Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] 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. So check out our website. 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 is blessed you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it, so share this podcast if you will. 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.
[00:00:55] Hello. Hello.
[00:00:57] Well, good morning, friends. Good morning. Hey, man. I'm glad you guys are here this morning because. Well, you know what? I gotta acknowledge the fact that this has been a tough week. You know what I'm saying? There's been a lot of stuff going on and a lot of emotions as well. So I just wanna acknowledge that. I do. You know, sometimes I'm on my computer and my computer just freezes. Has that ever happened to you? It just freezes or it's. My phone just stops working. You know, I don't know if Apple trying to tell me you need to upgrade, but you know what? I'm gonna resist. But what's funny, though, is that it just kind of basically says, I need to take a break. Unplug me, please. You know, or hit restart. And I feel like sometimes when you come to church, especially a weekend like this, we get a chance to just kind of restart because there's been a lot of electricity of emotion going through our culture. And I just feel like this is a great opportunity for us to just kind of breathe a little bit. So can I do this? Can we just restart? Can we do that? Can we just restart a little bit? I don't know where you are. Maybe you've already done this, but I'd love to pray for you. You know, I know before we get started, I'd love to do that. I know some of you guys are like, well, you pray afterwards. You don't pray before. Listen, first of all, you don't know how much I pray, okay? So let's just. Can we do that? Let's pray together. Let's pray for you, Lord God. Thank you God, that we can just breathe here this morning, allowing you to fill us. God, some of us need to reset.
[00:02:25] So, Jesus, would you do something that only you could do, only you could do for those of us who are sitting here, those of us watching, allow us to breathe you in, God.
[00:02:38] In Jesus name.
[00:02:40] Amen. Amen. Amen. So this is week two of Protect your Peace. And I love the energy around this series because I've had some conversation with people and they were talking about how people are doing some things to protect their peace. And so I want to continue the conversation not just talking about being or having peace, because this passage of scripture I want to remind you of, because last week we talked about really the essence of what it means to have peace. And so Isaiah, Isaiah 26 says this. It says you. This is God. You will keep in perfect. What's that word? Perfect? What? Peace. All those who. What trust in you and whose thoughts are fixed on you. So last week we talked about the idea of peace is a gift that's given to us and we have to protect it. And what that means is for us to understand that God has to be the stronghold of our life. As in, like, he's gotta be in a place where we fix our thoughts on him because there's. It's so easy to fix our thoughts on so many things. And I love people that have talked to me this past week about, like, certain things they're doing differently. I know for me, I'm like, I'm choosing early morning to change my routine to protect the peace because I used to just always be consumed with the news. And I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna do something that. That changes my practice in the morning. And so glad you guys are doing that. So what I wanna do is continue, right, continue talking about what does it look like for us not just be people of peace, but actually be people who create places. Places of peace. So this morning I wanna talk about the idea of creating what places of peace. You have places of peace that you and I need to create. And we have to do it because there's a passage of scripture that I wanna read to you, and it's really important. And it's in Matthew 5 and it says, God blesses. God blesses who? God blesses those who.
[00:04:34] What's the word? Who. What? Who what? What? Who work for peace, not who have peace, but who work for peace, for they will be called children of God. See, I think for so many of us that we find ourselves, like, in a place of, like, we just want God to bless us and we want things to happen. And I'm one of those people. The reality is that God wants us to be people who work for peace, who work at peace. And, man, it is tough to work at peace in creating spaces of peace. It just is hard. Now, for us individually, it might be easy. It might be easy for you to do this because maybe you're like, you know what? I don't have to work for peace in my life because I have places of peace. Like your place or your space of peace might be your favorite chair. You know, some of you guys are like, this is my chair. This is my place. Or maybe it might be a clothing, you know what I'm saying? Or it may be a time of day, and you're like, this is my place of peace. You know, and we all have them. I have mine. It's funny, because the other day, I was grabbing my gym bag from the trunk of my car, and this guy walks up and he looks at my trunk and he goes, dang. He said, even your trunk is spotless. And I'm like, yes, it is. Okay. I like a clean car. I really, really do. It's my place. I like to det my car myself because I'm cheap and I love doing it. But it just.
