Living for Those Around You

00:00:12

- We're going to sing of what God's done for us,

00:00:14

the freedom He brings to us.

00:13:53

- That's right, that's why we rejoice,

00:13:56

that's why we hope.

00:21:12

- Sing that chorus one more time.

00:22:27

- You freely give and I'm just so grateful

00:22:30

that I get to be the recipient

00:22:34

of your goodness and your grace.

00:22:38

The thing that's -- that I've -- I've not deserved the most,

00:22:43

You've given it to me.

00:22:45

In my messed up self, time after time,

00:22:49

You reach Your arm out and you said,

00:22:51

"Nope, I'm not going to leave you there.

00:22:53

No, I'm not going to leave you by yourself.

00:22:59

I'm coming after you."

00:23:02

And if you're hearing this prayer,

00:23:03

I want you to know the Lord is coming after you.

00:23:07

He's coming after you, whether you see Him or not,

00:23:10

whether you feel it or not, He's coming after you.

00:23:13

Why? Because He's a good father who doesn't leave His sheep.

00:23:18

Even just one, He's coming after us.

00:23:21

So, Father, I just say thank You.

00:23:23

Would You open our eyes this morning to You?

00:23:27

And when You open our eyes to You,

00:23:29

would we open our hands and say, "Lord, you can have us"?

00:23:32

You can have us.

00:23:34

We invite You in to do whatever work You want to do,

00:23:37

to show us who You've created us to be,

00:23:40

to show us exactly who You are.

00:23:44

That's a good Father.

00:23:47

You're worth singing to, You're worth praising,

00:23:49

so we praise You today. Amen. Amen.

00:24:20

- So how did we get from this to this?

00:24:24

And how did we get from here to there?

00:24:28

And maybe most importantly, how did we get from this place

00:24:32

where people seem to love Jesus but can't stand his followers,

00:24:36

where people seem to be really fascinated

00:24:38

by Jesus personality, by what He did,

00:24:41

by the way He cared for people

00:24:42

and primarily see the church as hypocrites and as bigots.

00:24:48

Man, I think the answers to these questions

00:24:50

are really important for us.

00:24:52

They're really important for us to understand

00:24:55

that somewhere along the line we've lost the plot.

00:24:57

We're going to jump into the answers

00:24:59

to these questions in just a minute.

00:25:00

But first, I have a little thought experiment for you.

00:25:02

Imagine you live in a world that's really confused,

00:25:07

that's really stressful, that's really strained,

00:25:10

where no one can agree on what's the right way forward,

00:25:13

where no one can agree on what's the right way to live?

00:25:16

Is any of this sounding familiar?

00:25:17

Yeah. That's the world that you and I live in every day.

00:25:21

We're not alone in this.

00:25:22

This is also the world that the church in Rome lived in.

00:25:25

The church in Rome was living incredibly divisive time,

00:25:29

an incredibly dangerous time.

00:25:31

Rome was the capital of an empire.

00:25:34

It was the cultural, political, and geographical

00:25:36

center of the known universe at that point.

00:25:39

And within that capital city,

00:25:43

there was a small group of believers

00:25:44

that were really conflicted, conflicted on

00:25:48

what the right way to follow Jesus was.

00:25:50

This banner that says Fight the Good Fight.

00:25:53

Well, there's been lots of disagreements over time

00:25:56

about how we as followers of Jesus fight the good fight.

00:25:59

That line is actually pulled straight

00:26:00

from a book of the Bible, again, written by a guy named Paul,

00:26:03

where it encourages us to stay strong, to stay faithful,

00:26:06

to continue to fight the good fight,

00:26:08

continue to race the good race.

00:26:10

Like, that's what we're called to be,

00:26:11

and we really struggle to know what that looks like.

00:26:15

If you've ever wondered how you should live,

00:26:17

if you've ever wondered what the right way forward is,

00:26:19

hey, you are in good company because t

00:26:22

hat's where we all are at in one way or another

00:26:24

and where the church in Rome was at.

