Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, guys, this is naive. And you've reached the Mosaic Church podcast. So excited that you're part of our listening community and I'd love for you to be even more connected.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: So check out our website.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: There's more content there and there's more opportunities for you to get connected in our ministries and events as well. Also, love for you to share this content if this has blessed you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it, so share this podcast.
Lastly, would you consider supporting this ministry? This is made possible by other people's generosity, and I'd love for you to pay it forward.
Join us to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus together. So would you consider giving to this ministry? I know that God is able to do immeasurably more through us when we come together. Thank you so much. God bless you and enjoy.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Good morning. Good morning, Mosaic.
Y' all good? You feeling good this morning?
Good. I love it. I love it. I will tell you I'm feeling good, but I'm also a little tired because this week I took my almost 13 year olds to the Benson Boone concert on the second day of school because apparently I'm a good mother. Okay, any Benson Boone fans in the house?
Anybody?
I know you were both at the concert. Okay, Anybody, like, not know who Benson Boone is?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I know, I know. I got you. I got you. Listen, he's the, like, sparkly guy with a mustache who does back flips off of his piano. Okay?
Now I will tell you, Benson Boone is not really, like, on my Spotify playlist. He's not someone that I listen to a lot, but. But it was an easy choice for me to make because when my daughter says, hey, mom, do you wanna match with me in bedazzling outfits and go to this concert? I'm like, 100% every single time. Every time. The easiest decision ever right now, it was a little bit harder of a choice was the next morning and going, do I make her get up early for school on the third day of school or do I let her sleep in? And I did decide to let her sleep in a little bit, probably also because I was sleeping in still the next morning.
And so what happened was I got there actually, and I pulled up behind another car and I thought, oh, good. See, I'm not that bad of a mom. I'm not the only one running late and checking my kid in late on the third day of school.
So I went in, checked her in, no big deal. Came back out, and on my way out, I heard a noise. I was like, what is happening? And I realized that there were two little kids in the car in front of me, and they were in there alone, and they were crying.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: And.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: And I was like, okay, I'm already late, and I've got things to do. But now I'm faced with a decision, right? Like, do I intervene or do I mind my own business?
Do I go on with my day, or do I stay here? And so in that moment, my, like, mama bear nature kicked in, right? And I thought, what if these were my kids?
What if these were my kids? Because I understand how sometimes you overlook things. Sometimes you're running around and you're busy as a mom, and you have of a lot. A lot of things going on. I'm so grateful right now to see my baby sitting with other people at Mosaic during worship. She was holding someone else's baby, because that's the kind of community that we've created here at Mosaic. And so I thought about that and how other people help, you know, to take care of my kids and to raise my kids. And so I didn't necessarily, like, get involved, but I did decide I was gonna stay just until the other parent came back out.
So it took a few extra minutes. Not a big deal. And when she came back out, I don't even think she knew why I was there. And that was okay, because that wasn't the point of me staying, right?
But what my decision was in that moment was, what am I going to do? What am I gonna be part of creating?
Am I gonna create an environment where maybe by not getting involved, there's a little bit more fear? Maybe I'm leaving these kids a little bit vulnerable. Or can I help to create a calming, more peaceful presence just by being nearby and just by being there?
Now, this is not a specific situation that happens often, right? This is not something that you're like, oh, yeah, this happens to me all the time.
But I do think that we're all faced with all kinds of decisions and plenty of moments this morning. How many of you are like, I'm already done making decisions for the day.
I had to decide what I was gonna wear. I had to decide which of those 13 coffee creamers I was gonna use in my coffee this morning.
I had to come in and decide where I was gonna sit. Unless you walk in late, and then maybe you have to sit in the front row. I'm just saying you don't have a choice, right? We have all these decisions that we have to make all of the time. And sometimes they're easy, and sometimes they're not a big deal. But there are other decisions and other choices that we face that are a little bit more weighty because we have to then decide, are they gonna put us on the side of Jesus or not?
And so that's what we're gonna look at today. And I today want us to ask if we are going to pick the side of me or us.
Me or us. Are we gonna pick the side today of me or us when it comes to our lives and when it comes to all of these things. And I know, according to my one example that I just gave you, you're like, oh, it's probably easy for Pastor Kristen to pick us up. I will tell you that it's not.
[00:05:33] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: It is very much my nature to want to pick me in pretty much every situation.
When I'm working, I'm that person. I like lock in. I want to get focused. I want to knock off my to do list. And so when someone comes to me and needs help, my words will say yes, but my face will communicate that I'm a little annoyed by the distraction, maybe because I really just want to focus on accomplishing what I need to do.
