be evaluated for ADHD because I was willing to blame it on that.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: The doctor told me I didn't have it, and so now I have to do it, I have to fix it naturally, which is impossible.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the king of unfinished projects.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: As an example, too, I'm so well-meaning.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if I get an email or I see an article that I really want to read, because my brain is like stimulated by it.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do it.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have this app called InstaPaper.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's several other ones, but it's a read later app, right?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: You send it to uh this app and then you'll go back and read it later.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what I do?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like three months later, when I remember that I wanted to read that thing, I go back to that app and it's automatically deleted itself from my phone, and I have to tap on it to read download it, and then I look at it.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I might find the article that I wanted, maybe, and then I'll never read the rest of them.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I have these good intentions, I just lack the follow-through.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of us live our lives of faith this way too.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: We have good intentions, but we we we never follow through.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes this is true on um, you know, sometimes this is true when it comes to things like spiritual practices and disciplines.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I really want to pray more, but that requires me to think about it, you know.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I really want to read my Bible more, but that does require me to get up earlier or go to bed later, and neither of those things are happening, right?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um I really want to spend time with a friend of mine, but I don't often.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times uh I will tell people when they're like, hey, uh I really want to spend time with this person, I really want to do that, or I really want to uh uh uh do this thing that you've asked me to do.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I always say to myself, I don't generally say it out loud, but I always say to myself, like, uh I'll know when you want to, because then you'll do it, right?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that that but that's often the way that we kind of live our lives, is that we have a hard time following through.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Christians can be this way too.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you heard me talk about checklist Christianity many times.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you have heard me phrase it like this most of American Christians are uh Christians by identity rather than conviction.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I'm gonna check the box, but when it comes to actually behaving like the Christian that I need to do or doing the things that I need to do, uh that requires a different lifestyle.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: That requires a change.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: That requires a like a transformed heart.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure I'm quite in on that part, right?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so many of us deal with this.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I deal with it, I do this professionally, and I'm preaching this to myself.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear that.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I do this professionally, and I do this myself every single day.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're about to enter into a season where the identity politics are very important, unfortunately.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, over the next, if you haven't been paying attention, there's something coming up in the next two, in the next week and a half, uh, where uh it's gonna be very clear on whose side everybody's on.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what we do, man.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: We often vote the slate.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they used to call it in the sorority and fraternity world.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: They vote the slate, meaning like, I'm gonna vote.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: There we go, sorority shout out.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they vote the person who has R next to their name or D next to their name.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I I rarely do any sort of investigation about what they actually believe, what they actually are going to do, what they promised, what they followed through on those promises in the past.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what's happened in our world is that we've all kind of divided over this identity that happens because doing the rest of the work is really hard.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Doing the rest of the research is really hard.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Following through is really hard.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the struggle that we have.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want to go back to this passage so we walk through this for a second.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Faith has to be followed up by works, so I want to read this.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Claiming to have faith can't save anyone, can it?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I want to stop right there.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is a a uh uh I would say controversial passage.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you were in Bible study on Wednesday, you heard us talk about this.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the reason for it is that uh James has been debated throughout the history, uh, and this is just a little nerd time here for a second, about what was the most important thing in the salvation of humankind.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear what he's saying.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, My brother and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Claiming to have faith can't save anyone, can it?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Claiming to have faith can't save anyone, can it?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: The reason it's been debated is because of passages like these from Romans.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is Romans 3, uh coming here.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, not at all, but through the law of faith.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: We consider that a person is treated as righteous by faith, meaning being saved by faith, apart what is accomplished under the law.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: To put it maybe even a little bit easier, this next passage here in Ephesians, you are saved by God's grace.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard this before.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: By grace I have been saved.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: You are saved by God's grace because of your faith.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: This salvation is God's gift, it's not something you possessed.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's been debated about what is the saving action of being a Christian.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the work that we do or is it our faith?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so much so that different theological leaders and pastors and scholars have kind of separated those through, and they said, You're either on solo fidei, which means only faith, or you believe Christians have to do something, they have to follow through with what they're doing.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a debate that's gone on.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now I will tell you it's in our Bible.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I find this to be helpful.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to go back to 14, if we could, Hannah.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: 14.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Claiming to have faith can't save anyone.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, James is advocating for faith being demonstrated through action.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, faith can't exist on its own without the action.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: John Wesley would have put it this way: if you're concerned about your salvation and whether faith was the only thing that saved you, if you didn't back it up by the way you behaved, maybe you weren't saved in the first place.