[00:06:01] My car is my favorite place, one of my favorite places. I make videos from there. I make calls. I pray for people out of there. I mean, I drink coffee there. Never eat. You know, I do that. I just love, love, love it. I just love it. You have your own places of peace, but how do you create? How do we work towards creating space or places of peace for other people? How does your work environment or your relationships or your home, how do they become places of peace in this world? And God says, listen, he says, I want to bless those people who work for peace because we are called to do that. You know, I think about this election season and the results of what we have, what we got and what we could have had. You know, there's always a choice. And I just thought about how. What would be a different narrative? What would be the different story if the Democrats had won? You know, what would be a different story, and I wonder, like, for some of us, and I know I'm guilty of it, too, is that we look at leaders, we look at government, not just in this country, but other countries. We put our hope in them so much because we just think that if we had the right policies and the right laws, things would change. And that's no doubt. About that. But God's solution to people's problems and pains has never been laws and it's never been policies. Because policies are good and laws are great, but they don't really.
[00:07:41] They don't transform your soul. They don't. And so God's solution to people's problems are always people.
[00:07:53] Always people. So Jesus steps into human history because God was declaring God so loved the world that he gave his son. So his solution was that I'm going to give you the person of Jesus. And then when Jesus, before he leaves, he tells his disciples, he's like, I'm leaving, but I'm creating a certain kind of people. And they will be called the church. And this church, the gates of hell, will not prevail against it because it will be given the keys to the kingdom. So the people, people of God, people who are wanting a close relationship with God, people who allow God's spirit to move in them, they're going to be the answer to other people's prayers. Which is interesting, isn't it? Because sometimes when you think of your pain in your life, you're like, I'll tell you what, the pain is people.
[00:08:40] But God's solution is people. And so you and I have to work, work to create places and spaces of peace. Is your home a place of peace? Your kids feel safe? Do they? Is there a soft place to land for people when they come to your space? What about your workspace? If you're a leader of some kind, if you can shape culture a little bit, are you creating peace or is it not? Like mine, for example, My car is a place of peace. But it doesn't have to be the same thing, because I know I've been in some of your cars, and your cars are not places of peace, okay? At all. Okay? The truth is, there's a war has gone on. You know, there. There's blood on the floor. You know what I'm saying? Because you have little kids, you're like, what is happening over there? For some of you, you're like, that's the worst place for me to be in. Okay, I get that. But how do you create? How do you change?
[00:09:32] How do you change that in your home? How do you change that in your relationships? How do you change that at work? And do you have the power? I would say yes, you do. But we have to commit to certain things. We have to. It's gotta be intentional to create spaces of peace. We gotta work at creating places of peace. So let me give you three things that I believe that we have to have. It's non negotiables. Okay. Number one, we have to have mutual respect. Like mutual honor. Mutual respect. Mutual, like as in you and I, the person who are you with, your coworker, your person you live with, you interact with spaces, you interact with people. There is a mutual honor. Not necessarily. No, no, no, no. They're more important. No, no. Everybody is on the same level, which is really tough to do. There's a mutual respect. There's not. No one's lesser, no one's over. And it's hard to do in societies. It's so tough to do. Like in Ephesians, Paul is this guy, he's an apostle. And he is one of the guys who really took the movement of Jesus and took it from the Jewish people into the gentile world. And if you don't know a Jew and gentile is basically, the Jews were like, we are special people. We are, you know, we are descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We're the chosen people. We are people of God. God loves us. Yahweh is our God and all that. And the Gentiles are. I don't know about them. I don't know about them. So there was always this conflict. The problem was the Jews honestly believed that they were less than. Like the people were less than.
