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[WW] The Art Of Neighboring: Interruptions, Receiving, and More · The Wesley Word

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Wesley War.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks to Sydney for reading our scripture earlier from Luke 8.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: And tonight we're going to be looking at week two of our probably three-week series on the art of neighboring.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you weren't here last week, I'll catch you up.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Real quick, we looked at the story of the Good Samaritan and we asked the question what if Jesus meant it?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: What if he was serious, right?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's not just about random acts of kindness, but what if the way to life, and not necessarily eternal life, but the way to life and life abundant here is by loving our neighbors, the people that are actually around us and getting to know them, right?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we talked about if you kind of placed people around you and could you fill out line A, right?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know the people the first name of the people that you spend time around, your neighbors, your roommates, your classmates, folks that you ate at a table with tonight?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Could you fill out a second line that goes a little bit deeper, right?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like what's their major?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: What are they into?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then maybe line C, um something a little bit deep that you'd have to actually have a conversation with them to get to know, right?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if you remember last week, and if you weren't here, I'll challenge you again, and all of us, I'd challenge you to work on the next three weeks to just find three people that you go a little bit deeper with.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Three people that you might be able to do this.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the older I get, I become more and more introverted.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's harder and harder for me to do that.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I found myself this week having to practice what I preach.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now I should be doing that every day, but this week especially.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was in Columbia and I was with about 200 pastors.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: You would think we all know each other.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: We don't.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember on Monday, the group was going out to dinner.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: I got invited.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really know everybody.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I called, I was talking to Julie.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, yeah, I got invited, but I'm not gonna go.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, you should go.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, yeah, I should.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I hung up, I didn't go.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um I went and got I had to get my brushes to the cheeseburger, it was so good.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: But that kind of went in my head and I was like, man, I'm preaching this whole love your neighbor thing.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so the second day, I got invited to dinner again with even less people that I actually knew, right?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I got I gotta do it.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta do it, got make it happen.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went out and I sat at a table with 13 people and about four kids, two people, I think I knew their names beforehand and knew the names afterwards, knew some stuff, and really had to put myself out there.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: So all I'm saying is, I'm right there with you.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying, it's hard for me even sometimes, but I'm making it happen.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I encourage you to keep going, keep going, keep going.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: All right, part of our goal here all year long, you'll hear us say this embrace the awkward, right?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Embrace the awkward.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Our goal is for you to know and to be known.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but as we think about loving our neighbors and getting to know them and connections, we have to put ourselves out there to do that.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I just stood up there to say, I'm trying to, y'all.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Tonight's story, new passage, still in Luke, right?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Luke has a lot of good stuff.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And actually Brouwer uh preached on this at C UMC a couple weeks ago.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: But as you notice, you can preach on the same text really every day, and you get a little bit of something each time.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a living, breathing word, and I'm excited about that, right?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: But as we pick up in Luke 8, Sydney did a good job reading for us, but earlier in the chapter, right, Jesus calms some seas, he heals some people, he casts out some demons, he's just doing Jesus-like stuff, right?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's what he's doing.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And right before the text that Sidney read, I'd like to be telling her how to pronounce somebody.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, see, that's not in the text.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh yeah, I was gonna talk about that, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there's this guy named Jairus who, in the midst of Jesus healing everything and doing all this stuff, he Jesus comes back, crowds are starting to form, and this guy named Jairus comes up.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Jairus worked at the synagogue, and Jairus comes up to Jesus and he says, Jesus, my 12 year old daughter is like super sick.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: She's on her deathbed.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: I need you.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to come heal her, right?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is like, Boom, got it, let's go, right?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're walking.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then we pick up this familiar passage.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I love it, I try to preach on at least once a year, um, where they're walking, they're going, and they say the crowds start to swell in on Jesus, right?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus doesn't just walk alone.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's always wanting to be around Jesus, right?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And in the midst of what I imagine yelling and Jesus, Jesus, people crying out, right?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: This woman who says been hemorrhaging, been bleeding for 12 straight years, reaches out and is able to kind of just touch the bottom of his cloak and just yanks on her a little bit, right?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus stops and he's like, Who touched me?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And Peter's like, Jesus, we got a dying 12-year-old to get to, like, we don't have time for this.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: We gotta go, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, Again, who touched me?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Who touched me?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And they begin to go in and have that conversation.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and Jesus ends up healing her and her faith heals her, reaching out, and all that, all the good stuff that goes there.