Faith as the Guiding Light in Politics

Do you ever feel like your faith and politics are at odds? Join me, Stephen Feith, as I navigate this turbulent intersection in our latest episode of "Outrageous Faith." Reflecting on the divisive nature of recent elections, I'll share how our faith should be the guiding lens through which we view political issues, rather than letting politics dictate our beliefs. We'll explore how to maintain a Christlike demeanor amidst heated debates and focus on embracing an unapologetically bold faith that prioritizes core Christian values over personal attacks.

Imagine the commitment of Christian missionaries who packed their belongings in coffins, symbolizing a one-way dedication to their mission. In "Ambassadors and Missionaries," we draw parallels between these early efforts and the role of modern Christians as ambassadors of Christ. Our mission isn't just for personal salvation but to share grace and help others reconcile with God. By diving into historical contexts and sharing powerful anecdotes, we underscore the importance of emotional and spiritual healing and our ultimate allegiance to Jesus.

Ever played golf and found unexpected camaraderie on the course? In "Golf Etiquette and Teamwork in Faith," we use a lighthearted golf story to highlight the importance of unity and collaboration within God's kingdom. From trash-talking to teamwork, this experience serves as a metaphor for being kingdom ambassadors in Madison. Finally, in "Driven by Compassion," we'll celebrate the remarkable initiatives taken by members of our faith community, encouraging everyone to recognize their potential to contribute meaningfully, regardless of perceived shortcomings. Tune in to be inspired, challenged, and encouraged in your faith journey.

Chapters

• 0:00 Outrageous Faith
• 11:47 Ambassadors and Missionaries
• 24:13 Golf Etiquette and Teamwork in Faith
• 29:28 Driven by Compassion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Madison Church Online. I'm Stephen Feith, lead pastor, and we're glad that you are joining us today. Last week we began a new teaching series that I'm calling Outrageous Faith, and you may not be able to guess from this graphic, but this series is all about the intersection of faith and politics, and I know if you're watching on YouTube or listening, you're getting ready to exit out For those in the room. You're kind of stuck with me, aren't you? For the next half hour You're like wow, of all the Sundays to come to Madison Church, I came on Faith and Politics Week. It's not just Faith and Politics Week, it's actually Faith and Politics Month, and so we're doing this for the whole month.

Speaker 1: 0:38

It was an interesting study. I found very new. It was Lifeway and then Barna kind of did something very similar numbers, but they asked a bunch of people who go to church very regularly how often do you want your pastor to talk about faith and politics? And I was surprised when they said 50% said at least once a month. Because that's not my camp. I don't want to hear myself talk about politics with you, okay, so that's just. But 50% of you that means every month are disappointed, right, because I don't do it. Well, this month is for you. Thanks for hanging out the last 11 months with us. And for those of you who wish there's 40%, say they should never talk about it, this month is also for you. Just stick with me, though. Okay, the next 11 months I promise I'll go back to normal stuff, but we need to talk about it now, and we need to do it now before we're all pissed off, because the closer we get to that Tuesday in November, we're going to be angry and it's going to be all around us the outrage everywhere. So why don't we just do it now, before everyone's upset, and get some work done? Let's get some foundational, christ-like work done right now.

Speaker 1: 1:46

So when I say outrageous faith, I mean a faith that is bold and radical and unapologetic in its adherence to the teachings of Jesus In the midst of an election year. I don't know about you, but for me, like it is really hard to tell the difference between someone who's a faithful follower of Jesus and a passionate American, because both sides left or right, or apolitical or people who are right in the middle they all have Bible verses they quote throughout the entire election and they'll say well, you know, you should vote this way because Jesus. But then they'll come, you know, somebody else will say, oh, you know, jesus also said this. And then all of a sudden, it's like, well, wait, how would Jesus want us to vote? But what gets lost in that is when we're fighting, we start attacking each other and the attacks get deeply personal and, all of a sudden, we're not loving someone, like Jesus tells us to love someone, but we're attacking them, and so this whole series is supposed to help us get back a little bit on track. Our faith should be outrageous, but for different and good reasons. If it's outrageous like it was in 2016, or if it's outrageous like it was in 2020, that is not the outrageous faith I'm talking about. In this series. We are off track and we have such a cool opportunity. Well, in this series, we are off track and we have such a cool opportunity. Well, cool is probably not the right word. We have a opportunity. We've seen this election already, a Biden versus Trump election. We've seen that we should be better because we have experience, and I'm guessing for most of us, our experience was what not to do or the wrong way to do it or the wrong way to talk about it. So let's put some of that experience into practice.