[00:10:59] They were less than human because they were not. They were not. They were not Jews. And then Paul writes this, and this is interesting because this was revolutionary, but also it was extremely convicting for some of these people. And he said, God, he himself, he himself is our peace. That God is our peace. Okay? And then he has made two groups. Two groups what, one. And has removed, destroyed the barrier of what hostility among us. He's like, God is our peace. If you're going to believe that God is what unites us, if we are kids of God, then you and I have to understand that there is no barriers that were the same. See, Jesus message was interesting because he would say that. He would say stuff like, let me just tell you, there's no Jew and gentile. There's no male, female, when it comes to me. There's no slave or owner. Everybody's the same, same, same, same, same, Samaritan, same, Gentile, same, same, same, same. And it was messing with people's minds. The Jewish people is messing with their minds. Because every people group, every people group that wants power needs to assume, needs to convey the message that they're superior than others and they're less than. And societies do this all the time. I Grew up in the Middle east. And I grew up in. Not like, poor Middle East. I grew up in Kuwait, which is one of the most richest countries in the world. Okay, if you guys don't know about Kuwait, let me just explain to you. Have you ever heard of Dubai? Anybody heard of Dubai? Yeah, make some noise. Yes. Anybody want to go to Dubai?
[00:12:43] How many people cannot afford to go to Dubai? Right, right. But you want to go. You want to go because Dubai. Anybody want to go to Saudi Arabia? Iraq? No. No, you don't? No, no. But because Dubai is, like, Kuwait, and you've got, like, the richest of the richest people there. And it's like, in pictures and in, you know, online, you look at the images and you're like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. Beautiful people, beautiful things. All these amazing things. But I just want you to know really very clearly that the Middle east, especially where I grew up and even Dubai, they're extremely racist.
[00:13:20] And I'm telling you this not to give them any shade. They're like. And we're proud of it.
[00:13:26] They're proud of it. They're like. They're like, you will never be us. You will never be us. Like, for me, I was born in Kuwait. Live there, live there, live there, live there. But they're like, never claimed me as their own. Never. They would never give me citizenship. It just was not a thing. It's not a thing. Even in Dubai, you just can't become one of them. Why? Because you're less than. And we were told either in public interactions or in systems that you're just less than. Because the reason that you're less than, because you are not Kuwaiti, you are not this. And because of that, you are less than. And when I'm talking about less than, I'm talking about, like, grocery store, you're in line checking out, and any Kuwaiti could cut in line in front of you. It was just a thing. Grew up with that all the time. It was like, only Kuwaitis. Only Kuwaitis. Only Kuwaitis. See, the problem is that what happens in humanity is that humanity gets to a point, and all cultures do this, is that they want to be superior. And the only way to do that is to create places of privilege.
[00:14:31] And it's the opposite of creating places of peace, because places of peace says, you and I are the same, and I have no excuse to treat you differently.
[00:14:43] Places of peace require. And God requires that you look at the other person that you.
[00:14:49] That you might think that they're like, oh, they don't Believe this. They're not like this. They don't live like me, whatever. And you cannot treat them differently. That you have to be convinced that they are created by the same creator. That's why name calling. Jesus hated it, hated name calling. He hated it. He was like, you're in danger of hell. You're in danger of murder if you do that, he said, because it does something to your soul. You're making humanity less than. And when we name call people, people of different ethnicities, people who are with different lifestyles, we start name calling them.
[00:15:27] We don't have mutual respect and honor and they become just objects. In fact, in 1920, a guy, a German author, wrote a book called I and Thou. It was a fascinating book about human interactions. And the book was about I and thou, meaning I and you, but you know, all English.
[00:15:48] But he was talking about the idea that as society keeps going and technology grows, human interactions will begin to have this I and it interactions so that humans will become it instead of another human. And we see this in our world. We see this in commerce. We see this where it's like, who is it at the door? It's the salesman, it's the barista, it's the person, it's the plumber, it's whatever. And now our interactions are transactional interactions. Like, think about it. I mean, I do this, you do this, we all do this. We go, we stand in line for something or we ordering something, and we don't even care who that person is who's giving us the stuff.
[00:16:34] All we care is did they get the order right?
[00:16:38] When was the last time we asked a waitress her name or his name? We just don't do that sometimes. Why? Because we are moving towards that. And now with the rise of AI friends, what's going to be limited is this human interaction.
[00:16:54] And so he talks about in his book, this idea of honoring the human presence.
[00:17:00] You know what's amazing is I think we want to honor God's presence or we honor people like big people, important people. But honoring the ordinary is where it's all about. And you and I do this. You and I do this. You know who we honor? Honor Babies.