00:26:26

Now the church in Rome, a group of, let's say 125 people,

00:26:30

a small community, trying to figure out

00:26:33

what it meant to follow Jesus in their context

00:26:35

and their place in history and in space.

00:26:39

And in that moment, they began to fight.

00:26:43

They began to have a lot of conflict

00:26:44

between the different groups.

00:26:46

And in that moment, they received a letter

00:26:48

that was encouraging to them, that was clarifying for them,

00:26:52

that showed them how the different pieces

00:26:54

of their life fit together

00:26:56

and how they were united in the person of Jesus.

00:26:59

So let's go back and imagine in your chaos,

00:27:03

in your confusion, in your uncertainty about, man,

00:27:06

what you were put on this earth for

00:27:08

and your uncertainty about the future.

00:27:10

Imagine in the midst of that moment

00:27:11

you received a letter, a letter from a friend or a mentor

00:27:16

that wasn't generic.

00:27:18

It wasn't, Hey, how are you doing?

00:27:19

It was custom advice for you.

00:27:21

It was guidance on how to move forward as a community

00:27:24

and in your own life.

00:27:26

That's exactly what the church in Rome received

00:27:28

in the book of the Bible, we call it the Book of Romans.

00:27:31

But it wasn't a book just meant to be read

00:27:34

top to bottom or a chapter.

00:27:36

The book of Romans was actually a letter written

00:27:38

to a community to help them understand how to live.

00:27:42

And that's how I want you and I to receive,

00:27:46

well, the book of Romans today,

00:27:48

that it was written for us right where we're at,

00:27:51

not just a generic thing in an ancient book,

00:27:53

not just generic words for somebody else,

00:27:55

but a letter written with great love, great care,

00:27:59

and great intentionality for you.

00:28:01

So today, I hope that we receive Paul's letters

00:28:04

like they were intended, like they were a letter

00:28:07

written to you and me to help us understand

00:28:09

how we can navigate chaos, confusion,

00:28:12

uncertainty about the future,

00:28:14

and how we can understand how Christians have

00:28:17

sort of lost the plot, why we don't look

00:28:20

as much like Jesus as we're supposed to.

00:28:22

And I think the answer to that question and more is,

00:28:25

well, that Christians have forgotten one word.

00:28:29

That word is used 179 times in the Bible.

00:28:31

So we don't really have an excuse.

00:28:33

It's not like it doesn't come up much.

00:28:34

But the word that we've forgotten is grace.

00:28:38

- God's grace.

00:28:39

- God done gave me more than I asked for

00:28:41

because He got this thing He has called brace.

00:28:44

- And show him grace that he doesn't deserve.

00:28:47

- Of the story of the gospel of God's grace

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in all of Scripture.

00:28:52

- Grace is this amazing word that shows up a lot

00:28:55

and it embodies the fact and the reality

00:28:57

that we have a before and after,

00:28:59

that God has moved in our lives

00:29:01

and changed us and made us different. Right?

00:29:03

Unfortunately, Christians aren't immediately recognizable

00:29:07

for this in the ways that they initially were.

00:29:09

Christians have brought many, many amazing things

00:29:12

to the world, like public education,

00:29:15

like the first sort of modern expression of hospitals

00:29:18

and social care and many things

00:29:19

that we sort of take for granted.

00:29:21

But unfortunately, that type of innovation

00:29:24

around change in the world isn't seen

00:29:26

as readily as it once was.

00:29:28

And Christians are known more for being insular

00:29:32

or being hypocritical or being judgmental

00:29:34

than they are changing the world.

00:29:37

Crossroads started doing a thing where every day

00:29:40

in the Crossroads Anywhere app, we as a community

00:29:43

are reading through the Bible together,

00:29:45

just a chapter or so, and then we have a chance

00:29:47

to respond to that and sort of post

00:29:49

a public journal entry about what we get out of that passage

00:29:52

or what that makes us think about or do.

00:29:54

We're doing that in line with Romans.

