Latest / Wesley at FSU & TSC / "From Night to Light" | Good Samaritan UMC | May 26, 2024

Transcript

"From Night to Light" | Good Samaritan UMC | May 26, 2024 · Wesley at FSU & TSC

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give a message this morning called From Night to Light.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do me a favor, look at your neighbors, say, From night to light.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: From night to light.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: The entirety of Scripture starts like this.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: The earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And God saw that the light was good.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: God separated the light from the darkness.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: He called the light day and the darkness he called night.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there was evening and there was morning the first day.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: From the very beginning of Scriptures.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is Genesis 1:1.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is the very beginning of Scriptures.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: God delineates light and dark.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: God creates light within the what they call the darkless or the dark void, the formless void that exists there.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: God creates light.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes even further.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: God calls light good.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before we go into the rest of this message, there has been a tendency over time, particularly in the West, particularly in this country, to utilize light and dark imagery and metaphorical language to perform what I could only call racist ideologies.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to say that, that may be shocking right at the beginning of the message, but I want to name that in this space.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Are you familiar with the idea that the Bible has been used against powerless groups of people?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, okay.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want you to do.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to not get caught up in the light and dark imagery in that realm today.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm going to use a lot of this language this morning.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you get caught up in this good, bad, whatever, you're going to get lost there.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to encourage you to say that, because really it's not the mechanics of the light that God's talking about here, right?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's the work that God's doing within it here.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to name that in this space here this morning because I'm going to use a lot of light and dark imagery, and I don't want you to do what we so often have done in the West.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's Genesis 1.1.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: God creates light out of dark in the formless void and then calls the light good.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's a delineation in that moment right there that there's some sort of order brought out of the chaos of the formless dark.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then John 1.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that was Genesis 1.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: John 1.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now we heard from John 3, so we're two chapters earlier at this point.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And here's how John starts.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was in the beginning with God.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And all three things came into being through him.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Without him, not one thing came into being.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what came into being was life, and that life was the light of all people.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like John's read Genesis.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do you hear a lot of the same language?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they're both poems.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're written both in poetic language so that you might see the beginning of the world.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So in Genesis 1, we have creation from the formless void, the dark, and God brings forth light and calls it good.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then John 1 begins in a very similar way, except it makes one big distinction here.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: That not only does God create light, but that that light is the word.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: The word that uh the Greek uses is lagos.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: We consider that Jesus.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: The light is Jesus.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: He says nothing came into being except through him.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Today is Trinity Sunday, and some churches uh really celebrate that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: The reason this scripture is chosen on Trinity Sunday is because Jesus, the Word made flesh, is with God in the beginning.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big Trinitarian doctrine, right?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like they didn't exist at different times, they all existed together, so that's why that's chosen.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: But there's light and then there's dark, and then John calls that light Jesus.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's important for us to understand what the point of light is.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in high school, I went to a uh on a mission trip to Jamaica.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're in Jamaica, we were we did that fun thing that high school mission trips always do, which is that they want to build a house and build almost nothing while they're there, right?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh things move differently, you know.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Unexpected things come up.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we we go on this trip and and we we had an opportunity to do some VBS, which we successfully accomplished, which is great.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: We built exactly none of the house.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then we spent we spent a lot of time thinking about building the house, and then we got to go uh explore a little bit.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the things that my youth pastor had done through many trips uh down to the same area uh with the same family and same community for so long, is that he had always taken the group caving.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this is um this is you know middle school, high school, or caving, right?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is not like the caving that is real dangerous.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but what we would always give us some rules, you know, you've got to wear um some sort of shirt that you're okay getting messed up.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna wear a bathing suit, and then you're gonna wear these teva or like Chaco-like sandals, you know, that have a big support under your arch, and then they strap on, very important.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: They strap on to your foot uh because you're gonna go through some really murky, muddy waters, right?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we we go into this cave, and the other thing that you had to have is you had to have a flashlight.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has to have a flashlight, a working flashlight, which is sometimes hard with high school boys.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I have a flashlight, where are your batteries?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you had to have a working flashlight.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so we would go into the cave, and you know, when you have to carry a flashlight and you're going into a cave as a high school boy, you're thinking, okay, it's going to be dark, right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's kind of the premise of the entire experience, right?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be dark, and so you're you're doing that thing where you start shining your flashlight all around, and then you realize there's 20 other people with flashlights all around, so they're all going, and then we start shining in each other's eyes.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because that's what you do.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then we were drawing pictures on the cable.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we were we were doing everything high school boys do.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: But we get to this point where we're kind of weighed into this water a little bit.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: My youth pastor goes goes out a little bit and he goes a little further in and he kind of stands in front of the entire group.