[00:17:17] Babies. A baby walks into a conversation or a bar, you know that's a joke, okay, Baby walks in and all of a sudden, what do you do? Oh my gosh, everything stops. You're like, oh my gosh, she's so cute. So cute. Baby's not cute anyways, but anyways, also everything stops because you're like, oh my gosh, look who walked in. Oh, my gosh. And you know who else we honor?
[00:17:38] Dogs.
[00:17:40] We do. A dog walks in, they're like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. A person walks in right behind them. We don't even care. We don't even care about who the dog owner was. We're like, that dog is beautiful. I don't know who you are, but doesn't even. What's his name? Not your name, what's his name?
[00:17:56] We do that. We do that. But when we need to create places of peace, there's got to be a shared value of, I can't treat you less, because when I dishonor your human presence, I dishonor God.
[00:18:11] And when I honor the human presence in you, I honor God.
[00:18:17] That's the first level.
[00:18:19] First thing that we got to do when you are creating places of peace. The second is we have to celebrate. Celebrate uniqueness. Celebrate uniqueness. Not just tolerate it. Not just like, this is not. Have a diversity day. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not a statistic. It's not a this. It's not on a book thing. Like, this is how you act with people. No, you celebrate it. You. You're like, this is what we do. Like, we talked about it in Mosaic, and I before. Like, I. When I talked to other churches about diversity, I'm like, diversity is not what we have. It's what we are.
[00:18:54] It's what we are. We are wired up to do that, and I want to celebrate that.
[00:19:00] I was in Springfield, Missouri. Springfield, Missouri, at an airport once, and this was right after 9, 11. And I don't know if you ever been to that airport, but if you have, it is like a small airport. There's hardly any people there. But this time when I was there, there was no one at the security line. There was absolutely no one. I mean, this was like. This is. I'm like, what happened? This is amazing. So I just took my time. I went there. I was like, you know, I was like, okay. And I'm putting my stuff through, and this lady, she doesn't say anything to me. And then she just looks up to me while I put this thing through my luggage, through the machine. She looks up and she goes, sir, you have been randomly selected to have your bags checked. And I was like, that's hilarious, because, you know, I mean, you have to have a selection for it to be random. So you're smart, you're funny. And I was laughing. And her face turned to, sir, do you have Any weapons. I was like, oh, this is serious. This is. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. I'm like, all right. You know what's interesting about me is that I forget I am brown. I don't know what it is. Seriously, when I walk with Ashley and we're like, it's a dark night or whatever, we're going down an alley and all that. She knows. She knows. She's like, we are never going to get mugged because I look like the mugger. You know what I'm saying? I don't look like the person. They're like, you're fine, you're fine. But then you're fine. And I don't even realize this. You know what's interesting is it's not that, like, the whole idea of, like, I don't see color, which is not. You shouldn't, because God sees color. He was like. He spent a lot of time on color, by the way. He's like, I'm creative.
[00:20:48] I made color. So please, for the love, don't say that, okay? But what he is saying is celebrate color. Celebrate people's diversity. And I just love the fact that we have so many people who are so diverse here. So diverse. You know, there's an amazing book by Malcolm Gladwell. He wrote a book called David and Goliath. And it's not a book about what you think it might be. It's not about, like, the Bible story. It uses the Bible story, but it talks about people with special needs. And one of the chapters was talking about this idea of, would you wish on your kids dyslexia? Like, would you wish dyslexia on your kids? And the whole chapter, he makes a case for the amazing things, kids with dyslexia, how they're so creative and innovative and people who are kids who are maybe even on the spectrum. Like, he's making the case for, like, there's a uniqueness of what we think. Oh, that's not normal. That's not okay. There's a beauty in that. And, friends, if we don't understand that when we are diverse, when we are so different, it brings about a peace that nothing else can bring. Because Scriptures tell us that. In fact, in Corinthians, Paul says this. He says. He says, just as. Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members make up a body, and though there are many, there are one. So it is with who, with what? With Christ.