00:29:56

Romans 1 sort of starts off, like, right out of the gate

00:29:59

coming in hot with a list of a bunch of things

00:30:01

that we probably don't want to do.

00:30:03

It's a bunch of, like, negative behaviors.

00:30:05

The very first comment wasn't anything personal.

00:30:09

It was just a person putting an entire group of people

00:30:13

on blast for not living up to the standards of Romans 1.

00:30:17

People who don't believe the same things that we believe,

00:30:19

people don't think the same things that we do

00:30:21

just getting lit up.

00:30:23

The Bible, Romans 1 not being used as

00:30:26

a letter of encouragement or direction or guidance,

00:30:29

but instead just as ammunition.

00:30:32

But it just made me really sad about what have we missed?

00:30:36

How have we lost the plot that this is more about

00:30:41

how we can judge other people than it is

00:30:43

for how we can live better ourselves.

00:30:47

And it's in that moment that I was initially sad

00:30:50

and frustrated, and then I just got a fire,

00:30:53

like. in my gut of like, man,

00:30:55

this is not how it's supposed to be.

00:30:57

This is not how we're supposed to be.

00:30:58

You know, I've been judgmental plenty of times,

00:31:01

so there is zero zero angst in me about this.

00:31:03

It's just, I mean, we have a ways to go

00:31:06

to lean into what Jesus would have for us

00:31:08

and how he would have us respond to the world around us.

00:31:12

So Romans 1 has this list of, well,

00:31:15

behaviors that we probably want to avoid,

00:31:16

aren't great for us.

00:31:18

Romans 2 follows it up with this great line that just says

00:31:22

you therefore have no excuse who passed judgment

00:31:25

on someone else for at whatever point you judge another

00:31:29

you are condemning yourself because

00:31:31

you pass judgment to do those same things.

00:31:33

That's that hypocritical thing that I think

00:31:35

the church is unfortunately known for.

00:31:37

One of the best examples

00:31:38

actually that I've heard recently

00:31:39

about this deep understanding of grace

00:31:42

and how our own before and after sort of help inform that

00:31:46

and enforce that, encourage us to extend grace to others

00:31:49

was actually from Alcoholics Anonymous.

00:31:51

There's a writer, author, professor, theologian

00:31:54

named Steven Raines, who literally wrote a book

00:31:57

that asks a really good question.

00:31:59

He says, "Why can't church be more like AA?"

00:32:03

He asked this question because he describes

00:32:05

his experience of his life being absolutely ravaged

00:32:09

by addiction and the power that he experienced

00:32:12

by being a part of a community that openly

00:32:14

and actively shared their brokenness,

00:32:17

shared their stories of hurt, and shared hope

00:32:20

for one another for a different path forward,

00:32:23

and how it just changed everything for him.

00:32:26

He says it this way, that AA members

00:32:28

would become accustomed to receiving things

00:32:31

like hope and healing and authenticity and vulnerability

00:32:36

in the church basement on Saturday

00:32:38

and then come up on Sunday morning into the church pew

00:32:41

and wonder where all of those same things went.

00:32:44

It's a really good question.

00:32:45

We are meant to identify with our brokenness,

00:32:48

to remember our before, and that it's God's grace

00:32:52

that gave us a different after

00:32:54

than we ever could have provided for ourselves.

00:32:56

And when we remember our before,

00:32:58

our grace that God offered us and our after,

00:33:01

we can extend that same grace to others.

00:33:04

And I would say we can't help but extend that grace to others.

00:33:07

So the whole picture of Christians as uptight,

00:33:10

as religious, as hypocritical, as angry, mean,

00:33:14

joyless and all those things show

00:33:16

just how much we've missed the mark.

00:33:18

That's not who Jesus was.

00:33:20

That's not who His followers are supposed to be.

00:33:22

We should be the most hope-filled people

00:33:23

on the planet.