Speaker 1: 3:27

This year, the goal of our series is to talk about the intersection of faith and politics and how our faith should be the filter in which we view politics. But I think for a lot of us, on these election years, every four years, what happens is a subtle switch where all of a sudden we're running our faith through our politics. The politics kind of comes out a little bit ahead in the values of this year, and I understand it's on TV, it's on your newsfeed, the messaging is everywhere, and that's why last week we talked a lot about like what are the voices speaking to you? Who are you listening to? Because if it's all political commentary and it's never Christ-like, it's never about Jesus, it's never about faith. If I were going to bet, I'm going to guess you're going to sound an awful lot like your favorite news personalities and not like your Messiah. And so the series is about that Outrageous faith, good faith, something different, something attractive this fall. Faith, good faith, something different, something attractive this fall.

Speaker 1: 4:29

This series is not about advocating for any particular political party or candidate. So if you were hoping that I was going to come out here and say you should be more conservative, or you should be more moderate or you should be more liberal, like that's just not going to happen. I'm going to try really hard to not even like flirt with that. I don't want to tell you how to vote, I just want to help point you in the direction of Jesus and ask you the question how does your relationship with Jesus affect your politics? And then it's up to you Talking about faith and politics. You're in the room and you're like I don't want to talk about this right now. Why are we talking about this? It's important because your neighbors are talking about it and, as we're going to talk about today, you've been called to a certain place in time. So a similar theme we've been going through kind of the summer how we've been called to a place in time. But maybe more importantly than that, jesus talked about politics.

Speaker 1: 5:15

Jesus had no problem engaging in politics and they were quite polarizing 2,000 years ago with the Roman Empire and the Jewish side of things. So Jesus talked about them. Politics affect everything from healthcare to the economy and to foreign policies. You know I mentioned last week there are multiple wars going on in our world and I'm guessing you don't get called. Nobody's asking right, like is the White House calling any of you to ask your opinion on who we should send missiles to and who we should fund? No, they're not right. But they're asking our government and we pick them. And so politics? I'm not trying to say they're not important. They are important, but I want to continue to push While they're important, to push While they're important. Faith is more important. So it's complex, it's challenging and it's one we must confront. We've never had a problem talking about hard things at Madison Church, and so we're going to continue to talk about hard things throughout this series.

Speaker 1: 6:17

And, as I mentioned, the reality of Jesus's work in our lives, coupled with the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, it should reshape our political stance. It should reshape it. If you believe the same things politically before Jesus as you do after Jesus, we've got to change that. Jesus should be shaking things up all around you. We must allow the Spirit to renew our thoughts and attitudes toward our political beliefs now, not later. Paul writes I mentioned this passage last week in Ephesians 4, since you heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes, put on your new nature, create it to be like God, truly righteous and holy. And a word that we would use today is worldview. That's what Paul is talking about. With worldview, he's saying the power of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus has done in and around your life should change your entire worldview.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Paul goes as far as to say it's not even possible to have the old worldview. If you've encountered the living God, you can't go back to that old way. You've been changed, act like it, and so we walk forward with a Christ-like, a gospel-centered worldview. Our worldview affects how we vote, the friends we make, the news channels we watch and countless daily decisions and all of that. We should be constantly surrendering to God and pursuing him. With all of those things.