[00:22:22] This is the deal, what I'm talking about, he says. And he goes on and continues and he Says this. He says God's purpose was that the body should not be divided, but rather. But rather do what? All its parts should feel the same concern for each other. He says there's a beautiful synergy that comes with different parts working together. Like he says, your body is so. I mean, if you read the chapter, he goes into, like, you know, your mouth and your hands and this and that. He says, hey, let me just explain this to you clearly, that you are made beautiful, you are made unique, because your parts are very different. And so people should be different. Your community, your churches should be so different, because we all come together and make something beautiful. That's why we call this church mosaic. Because on our own, we're nothing. A mosaic requires us like broken people to coming together, broken parts coming together to make something beautiful. And so we have that, and that's why we have created a place of peace. Like, he goes on, and he says this. He says, if one part suffers, this is how connected I want you to be. If one part suffers, all the parts share suffering. And if one part is praised, then what the others, what?
[00:23:34] Share in its happiness, man, what if we live like that? And then he says, you are. You are the body, Christ's body. You're the body of Christ, and each of you are individual parts of it. He's saying, hey, your uniqueness matters so much. And so if you're in a place in a home, that uniqueness is not celebrated. You know. You know church, you're in a business, you're in an environment, you're in a friendship, that you're in a relationship right now. And the reason why it's toxic is because one person wants to change you to become just like them.
[00:24:13] And they're doing that. Friends, that is not a place of peace. And if you are making that, if you just want everybody to conform, if you just want everybody to obey, I'm not quite sure if you are making a place of peace, because we all want to be united. We all want to have unity. And we know that there is synergy that comes from unity, like when a family, when the team is united. But let me just tell you real, new unity, like unity in spirit. Unity in spirit.
[00:24:43] If it's lacking. If it's lacking diversity in thought, then it's basically conformity in disguise.
[00:24:53] Because we're just telling people, I need you to conform. I need you to assimilate. I need you to become this person. I need you to get rid of your culture. I need you to get your ideas, beliefs. We all need to be the same. And that's how it works. That's how it works. Any Star wars fans? Any Star wars fans out there? Anybody? Anybody make some noise. Okay, okay, okay. All right, all right. We got some. Few. Okay, what about Star Trek fans? Star Trek. Really? This is a trust. Okay, this service is a Star Trek service. Okay? If you. Star Trekkie. If you're a Trekkie, that's what you call it. Trekkie. If you're a Trekkie. My brother's a Trekkie. My brother forced me to watch the Star Trek shows. And there was an episode called. And there's a whole thing called the Borg. Any. Remember the Borg? The Borg, yeah. Okay, Some of you guys like the Borg. The Borg was this. There was this alien life form that was mostly machine, but they had this one. They'll walk around and they would go into other alien. They'll go to other planets. And their whole theme of their deal was, you will be assimilated.
[00:25:55] You will be assimilated. Their whole goal was, you will be assimilated in the Borg. You will be assimilated. And I feel like sometimes, like, the looking at certain churches, you're like, that's what they're saying. You will be assimilated. You will be. We are the Borg because what we're going to do is we're going to save you and make you just like us.
[00:26:13] And you're like, oh, God, help me. Like, this is not it. We have to celebrate. Celebrate our uniqueness. Okay? Last thing. Last thing is you got to have shared values. Shared values. Not ideas. Not even beliefs. Not even beliefs. Friends, you don't have to have shared beliefs. At Mosaic, we have people who do not believe like we do, and we talk about it. We're like, you don't have to believe like us to be with us. You don't.
[00:26:41] You might need to. The church across the street, but you don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. I remember talking to the guy. This guy is like, hold on. What now? There are people who don't believe in Jesus who come to Mosaic. I'm like, yep.
[00:26:56] They're like, okay, so what do they believe in? They believe in God, but I think they're not convinced. They're not quite sure right now. And I'm like, that's a beautiful thing, because we don't have to have shared beliefs. We don't have to have shared ideas, but we have to have shared values. You know why? Because that's how a family works, friends. A family Works if you try to control your kids. By the way, parenting advice. If you want to control your kids and you're like, I am going to control your beliefs, and I'm going to control your thoughts and your opinions about everything, you will not have a family. You will not have kids who, like you.