00:33:25

We should be the most joy-filled people on earth,

00:33:28

and we should absolutely be the most quick

00:33:31

to extend grace to everyone around us when they fail,

00:33:34

when they fall, when they don't measure up to whatever,

00:33:37

we have a chance to offer something that

00:33:39

the world is not offering, and that is grace.

00:33:43

It's one of those things that just makes me sad

00:33:45

about cancel culture, right?

00:33:46

Cancel culture,

00:33:47

a lot of Christians get really bummed out about it.

00:33:50

The reality is Christians invented cancel culture.

00:33:53

Like, it was kind of our sweet spot

00:33:54

for, like, hundreds of years where if anybody

00:33:56

didn't do all the things that we required of them,

00:33:59

well, then we would write them off and we would cancel them.

00:34:01

Then we would put them on the outs, literally, sometimes.

00:34:05

That's not who we're called to be.

00:34:07

We are called to be the most gracious people on the planet

00:34:10

because we need to remember how much grace,

00:34:14

how much forgiveness, how much love has been shared with us.

00:34:17

The important reality here is that grace makes us new.

00:34:21

It doesn't just like patch us up.

00:34:24

It doesn't just sort of put a fresh coat of paint on it.

00:34:27

It doesn't just help us be better versions of ourselves.

00:34:29

Scripture's really clear that grace makes us new.

00:34:32

2 Corinthians puts it this way:

00:34:35

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation.

00:34:38

The old has passed away and the new has come.

00:34:42

That's who we are.

00:34:43

We are new creations and we get to offer tons of grace

00:34:47

to other people as they become new themselves.

00:34:49

Here's a quote that I love, and it says:

00:34:57

It's not just about getting on our best behavior;

00:35:00

It's about experiencing something

00:35:01

that changes us from the inside out,

00:35:04

that makes us a new creation.

00:35:05

And man, we as followers of Jesus should just

00:35:08

acknowledge that not everybody is in the same place.

00:35:11

We shouldn't expect people who don't believe

00:35:13

all the same things that we believe

00:35:14

to act all of the ways that we would act, right?

00:35:18

Let's be quick to extend grace.

00:35:20

You and I are the recipients of so much grace,

00:35:23

and that should make us really, really amazing

00:35:25

at extending grace to one another.

00:35:28

And it's when we forget grace,

00:35:30

it's when we forget how much we've been changed,

00:35:32

how much grace we've been afforded,

00:35:35

it actually keeps us from connecting with one another

00:35:38

and we forget that grace connects us.

00:35:41

Grace can show up in your life in moments of chaos,

00:35:44

in moments of confusion, in moments of need.

00:35:47

Whether that need is physical,

00:35:48

whether that need is emotional, spiritual,

00:35:51

or whether that need is just practical.

00:35:54

I've experienced so much grace in the context

00:35:57

of connection and community as my family and I

00:36:00

have been between houses now, supposed to be a week

00:36:03

and we're going on two months living out of suitcases.

00:36:06

We've experienced so much grace with friends

00:36:09

letting us stay with them, with people helping us out,

00:36:12

watching our kids.

00:36:13

It's been wonderful.

00:36:14

And we're only experiencing that kind of grace,

00:36:18

that kind of grace that supports,

00:36:19

that kind of grace that encourages

00:36:22

because we're attached to a community.

00:36:25

Now, Romans 12 puts it this way:

00:36:28

For as in one body we have many members,

00:36:31

and the members don't have all the same function,

00:36:33

so we, though many are one body in Christ

00:36:36

and individually members of one another.

00:36:39

Having gifts that differ

00:36:40

according to the grace given to us,

00:36:42

let us use them: If prophecy, in proportion to our faith;

00:36:46

if service, in our serving;

00:36:48

the one who teaches, in his teaching;

00:36:50

the one who exhorts, in his exhortation, ;

00:36:52

the one who contributes, in generosity;

00:36:54

the one who leads, with zeal;

00:36:56

and the one who acts with mercy, with cheerfulness.

00:36:59

When we bring our different personalities,

00:37:02

our different wiring, our different resources,

00:37:04

our different gifting together in the context of community,

00:37:07

and we share so much grace with one another

00:37:10

and the body, the church functions as it was intended.

