We are in the last week of the critical journey. We've made it. We've rounded the corner. We are on the last week of the critical journey. If you have been here for all seven weeks, well done. Good and faithful service. If you listen to a podcast, there should be a sound for you right now because you made it to the end of the
club. This is a monumental moment where we understand, hopefully everything comes full circle today, where you understand, you get to catch, if you like, the glimpse of what this is all about. If you're here and you go, I don't know about this church thing, you came to a great day. You know why? Because you're seeing where this is going. If you hang out here, this is where it's
going. And so we started week one. We have a graphic to kind of remind us of where we've been, but we started week one with recognition of God. And so recognition of God was I give my life to Jesus, both as Savior and Lord at some point, right? Like I give my life to him. And in giving my life to him, what happens is I discover, hey, I need people who have done the same thing. I need to be around a community that has had the
same experience. And so what happens is within the recognition of God, you begin to join community and you start to realize quickly, hey, you know more than I do. You live different than I do. Would you teach me? And you kind of naturally move into that next stage of the life of discipleship. And the life of discipleship is best summarized with you are just learning everything you can, right? Like you are just taking in everything
about this new life you've been given. And at some point you realize, hey, I've got gifts to give. And you're like, I got to give them away. God made me in a unique setting. I got to give that way. I got to use it for the kingdom. And so what happens is you begin to give this life away. You step in and you begin to serve. And at some point within serving, you naturally progress. You naturally start to ask questions. The longer you hang around God, you start to ask these deep
internal questions. You start to wrestle with who is God and why am I here? Like you start to wrestle with, do I really believe this Jesus thing for myself? You start to wrestle with, is he really trustworthy? Is he really good? You start to wrestle with identity. And what happens is sometimes people talk when they get to this point, they talk like, hey, I'm losing my faith. These questions are so intense that I'm not even sure what I think about God anymore.
And so out of that, then at some point you emerge on the other side, if you just keep going and you step into this journey outward. And the journey outward is you step into serving God again, but it's completely different. Because now it's no longer about you. The ego has died. There's been a death to self. And in the death to self, what's happened out of that is your motivation is others. And I got good news for you, right? Like all the other ones feel like there's this huge step
you got to take. The last one here, the life of love. You just keep doing stage five. And at some point you just kind of ride off into the sunset. At some point, your life just looks like Jesus. You love like Jesus. At some point, when people spend time with you, they feel like they were in the presence of Jesus. I mean, come on. Does nobody want a friend that it feels that way, right? I got the opportunity to observe a memorial, a celebration of life for a gentleman
named Rodney yesterday. And those close to him called him Pops. But one of the things I loved was family member after family member after family member got up and talked about Pops. And what they talked about is how he moved through this life. He was never in a rush. It was more about you than it was about him. He couldn't go into a room and not talk to everybody there and slow down and see them. abundantly to help people, both time and resource. And it's one thing to
do that to your family. It's another thing when everybody gets up and says, this is what it looks like. And maybe that's an image of what the life of love looks like, is those people in your life that you go, they look like Jesus if he was here. The easiest version of this, And the life of love and kind of moving into it is if you've ever been around someone, like if you're a parent and you've had now, like in my case, my daughter's now had a baby. You know, when before the baby
arrives, everything's like baby moon. This is going to be amazing. Everything's like glossy. And all you're thinking about is, yep. Welcome to sleepless nights. Right? Like you've got reality beyond that. But what I loved watching my daughter step into motherhood is to watch her naturally begin to die to herself. To watch her naturally begin to put the needs of this baby before herself.
Right? That's how this is supposed to work. That the closer you get to Jesus, the more you hang around Jesus, the more that you just naturally begin to give your life away. That you begin to love like him. And so if Jesus, if we're going to love like Jesus, then Jesus has to be the model. And as Jesus is the model, then we have to look at the things of, okay, what made Jesus anchored? What made Jesus hold true north? Because
his life wasn't easy, right? Like his mission wasn't easy, but what allowed Jesus to love at a pace that wherever he went, he was interruptible. Wherever he went, he had time and compassion for those around him. How did he anchor that? And in John, John chapter 14, Philip has asked him a question. And the question has to do with the father, right? And Philip goes, hey, show us the father, right? And that'll be enough for us. To which Jesus then responds in verse nine,
Jesus answered. Don't you know me, Philip? Even after I have been among you such a long time, anyone who has seen me has seen who? The Father. So to see Jesus, to see Jesus was to see God the Father. So if you knew Jesus, you knew God the Father is what he's saying. How can you say, show us the Father? Don't you believe that I am? In the Father. Key words, I am in the Father. And the Father is in me. The words I say to you,
I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father living in me who is doing the work. Believe me when I say I am in the Father. Okay, you guys, is it hot in here? Okay, can we do something about that, please? I was like, I don't know if it's just that I got a fever right now or like, but it's hot. Okay, sorry. Let's go back. Verse 10. Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak to you, I do not speak on my own authority.