Speaker 1: 7:50

And in an election year and there's going to be unrest it will be crucial to rise above the outrage. We got to rise to the level of our Messiah. We have to rise to the level of Jesus and who he calls us. And I know it's going to be really difficult to actually fall and go low to our opponents or those who disagree with us or those who attack us for what we believe. So we have to do the work now. We should strive to echo our shared faith's voice, not political ideology echo chambers, and I mentioned last week developing this gospel worldview. It's work, it's every day.

Speaker 1: 8:29

Your worldview is constantly changing and being tweaked, and so it's not just about getting rid of bad habits. If we just get rid of bad habits, it just lets more bad habits come on in potentially. And so we got to not just get rid of bad things, but we got to be focusing on good things, and we mentioned a few weeks ago, last month, in whatever series that we were in, we mentioned how, like, sometimes you have to get rid of good things to have better things and you have to get rid of better things to have great things. And what we're shaping is not can I be more necessarily likable, can I be richer, can I be more successful? We are shaping the decisions that we make, the things that we cut out of our lives is to be more Christ-like in our own lives, and so that's what we're trying to do and how we do.

Speaker 1: 9:12

That is the process of discipleship. It's becoming like Jesus, and discipleship just takes time. You can't buy it, you can't download it, there's no check mark. You don't get to some point in your life and say, there, I did it. It's the process throughout your entire life. So, with all of that said, when we talked last week about the different practices to developing a Christ-like worldview, I want to move on to.

Speaker 1: 9:36

So what now that that's happened? Like I'm going to just assume the best believe, the best out of all of you. You guys did it Last week. We heard the message, we did the and we're putting some. You're taking some bad things out, we're putting some good things in. We're going to have an outrageous faith and now you're like, okay, so I just do this the next six months and I'm good. Not quite. This is a long series. Okay, I want to talk to you now about your role. Your role you found Jesus. You follow Jesus. We don't assume or presume that everyone has, but if you're in the room and you have, we now have to shift what we do because of our worldview. We have a job to do.

Speaker 1: 10:13

Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 5, and all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ Salvation. It's a gift from God. God did all of this. This next part, if you're taking notes, wanna highlight this again 2 Corinthians 5.18 says God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. God has given us a task, he's given us a job. There's something to be done. There's work to do, for God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them, and he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead. Come back to God, for God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sins so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

Speaker 1: 11:11

First thing about this passage that I've always thought, I've always loved, is, like some people will say well, you know, if God is real, why doesn't he write it in the clouds? God has done one better he's written it on you. That's what Paul is saying. He says God is speaking through you. Now, it's not necessarily God's fault that we're poor communicators, that we're not a great sales pitch here, right With our lives sometimes, the decisions that we make, the things that we think, but Paul is saying you are. I don't write it in the clouds because I've written it on you, you are my people. And he says you have been entrusted with a significant ministry, the ministry of reconciliation.

Speaker 1: 11:47

It's not that you can give someone salvation. That is only done by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. But now the job is you to carry that forward and to present that. See, it's not just that you received grace. I just get so kind of salty is the word when followers of Jesus, it's exciting, it's like they experience God and it's great. And then they get parked and they stop and the faith is all about them and their spiritual growth and their Christian living. God didn't just save you for grace. Read this passage. He didn't just save you so you could sit here and enjoy grace. He saved you Great. Enjoy the grace. Now this passage. He didn't just save you so you could sit here and enjoy grace. He saved you Great. Enjoy the grace Now. Pay it forward, extend it to those who have not received it yet.

Speaker 1: 12:35

When I read this passage and perhaps if you grew up in and around church, you've heard a talk on being God's ambassadors and I found out something really interesting this week and I've taught wrong on this passage before. I always say well, you know ambassadors. It's easy to know about because we have ambassadors today. And what do we do with US ambassadors? We take them, we put them in other countries and they represent us there and all of that's true and good, but that's actually not first century ambassadors, which is what I learned this week. You see, we send ambassadors to build relationships with other countries. We don't send ambassadors over to other countries to make them more American. We don't do that. They're building relationships, they're opening up lines of communication. We're trying to have strength and bond with other countries.