00:37:15

People are our DNA around here,

00:37:17

and how we treat them has always been a key part

00:37:20

of who we are as Crossroads

00:37:21

and as the overall capital C church across the world.

00:37:24

This is from the Seven Hills That We Die On:

00:37:49

The reality is that you and I are surrounded

00:37:51

by amazing people, amazing people

00:37:53

that we were made to need.

00:37:55

And that goes for everyone.

00:37:57

Everyone is made in the image of God,

00:37:58

even the ones you and I might find annoying.

00:38:01

Or it's true, even for you and me,

00:38:03

when other people might find us annoying.

00:38:06

Grace enables us to connect.

00:38:08

Grace enables us to experience the full value that

00:38:12

everyone around us has being made in the image of Jesus.

00:38:16

And when we just understand that we all were made

00:38:19

with this deep, innate sense of purpose and deep innate value,

00:38:25

we can extend grace to one another,

00:38:26

we can connect in meaningful ways

00:38:29

that grow our ability to serve one another,

00:38:31

to help share each other's burdens

00:38:33

and care for one another.

00:38:35

And grace doesn't stop there.

00:38:37

It doesn't stop with just changing us.

00:38:39

It doesn't just stop with connecting us.

00:38:41

It actually compels us to move forward.

00:38:44

And whether we choose to acknowledge it or not,

00:38:46

we need each other in all kinds of ways.

00:38:49

But that's only possible if we extend each other

00:38:52

enough grace to actually connect.

00:38:55

And I actually have a way that you can connect

00:38:57

with real community that I want to talk to you

00:38:59

about right over here. Okay.

00:39:01

It's a fascinating book that was released a while back

00:39:03

called Bowling Alone that talks about

00:39:05

the decline in community in the United States

00:39:08

and really around the world as a result

00:39:10

or in coordination with kind of the technology age.

00:39:14

Technology was supposed to help us connect better,

00:39:16

but in some ways it's just made our connections shallower.

00:39:19

Now, I'm not a psychologist or a sociologist,

00:39:22

but as a pastor I talk with lots of people

00:39:24

and the vast majority of people that I talk to

00:39:27

are looking for better or deeper friendships.

00:39:30

They want better connections.

00:39:31

They want deeper connections in their life.

00:39:34

And man, I relate to that as a guy who's moving to a new city,

00:39:37

I feel like I'm starting over in many ways relationally.

00:39:41

And it's why I'm doing what I'm doing,

00:39:44

which is using groups at Crossroads

00:39:46

to help myself connect with people.

00:39:48

Now we are kicking off a group season.

00:39:51

We have tons of groups all over the place

00:39:53

launching in person, online.

00:39:56

You can connect with lots of people and, I think,

00:39:58

find or create your community,

00:40:01

but you're going to have to take a step forward.

00:40:04

You're going to have to lean in to make it happen.

00:40:07

Now, I don't know of really any tools out there

00:40:10

to help people connect other than dating apps, I hear,

00:40:13

but this is a tool that can actually help you

00:40:16

make friends and connect with people.

00:40:18

Just go to crossroads.net/groups,

00:40:21

look around and find your people.

00:40:24

So there are tons of things going on around Crossroads,

00:40:26

online and in person all over the world.

00:40:28

And if you want to check them out,

00:40:30

you can do so at crossroads.net.

00:40:31

But all of that stuff only happens because

00:40:34

we have faithful, generous people who give their time

00:40:37

and their money to help fund the life change

00:40:40

that's happening around Crossroads.

00:40:41

So if you have questions about what we spend our money on

00:40:45

or the decisions we make with our finances,

00:40:47

or you want to join the team of faithful people

00:40:49

who makes this stuff possible,

00:40:50

you can do all those things at Crossroads.net/give.

00:40:53

Now back to Grace.

00:40:55

Grace compels us. It's meant to push us, to move us forward.