And sometimes it's hard for me to sacrifice for the good of the team at home.
I will just tell you, when I'm at my house and I'm walking around and I see something that needs to be done that's someone else's job, my first thought is not to just go ahead and do it.
My first thought is to think judgy thoughts about the person who did not do what I wished they had done. Okay, so I will be the first one to admit that it is not easy to pick us. Even when we want to choose us, we often choose me.
Anybody like efficiency?
Anybody like getting those easy dopamine hits right? Anybody like deciding what you're gonna eat for dinner or what music you're gonna listen to on the way to school or work or how you're gonna spend your me time?
Me time is very precious if you live in a house with any other people.
Okay, that's another one for me, that I like to pick what I'm going to do with my time.
But picking us instead of picking me means instead of asking, what will I get out of this? That we start to instead ask, what is my part in making things better for other people?
And if we're honest, this question or these questions also can follow us to church, where we show up to church on a Sunday, saying, okay, am I going to be. Go find a place to seek what I can get out of it, or am I going to find a place where I see God at work, where I want to contribute to what God is doing?
And so the good news about choosing us, while it usually does cost us something, it also means that we get to be part of something that is so much bigger than ourselves.
So we're gonna go ahead and jump into a story in the Gospel of Mark, in Mark, chapter two, where we're gonna see people faced with this decision.
It says, when Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back where?
Home. Fun fact.
There are some theologians that believe when they say back home, they don't just mean, like in the home area, they mean to his home, to his house.
That this story actually took place in Jesus home, which is very interesting as we keep going.
Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room even outside the door.
So Jesus is basically like Benson Boone at a concert. Okay, he's on tour, the VIP section is open, it's standing room only, and everybody is doing what they can to get as close as possible.
So while he was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. And I want to pause here really quickly, especially for those of us who are like, oh, I know this story, because I want to point out what this verse does not tell us. And I read this verse in many, many translations, and in none of them does it actually tell us why they're bringing this man to Jesus.
Now, we assume, right, we assume that it's for physical healing because Mark identifies that he is paralyzed.
But have you ever had an experience where your outsides and your insides don't match?
Or maybe outside everything looks great and happy, shiny, but inside you're carrying a burden or a pain or stress that no one around you has any idea is happening.
Or maybe on the flip side, you're going through a season that other people would not say is ideal looking at you. But you know that you're showing up with inner healing and you're finding peace in supernatural strength.
See, I actually love this missing detail because I think it's a really great reminder for us that we can never look at someone else and assume to know where they most desperately need God to intervene.
But God always knows where it is that we need him to show up.
So we keep going. In verse four says they couldn't bring him to Jesus, like all the way to Jesus because of the crowd. So they dug a hole through the roof above his head, then they lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus.
Now for homes at the time back then, the roof was like usable living space. So it wouldn't have been super awkward or out of the norm for people to be on the roof.
And there were either steps or a ladder or some kind of stairs that, to help people to get up that way.
But let me ask you, have you ever climbed a ladder?
Have you ever climbed a ladder while holding onto something substantial? And you're praying that you don't drop that thing while you're also praying that you don't fall off the ladder while your other hand is trying to hold onto the rungs.
Okay, now imagine that thing that you're holding is a full grown human person.
Logistically, I'm trying to figure out how does this work? Cause you've got four grown men trying to carry another human up a ladder.
Like, who goes first?
Do we carry the head? Do we invert him? Is it like a feet first situation to bring him up this way? At what point does the guy on the mat go, you know what, guys, actually I could hear Jesus pretty good down there.
I think if you want to put me down where I'm not going to fall, like that would be okay.
See, it took commitment and it took effort and time for the four of them to get him up the ladder and onto the roof. It would have been inconvenient and it certainly would have not been the easiest option.
But instead of settling with finding their own way to Jesus, they removed obstacles to create access where it didn't exist so that someone else could also find access to Jesus.
We keep going with verse five, which is my favorite verse in this passage today. And it says, seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, my child, your sins are forgiven. And I want you to help me read this first part again because what does it say? Seeing their Jesus forgived him. It doesn't say that this man confessed. It doesn't say that he changed who he was as a person. It doesn't say that he repented or expressed his beliefs that Jesus was the Messiah.
No, no. It says when they ripped a hole in Jesus roof and he looked up, what he saw was their faith.
See, American Christianity often tends to have this view where our faith is this individual possession, where it's our faith, it's our thing that we have to have and to hold onto because it's Ours, and it belongs to us.
It's why we talk about things like Jesus dying for me and for my sins. So we sing songs about God loving me.