Speaker 1: 13:16

But in the first century the Roman Empire they didn't send ambassadors to build relationships. They sent armies to destroy cultures, roman. They didn't care about allies. Why would you? They dominated the world. If they wanted you to change your mind, they could. They'd send an army, and if you couldn't change your mind, they'd just kill you. This is well-documented history.

Speaker 1: 13:39

Ambassadors then were actually an idea from social groups like followers of Jesus. The government didn't have ambassadors, but social groups like Christians did. So. An ambassador is what we would think of today as a missionary I mean, it really is. And these guys would go thousands of years ago and they'd plug themselves into another culture. They'd have a mission and they would stay put until that mission was complete. There was no going home early.

Speaker 1: 14:07

It makes me think when I was in school and studying, kind of, the rise of Christianity in the United States and the Pentecostal movement started taking way, and the Pentecostals they were so convicted about this idea of being mission-driven and mission-focused that they would go to these other countries that they would feel led to Like, hey, they don't know Jesus there. Okay, we got to go to that country. They would pack all of their stuff, not in a suitcase but in a coffin. They'd pack it in a coffin and they would only buy a one-way ticket. Why, I'm buying a one-way ticket to go there. I'm not leaving until the task is done. And how optimistic were you that the task was going to get done? I'm bringing my coffin with me, okay, so we're kind of. You know, we got realistic expectations here, I think, and so that was what the ambassadors did. They were dedicated to the interest of the one who sent them and they did not return until the tasks were done.

Speaker 1: 14:57

And Paul is saying you are an ambassador, you are a missionary. You see, sometimes I think that we think the missionaries are the people who go to Ukraine. They go to Iraq, they go somewhere else, and that's true. Go to Ukraine, they go to Iraq, they go somewhere else, and that's true. But you are a missionary here too. You're an ambassador in Madison.

Speaker 1: 15:16

God has you here at this time, in this place, for a specific reason, and what that means for us is quite several things. I think I've got some bullet points here on what does being an ambassador means. The first thing is that a king sends us. I've got some bullet points here on what does being an ambassador means. The first thing is that a king sends us. This speaks to the nature of God. He's not far away, absent, aloof. He's quite involved, still to this day, in our everyday lives. He cares deeply about you and he is trying to make a difference in your life. Our kingdom mission as ambassadors is bound up in our devotion to the king. Let's not forget who we are ambassador of. It's not the Republican Party, it's not the Democrat Party. We have a king and his name is Jesus. That is our highest allegiance as ambassadors.

Speaker 1: 16:05

We have a message of reconciliation. Our goal isn't to try to convince somebody to become more right-wing, more left-wing, more conservative, more progressive, more in the middle. That's not our goal. The mission of the church is clearly defined. Paul leaves no room for doubt regarding the content of its message. You are reconciled, and now you have the task of helping others be reconciled with God. This is about helping other people restore their broken relationship, not just with God, but with the world around them. We need reconciliation, because we all know that something in the world isn't right. We can feel it within ourselves, and so this reconciliation is a healing that happens emotionally, physically and spiritually. It's not the end of our journey, it's a part of it, though I think that that's again going back to this idea that we find Jesus, we're reconciled and we think, there, we did it, and really it's just the next leg of the journey. You've been reconciled Great and we all know that if you're in the room and you're a follower of Jesus or you're a Christian, like you know, you didn't just like necessarily wake up one day and be like this one. I'm just going to do this one. Why? Well, I don't care, I didn't really think about it. You were on a journey to get to the point of being reconciled. You were on a journey then, and then that was kind of completed and now we're on this next phase of it in which we're being sent.