00:40:58

Now, if you've ever met a Christian that seemed like

00:41:01

they had something stuck up their butt,

00:41:03

well, they might have.

00:41:04

That might have actually been the case.

00:41:06

I think there is a dynamic that is all too common

00:41:10

in sort of church today

00:41:11

that I just call Christian constipation.

00:41:13

It's this obsession with getting more information,

00:41:16

with more facts, even with more, like, good Bible knowledge,

00:41:20

but without ever doing anything with it.

00:41:22

It's about taking in more stuff, more facts, more knowledge,

00:41:26

but it just stays like in us and gets stuck there.

00:41:28

It never gets applied.

00:41:30

It never gets used to change the world.

00:41:32

We need grace that moves in us and moves through us

00:41:37

to change and, well, to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

00:41:41

That is what Scripture describes.

00:41:43

So in the same way, it's not good to just eat

00:41:46

and eat and eat, but never well, do anything with that.

00:41:50

It's not good to just go to church and learn

00:41:53

and research and gain more information

00:41:55

without ever figuring out what it looks like

00:41:57

for you to apply that in your own life.

00:42:00

There's a really, really old question that

00:42:04

when I was a kid, it was What would Jesus do?

00:42:06

And there were even these super cool little rubber bracelets.

00:42:08

But the question really is,

00:42:10

what would Jesus do if He were you?

00:42:12

What would Jesus do if He was a single mom?

00:42:15

What would Jesus do if He was a stay at home dad?

00:42:18

What would Jesus do if He worked in finance or in the trades

00:42:22

or was a high school student or was a professor?

00:42:25

What would Jesus do if He were you?

00:42:28

That's the question we need to answer

00:42:31

if we want to avoid spiritual constipation.

00:42:33

We've got to figure out what it looks like

00:42:35

for us to apply the things that we've learned

00:42:38

and to move to be compelled by grace,

00:42:41

to find a problem and to solve it.

00:42:43

There's a passage from Romans 12 that puts it this way:

00:42:46

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,

00:42:49

to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,

00:42:52

holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

00:42:55

Do not be conformed to this world,

00:42:57

but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,

00:43:00

that by testing you may discern what is the will of God,

00:43:03

what is good and acceptable and perfect.

00:43:06

And then it goes on to say: Let love be genuine.

00:43:09

Abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good.

00:43:13

Love one another with brotherly affection.

00:43:15

Outdo one another in showing honor.

00:43:18

We have a chance to change the world.

00:43:21

We have a chance to leverage our unique gifts,

00:43:24

skills, abilities, talents, context,

00:43:26

history to make an impact.

00:43:28

And we get to be creative.

00:43:30

We get to start on a process with God to figure out

00:43:33

what it looks like for us to take the grace

00:43:35

that's been given to us and to extend it

00:43:38

uniquely in our own voice and our own style

00:43:41

to a world that desperately needs it.

00:43:45

There was a really smart guy named Charles Spurgeon

00:43:47

who put it this way:

00:43:53

If we give God service, it must be because He gives us grace.

00:43:58

We're not doing this just out of our own goodness;

00:44:00

we're doing it because we've been changed,

00:44:02

because we've been united and connected

00:44:04

and because we've been compelled forward to change the world.

00:44:09

For all the negative pictures that there are, rightly so,

00:44:12

of people who say they would follow Jesus

00:44:15

but don't seem doing a very good job of it,

00:44:17

there are so many pictures of people

00:44:20

who have been transformed by this grace

00:44:24

that it made them different people,

00:44:25

not just better people, but different people,

00:44:27

that it rooted them in the context of community

00:44:30

and deep connection and that it compelled them forward

00:44:34

in powerful, powerful ways.

00:44:37

That's the story of Romans

00:44:39

that you and I can receive that kind of grace,

00:44:42

that it can take us to a new place,

00:44:44

that it can make us new people,

00:44:46

that it can see us grafted and adopted into family.

00:44:49

Man, don't those things sound amazing?