And while there is truth to all of this, right, because we do have access to a personal one on one relationship with God through Jesus, our individualistic version of Christianity misses what the Eastern tradition really understood, which is that faith in and of itself is communal.
Faith was always meant to be about us and all of us together.
It's about people coming together to create a context in which other people can come in to discover what they believe.
It's not you showing up on a Sunday holding your faith, and then standing next to me holding my faith, and then standing next to someone else holding their faith. It's where we bring everything together to create a context where other people can come in and say, hey, what is that that you have? Let me see about this. Let me understand who this God and who this Jesus is this that you believe in. And it creates a place where they can ask questions and wrestle and begin to decide if this is something that is going to be important and matter in their lives as well.
If we truly want to choose us over me, we have to be willing to disrupt some things.
See, because these guys didn't believe for their friend, they can't. None of us can. We cannot hold faith or belief for other people.
But their faith created conditions where he could encounter Jesus himself.
They disrupted Jesus physical roof, and we have to disrupt things as well.
Sometimes what we need to disrupt are certain religious systems. Or maybe we need to disrupt some narrow theological viewpoints that restrict Jesus from certain people or say he only belongs to a certain group.
But sometimes what needs to be disrupted is more tied to our personal sacrifice.
It might be that our preferences and the things that we like or want need to be disrupted. It might be our routines or our schedules or that precious me time.
It might be our convenience or our comfort that needs to be disrupted.
Or maybe for you, you already know uniquely what it is because it's something that God has, has already shown you. And he said, hey, unintentionally, and you're not even doing it on purpose, but you're accidentally keeping other people from accessing me.
And he's asking when you're gonna be ready to let it be disrupted just a little bit in order to make room for someone else.
And so in the story, Jesus forgives the man that was brought to him. And the religious leaders who are always watching and listening around immediately start to think, who does this guy Think he is.
So we see this in verse 6. Some of the teachers of the religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, what is he saying? This is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins.
And Jesus, who apparently had full access to everything happening in their minds, decides to join the chat.
It says he knew immediately what they were thinking. So he asked them, why do you question this in your hearts?
Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven?
Or stand up, pick up your mat and walk?
So help me. In verse 10, he says, so now I will prove to you. I will prove to you. Here is my evidence that the son of man, me, Jesus, has the authority on earth to forgive sins.
Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, stand up, pick up your mat and go home.
And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat and walked out through the stunned onlookers. Probably through the door this time, I think says they were all amazed and praised God exclaiming, help me. What did they say?
We've never seen anything like this. Oh, like you mean it. Come on. We've never seen anything like this before.
Now, Jesus had previously done miracles. This is not his first miracle. He'd also previously healed people. So we have to ask ourselves, what is it about this healing that really, like, took them to, like, shock and awe?
Why was this one different?
And I believe it's because he intentionally connected forgiveness and healing, and he put them together.
See, before Jesus, forgiveness was previously very transactional. It was a way to, like, wipe clean someone's list of moral failures through a ritual sacrifice.
But soon, through the forgiveness of Jesus on the cross, he would take away the need to earn from forgiveness or the need to earn any kind of restoration to God, including the restoration that God's people right there in that room, right there, watching and listening, had been waiting on in a coming Messiah for years and decades.
It's like Jesus is saying, through this combination of forgiveness and healing, I am the way that God will put all things right again.
And look, it's already started because I'm here. It's already happening.
See, choosing us over me in the context of faith isn't about saving our friends.
It isn't about trying to heal them or fix them or transform them, because that's not what we can do. But we can create the conditions to bring people to Jesus so that Jesus can do what only Jesus can can do.
Jesus can heal, Jesus can forgive. Jesus can transform.
And when you experience that kind of transformational faith, it changes more than just who you are.
That's a faith that cannot stay contained here in this room. It's not a faith that you bring in on Sunday morning and hold and say, like, here I am when I'm here, when I'm at church on Sunday morning, I have my faith.
Faith that transforms, extends into all of the places outside of this room where you actually need, and I actually need a faith that we can depend on to change the way we live when we are among other people.
And you'll start to notice in different places of your life how things actually look different. Maybe at work, you'll stop saying things like, that's not my problem, and you'll start leading your team with empathy and compassion instead.
And yes, you can do this even if you don't have the title of boss or leader.
Maybe in conflict, you will find that you stop trying to win every argument, and you start asking, how can I bring peace, patience, kindness, self control into the conversation.
In relationships, you'll stop needing to be understood all of the time and find that you start asking questions to understand instead.