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: There was this kind of duality here.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And James is trying to say, no, my friend, they are brought together.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Faith and action are not separate.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Faith is what saves us, and the works are the way in which we live out that faith.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot separate the two.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: What I love about this, and this is not always the case, particularly in Paul, this is not Paul's written by James, but what's really interesting about this is that James gives us an example, which Paul doesn't always.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Paul likes to go on these kind of like long tangents and talk a lot, and then you're like, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, but how do I apply this?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then he goes, and grace and peace to you, my friends, you know.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then and then you don't ever hear from him again.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: James actually gives us a uh a very specific example.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go to verse 15 here.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine a brother or sister who is naked and has never had enough food to eat.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: What if one of you said, Go in peace, stay warm, have a nice meal?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: What good is it if you don't actually give them what their body needs?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's stop there for a second.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: All of us have been to downtown Tallahassee.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: All of us know the many people who are unhoused in downtown Tallahassee.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't been there, I'd encourage you to go there this afternoon.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't take you long to find somebody who is unhoused in downtown Tallahassee.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean within seconds.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: We've all had this experience where we've tried to give a blessing to somebody, but not actually give them the sustenance they need.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: We've asked a lot of questions in the past about why is it that, well, what are they gonna use the money on?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: What are they gonna, what, what are they?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: We've asked a lot of those questions before.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: All of us have had this this hits, if you the first part didn't hit you like a wall of bricks, this one does.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: What if one of you said, go in peace, stay warm, have a nice meal?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: What good is it if you don't actually give them what their body needs?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, I've done that this week.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't like some sort of hypothetical question.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've done that this week.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in seminary, I interned at this uh very wealthy United Methodist Church in North Carolina.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean very wealthy.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: 5,000 members, six services on a Sunday, that kind of church.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: When you walk into their like main space, which we would consider this a main space, it has this upstairs section, which we don't have, although our poor friends up there, I guess we technically have a small space where the soundboard is.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we when you walk up to the stairs, there the staircase was made of marble, polished, fancy marble.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And underneath the marble, now listen, it was nice.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not criticizing that.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was nice.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Underneath the marble with these little meeting rooms, and I think they were initially meant uh, you know, maybe reserved for offices or something like that, but we just used them as meeting rooms.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: They were small, you could fit maybe five, six people in a room comfortably.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Have these beautiful chairs.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, one I remember one of these velvet, huh?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like you're in luxury, you know what I'm saying?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them were leather.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I was the pastoral intern, which is code for do whatever the pastor doesn't want to do.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I would do is I would be up in my office, which the pastoral intern had his own office.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just put that uh there.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I would get a phone call from the front desk clerk who would request the pastoral intern to come down and meet somebody at the front desk because they had come into the main space.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then the protocol here was to take them to the rooms underneath the marble staircase, and then hear their story, nod, smile, pray, and then tell them we didn't have any money for them.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: That was the protocol.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't take but like till the second time when somebody goes, You telling me you don't have any money?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, we definitely the church doesn't have any money.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them mentioned the marble staircase.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a pretty nice staircase you got out there.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been in this situation.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: What if one of you said, go in peace, stay warm, have a nice meal?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: What good is it if you don't actually give them what their body needs?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I went and argued to the uh uh some of the pastoral leadership and asked for, you know, what could we do?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Can we do anything for them?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I won a little bit.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I could not give them money, but I could give them free bus tickets.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'll take what I can get.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we were able to give them out bus tickets by the end of the summer.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: We still didn't give them what their body needed.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: A couple years ago, I served at a church here in downtown Tallahassee, part-time.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Very fun.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, two full-time jobs, very fun.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, part-time.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one of the things I noticed, I served the 945 service and uh incredible opportunity and uh was a blessing in a lot of ways.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: But we would have people who were unhoused who would come in and get coffee and donuts and all this literally every morning, they still do to this day, they come in off the street to get coffee and donuts every Sunday morning, which is great, giving them something their body needs.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember having a discussion with somebody who worked there at the time who said, uh, if you ever need anything else for them, come find me.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Okay.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, the next week, somebody else came in asking for something.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: They they were looking for a jacket.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I was like, We don't have a jacket, man.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: I get you some donuts, you know.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a jacket for you.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I went and found my friend Nick, and Nick's like, oh, I'll show you where the jackets are.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we walked in and he showed me this like secretive little Harry Potter closet, you know.