So he's going, when I speak, it's not even about me. He goes, it's not on my authority. It's the Father's. So it's the father working in me. Rather, it is the father living in me who is doing the work. Okay, so what Jesus is getting at is that if you have seen him, you've seen the father. Now connected to that as he goes, my identity is I am in the father. We are one. Well, if you have been on this journey and you've had recognition of God, right? Like you have given your life.
then at the point of giving your life to Jesus as Savior, the New Testament writers used language about you. And guess what that language was? You are now in Christ and Christ is in you. You are in Jesus and Jesus now lives in you. So much so that the apostle Paul goes, hey, it's not even my life anymore. The life I live is no longer mine. The life I live is Christ in me. And so there's this reality that's happening in the life of Jesus where he connects the exact same
dots. Where he goes, hey, you're looking at me. It's the Father in me doing these works. And then what we're told is for you, as you live the life of love, guess what your identity is? You are in Christ and Christ wants to work through you. The journey of the life of love is that you become more and more and more. where you die and Christ lives. That's that sailing off into the, and then along with that in John chapter
six, John chapter six, verse 38. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me. So Jesus goes, hey, my purpose, my purpose is to do the will of God. Do the will of the Father. So the Father has sent me here. So now put yourself in the context. You said yes to Jesus. Now what has happened with your life is you are sent, you are sent into your life now by Jesus for everyone around
you, right? So your response, your purpose, if we're looking at Jesus at the model, my identity is in Jesus and my purpose, my purpose is what Jesus did, to do the will of God. to do the will of the Father, which sounds really easy, right? And so if we're going to look at Jesus as the model and we're going to live a life of love, then there's just some things that we've got
to just slow down and catch. And one of them is this, that if you're going to live a life of love and you're going to look like Jesus, you got to live like Jesus. You got to live like Jesus. You know what Jesus lived his life with? Radical obedience. There's a phrase I've come to love kind of in this whole conversation that it's this idea of obedience regardless of the consequences. Isn't that beautiful? That I know my identity so much that I am in Christ. And
that means that that is my identity. My identity is not attached to any nationality. It transcends it. My identity is not attached to any specific group. My identity is not attached that I like to go to the players' championship. I enjoy golf. My identity is not there. Rather, my identity is in Christ. What this means is this. You've got to live like Jesus, which means you've got to be obedient even when it's not convenient. Right? You've got to be obedient even when it
means it's the opposite of what I want. How do we know that? You look at Jesus. He's in the garden. What does he do? He submits himself to the will of God. Even later it captures it in Philippians. It says he became obedient to death on a cross. Church, we don't even grasp this. If we're honest, we don't even grasp our faith costing us something. We don't even grasp. There's people on the planet today that will give their life in the name of Jesus because they will not
renounce him. There's people on this planet that today will become obedient unto death. Why? Because they are so convinced that they what? They want to look like Jesus. And we struggle. We struggle. I struggle. We've just given up Starbucks because Jesus asked me to. All right, let's get honest. Hey, John, I don't want you to watch that show anymore, but I like that show. Yeah, well, that show doesn't lead you closer to me, but I like it. Right? That's where the rubber meets the
road. But I really, really, really have become good friends with this person. And I think I like him. I think we're going to move in together. Jesus isn't leading you to do that. Just so we're clear. Right? Because there's a dying to self that happens. If we're going to live and look like Jesus, then there's a point where we go, I am going to be radical in my obedience even at the cost. Even at the cost that is inconvenient.