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus stopped and waited to find out who touched him.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Last week we tried to paint the picture about our need for loving our neighbors, and if Jesus is serious, this week we want to look at how we might go about doing that, right?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: How might we go about doing that?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're gonna lift up a few things that we can learn from this passage on how we might go about loving our neighbors.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And remember to love them is to know them and to spend time with them and to engage them and all that good stuff.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so, what Jesus teaches us here, first and foremost, in this passage, um, is that the future is not as important as the present, right?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: We have to be present with the people that we're called to love, we have to be present with our neighbors.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: We have to live into the moment.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mentioned Brouwer, who's the youth director at Clemson UMC, at Clemson United Methodist, she preached on this a couple weeks ago, and her point was that every interruption provides an opportunity, right?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Every interruption provides an opportunity.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes, some of the I'll say the good ministry, but some of the most surprising things happen in the interruptions, right?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: God can use those as big opportunities, but we have to be ready for them and willing to do that, right?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And to be aware of our surroundings.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um people have to ride the cat bus at some point in time during the week.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody riding the cat bus?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um how many people have our earbuds in the whole time we're on the cat bus?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Looking at the phone the whole time?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Please don't talk to me, please don't look at me, right?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: How are we going about our daily lives that we might be present, right?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm waiting in the grocery line, and as um we used to be at Divine Get Lord, that's right, but I'm like, I'm trying to tune tune out too.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm trying to check emails, checking text, like I'm waiting in the grocery line until easy time for me to sit around and to do stuff, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: But how often are we allowing ourselves to be fully engaged, that we might be fully present, that those opportunities can come and we don't miss them because we are not paying attention, right?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I think hinders us from loving our neighbors is the fact that we're oftentimes very disconnected, right?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not an anti-phone, anti-screen sermon, so don't hear that.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I did have a colleague uh show me this a few years ago.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was pretty cool.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this guy named Eric Pickersgill did some artwork.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And do you have that, Austin?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Can you pull up some of those pictures in the sermon thing if you don't mind?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then actually took some pictures, like everyday life, and he just like took out the phones, though, right?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: I love this guy's smoker rig.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty awesome.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: But there's mom and dad, right?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're just totally ignoring this kid's like, dude, I wish I had a phone, right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe next year, maybe next year, right?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: You got some more in there, Austin Forrest?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: All right, you just kind of flip through them, right?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the lovely date night, right?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: We're just gonna be on our own little things here, right?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's two more.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, again, dad's like, mom, you there?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: What's up?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And nice, here we go.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Got ladies' night.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's on their phone, nobody's paying attention to each other, right?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he did a whole bunch of these things, right?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And just kind of pulled out, pulled out the phones and talked about how disconnected we are.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And again, that's not an anti-screen day, but sometimes some of the things that we have that are in everyday life keep us from having the being able to pay attention to the opportunities that God provides for us.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I love the times we do get to be disconnected, right?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when I go on vacation every year, we go to the beach with a family.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to put my phone in a drawer for a week and say, I'll see you on Saturday, right?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And to be totally committed to the people that is that I'm around.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: We have to focus, have to be present in order to have those opportunities that come around, right?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something that's bothering me.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was like trying to rework this sermon all day, and I was like, God, can we just stick with what I have?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, No, he's kind of reworking this, right?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, sometimes we have to be paying attention because there are distractions everywhere, right?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Even when we want to be focused, distractions are calling us.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody, I think I got my identity stole today, or one of you guys pulled a really crazy prank on me, right?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: I've been getting emails and phone calls all day wanting to give me an insurance quote, right?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't ask for an insurance quote, right?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they're calling me Steve, Steve, C Steve, right?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to listen to this podcast, I'm trying to do this stuff, even on drive home, I'm just getting distracting after distraction after distraction after distraction after distraction.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's hard for me to focus on what I'm doing.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: When we're going through life, there's distraction after distraction after distraction.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Gotta get the paper done, gotta get the project done, gotta go to class, gotta call my parents, gotta do this, gotta go.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: All these different things that come in.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: But if you notice, and this is something, even today, I was like, I missed this, right?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: There are probably people screaming like crazy around Jesus.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, heal me, doing all this stuff.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a simple tug of his cloak that made him stop.