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's probably about 20 of us or so.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he has all of us do this practice where we put our hand right in front of our face.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and try that right now.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's put your hand right in front of your face.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can probably see your hand, right?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you can take it away.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: You look silly.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, we've got our flashlights on.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and then uh he has us turn off our flashlights, every single one of them.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's probably some kid in the back who forgot to, right?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but he has them all turn them off, every single flashlight off.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, do the same thing.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Put your hand right in front of your face.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can't see it, right?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, I remember my friend Brandon Williams, uh acquaintance, Brandon Williams, uh, is sitting back.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'd call him a friend.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's sitting in the back and he's like, well, we'll just wait till our eyes adjust.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's one of the things we learn as humans, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is like, well, our eyes have to adjust to the darkness.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been that person stumbling around in your bedroom?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I always do that, I stumble around in my bedroom to get over to the bathroom, and then I go, you know, in the middle of the night, I'm getting older.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then you you come back to the bedroom, and all of a sudden you can see a lot better than you could when you were leaving there because your eyes have adjusted to the darkness.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we waited there a couple minutes, still couldn't see our hand.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: We waited there a couple minutes, still couldn't see our hand.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Gary, our youth pastor, he says, you will never see your hand.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: You will never, unless Brandon turns on his flashlight, you will never see your hand.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because where we are, there is absence of light.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: One flashlight, 20 people had their flashlights on, even just one flashlight would allow us for our eyes to adjust.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: But if none are on, it never adjusts to the light.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's why in John 6, Jesus calls himself the light of the world.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because he brings illumination.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things we see in Genesis 1, and one of the things we see throughout the scriptures, is this delineation, just in light and dark, of order and chaos.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: You've got chaos, and God brings about order at creation.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the world that you live in.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Those times when you've been in uh kind of a struggle, a dark place, you could say.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have we used that language?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: It feels chaotic.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: It feels painful.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then all it takes is one little light that would illumine to give us some sort of order.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because what does light do?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Light illuminates chaos.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: It brings order that you can see again.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to go to this passage in John 3.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is the story of Nicodemus, if you weren't paying attention, or you probably were in a couple verses, and then you you clued in, then you get to John 3.16.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: You've heard that one before.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to go through the kind of order just to recap what happens here because John uses the light language a lot in his gospel.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: He uses the light language a lot in his gospel, and he does not use extraneous language, meaning if he puts details in there, we got to pay attention, right?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta clue in.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to I want to kind of recap what happens here with Nicodemus.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you have Nicodemus, who's a Pharisee, he's a Jewish leader, and he comes to Jesus at night.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Pay attention.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: He comes to Jesus at night, and then he acknowledges that Jesus is a teacher who has come from God, and that he he says that because of the miraculous signs that he's seen Jesus perform.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: So this is important.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus goes one step further and he tells Nicodemus that, hey, you've got to be born again.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be born again.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not really answering what Nicodemus says, but then they have this lovely banter back and forth where it's clear that Nicodemus doesn't understand what's going on.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So he continues to struggle with understanding the concepts, and then Jesus expresses surprise that Nicodemus, a Jewish leader, would not get it, would not understand.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus emphasizes that his teachings come from God, and so these are the right ones.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally Jesus wraps it up by talking about how God loves the world.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So so again, let's picture ourselves.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nicodemus is there, he's come there at night.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's a lot of biblical commentary, you're wondering why he comes there at night?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Was he coming there at night so that no one would see him?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Probably, yeah?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I'm gonna go and the I don't want the other Pharisees to know that I'm gonna go to Jesus and tell him he's from God, I might do it under the guise of darkness, right?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like I might do it when everybody's asleep, right?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that makes sense.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so he goes to Jesus and he does that thing that he knows is the right answer.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: The right answer.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I picture this, I can't picture anything other, and you may not get this because you are some of you are not millennials and you didn't grow up on Boy Meets World.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: But if you did or you caught it in syndication, go with me here.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: I always picture Nicodemus as Topanga Lawrence.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Topanga, if you're not familiar, this is the girlfriend of Corey Matthews, he's the main character, and she is the smart kid in class.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: She sits in the front row, and they're in Mr.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Feeney's class for decades.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how they stayed in one teacher's class for the entirety of the show, but they uh they stay in Mr.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Feeney's class, and as a little young girl, she's the one in the front row raising her hand with the answer.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: She knows the right answer.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's true.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: On its face, on its surface level, she knows the right answer.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: She says the right thing.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's always a moment, you can go back and watch these clips because it's a really good show.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she get you there's always a moment where Mr.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Feeney then corrects her and shows her that maybe that surface level answer is not the entirety.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I feel like is Nicodemus here.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: He comes under the guise of darkness, he goes to Jesus and he says, Jesus, I know you are from God.