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[WW] Blueprint: As You Wish To Be Treated · The Wesley Word

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Wesley Ware.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: So again, welcome.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: If this is your first time at Wesley, we're especially glad that you're here.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: I think I've met everybody by now, but if not, my name is Steve Simino.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm the campus minister here.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: If you've figured out it is my birthday, which is exciting.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Um I hit 40.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking, when I hit 30, I was a sad story.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: I was sitting alone in a hotel room at 30.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, had this conference I had to go to uh as part of the ordination process.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: And like a month later, after my 30th birthday, I got a call saying, hey, there's been opening at Clemson Wesley.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Are you interested?
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Like, heck yeah.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: So uh how things have changed in 10 years, and it's been a cool 10 years with my 10th year here at Wesley.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: But uh this is not not about me.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: We're finishing up our sermon series on Sermon on the Mount.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's hard to believe this is our sixth Sunday of the semester.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: We're already six Sundays in.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: We had our welcome week, and then we spent, we're doing a five-week series on Sermon on the Mount, we're wrapping it up today.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you haven't been with us for every Sunday, um you can come back to the podcast, right?
1:06
SPEAKER_00: I think it's there, right?
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe some episodes, yep, you could listen to it there.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Um but again, this is chapters five, six, and seven in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus lays out um his most prolific sermon, goes through a lot of stuff.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: And he ends that sermon, as we'll get to uh later on um in this talk tonight.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: He says, listen, if you've done all these things, if you listen to these things and you do them, you're like a person who builds your house, your spiritual house, on solid rock.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: When the rains come, you won't be washed away, right?
1:30
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't do these things, you're like the fool that builds it on sand that's gonna wash down that sort of stuff.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: And so we've looked at what Jesus has called us to do as people of faith.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: The very first week when we met here, our very first Sunday, I said, you can find community in many different clubs and organizations, right?
1:45
SPEAKER_00: You can find places to grow and improve yourself in many different clubs and organizations.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: You can find ways to serve in many different clubs and organizations, but we are a community of faith.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: We strive to be a Christ-centered place.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: And so we began to look at this Sermon on the Mount by saying, What would make us different?
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Or what is it that Christ is really calling us to do?
2:02
SPEAKER_00: What is he calling us to be if we're gonna take our discipleship serious?
2:06
SPEAKER_00: And we began investigating this sermon on the mount, sort of a blueprint, if you will, that Jesus lays out on how we build our faith and how we go about our discipleship.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: And we looked at what it meant, right, to be the salt of the earth and light of the world.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: We took a look at what it meant when Jesus talks about striving for maturity, to be a mature Christian, to grow in your faith, and to constantly be seeking to find wholeness and completeness in the faith.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Um we looked at um asking us, like, what are your motives, right?
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, who sits on the throne of your heart?
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Is it you and your ego?
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Do you do the things for your faith so that you look good, or do you do the things that we're called to do in our faith so that God is glorified and those sorts of things?
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Then last week we spent some time looking at um what does it mean to worry, right?
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, and how we don't want to be a prisoner of of worry and what are some ways that we might be able to find some some hope in the midst of our of our worry.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: And tonight we're gonna wrap up uh in chapter seven, and this is sort of um, I'm not really this is weird.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, all right, I'm just gonna, this is extreme of consciousness here, right?
3:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't love rules, but I'm a rule follower.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Like I don't like them, but like if you got them, I got you, right?
3:11
SPEAKER_00: Um unless I need to be broken.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: But most of the time I follow them.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: And so in in chapter seven, Jesus lays out many of these sort of, I was calling like do's and don'ts of the faith, sort of these rules of the faith that you've probably heard before but make a lot of sense.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: And again, with this blueprint in mind, right, what is it that we're called to do?
3:27
SPEAKER_00: And if we do these things, right, I think it helps us lead a better, more efficient, and more fulfilling uh Christian life.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: And so here are these things.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go through four of them uh real quick.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, again, if you're a rule person, you're not a rule person, like, uh, more rules.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said it, not me, okay, so it's hanging there, right?
3:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's good.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: So here's number one, right?
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Or this is from Matthew chapter 7, verses 1 and 2.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Do not judge so that you may not be judged.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: For with the judgment you make, you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get, right?