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta really be in tune to turn out all the noise, all the everything, and just to feel a little tug of the cloak.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now he's the son of God, he can feel everything, he's probably got it, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: But what I'm getting at is sometimes it's the most it's the smallest of opportunities that if we're not paying attention, we miss that opportunity for ministry.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think about this even as a pastor.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: There are times I look back and I regret when I'm talking with a student, and I'm not breaking confidence or anything, but they'll say like one thing, and I'll just zoom on.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about fantasy football, right?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm missing out on it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll go back that night and I'm like, they they cracked the door.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: They cracked the door and I didn't see it and I missed it, right?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm getting at that sometimes we have to be fully present in our moments so that we can pay attention and discern what are the opportunities, what are the cracked doors that we might walk through and have the opportunity for real ministry.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: If we're too distracted, there's too much noise, sometimes we indeed miss it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: So how do we do this?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure that we're fully present.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: And God, and Jesus shows us this as he talks with the woman.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing there is the question I would have is are we approachable?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Are we approachable?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I was at a um, I said I wasn't gonna say this, but I'm gonna say it anyway.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um they I was at this conference uh this past week.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Mandatory had to be there.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thank you, Bishop, for letting me be there.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um, in that um, this one person was presenting and she was talking about like greeters and hospitality and all this kind of stuff and getting people to church.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this one woman said something like, Um, like a sad saint is never gonna convince a happy sinner that they should go to church, right?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um what she's getting at there is like how we present ourselves matter, right?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um anybody watch uh Winnie the Pooh?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Am I dating myself?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know who Eeyore is, right?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you're just like walking around like an Eeyore Christian all the time, I'm not saying you gotta be like fake the smile, right?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: But we gotta be approachable, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to snap at people, right?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um we gotta be approachable and willingness.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I I, you know, I struggle with this and it always hurts my heart every year.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes students will come up to me and like, Steve, I know you're crazy busy, but can I just like talk to you?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I might be crazy busy, but I'm here to talk to you, right?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: I can drop all that other stuff.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care about the reports and all this kind of stuff.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: I am here for you.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Are you approachable, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus modeled this for us.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: When back then, when kids it should be seen, right, and not heard, Jesus said, Let the children come to me, right?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Crowds gathered around.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: A lady pulls at his cloak and he stops to talk with her.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Are we approachable?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: So are you present and are you approachable?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And here's one last one last thing I want to talk about, and I think it's just as important as the other two, and it does not have to do with has to do with Jesus, but it's what we learn from the other two characters, right?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: From Jairus and the woman who was bleeding for 12 years, right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: None of this passage would happen without them.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be like Jesus gathered in a crowd, Jesus walked somewhere.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus gathered in a crowd, Jesus walked somewhere.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: But instead, we see from Jairus and the woman, two separate instances, that they stopped and asked for help.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Part of loving our neighbor is being able to not only give help, but also receive help, right?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: If all that we do, if all that we do is serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, then the people that we consider our neighbors are not our community, they're simply our projects.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus doesn't call us to love projects, he calls us to love people.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And there has to be a reciprocal deal in that some kind of way, right?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: They knew to ask for help, right?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um the lady knew that Jesus was coming, so she reaches out and touches them, right?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus stops all this sort of stuff, right?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what would have happened if they would have remained silent?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: What would have happened if they would have remained silent?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: All right, and this is where I kind of want to go somewhere else, but I can't not.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: All right, we're going here.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, it's like that's the whole point, right?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like driving today and I was running through the circumvent of my head, and I was like, all right, yeah, we want to make sure that we're fully present.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: We want to make sure that um we're approachable and that we're interruptible, and we want to make sure that we had this giving, receiving relationship and all this kind of stuff.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it makes sense, right?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because it creates the humanity in people.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: We went to Tampa a few years ago and we were working on this person's house, and everything was cleared out, all their stuff was in their front yard, and like Monday, they were like, hey, we want to provide lunch for y'all.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Oh, that's cool, we got lunch, no problem.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Tuesday, hey, we want to provide lunch for y'all, right?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And by Thursday, they were like, we are gonna provide lunch for you, whether you like it or not, right?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so they provide KFC.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just say, it was the most sketched Kentucky fried chicken I've ever had in my life.