Speaker 1: 17:31

If it's not clear enough already, ephesians 2.10,. Paul writing to another church somewhere else in the world. He says we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Why did he create us anew in Christ Jesus? To sit around and sing some songs on Sunday and to listen to a message and try to be a good person throughout the week? Sure, some of that. Yeah, it's not wrong, but it's not right. Paul is begging us. He says you have been created anew. God had a reason for reconciling you and it wasn't to sit on your hands. He has good work for you to do, and I need some of you to believe that about yourself. Work for you to do, and I need some of you to believe that about yourself. I think some of you think ah, maybe Not me, though, because I'm not them and I'm not him and I'm not her. But no, if you're in the room and you have been reconciled and you say I have a relationship with Jesus, you have something to do and it's important why? Because you're sent to a specific time in a specific space.

Speaker 1: 18:34

I love living in Madison. I mean, I chose to live here. I wasn't born here. I could have lived anywhere, but I love being here.

Speaker 1: 18:41

And one of the things that drew us early on and this is true, might've written about it in the book that I wrote, but I've definitely talked about it in the past. But like one, but I've definitely talked about it in the past, but like, one of the things that drew us here was that we would say we want to go to a city in which people are like far from God. We want to go to a city in which they actually need a church, like us. We don't want to be like the 400th church that's just killing it, with the same goals as everyone else to be the fastest growing, to be the biggest, like those things did not matter to Megan or I. When we're looking where to start a church and we come across Madison and we say it's a fast growing city, it's a young city, it's an educated city, I mean we visited, we're like, we love like being here it just felt like God was saying be here.

Speaker 1: 19:25

And we would begin to tell people we're thinking about starting a church in Madison and they would say, oh man, why Madison? And they really would. They would try to discourage us. They'd be like don't go there, it's going to be hard, stephen, go plant in the suburbs somewhere. Do it differently. Because their goals were different than my goals, like, yes, if my goals were their goals, planting in Madison was a foolish idea because what they want I don't think is attainable here. But our goal was to reach the city people who are asking questions, tough questions, and I felt like we were going to be different, that we were going to create this space in which we can talk about outrageous faith on election years and have hard conversations and it certainly isn't for everyone. I get that, it's not for everyone at all, but that's what we wanted to do.

Speaker 1: 20:10

And if you're here right now and you live in Madison, god didn't just call Megan and me here. I mean, this might be the first time we've thought about it, but God has called you here. You're like well, I was born here. Yeah, he's been calling you for a long time, apparently a lot longer than me, right? But if you're here and you might've thought, oh no, I just wanted the job. Oh no, I just, you know, wanted to move closer to family. Oh no, I just wanted this, I just wanted that. Okay, well, you know, god can box it up, package it however he wants, but you are here with the ministry of reconciliation. There are people in Madison. God has in mind for you to extend that reconciliation out to Now. You may not want to do it that's a different message for a different day but you are called here for that reason.

Speaker 1: 20:55

As I was studying, I couldn't help my mind this whole week, because I'm talking about this was thinking about this prayer that Jesus prayed, that we could answer like you could answer. Jesus prays it and you can answer it. Isn't that crazy? He prays to God for God to do something, but it's actually something you have to do. It's in Matthew 9.

Speaker 1: 21:16

Jesus says the harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord, who's in charge of the harvest, and ask him to send more workers into his fields. In this metaphor, jesus is comparing a harvest, fields. In this metaphor, jesus is comparing a harvest, these plants. He's comparing it to bodies and souls, to people. He says there are a whole bunch of people out there ready for this message of reconciliation. A whole bunch of them, but there aren't enough of you. There's a whole bunch of them and there's only a few of you. So pray that God sends more ambassadors, more missionaries, more people who are convicted deeply about the mission that they live on. And Jesus' prayer is not distant, it's personal. He's praying for you. Jesus was asking his disciples 2,000 years ago to pray for you. When he says the harvest is great, jesus might not have had Madison specifically in mind, but he says pray for those people who are going to be going to Madison Church, because there are going to be so many people in Madison who need to hear this healing message of reconciliation that's going to radically transform their life. There's so many of them, but the people who are willing to do it not a whole lot of them Pray for them.