[00:27:35] They will leave and they will never come back.
[00:27:38] Like Ashley and I, our whole goal, our shared value was this. Our shared value and our whole parenting strategy was this. We knew that our kids were going to know us more and longer as adults than kids.
[00:27:54] Think about it. We were going to know them more as adults than kids. And we wanted to make sure that we all liked each other a whole lot.
[00:28:02] And so, guess what? All our discipline, all our coaching, all our shaping and guiding was all with the end in mind. We had a shared value. And our church. Sorry, at our home, we have a shared value, and that is kindness. Like, there is. You can have different opinions. You cannot believe in whatever. You can do whatever. But I tell you what, there is a spirit of kindness, a culture of kindness. And I'll tell you what, sneaking, you know, subversively, I have dragged that into Mosaic as well. And I've said, hey, there's a spiritual. There's a culture of kindness here. Non negotiable. You can disagree fiercely, but you cannot be a but about it.
[00:28:43] Like, that is. That's the thing, you know. You know how you go to parents, go to houses, and they've got, like, our family values, and the Smiths do this, this, this, and we have one. The fossils are not buts. Like, that's it. That's our. That's what you're doing.
[00:29:00] Shared values. What do you really care about? See, that's why the relationship you're in is toxic, is because you don't care about the same thing.
[00:29:09] Yeah, you like the same stuff, but you don't care about the same thing. Your shared value is what you care about. Romans tells us this. Romans 12 says this. He says, if it is, what if it is? What if it is? What if it is possible? Because sometimes it's not.
[00:29:30] If it is possible and if it depends on you, live at peace with what? Everyone. Because I want to tell you, for. With some people, you cannot. It is impossible to create a place of peace.
[00:29:43] It's not going to work. You know why? Because they don't care about the same stuff. And Mosaic, we have a vision of what we see.
[00:29:54] Us, a diverse community of people. We want to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus. That's what we want to do. We want to do this. And I remember, like, I mean, I don't think I'll ever forget this. Like, this was about last year. Last year or so I told a couple. And I just. I mean, there are a few couple in the history of our church that I've just said, please leave.
[00:30:22] Like, seriously. I was like, you don't want to come here, you should not come here. Like, you should go somewhere else, seriously, because should never happen. Okay? What happened is that a couple of years before, this person, this one, the wife of the couple, she had interviewed me for an article and, you know, and then she emailed me and she's like, hey, I'm moving into town. And I'm like, okay, great. And she's like, I'm so excited. We're so excited. We're so excited. And I was like, okay, you're too excited. You're too excited. Okay. We're like, this is going to be amazing. This is going to be great. And people, when they're too excited, I'm like, listen, you're going to be disappointed. You know what I'm saying? I'm not that great. So they start coming and they're like, oh, yeah, we love it.
[00:31:02] Until they heard that we, our mission, the reason why we exist, is to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus. And she was like, I have a problem with that. I said, oh, okay, maybe. She said, what do you mean by that? I said, I believe that there's a renewing that needs to take place. I believe that there's a gospel, there's a message out there that's been told about who Jesus is. That's not necessarily true. It's been overtaken by religion and denominations. I believe that the movement of Jesus, what church could look like, is very different because when people look at most churches, they go, these are. These are same people. They're like, they're separated. They're separated. They separate worship. It's like, it's so divided. I said, I think we want to reclaim that and create a mosaic of people. She's like, I'm not quite sure about that. I'm like, okay, well, all right. Okay, well, okay. And then. And then the week later, I was talking about this idea of, like, as we are reclaiming the message of movement of Jesus, we have to understand that God is infinite and that we have to reimagine God and what our relationship with God could look like. And I remember the week after that, she called me up, she's like, hey, hey, hey, can we talk, and I'm like, sure. She's like, hey, I don't like it when you say reimagine God.