3:59
SPEAKER_00: So new rule number one don't judge but show grace, right?
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Don't judge but show grace, right?
4:06
SPEAKER_00: Now remember, in this, in this, in what Jesus is saying here is using a lot of hyperbole, right?
4:10
SPEAKER_00: A little prophetic hyperbole, uh, because we all know that we all judge, right?
4:15
SPEAKER_00: We all judge like every day, right?
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, should I cross the street?
4:17
SPEAKER_00: How fast is that car coming?
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are better than others, some we have accidents, right?
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Um but we look at and see, can we get out there, right?
4:23
SPEAKER_00: All of you checked out campus ministries, right?
4:25
SPEAKER_00: You came in here and you're like, are these the weird people or not?
4:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, right?
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are still deciding, right?
4:29
SPEAKER_00: I can tell in your face, right?
4:30
SPEAKER_00: You've been here four years, and you're like, I'm still not sure about it, right?
4:32
SPEAKER_00: You make judgments all the time, right?
4:34
SPEAKER_00: Um I leave my kids with people.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm judging, do I trust this person to babysit and make sure I still come home to like two kids and the same kids, right?
4:41
SPEAKER_00: We judge all the time, right?
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Um when we do leadership, right?
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes like, I think this person's gonna be great, but I'm just not sure, right?
4:50
SPEAKER_00: We make judgment calls all the time, right?
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Um that's not what Jesus is saying.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying go through life and never judge anything because you're gonna end up in a lot of trouble if you don't, right?
5:01
SPEAKER_00: You can just tell, like, this is a sketch situation, I should probably leave, right?
5:04
SPEAKER_00: You need to use your judgment there often.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: But what he's getting at is other parts we see in the gospel where Jesus says, you know, sometimes you have this huge log in your own eye, right?
5:14
SPEAKER_00: But you're worried in this about the speck in someone else's.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, handle your business, right?
5:20
SPEAKER_00: What he's warning about us doing this no no judgment rule here is he's warning about us looking down on someone, thinking that we're better than them, criticizing others.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: That, Jesus says, isn't what I'm about, right?
5:32
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying, use judgment, but don't be sure you're not putting down others.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Be sure you're not criticizing other people, right?
5:38
SPEAKER_00: And I've I've learned as a pastor, again, I'm about 12th year pastoring and reading and talking to different people, one of the number one reasons that people are leaving the church and leaving the church in droves is because they feel like people in the church and Christians, one of the number one things they hear is that we are too judgmental, right?
5:55
SPEAKER_00: We are quicker to judge than we are to give grace, oftentimes.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus is calling us to do as we build our blueprint as far as who we are called to be is to be a people that show grace, show abundant grace before it is that we judge, right?
6:09
SPEAKER_00: And so how do we fix that, right?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: So we look at this rule, how do we fix that, right?
6:12
SPEAKER_00: I know it's hard sometimes, but but I think to fix that, it means that we look for and we assume the best in people.
6:18
unknown: Right?
6:19
SPEAKER_00: We look for the best.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: And trust me, there are people in my life that drive me nuts, right?
6:23
SPEAKER_00: I like go through them like maybe it's like a like a like a something in the back, like an appendix in the Bible that's like you don't have to worry about like this person's excuse from everything that Jesus says, right?
6:30
SPEAKER_00: But I haven't found that yet, right?
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Like even them?
6:33
SPEAKER_00: He's like, yes, Steve, even them, right?
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Assuming the best, showing the best.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Hey, Mick, come on in, man.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And and and I saw figure, I was like, I make sure.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean a judgment caller, who's coming in, right?
6:44
SPEAKER_00: All right, um, but show grace, right?
6:46
SPEAKER_00: What would it mean if we lay out a blueprint, the people of faith, the people of Clemson Wesley, a person who's after Jesus' own heart, right?
6:53
SPEAKER_00: If we made just our priority, our rule for this week is to show grace, to assume the best in the situation, to assume that they meant the best, and to reserve judgment, reserve criticism, and to show grace upon grace upon grace.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: What's a thought there?