When you see injustice, you'll stop thinking, oh, somebody really needs to do something about that.
And maybe you'll find yourself starting to name what's wrong and to show up to try to help at home, whoever you live with. Maybe you'll stop keeping track of who isn't pulling their weight, and you'll just empty the dang dishwasher. Kristen, when you see that it needs to be done.
See, following Jesus means that we stop experiencing every single environment by asking what we can get from it, and instead start asking what we can do to contribute to it, to making it better for all of us.
And if we're really lucky, we might even get to know the people whose lives were changed by being brought into the presence of Jesus.
And there are so many stories as I look around the room of people who have experienced true divine intervention of God, changing their lives here at Mosaic. But I want to show you just one story of one family.
Check out this video.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: We are rolling.
[00:21:21] Speaker D: Hi, we're the Millers.
[00:21:23] Speaker C: Absolutely not.
I'm Meredith Miller.
[00:21:28] Speaker D: I'm Chris Miller.
[00:21:29] Speaker C: We are the Millers.
We were at a Christmas party and recognized a kid that was there and then met the parents. And the parents were Jason Anjani Webb. And they said, what are you doing tomorrow? And we're like, we're gonna go to church, I guess. And they invited us to Mosaic. And Jace will tell you that he did not believe that we were going to come because Chris had a leather vest at A Christmas party.
[00:21:54] Speaker D: It was. I'm pretty sure it was a Christmas sweater party.
[00:21:57] Speaker C: And then we showed up at North Meck. Alicia took Jacqueline, who was 6 months old, and that was it. That was 12, almost 13 years ago, because Jack will be 13 in May.
[00:22:09] Speaker D: So the reason we've stayed at Mosaic is faith has been a journey with us since we joined.
And for me, I look at it as a faith by experience of all the things that we've been through as a family, as individuals, you know, having kids, losing parents, getting jobs, changing jobs, all the stresses, and through the hard stuff, we've. We've always been able to land, and we. We find ourselves landing back here. Mosaic.
[00:22:38] Speaker C: I came to Mosaic right after losing my mom and felt like this is something that God has put into my life at this time, because this is exactly what I need, right? I'm a brand new mom, and my mom is gone. And now I have a community of people.
And when Chris's dad passed, he had a very different feeling. And I will never forget sending a message, I think, to Ashley.
And then Naim was on our porch less than an hour later.
[00:23:07] Speaker D: The people that would like Mosaic, everyone there, there's not an outcast.
There's not a category for Mosaic that. That makes you not part of us.
There's not a political belief you can have, not a stance on anything you can take that you're not going to still be welcomed in our doors and that you're not going to find that anywhere else.
And I firmly believe that because of Mosaic, I'm a better human being.
Mosaic has been a safe place for.
For me to challenge and ask the hard questions.
But through it, I have learned to
[00:24:07] Speaker C: be
[00:24:10] Speaker D: empathetic, which is surprising because I.
Because I'm not. I have never been a super empathetic person.
It has truly taught me to care for my people.
And it extends not just the church, but, I mean, the way I manage my team at work, it's way bigger than anything. And I think it's because of the connections and the things that we've been through as a family and that we've seen our friends go through and the support that Mosaic has not even offered. It's just built in the foundation. It's not in.
It's not a challenge, it's not a burden. It's just who Mosaic is, I think,
[00:24:58] Speaker C: because in Mosaic, I'm a follower of Christ, and I was not until we came to Mosaic. So I grew up in a home that said, treat people well, and I did.
But I don't think I understood what that really looked like or what that meant. And Mosaic has clearly defined what it means to love people all of the time, even when it's very hard, and to also accept love in moments where I wasn't even gonna cry, when I have felt like I didn't deserve love. And also, I am reminded because of that feeling and because of Mosaic, that in those moments where I felt like I was alone and I had no one, that I did absolutely have someone sitting with me.
Just like.
Just like we are called to do with people at Mosaic, we are called to sit with them.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: If that family looks familiar, it's because Christmas. Chris Miller is up here helping lead us in worship this morning. And the baby daughter that they talked about is Jacqueline, who is now 13 and also spends her Sunday morning serving and volunteering with our worship team.
So faith by experience is what Chris called it. And I love that so much faith by experience, because this is not something that any of us can create.
We cannot create an encounter with God.
The worship team cannot do it. The pastors cannot do it. The best cup of coffee cannot do it. Even the most welcoming greeter that talks to you or even walks you up the sidewalk on a Sunday morning cannot create an encounter with God, because only God can change people.