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: We were out there in Florida and they were looking around for stuff to serve the coleslaw and potato salad that had been sitting out for way longer than I want to eat, and they're digging in their utensils out in the front yard and find something.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: But by us receiving that meal and eating that meal, put us on their level.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't just us coming in to help them, it was us sitting around and gathering together around a meal.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Those connections that give and take, that back and forth matters.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I struggled with receiving help, I'll admit that.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, I'm thinking about even my neighborhood, right?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: There was one time my neighbor, I had a pile of mulch like this high, and my neighbor came from the backyard, wheelbarrow in hand, but like, hey, you need some help?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like he was like, me little grace, right?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, no, I got it, I got it, go home back home.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm turning down his help, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Times I've thrown at my back because I'm too whatever to say, yeah, I need help carrying different things, right?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Part of our relationship, part of our loving neighbor is going back and forth, right?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: But why do we do all that?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we do all that?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we worry about receiving?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we're being approachable?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we want to love our neighbor?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: All this kind of stuff.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And this kind of would like hit me like a like a two by four on the on the way home.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um because it matters.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we talk about loving our neighbor in these abstract ways, but just like Jairus, Jairus had this need to have their child healed.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Just like the woman wanted to be healed, there's a lot of brokenness around us.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's sometimes we feel like that woman and we've been going through something for way longer than we should.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we feel like gyrus and we're going through and we're mourning or we're grieving or something.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: There are things that are happening in our lives that just hurt and that require healing.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: And when we reach out to our neighbor, when we're willing to receive help, then that gives us a testimony to share.
• 15:19
  unknown: Right?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: We can share about how Jesus healed us, maybe physically, but how Jesus brought us through this valley and got us out to the other side.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when we do those things, when we ask for help, we allow other people to see, oh, it's okay to ask for help.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: The first time you walked into Wesley, you might have thought, oh, these people have it put together.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Then you quickly learned, oh, they don't have it together, right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: When we can do that, when we can be ourselves, when we can share our concerns, we can share our downfalls, when we can share the ways in which Jesus walked with us through the low times and walked with us through them and got us to the other side, it allows other people to see and to ask that same thing that Jesus might come alongside of them.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: People are hurting.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: People are desperate, people are needing something, and they are looking for our testimonies.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: They're looking for us to share and to be able to show them what it is that Jesus has done and got through our lives.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think about the times where I've been transformed, think about why I became a Christian, all this kind of stuff.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was mainly from other people who were living life.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: It was from other people who were following Jesus.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was other people who had stuff happen and went through the stuff and were able to say, Jesus brought me out of it.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was also people who hadn't been through the stuff, but they said, I was raised in the church and I walked through it, and every day of my life I know Jesus was with me and I just walked through that.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I want some of that too.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: We love our neighbors.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: We want to get to know them, we want to connect with them.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: We want to be approachable, we want to be interruptible, and we want to give and receive so that people can see this is a real thing.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And when real hurt, when real need comes, we can then point to them, to the one that will stop and say, Who touched me?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Who touched me?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Let me heal you, let me walk with you, let me walk through it.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I invite you once again to linger after today.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Linger before and after worship as we get to know one another.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Linger in your classes if you have time.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Linger, get to know people before and after.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Be present, be approachable, be willing to receive, and through it all, may God grant us connection and may God grant us deeper relationships, and may God give us the opportunities and the awareness to see the opportunities that we might indeed point people to the one who can indeed save, to the one who can indeed heal and make us whole.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Let us pray.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Holy gracious God, again, thank you for this night and for this time together.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: But we are busy people.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we know the opportunities come our way all the time.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: But we confess that we don't always see them.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: God, I'll confess.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I see them and I just look the other way.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: I can be the priest and the Levite.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: But God, give us the courage to stop.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Give us the patience to stop.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Give us the heart and the ears and the eyes to see and to feel and to hear the ways in which you are calling us.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: And God, help us to be authentic and to be real and to share those times the ways in which you have walked with us and the ways in which you have brought us out.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we confess that we can't do it on our own.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so we give you thanks for your grace and for your presence with us now and always.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: We ask all this in Christ's holy name.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Wesley Word is a production of the Clemson Wesley Foundation.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: For more information about Clemson Wesley, check out our website or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, get out there and love your neighbor.