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like he wants a pat on the back.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're from God.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now listen, Jesus has heard other things from Pharisees, right?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Pharisees have said some different things to Jesus.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: They certainly have not said, Jesus, we know you're from God, right?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So this, if you're not familiar, this is why he gets put on the cross, right?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a distinction that happens here.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: So Nicodemus, I think, is expecting a little bit of backpatting.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, good job, buddy.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus does the Mr.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Feeney thing.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, uh, there's more to that.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta be born again, he says.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And Nicodemus is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: We already were born.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: How do adults get born?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see how he's thinking about this mechanically?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like he's trying to think through the logic of this, and Jesus just keeps saying, hey, buddy, you're not getting it.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally he gets frustrated.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't a leader of Israel get it?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't he see the light within the darkness?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't you just get it or see it?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: I took a group of Wesley students uh two weeks ago, we're still recovering, to Guatemala, Pana How Guatemala.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we work with a uh a group called Porche de Salomon there.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it was an amazing trip, and absolutely cannot recommend it enough.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a great organization and a great you actually do build things when you're there, which is a big step up.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and get to experience the culture and everything.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't say enough good things about it.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: But but I took a group of college students who had never been before, all 11 of us had never been before, seven of which had never traveled outside of the country.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I remember sitting at the initial meeting and I asked them, you know, how many of you have passports?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And two people raised their hand, and I thought, uh oh.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh but we had a we had a great time.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what they told me throughout the entire trip.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: They told me, you know, I really just didn't understand what it was until we got here.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: I just really didn't get it until we got here.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand in fullness and in completion until we got here.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: They said that over and over again.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we recorded a podcast, shameless plug.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to anywhere you get your podcast and search FSU Wesley, and you can pull up five days of interviews that I did with students, which I think is really cool to listen to.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: We did it on our phones because there's we didn't have a podcast studio in Guatemala, but uh but it was it was a it was a great a great opportunity to hear their reflections and things.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: But they always said, you know, I just you didn't get it until you got here.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like you felt like you didn't quite understand it all until you become illumined, until the light comes in.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I heard that over and over again from them.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: To fully understand something, to fully get it, you have to do more than mentally ascent to it.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: You have to live it.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: You have to get in there.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: That light has to be shown to you in order to fully get it.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: How often have you felt kind of like, yeah, I don't know what the next step is, I don't know where where this next thing is going.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I feel the chaos of the moment until the order is brought to it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so much so, somebody could tell you a thousand times how it's gonna go until you actually get in there and you experience it, and then all of a sudden your life is illumined, right?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, oh, oh, right, that makes sense now.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like going through customs, you know?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: They were so worried about taking those bags through customs.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, you're gonna fill out this form, and then you're gonna show it to the nice officer, tell them you're not a missionary, and then keep going, right?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and and they were so worried about it, and at the end of the at when we finally got everybody through, they were like, oh, not that big a deal.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you don't understand something, there's chaos in that moment, and you don't know what that next step is.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to do more than mentally assent to it.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, Nicodemus knew the right words.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: What he said is not factually incorrect.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes from God.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, John said that in John 1.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is with God in the beginning.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nicodemus is naming that, and he expects the pat on the back, but it's at that moment that Jesus then takes it the next level.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because Nicodemus came at night.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: He came in the dark, and he didn't get it.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Until Jesus has this exchange with him, he didn't get it.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't fully illumined to him.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just say a word real quick, because I think a lot of modern Christians are this way too.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've met a lot of people, a lot of keyboard warriors on the Facebook, right?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Who they know the right thing to say.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: They can quote you the right passage.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: They know exactly the right words to use.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: They are to Pangalrence sitting in the front of the classroom saying, I know Mr.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Feeney, and I want to tell you why I'm right and you're wrong.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of modern Christians are like that.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I would say these days a majority.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: But do you see what Jesus is inviting Nicodemus into?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Into a right renewal and relationship with God.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Only those who are born again will see the kingdom, he says.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Man, you might know the right words.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: You've been a Pharisee for how long?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: But you don't get this?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to follow this.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus said.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking a lot about what this means for a good Samaritan.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: 2.0.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think two things.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: You probably feel like there's a little bit of chaos right now.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Could we say that?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: You probably feel like you don't really know what the next step is.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we know we're going to St.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's on the 23rd, right?