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Rule number two, Jesus talks about Matthew 7, um, or another thing, do's and don'ts of the faith.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: Ask and it will be given to you.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Search and you will find knock and the door will be opened, right?
7:20
SPEAKER_00: Now, open for you.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, finish that.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know about you in my prayer life, like, mmm, this one, I'm not gonna fall for it, right?
7:28
SPEAKER_00: Because I've asked and I've asked, and I've seeked, and I've knocked, and I felt like a big bad wolf where I've like huffed and puffed and like knocked the door down, right?
7:36
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I want an answer, right?
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Answer me, right?
7:40
SPEAKER_00: And we can talk about prayers other time, but I think what Jesus is getting at here is we're sort of going through, I'm gonna mention four do's and don'ts today.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: We've done the first one.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Second one, right?
7:49
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for us um to seek, right?
7:54
SPEAKER_00: To seek and to pray, to ask and to knock, right?
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think God wants us to pray big, and I know that God wants to hear us, right?
8:00
SPEAKER_00: And I mentioned, I think it was a space, right?
8:02
SPEAKER_00: That like anything we pray about, it's not like it's like news to God, right?
8:04
SPEAKER_00: He's like he's on it, right?
8:06
SPEAKER_00: He knows.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's something that happens in the searching, there's something that happens in the knocking that transforms us, that I think God is getting at.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about the Lord's Prayer before, right?
8:16
SPEAKER_00: When we pray constantly, hopefully every day, right?
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh Lord, your will be done.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Not mine, but yours, your glory, your kingdom come.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: When we begin to have those prayers, when we begin to pray and connect with God, it begins to shape us and to mold us in the creation that God has called us to be.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: What I think God is getting at here in this prayer life here is He's telling us, like the do or the don't thing here, right?
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Don't give up, but persevere.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: Don't give up as a person of faith when things get hard.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Persevere.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: See it through, right?
8:47
SPEAKER_00: When the job gets hard, when the school gets hard, right?
8:51
SPEAKER_00: Anything that's worth doing is often difficult.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: And so finding ways to persevere through that.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, quick caveat.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you like toxic relationships and you gotta give up on that, right?
9:00
SPEAKER_00: But what I'm saying is like just because sometimes like a little bit puts a little bit of resistance, doesn't mean that you gotta stop, right?
9:05
SPEAKER_00: And so I think Jesus is telling us persevere, continue on, continue on, right?
9:09
SPEAKER_00: Continue to knock.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: And that leads us into this third uh do's and don'ts for today in Matthew 7, 7, 13, he says, Go in through the narrow gate.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: The gate that leads to destruction is broad and the road is wide, and so many people enter through it.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: Right?
9:26
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is when the war when the road forks, do take the narrow path, right?
9:31
SPEAKER_00: Don't avoid the hard.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: It's often right, you can't do any shortcuts.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Almost everything I've done in life has required a good has required effort, it's required taking the narrow path, right?
9:42
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned before, uh I think I was the last church I was at, uh, Bethany UMC, yeah, we guess uh from Somerville, and like one of the hardest things that we had to do was move our service, our contemporary service was on a Saturday night, and we were averaging like 75 people.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: And I showed up and I was like, y'all, we live in the South, and we're doing worship on Saturday.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: Like, we worship something else on Saturday.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: I didn't really say that, but we do, right?
10:04
SPEAKER_00: We do football.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, but like they were like, no, like real church is like Oregon and we can't have you know, like this has to stay on Saturday.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: We can't do that on real church Sunday morning.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: But it was clear that like people wanted it, but they weren't coming on on Saturdays, and so we slowly like had to make and pull and like bruh, and I feel like I spent I was too there for two years, and I was like, the biggest thing we did was finally launch and move it to Sunday morning, right?
10:27
SPEAKER_00: But people were stuck in their ways, and we've always worshipped on Saturday night.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: We're like, yeah, we've done it for three years, right?
10:31
SPEAKER_00: We've always done it this way, we can't do it.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: But we knew God was calling us to move to a time where more people could be there and could do it, and so we moved finally, like like the weeping and gnashing of teeth from a Saturday service of like 75 people, moved it to Sunday, and the first Sunday we had over 225 people there.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: And then I came, came here to Clemson Wesley and was talking to the pastor, and within like a year, that service was at 500 people, right?