Another point that picks up on this is as you live the life of love, you recognize that you grow in struggle. You grow in struggles and hardships. We talked about it last week, right? That Paul delights in hardships and beatings and persecutions. It's like, sign me up for that, please. Let's go there. And yet I love that we're a church that has a theology of pain. What I mean by that is that pain has a purpose in our life. It's not wasted by God because he is a good father
and everything that comes from him is good. And so the reality around this idea of there's within the struggle, when you are in a life of love, when you are moving towards a life of love, you welcome struggles because you recognize the struggle is for growth and it is to help you die more to yourself and look more like Jesus. Sign me up for that. That's how I know you guys. I know I'm not in the life of love. You know why? I'm still a pansy. I don't want hardships. I like
comfort. And what is God doing? He's working that out. He's working that away. Why? Because in hardships, what you realize the further you get, because now you can trust him and you can trust him even in that. I mean, think about it for a second, right? Peter. Peter writes in 1 Peter, he goes, hey, you know what? Blessed are those who suffer for the name of Jesus. The life of love goes, man, I am blessed. Why? Because the goal of my life is to look like Jesus. What
did Jesus do? He showed up and suffered. And so it's this idea that as we move through this, these markers of maturity. Another one is this, that you live a life of compassion. You live a life of compassion. You look at Jesus. If he's the model, what you see of Jesus is he moved everywhere with compassion. Right? He was interruptible. You could read story after story after story. There's one in particular. It's a really long day. And at the end of the day, there's a knock
on the door. And he's exhausted. And the knock on the door is the town has brought all of the sick. They brought all of the demon -possessed. You guys, this is how I know I'm not in this stage yet. If you show up at my house at eight o 'clock at night with all of the people, with all of the needs, I'm going to be like, you can call Jenny and set up appointments. I'm not there yet. But the life of love lives out of compassion
all the time. And it's beautiful. If you look at Luke, Luke chapter six, Luke chapter six, Luke chapter six, verse six. On another Sabbath, he went into the synagogue and was teaching. And a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. So they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. But Jesus knew, What they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand,
get up and stand in front of everyone. So he got up and stood there. Then Jesus said to them, I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath to do good. Or to do evil. So the Sabbath, just so we're in the same conversation, the Sabbath was a list of rules and regulations that they believed you had to keep. God blessed the Sabbath. And so they told you how to live the Sabbath. And it was all these rules that you had to keep.
And so Jesus is now challenging. He says, I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it. He looked around at them all and then said to the man, stretch out your hand. He did so and his hand was completely restored. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus. Okay, so Jesus moving with compassion,
right? I love that if you're going to move with compassion in your life, you see people, you see their pain. You feel their pain first before you see the issue. I'll be honest with you. In America, in Western society, we're not good at this. We want to make it about the issue and miss the person. What you see with Jesus when he lived a life of compassion, he never missed the person. And so in this setting, he has, I love it. He has him stand up in front of them
all. You couldn't miss what he was doing. This moment is like drop the mic moment because he can tell how mad they are. And I love that this, Jesus sees the person, he stands up and his hand is healed in front of them. Why? Because Jesus chose to see the person, to see the pain, to step into the pain and to bring healing, even at the expense of what? The opinion of those
around him. Church, maybe we just need to rally around that as we move towards the life of love, we're going to be people that make a bunch of people uncomfortable and unhappy because we don't look like them anymore. We don't sound like them anymore. The things that they care about, we don't care about anymore. What we care about is that you would see Jesus in everything that I do, that you would feel like you had been with Jesus, that we move like Jesus. There's another
story in Luke chapter seven and verse 11. Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain and his disciples and a large crowd went with him, along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out. The only son of his mother and she was a widow. Like culturally, we don't have time to unpack it. This is a massive moment in this woman's life. This is a massive loss. This is not just the loss of a child. This is above and beyond that. And a large crowd from
the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, don't cry. Then he went up and touched the buyer they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, Young man, I say to you, get up. The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. No? Doesn't do it for you? Isn't it funny? Isn't it funny? We can read this. I was thinking about this earlier because we do run -throughs and make sure all
the verses are on screen. And I'm reading this and I'm like, I just read about the dead coming back to life and we read it like, yeah, and he came back to life. Right? But that's who Jesus is. And I love this setting, right? Because there's this funeral procession happening. And as the funeral procession is happening, The people are doing the work of love. They are mourning for this lady. They are doing the work of love alongside