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, I opened it up and it's full of clothes.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, What size are you?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Well, I think I think I'm more like an extra large.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's a medium.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the right size, I don't think it's your vibe, you know.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Pulls it out, hands it to him.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I love about that church is even to this day, the preschoolers, one of them's my daughter.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: The preschoolers make snack packs that they give out on Thursday mornings.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: They've been doing this for decades.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: The preschoolers give out snack packs.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: What if one of you said, go in peace, stay warm, have a nice meal?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: What if one of you had a marble staircase and told them the church didn't have any money?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: What good is it if you don't actually give them what their body needs?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: What good is it if it's 30 degrees outside and they don't have a uh something to clothe themselves with and you have a closet full and you don't say anything?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: What if we were to open the closet?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Find the one that fits them, find the one that looks good on them.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Say, now go in peace.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: I often ask the question what is a college ministry that we can do to do this?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Many of you have heard me say this before.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: College, particularly nowadays, is an amenity.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: These war.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like when you're starting to look for the college, you're looking through what it can offer you, what kind of cool stuff they have.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do they have a bar in the bottom of the of the union?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do they have bowling and billiards in the bottom of the union?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is it as big as it was in the past union?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: It is not.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: How many opportunities can we have?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a Starbucks I can mobile order from and walk from Wesley and pick up on the way to my next class?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of world we're living in.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's very easy for you, oh, 18 to 22 year olds, 23, 24.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's very easy for you young people to live a world that's very centered upon you.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we would might call that checklist Christianity sometimes.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, ah, okay, I'll go where it feels, I'll go to this fun retreat, and then I don't actually do anything to make a difference.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: I might say go in peace, but I don't actually do anything to give somebody what they need.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you uh a couple of ways in which you can do that.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, our good friend Willis, Spencer Willishaw, did you know that Willis is his middle name?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you didn't know that.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now you do.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Spencer Willishaw has actually recruited a giver, which is important, to give us several thousands of dollars to make what we call flood buckets.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you aren't aware of what flood buckets are, they're basically a supply, uh they're literally in like a Home Depot Lowe's type bucket, uh, just a supply feed for things that you need when you're cleaning up after a hurricane, hygiene kits, things like that.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: All that goes into a flood bucket.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: They cost about$75 a piece to make.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: We have committed to make a hundred of them.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna raise the money to do it, um, and we've already got a lot of it, so it's a really great start.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that we're gonna be able to participate in together, a way in which you can give somebody what they need.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't always have to be that person on the street that we always uh think it might be a victim of a hurricane, it might be a victim of some sort of natural disaster.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: It just needs a way to clean up.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these that are we'll be building are not going to this last hurricane.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Those have already been given out.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to replenish supply for the next one.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: And there will be a next one.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to replenish supply for the next one.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: We also are involved in a justice ministry here, and you haven't heard me talk.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Some of some of you have been to a house meeting about it in the past, but um, we're gonna be doing that uh uh uh on an annual basis to try to fight for the things that are needed in this uh in this town, like this town, which is pretty cool.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody offered this to me.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have a few people who stop in off the street every week.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you have met Miss Lisa.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Miss Lisa has been coming here for 20 years, mostly on Thursdays, although recently it's been on Wednesdays, and we're like, bro, we have food tomorrow.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and Miss Lisa's been coming to get leftover food uh on Thursday mornings for 20 or so years.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't speak much.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she has moved around in terms of where she stays, but she's been coming here for 20 years to get food.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you have asked, like, could we put together something where if somebody does come in off the street, like our friend Mario or somebody else, do we could we that we could have something to give for them?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: If there's somebody who wanted to lead that, I would welcome that with open arms.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is there some way in which we can provide something for somebody who needs something?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: But let me go a step further.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's not always people off the street.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: There are plenty of your friends right now in your classes who cannot afford the next meal they're gonna have.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: They just, you just don't know about it because they don't talk about it because it's embarrassing.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: But there are plenty of people who need something.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful that there are so many of us here that have faith.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful that it's on the hearts and minds of so many of you to put that faith into action so that the faith will be alive instead of dead.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want to offer you this.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: If this is something that is interesting to you, you might be passionate about, you might care about.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Come talk to me after this service.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: I want to find a way in which you can serve in that way, in which you can lead in that way.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um there are plenty.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to go to Guatemala in order to find need.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: We are gonna go there.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't have to go there to find need.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's need in our backyard, even here at FSU.