10:55
SPEAKER_00: But it was hard.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: And if we'd uh the leadership there would have run into that, and and and the first time we felt resistance, if we'd have been like, oh no, people are gonna be happy, we can't go there.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: They'd still be worshiping 75 on Sunday instead of reaching the multitudes that they're reaching there.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: If you open your Bibles, I know you don't have some dog ass you do, right?
11:12
SPEAKER_00: But if you open your Bibles and you go through, almost every biblical character goes through some stuff, right?
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Almost every biblical character character has had troubles in life, has had to make the decision, like looking at the fork in the road.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Am I gonna go down the narrow path, the hard path, right?
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Or am I gonna take the easy way out?
11:29
SPEAKER_00: We see it in scripture time and time again that people go through difficulties.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: The change that has happened within the church and within society, um, we look at social justice issues, it has all happened, I mean, one inch at a time of people just grinding and making it happen one step at a time, even in the face of constant pushback and injustice, of saying, no, this is what is right and pushing forward.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Jesus reminds us when the road forks, take the narrow path, embrace the difficult, and go through it.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Last one, right?
12:00
SPEAKER_00: So um don't give up, persevere, right?
12:02
SPEAKER_00: Um don't judge, show grace, embrace the hard, right?
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Take the narrow path.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: And the last one is one that you probably learned in preschool, right?
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, in everything you do to others as you would have them do for you, for this is the law and the prophets, right?
12:18
SPEAKER_00: This golden rule that we've learned in elementary school, right?
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Um do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: This is simple, and Jesus sums it up.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: He says, This sums up the law and the prophets.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Do this way, right?
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Be kind, be respectful, um, help someone, right?
12:30
SPEAKER_00: All that sort of stuff.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: But you know, this is like love God, love neighbor type stuff.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: It's like the easiest thing in scripture, and it's like the hardest thing as well, right?
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, to treat others as you would want to be treated.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: But I've also learned over the last couple years that I don't know about y'all, but there's some people that they're like, yo, I don't care, right?
12:50
SPEAKER_00: You can treat me however you want to treat me.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't like I'm not gonna treat them because I don't like they don't want respect, right?
12:54
SPEAKER_00: They don't want kindness, and so they think, on the other hand, that they can then, you know, treat other people in a disrespectful way.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: What I think Jesus is called us to do as we interpret this and live into this is not always think about how do I want people to treat me and I'm gonna treat them that way.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: I think a faith, more faithful response is to begin to ask the question and think, how do they want to be treated as a child of God?
13:18
SPEAKER_00: And how might I go about responding in that way?
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
13:21
SPEAKER_00: It's a small shift, subtle shift, but a big deal, right?
13:24
SPEAKER_00: And I've had to learn that.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've got even like my own like kids, right?
13:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm 40, I'm not old, but it feels old.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm at say, I'm like working, I was ready for this, worked all year getting ready for it, but then like I got a card that's a 40 on it, like freaked me out, right?
13:36
SPEAKER_00: But like I was raised different than I'm raising my kids, right?
13:39
SPEAKER_00: And I know sometimes I'm like, I should do this, or like, you know, somehow have I live I live into this like suck it up mentality, right?
13:45
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what's best for my children all the time, right?
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they need more grace, they need more hand holding, they need more embrace.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I need to just suck it up, right?
13:53
SPEAKER_00: But I have to remind myself and to think through what is it that they need?
13:56
SPEAKER_00: How do they want to be treated and how might I go about it, right?
14:00
SPEAKER_00: Think about your interpersonal relationships here within Wesley and your roommates and all people that you encounter, right?
14:06
SPEAKER_00: How might they want to be treated as a child of God and how might we embrace that and do that, right?
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Um and here's the deal on that.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: This is sort of wrap up.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: I looked.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Again, there's no appendix in the back that says it must be done between the hours of 9.45 and 12 on a Sunday morning.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: It must be done between 6.30 and the time we leave, uh, Wesley worship, right?
14:33
SPEAKER_00: This is something that is we're called to do in everything that we do, with everyone that we encounter.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: How would they want to be treated as a child of God?
14:41
SPEAKER_00: How would God treat them?