her. I find it fascinating that their work of love was from a distance because they didn't have true compassion. Because there was still a distance because if they came into contact, they would become unclean. So there is a, I will be with you to a certain point, but I will not. And I love that Jesus' act of love, if we're going to look like Jesus, then we've got to do the things that Jesus did. And what you see about this life of love is you move with compassion
in everything you do. And I love that Jesus steps into this moment with her. And it says the reason he did it is his heart. His heart, the seat of his emotions, the seat of his soul went out to her. And what does he do? He does the unthinkable. He reaches out and he touches. Why? Because compassion will move you towards people and their pain every time. If we are going to love, and live a life of love like Jesus, we're going to have to move into the pain. Here's an example, just because
we've been talking about it. You guys, the 200 ,000 that we've been talking about, that 200 ,000, like it could become just, okay, I gotta go pray about that. But if you pray about it and you miss the people, which is why we've spent weeks talking about the people that show up in those spaces, I would encourage you that before you make a decision, show up at Park Collective and the Commons and go see on a Thursday night
what's happening with the youth over there. I would encourage you, show up on a Wednesday. Go sit with the recovery people. There's Bible studies that are happening. They would love to have you, but hear some of the stories because it will transform your heart. We're transformed by people, not by issues. We're transformed by people, not simple. I've got to wrestle with
this thought. I would encourage you to show up over here on a Wednesday and just look at the amount of students that are showing up because they have a passion to know Jesus and we have the opportunity to change their lives forever. By having them step into a recognition of God, by having them get on this journey way sooner than some of us wish we would have. We have the chance to do that, but you won't step in and you won't be moved with compassion if you don't
see people. You have to see people. Another way that Jesus is our model is he was detached from things. You know what I love about people in the life of love? is they don't renounce things. It doesn't mean that all of a sudden they're like, oh, I just don't like stuff anymore. Instead, what's happened is their heart's no longer attached to it and they've learned that they can live without it. It's this beautiful thing that happens.
It doesn't mean that they're not going to tell you what's nice and what's not and what they would love and what they have. But the life of love is this beautiful detachment from things. Another thing about the life of love is level doesn't matter. What do I mean by that? Where they serve doesn't matter because the question they are now asking is what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do, God? And it's
radical obedience. And what I love about people in the life of love, right, because you think about the critical journey, they're the most mature people we have in our church family. But what I love about it is they're probably serving in places you never see them. They're behind the scenes because none of that matters anymore. What matters is they're serving where God has called them to serve. We have an elder in the
church. That for many, many years, as long as I have been at Heights, he has showed up on a Wednesday night to put a melody to memory verses for our kiddos. I think it's second and third graders, not positive on that. Sometimes he raps. You would never know that if I didn't say that. Because it doesn't matter to him. He's an elder. He could pull rank and go, that's too low for me. You know what I love about Jesus? There's a moment around the table where Jesus takes off
an outer garment and picks up a towel. And he does the most menial task. He gets down and he washes the feet of the disciples. What is the model of the life of love? It's an act of service that you will sit in the most menial spot because none of that matters anymore. It's beautiful. And again, this is how I know I'm not at the life of love yet. Because there's all these things that I go, man, God is still working on me. God is still working on me. God is still working
on me. Can I encourage you? I don't know how you feel about the critical journey, how you feel about where you are, but remember, the whole kind of point of this, excuse me, the whole kind of point, the whole point of this was that you would find your home base. You would find your stage. And you would recognize, God, this is where I'm at in my journey with you. And you would have an active way to begin growing and
step forward. I don't know if you've seen it or not, but there's these eagles from Big Bear. No? Yeah, some do. Shadow and Jackie, right? It's pretty amazing. They got their babies now. It's pretty phenomenal. A couple of years ago, a friend of ours got us watching it. If you ever want something relaxing in the morning, by the way, just put it on and watch the sunrise come up. with an eagle sitting on a nest. That's pretty incredible. What's incredible about the eagles
is how they continue to build their nest. They continue to come back and strengthen. They continue to come back and clear out the bottom and put new bedding down. They get rid of the old food and they bring in new twigs, sticks, whatever's needed. And they continue to reinforce it and build it up. And the nests become quite large. When you think of the critical journey, think
of a nest. You are reinforcing. You may be in a productive life, but it does not mean that you're not stepping back and continuing to learn and continuing to put rhythms in your life. And what you're doing is, even though my home base is stage three, what I'm actually doing is I'm just shoring up the nest. I'm adding to it, right? And you may find yourself further on the journey. I love that during COVID, one of the things I realized is I needed better rhythms in my life.