But we can carry mats, and we can remove obstacles, and we can choose us over me by creating a community where people feel safe enough to express just as they are right now.
Mosaic is not a perfect church. It's not the church for everyone. And it's not the only church where God is moving. But we do have evidence that God is moving here at Mosaic.
So if you can say because of Mosaic, I've become a better person, a better spouse, a better parent, a. A better friend. If you can say, because of Mosaic, I'm a follower of Jesus, or I found a safe place to ask the hard questions, or because of Mosaic, I've healed from wounds that I previously thought were actually connected to God, and I've learned that they never were.
Or because of Mosaic, I've learned what it really means to love and to be loved.
It's because other people created the environment where that could happen.
And we've talked about what it looks like to choose us over me and a lot of other areas in your life. But at Mosaic, what it looks like to choose us means helping us to recreate your experience for other people.
And so we would love for you to do that. And truly, the best way is to join our volunteer team. So join what we Call our volunteer staff.
So there are menus in the seat in front of you. They look like this.
And there are all kinds of descriptions of a variety of different volunteer teams that we have available for you. And I will tell you, maybe this is your previous experience. You're starting to get a little nervous. We won't make you serve every Sunday. Okay? We're not gonna say that you can't ever travel or go out of town.
We will work with your schedule. And also we will give you all of the training that you need. So don't worry about not having the right special skills. Okay? Actually, on the 12th, like Quanisha mentioned earlier, we're having team time to get all of our volunteers together to have brunch and to have a little fun and to talk more specifically about what it looks like to create environments where people can meet God in a new way.
And so even if you don't know what team you might be interested in joining, we would love for you to go ahead and at least just put your contact info down so that we can invite you to team time. We can reach out and talk to you about it. And we would love for you to come and join us. Just meet some other people. Ask them what they love about serving. Or. Or maybe just meet somebody that you like and wanna be friends with. And be like, all right, well, I'll just join their team so I can hang out with them. Cause that's how it works. Sometimes after service, also, there are gonna be volunteers and people around. You'll see that they have a name tag on, and we've got ice cream out front. We've got all kinds of things out there for you to just kinda hang around and talk to some people about volunteering.
But that form is either in the Mosaic app, if you've got the Mosaic app on your phone, or. Or you can pull your phone out right now and hit the tap tag that's on the seat in front of you.
Check any boxes, all the boxes that you'd like. We'd be happy to help you figure out what the right team is. Cause here's what I'm gonna tell you about serving at Mosaic and about being part of this community.
It's that it's actually really super fun.
This is the most fun people and place. And it's so cool to get to see God at work, not only in the lives of other people, but in the lives of the people that you're really gonna get to build relationship with when you're serving people side by side.
And So I also would love to encourage you to do it because this is your way of knowing. I am doing my part to create an environment where other people can experience Jesus in a new way that they just can't do when they're on their own.
So we're gonna take a few moments in just a second here where you'll be able to still light a candle and take communion. Leave your prayer requests on the cross or in the private chat rooms if you want prayer online.
But I would love to pray for us first right now.
God, we thank you for what you're doing, Lord. I thank you for the way that you allow us to partner with you in the work that's already happening, God, and for the way that you are speaking into people, Lord, and truly changing their lives, God, we thank you that the grace and the forgiveness and the love the you offer, Lord, is the thing that does transform us so, God, I pray for the people in the room right now who have maybe never actually experienced that. Maybe they've gone to church, maybe they believed in God as some far being, but they've never really experienced a transformational faith that's rooted in a relationship with Jesus.
So, God, I pray right now that whatever words they're saying, God, to call out to you, to say that they want to be in a relationship with you, God, that they want to try following the words and the ways of Jesus, that they want to know you more, God, and let you lead their life, God, that you would answer them right now in a very personal way, God, that they would know that your peace and your guidance, that your holy spirit is available to them, Lord. And for the rest of us, I pray, God, that you would help us to find places in our lives where we can stop asking what's in it for me or what can I get out of it, God. And that you would show us the places where we can start to contribute, God. That we can remove obstacles, God, so that we can really provide access to you, God, for other people.
Help us to create the community, God, where you are already working to expand this space, Lord, for the people that we know are still looking for a church that will accept them, that wants to develop them and grow them and answer all of their hard questions and allow them to wrestle, God we thank you in advance, Lord, for what you're doing, for the life change that is going to continue to happen here, God. And we thank you for every single person, God, who is willing to disrupt a little bit of their time or their preference differences, Lord, in order to join with you God in a communal faith that creates room for other people to experience you.
Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
For more audio and video content, visit us at MosaicChurch TV.