00:44:52

And aren't those things that we need

00:44:53

and aren't those things that our world needs?

00:44:55

The kind of grace that Jesus offers never leaves us static.

00:44:59

It never leaves us the same.

00:45:01

It is not interested in the status quo.

00:45:04

It leaves us changed and it sends us to new places.

00:45:07

You and I get to be a part of not just receiving that grace,

00:45:11

but extending that grace to others.

00:45:14

Now, maybe where we started this whole thing

00:45:16

is been your reason for not wanting to receive grace.

00:45:19

Maybe the depictions of Christians

00:45:21

that you've experienced in your life

00:45:23

just sort of have you doing this

00:45:24

and keeping these things at arm's length.

00:45:26

I get it. I really, really do.

00:45:28

And you need to know that wasn't God's grace for you.

00:45:34

God's grace for you is that even with all of your flaws,

00:45:37

even with all of your brokenness,

00:45:39

even with all of your imperfections,

00:45:41

you are perfectly loved, that God wants to save you,

00:45:45

that He wants to bring you to a new place,

00:45:47

not just in understanding or in your head knowledge,

00:45:50

not just in your heart, but to bring your life

00:45:53

to a new place modeled after how He designed you.

00:45:57

That's the story of grace for you.

00:45:59

Tim Keller puts it this way:

00:46:13

Man, that's God's grace for you that you are deeply loved

00:46:16

and He has great things in store for you.

00:46:19

And if you want to receive God's grace for you,

00:46:22

hey, I'd love to talk to you about that.

00:46:24

I'd love to process that with you,

00:46:26

help you understand what that means.

00:46:28

You can just email me, Andy.Reider@crossroads.net.

00:46:32

I'd love to talk to you about that and help you

00:46:34

experience and understand what God's grace for you looks like.

00:46:38

And there's an opportunity that we have here.

00:46:41

So in the same way that the book of Romans

00:46:43

was really a letter written to encourage

00:46:46

and extend grace to a community, you and I have the chance

00:46:50

to do that every day in certain ways,

00:46:52

but actually to do that right now,

00:46:54

to extend grace and encouragement

00:46:56

to someone who needs it.

00:46:58

If you click the link below, it'll take you to a form

00:47:00

where you can write a note to a person that you care about

00:47:02

and that you want to see encouraged.

00:47:05

We'll do the work of getting that sent to them,

00:47:07

printed, addressed, mailed, and in their hands

00:47:10

so that they can experience more of the grace

00:47:13

that you have for them

00:47:14

and more of the grace that the Lord has for them.

00:47:16

So if you would just love for you to pray with me.

00:47:20

Father, I thank You.

00:47:22

I thank You for each person that is a part of this community

00:47:26

and each person that is getting to watch this right now.

00:47:28

God, I may not know them personally,

00:47:31

but I know that You love them deeply

00:47:33

and that You have so much grace on hand to offer them.

00:47:37

You have grace for the things that they've done wrong.

00:47:40

You've got grace for the ways that we have failed.

00:47:43

And You have grace for just the chaos of our life

00:47:47

and the strain and stress of just everyday living.

00:47:51

Father, would You be with us?

00:47:53

Would You just be extra near to us, offer Your comfort,

00:47:58

offer Your encouragement, offer Your grace to us

00:48:01

right where we're at in the ways that we need most. Amen.

00:48:06

Hey, thank you guys so much for joining us.

00:48:08

As always, we'd love for you to come back next week.

00:48:11

It's actually going to be

00:48:12

a really special start of a series,

00:48:13

something we haven't done in a long time

00:48:15

where we're diving into who we are as a community.

00:48:18

This is one of the strangest churches

00:48:19

I've ever experienced in really, really wonderful ways.

00:48:22

If you ever wondered why we are the way that we are

00:48:25

or why we do the things that we do,

00:48:27

this is going to be the perfect time for you

00:48:30

to understand the vision and the culture

00:48:32

and the DNA of this place and why we run.

00:48:35

Thanks for watching.

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