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Right?
14:44
SPEAKER_00: That person, he or she or they, how do we how would God treat them?
14:47
SPEAKER_00: And am I doing that?
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Try to live into that.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: That is the do that God is calling us to do.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: It is difficult, but again, that is who Jesus is calling us to be.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: That's how we live out the greatest commandment, right?
14:59
SPEAKER_00: So, sort of wrapping up tonight, right?
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Why are we doing this?
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Again, I mentioned the beginning, it was sort of my heart over the summer.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't want us to just be a social club at Clemson Wesley.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: There are enough social clubs on campus, right?
15:09
SPEAKER_00: And if we become just a social club, we're gonna, it's gonna be me standing here in about four years, and there's gonna be nobody here.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Because you can find social anywhere.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: You can find places to serve.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: What I think the world is thirsting for, and right, and Jesus lays out for us a blueprint on how we should go about living in this world so that others might come to know that saving grace, that hope, that light that is found in Jesus.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: And he lays it out in the two, three chapters in Matthew.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: And so I invite you to go back and to pray through it and live through it and to think about as people see you, as you go through your days, right?
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Are you shining your light before others?
15:43
SPEAKER_00: A bright light, a vibrant light.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Are you living in such a salty way that when people encounter you, they leave thirsting for God?
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Not turned off from God, but thirsting for God.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Are we striving for maturity?
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Are we saying, ah, I'm good?
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Or are we striving to grow deeper in our faith, to become a more complete Christian, to grow in our maturity?
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Have we checked our motives?
16:05
SPEAKER_00: Why do we do the things that we do?
16:07
SPEAKER_00: For our glory or for God's glory, right?
16:10
SPEAKER_00: And are we are we spending time, spinning our wheels, and I mentioned last week, right, that this worry and anxiety stuff is not like clinical anxiety, but but are we worrying and spinning our wheels on things that we can't control?
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Or are we using our time, our energy, our gifts, and focusing on things that we can control to help bring glory?
16:28
SPEAKER_00: And as we look through today's do's and don'ts, right, we're reminded once again this scripture from Matthew 7, we'll read here, right?
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wraps up the sermon by saying, Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: The rain fell and yep, and the floods came.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: 40, I can't read anymore.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: And the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like foolish people who build their house on sand.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell, and it and great was its fall, right?
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Or it was completely destroyed, depending on the translation that's there.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: I want us to be a people who build your house on solid rock.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: We know rains are gonna come, storms are gonna come, but I want us to build our house on solid rock.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Tonight we're also gonna wrap up um before we continue in worship.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, we're gonna celebrate Holy Communion together, right?
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Um why?
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh today's World Communion Sunday.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: Two, uh, because we can.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And so you know stories, some of you don't, but but communion table is special to me.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a tradition that very much centered around the communion table, um, but I never was able to go through the process to receive, and so I was denied often, and I never really liked that.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: But I came to a church um.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: 24 years ago on a World Communion Sunday, it was October 4th, because my birthday was on that Friday.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, I joked before, right?
18:04
SPEAKER_00: There was a girl at school I really liked, and she said, I'm not gonna date guys that don't go to church.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, where do you go to church?
18:09
SPEAKER_00: And I showed up on communion Sunday, right?
18:11
SPEAKER_00: And I remember sitting in the back row, and I remember hearing the pastor say the words, something to the effect of, This is God's table.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: All are invited to come and receive God's grace, to come and experience God's love.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: And I remember sitting in the back corner thinking, even me, and like very vibrantly saying, Yes, even you have a place here at this table.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: And I will say that I was not a person of faith before I walked into that church that day.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: I was baptized as a Christian, I knew about Jesus, I knew that kind of stuff, but I wasn't practicing my faith.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: I didn't take it seriously.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: I certainly wasn't following a blueprint that Jesus lays out in the Sermon on the Mount.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: But there was something that happened in that church and with those people.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: They invited me to receive communion for the first time, which was a huge deal for me.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: Then they invited me to youth group.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And y'all know some youth groups can be crazy, some can be weird, some can be mean, but here's what happened in this youth group.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: They were grace-filled.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: They were loving.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: You had like the starting center on our basketball team hanging out with like, you know, the biggest nerds in school, right?