And I spent a journey with God where things that I thought I knew, I didn't know. And so it was back to the life of discipleship. And it was all these rhythms that I needed to get more secure in my life. But you cycle back and you cycle through. It's not just like you just weave on a journey. It's like a nest. You keep going back and you keep building up that part because you realize it got weak. You keep, even though, even though your stage may be one of the others. And
so I got a question for you as we close. Where are you stuck? We're all stuck. Where are you stuck? Where do you need to reinforce the nest? All right, here's what I mean, that if you're in a recognition of God, right, so you've said yes to Jesus, then one of the common places for you to get stuck is you need community. And so I would just encourage you, if you feel like I've said yes to Jesus, but you haven't stepped into community, step into community. That's the
next natural progression of your growth. Those of you that go, I'm in the life of discipleship. I'm learning all this stuff about Jesus. You know how you get stuck in the life of discipleship? You think you're right and everybody else is wrong. You just keep consuming information. You keep reading books and the more books you read, you read them by the same authors, right? You read them from the same stream and they just back up everything you think. That's dangerous,
by the way. And so what happens then is you think you're right and everybody else is wrong and you can get stuck by just being consumed by proving your point and building your knowledge. Another way that you get stuck within the life of discipleship As you're here and everything's great, right? And then you realize, hey, something I think is right, they don't think is the same way. And so I'm gonna go somewhere else. And here's what happens. You get to the next place and you get
to the next place. You're so excited. This is the best church I've ever been at. You're the best communicator I've ever heard. I don't mind it when you say that. Just kidding, just kidding. Right, but you get there and you're like, everything's so good. And seriously, when people show up that way, you know what I think? Give it four months
and we're gonna make you mad. We're gonna hurt you and you won't be here anymore because you'll be onto the next group that you need to find the group that thinks just like you because you've become so rigid. And that's how you get stuck. If you find yourself becoming rigid, You need to spend time in community and allow community to work through that stuff. If you're in the life of production, meaning you're doing work for God and you feel like, man, I'm serving and
I'm going, here's the thing. Ambition, ambition is how you get stuck. What do I mean by that? Oh, you're climbing forward, right? Like if I do this, then I'm gonna end up there and I'm gonna end up there. And what happens is you create a false identity. Instead of your identity being in Christ, it's now in you. And then you burn out. And so if you find yourself burning out, there's a good chance that you need to step back and go, hey, I've held on to some stuff here.
Stage four, the way you get stuck in that if you're in the inward journey. Here's the thing, you guys. Stage four is a needed part of your growth. You have to go through the pain of wrestling with God. You have to. But here's the thing. We can get stuck looking internally. We can get stuck making it about us. We can get stuck looking at who we are. We can get stuck looking for answers that just don't exist. There are some questions that you will never have answered this side of
eternity. And I think sometimes when we get to eternity, we won't care. I got good news for you. When you get to stage five, you don't get stuck. You know what you do in stage five? You just drift off into the future and look like Jesus. You love like Jesus. Can you imagine, you guys, a group of people who every single time people spend time with them, they go, it was like being. with Jesus. Can you imagine a place where people come and sit with you and
they go, it was about everyone else. It was about looking and living and loving like Jesus and not like us. That's why this journey is so critical. Do not give up. Keep walking forward. Keep asking questions. Because the end goal is that we will look and we will love like Jesus. Would you pray with me? God, thanks for loving us the way you do. God, thank you that you are the God that does the impossible. You are the God that takes the broken, the fragmented of humanity and you
put it back. God, you take dead things and you bring them to life. God, as you continue to take us from dead and you continue to move us to live the life of love you created us for. That we would look and reflect you in everything we do. God, the image is that you are taking it from a grave and you are making it a garden. You are bringing life where there was once death. And so God, we just celebrate that today. We just celebrate you today. We celebrate what you're
doing in our lives today. God, help us to know where we're stuck. Speak to us, we pray. But God, as we just give worship back to you because you are worthy. Thank you for bringing life. from death today. We are grateful, and everybody said, amen.