Speaker 1: 22:35

And so then, when we pray that in our own lives today, it's not just I'm praying for you guys to be better. I'm praying for me to step up, and not necessarily be better, but to step up and to make meaningful connections with those God has placed in your life. And I think that this can look very different depending on who you are. Some of you are super introverted. You're not off the hook. I mean, I love your introversion. I think you guys bring so many great ideas. God may have one person in your life that nobody else is going to reach, but you do. That's important. That's just as important as the extrovert who can do this with 10 people every year. Why? Because every single person matters to God, whether it's the one or the 10. As a matter of fact, we're told God leaves the 99 for the one, and so this prayer is a call to action and it reminds us that we are not passive recipients of God's grace. We keep reminding. We're supposed to be active participants on mission together.

Speaker 1: 23:32

Many of you are familiar with my love-hate relationship with golf. I hate golf. It's stupid hard. I spend so much money and so much time being so angry on a golf course all the time. I love golf. I love how hard it is. I love being out there on a nice day. I love when I hit a good shot, about once every 100. I get accidentally hit one right and it's an addictive feeling, but I love it and I hate it. But what makes golf more fun for me is that I've got a really cool group of friends and we golf during the summer about once a week together and you know what? It's an atmosphere I just love, because we go out there and there's so much trash talking. I mean it's brutal.

Speaker 1: 24:13

We did not follow golf etiquette at all. I mean, I told Judd last year we were golfing, he was getting ready for a big putt that was going to tie us up, and he's lining up there and I said so you're going to wait till your son is 18 to tell him you suck at golf, or are you going to tell him now? He hits it and he misses? And I'm like, yes, yeah, that's right, I'll tell him for you. No, I didn't say that, but no, I mean. Well, actually I did say that. So, but we did do a lot of trash talking. There's always friendly bets, all sorts of bets, the entire time. This doesn't don't think like $20 bets. These are cheap $4 beer bets and that is what we're doing when things don't go our way, which is often. But I can't tell you I love, hate golf and nothing tastes better than a $4 light beer after a round that Judd has to buy for me when I've beaten him. I mean I might as well be winning the Masters. I mean I love it. I bring this up because something unexpected happened last year Me, judd and a couple other guys.

Speaker 1: 25:09

We signed up for a golf tournament together. It was a team event up at the Wisconsin Dells, and so it was a team event and it was a scramble and for those of you who don't know much about golf, a scramble is all four of us. We're going to take our shot and then the four of us as a team get to decide which one we like the best. The other three guys pick up their balls and we go to the one that we like the best and we all hit again and we have that same conversation which one do you want to use? And we go with that and we collect the score at the end and every team is doing this, and so we did that last year.

Speaker 1: 25:40

Now this is what was weird. That happened, because when I'm golfing with Judd or our friends, I don't get upset when they hit a bad shot. I'm actually kind of happy inside Because I'm like, yes, that's a stroke for me, like I got this. But last year it was different, when we were on a team and what Judd did affected me and what I did affected someone else. There was like this camaraderie, he would hit a bad shot and I'd be encouraging him. I'd be like, hey, it's all right, man, you got this. Like let's go, let's go, it's fine.

Speaker 1: 26:09

I would be doing something where I'm like I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, and he would gently say, well, I think you might be doing this. Does that sound right? I'm like, oh, you're right, we were rooting for each other because we were on a team. Now, nobody, you got to work together. Nobody told us that. But once we got on a team, it didn't matter Republican, democrat, black, white, gay or straight, all of that stuff became kind of secondary. We had a mission and it was to win or at least not get last place. I think we got last place.