19:15
SPEAKER_00: You had um eighth graders and seventh graders that were welcome to hang out with the juniors and seniors.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: We didn't have like a middle high school problem.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: We just all were there together.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, they taught me how to open up the Bible and learn scripture.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, but more than that, they showed me how to live as a person of faith.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: They accepted me in some of a junior in high school, right, and know nothing about about very little about God.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: But the way that they lived, the way that they showed their blueprint day in and day out for those two years is why I am here today on my 40th birthday, preaching and proclaiming with y'all.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Because they took this blueprint seriously and they weren't like doing a check, am I doing this right?
19:51
SPEAKER_00: They followed a very simple thing, right?
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Am I showing grace?
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Am I loving my neighbor?
19:56
SPEAKER_00: Right?
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Even the one that's sitting right next to me, and I see often, am I making that happen?
20:01
SPEAKER_00: And it changed my life.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And so tonight, on this World Communion Sunday, when people are doing this around the world, and just having to follow it on birthdays, I'm gonna do it.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: I was looking forward to this like when I figured it out, like, this is so cool.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: I want to invite you.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't been at this table before, I want you to know that you are welcome here.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: That God loves you beyond all doubt because God created you as you are, and you're welcome to come here at this table.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna say a prayer of thanksgiving in just a second, then I'm gonna invite the band forward, um, and then we're gonna receive.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, we got the could bread, King's Hawaiian.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: All right, this is the stuff that Jesus died for.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm just kidding, I love you.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: All right, um and juice there.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: But we got the good stuff.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: We had some shady stuff on Sunday mornings recently, but um let us let's pray, and then uh I'm gonna ask uh let's see.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: Emma, are you good?
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Help me serve in a minute.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Can you do that?
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay, thanks.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: All right, always.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Good and gracious God, we thank you so much for this opportunity to come and to worship you.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: We'll give you thanks for your Sermon on the Mount, where you invited people to come up the mountain with you, and you shared with them your wisdom and your ways as you invited us into a life of grace and hospitality, and you you took the weight of judgment off of us, Lord, not just that forgiveness of our sins, but reminding us that we don't have to judge others for theirs, that you just call us into a life of grace and love.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: We come to this table, God, and remember it was you who created, who made the heavens and the earth and all the creatures that inhabited, that you formed us humankind in your image.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: You breathed the breath of life into us and called us good.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: And for that, oh God, we give you thanks and praise.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: We know, God, there are times when we stray from you, there are times when we don't follow the blueprint that you have laid out before us, when we judge more than we show grace, when our motives are about us more than you.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: God, when we're a little bit more salty than light.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: But God, we give you thanks that you forgive us, that you continue to renew us and to reshape us and to welcome us back with open arms, and we give you thanks and praise.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: We come to this table, remember it was you who sent your son Jesus Christ down to earth, that he would heal the sick, he would proclaim release to the captives, he would invite his disciples up the hill and teach them in the Sermon on the Mount and in other ways.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: And that he would ultimately die on a cross for them and for us.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: But that he would be resurrected three days later, breaking the chains of sin and death, and showing us a way to forgiveness of life and life abundant.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And for that, O God, we give you thanks and praise.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: We remember it's on the night in which Jesus was to give himself up for us that he was having a meal with his friends.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: And there he took some bread, he gave thanks to you, he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, eat all of you, this is my body which is broken for you.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: And he also took the cup and gave thanks to you, O God.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: And he gave it to his disciples who were gathered around and said, Drink from this all of you.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: This is the blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: So, God, we pray now that you would pour out your Holy Spirit upon us who are gathered here today.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: Pour out your Holy Spirit upon this fruit of the vine and the wheat of the field.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: May they be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world your hands and feet, that we might be your people of grace in a world of judgment, that we might be your people of hope in a world of despair, that we could be your people of light in a world that often puts up darkness.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: God, make us one with you, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, till we feast at your final heavenly banquet table.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: We give you thanks in all things, and we pray now the prayer that you taught us to pray together, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: The Wesley Word is a production of the Clemson Wesley Foundation.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Clemson Wesley, check out our website or follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: Until next time, get out there and love your neighbor.