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that part is the we just don't necessarily know what that looks like.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was at St.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's last week because we've got a bunch of Wesley people involved.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be a beautiful partnership, by the way.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I was at St.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's last week playing the piano, and uh and I was asking Latricia, and if you know Latricia, Latricia, I love Latricia, she's amazing, but sometimes she's a close your eyes and pray type of person.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I was like, how's this gonna work?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking the mechanics because I'm thinking about what's about the live stream cameras, where can we set them up?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm starting to ask some of those questions, and Latricia's like, man, we're just gonna move forward.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're gonna do.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna move forward, we're just gonna take a step in.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: So let me encourage you that if you're in that chaotic place right now, if you're just mentally there, emotionally there, spiritually there, if you're in that chaotic place right now, let me remind you what the kids in Guatemala said.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: They said, you just gotta go to experience it.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: You just gotta get in there.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: So let me encourage you just to take a step of faith into this next step and just jump on in.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Who what's gonna happen?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: But but God does because God's gonna move.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know that.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you secondarily.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: The right relationship.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: The right renewal.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not always there.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's what I can tell you right now about the church and the world in general, the Tallahassee area, whatever.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Man, we need your voice.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: We need your voice.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of modern-day Christians, churches, that will say, hey, hey, hey, no, no, no, no, because of this, this, this, this, this, this, this.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they got a list.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what the world needs?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: A church that believes that God's love has no exceptions.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the world needs.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Plenty of people have been told that God doesn't love them.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to write that wrong.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something else I'm convicted by.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: None of that has anything to do with this building.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that sucks because that piano is really nice.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Cliverns have blessed this congregation with that piano.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: As somebody who has sat behind it many times.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: But it has nothing to do, it has nothing to do with those computers back there.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with the office space.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with the stage.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with any of this.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: I would say there's probably one exception.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: It probably does have to do with that cross.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: It probably does have to do with that cross.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the good news of the cross is going too.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with this building.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in many ways, I think this church will be more vibrant, more forward-thinking, more pushing forward, more gospel-centric, simply because it's in the community now.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's able to say to the divorcee who feels like they can't come into church, God's love has no exceptions.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: It can say to the recently out queer person, hey, God's love has no exceptions.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Come join our community.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: To the person who wrote off the church a long time ago, hey, God's love has no exceptions.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do you hear how that's bringing light to the darkness?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do you hear how it's bringing order out of chaos?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do you hear how it's taking us to the next level?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is trying to say to Nicodemus.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, hey, you might know the right words, but you've got to be born again.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: So let me encourage you, church, let's invite the world into a relationship with the God who loves all people.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let's invite everybody into a place where they can worship the Lord of the universe, the creator, the one who has given us all good things.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And who cares about the building?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna hurt at first.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're gonna hear God calling on your heart to say that didn't matter.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Building the building was the right words.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: What if we put it into action?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: What if we lived it out?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: What if the light really illumined our life?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know what the best part about this entire exchange with Nicodemus is?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: You go through 17 verses of this story.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: And at the very end, Jesus has this exchange with Nicodemus.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's frustrated.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nicodemus is probably frustrated too.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Man, you don't get it.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because for God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then he goes further.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: He said, For God did not send his son into the world to condemn or judge the world, but to save the world through him.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's the end of that story.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And yet it is the beginning.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: My prayer for this congregation, and I'm gonna be with you.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm staying at Wesley, and I'm gonna be around.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I look forward to a deep partnership with you.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's to see the light that comes out of the darkness, to see the order that comes out of the chaos, to see a world that says, God so loved you that he gave his son.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that if you believe in him, you won't perish.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: And God didn't send his son into the world to judge or condemn the world, but to save it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Holy God, you are a God of love and light.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not a God of judgment.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not a God of condemnation.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: But you're a God who said first, we may know the right answers, but let's be born again.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let's have a renewed relationship.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're a God that when chaos existed, you brought forth light.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: When dark existed, a formless void, your scriptures say.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: You brought forth light and you called it good.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: God, may it be so for us.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: May we be a congregation that brings forth light.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: May we be a congregation that never lets the light on the cross go out.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: That it be lifted up, that you be glorified in it.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: That the whole world might know of your love for them.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's stand and sing.