Speaker 1: 26:47

But my experience, I mean I remember just being like man. This is awesome, because the golf team is so much like being kingdom ambassadors in Madison. We can get so hung up on our own faith, our own golf game, what we want to do better Someone else's faith, someone else's spirituality, want to be better than them. But remember, we're on a team, right, we're on part of God's kingdom. That's the team, and so we can encourage one another and we can help one another and we can gently point out mistakes. When we see it, we're like man. I know you're frustrated, I know you're hurting, but have you thought about this? And you know I don't think we'll get last place together because of who our king is, but that's my point today, is that we have to work together.

Speaker 1: 27:44

As I just conclude this right now, I've been talking about the significance of prayer that's deeply intertwined with an outrageous faith. Last week I mentioned a couple of prayers that I pray is help me be the man that you intended me to be, god, because I can't do that on my own. I need your help. I pray God, let your will be done, because, frankly, my will just really scares me at times. I can't see the future quite like God can. But there is another prayer I pray and I wanted to save it for this week.

Speaker 1: 28:12

I have been praying here I am Lord, send me for a really long time, and I think that's why I'm in Madison, because I think, while all the other Christians were like, don't go to Madison, it's awful liberal, progressive, they hate Jesus I kept telling God here I am, lord, send me. Where do you want me to go? Here I am Lord, send me and the doors flew open for us to be here. It's a prayer from Isaiah 6, 8, in which Isaiah is going through the same thing. He says I heard the Lord asking whom should I send as a messenger to this people who will go for us? And I said here I am, send me. So this prayer Jesus prays about the harvest and sending workers goes back even further than Jesus God has been asking for a really long time who will I send? Who will I send? And we're all faced now with the opportunity to respond. He's asking in Madison, in Dane County, who will I send? What will you say here I am Lord, send me. Will you respond at all? Will you decline his offer?

Speaker 1: 29:28

Stepping up and saying here I am, lord, send me is about being driven by compassion for our friends, our families, our co-workers and our neighbors. It's being driven to love them so well that we want to show them the love, grace and forgiveness that God has given to us. And one of the things I briefly alluded to this a minute ago, but one of the things I love the most about this faith community those of you who are here, you're watching, listening online, you're vacationing, whatever it might be is how many of you are willing to step up. I mean, a lot of you are, you know, I think of Tim stepping up and Cindy doing amazing things today, elizabeth and Jeff not walking out, you know, when Dan got sick. I mean, you guys are all so willing to step up and too often and this is a critique, but I think it's a fair critique too often believers remain seated on the sidelines because they don't think they're good enough. Yes, there's healing that needs to happen. I think that Tim and Cindy, or Elizabeth and Jeff will tell you that there's healing that needs to happen in their life too. I think there's training that, for some of us, needs to occur. And sure, when we give our small group leaders or people like Holly an opportunity to lead, as they're training, absolutely, but we don't wait for it to happen before we start moving, we just kind of go.

Speaker 1: 30:47

It's easy to look around and say, well, I'm not as charismatic, I'm not as smart, I'm not as good looking, I'm not as whatever as someone else. But will you remember the 12 fools that Jesus chose to birth his movement? I mean, those guys were a hot mess. Jesus could have chose a guy like Paul. I just want you to think about this. I mean, he does eventually choose Paul, but he doesn't begin with Paul. Paul who's educated and charismatic, and the Roman citizen and the Pharisee. Paul's resume is impressive. Jesus could have started with a guy like Paul and he doesn't. He chooses fishermen.

Speaker 1: 31:23

Peter, we know, couldn't read or write. That's why Mark writes the gospel. That is Peter's gospel, because Peter had to tell him he's uneducated. And he chooses all of these people who are broken and messed up and not smart and he says I am going to build my church on you, and he's saying that to you today. And in many ways, I think you've gotten an advantage on Peter, because I know that a lot of you know how to read and write and God is just saying who will I send? So stop ruling yourself out, stop thinking there's not a way for you to contribute at Madison Church or in the city of Madison, because there are ways and many of you are doing it so well. And so, as we go out this week, just my prayer, my challenge, my ask is that you would be a person who commits to saying no-transcript.