[00:32:22] I was like, what do you mean? And she was like, I just feel like I don't need to reimagine God. I know him. And I was like, well, sister, I don't. I don't know him fully. She's like, you don't know him. It's in the Bible. I'm like, listen. Okay, listen. I mean, even the Bible says that God is infinitely more than all these words. Like, come on, for the love. Just. She's like, no, I feel. I'm very uncomfortable when you talk about reimagining who God is. And then as we're talking, I'm like, listen, I don't know how to tell you, but I think we have to pursue. I care about wanting to know and hear more about who God is and experience him more and what he looks like in different people, because I don't believe I can truly recognize him because he's so different in different cultures. Jesus looks so different in different cultures, and we can't lock him up into one. She's like, I don't know about.
[00:33:21] I don't like it. I'm like, well, listen, how about you do this? How about you go somewhere else?
[00:33:27] Like, how about. And I mean, I was, like, so nice about it. I was like, listen, you know, maybe this is not the church for you. And she was like, well, I just have a problem because, I mean, I love the church, but I feel like you care more about relationship than you care about theology.
[00:33:43] And I said, guilty as charged.
[00:33:47] I do. I know.
[00:33:50] I was like. She was like. She was like, you're proud of that? I'm like, yeah, yeah. Because I.
[00:33:57] Theology is the study of a God who is invisible and beyond imagination.
[00:34:05] It is the actual practice that you're saying you've already figured out, number one. And, yes, I care more about people and relationships. She's like, how can you do that? Like, because Jesus said that he was going to remove all this temple worship and he was going to breathe on people and they would become the temple of the what, Living God. So, yes, people are more important than all of this because you care about being right.
[00:34:40] I don't.
[00:34:42] I care about loving people and creating a space for them. And so I would give you a list of churches out there, and I know them who love theology more than people go there. But you don't want to be here. We can't be in a relationship because you don't care about the same things. So, friends, a mosaic. I want you to know what we see, what we care about when it comes to our faith. And your faith, as we move towards understanding who God is, is based on three big things. Faith, hope, and love. Because the scriptures say that those three things will never die. And in fact, faith, hope and love is something that your body, your soul cannot live without. Just think about it. You cannot live without faith, you cannot live without hope. You cannot live without love.
[00:35:36] It's impossible to do it. And so Paul pens these words and he says this to a church and he says, I recall in the presence of God, like, I remember this, I remember this. Your father, your work that you've produced by what your. What your faith. And then he goes on and says, and your labor, the stuff that you do, the hard things you do, it's motivated by what? Love and your endurance. You just keep on, keep on, keep on. It's inspired by what?
[00:36:06] Hope in the Lord Jesus. And so we said, how about we build a church that lives by faith that's known by love, and that's a voice of hope. And that's it. That's all we care about. We care about that. Wherever you are in your faith, let's move forward. Let's dig in a little bit deeper. If you're an atheist, okay, let's explore that a little bit. If you're like, I don't know, I'm agnostic, I don't know about different religions. Let's explore that. The best conversations I have are with people who are trying to figure out their faith. But let's live by faith. And let's be known for love, man, for love.
[00:36:43] Let's be known for it.
[00:36:46] This mosaic is. They're just a bunch of, I don't know, lovey dovey people. They don't even care about right or wrong. They just want to love people. Hallelujah. Because I can stand before God and say, God, I was. Shoot, yes, I was too loving. Because I'll tell you what, God is too loving.
[00:37:04] Grace doesn't make any sense. Grace feels like. Grace is only grace. When you feel like it's letting you off the hook, that's when grace counts. So you have to be fierce in love. And then you gotta be a voice, gotta be a voice of hope.
[00:37:20] See, that's where we have to have shared values that this is what we care about.
[00:37:26] Because I feel like the church and maybe even our lives, maybe even our homes, we've cared about the wrong things, maybe Even our businesses, we've cared about the wrong things. We have to have a shared value and then we can live together.
[00:37:39] But if you don't have shared values, if you don't care about the same things, it does not work. I was talking to a guy the other day, and he was talking about growing up as a pastor's kid. And I was like, oh, how was that? You know, and all that. And then he, after hanging out with him a couple of times, he fessed up and he was like, yeah, actually, my childhood years were not that great. And I'm like, you know, I just thought, man, I'm sorry. He said, yeah, you know, my dad really cared about, really cared about appearance and because of the position that he was at the church, and he really cared about how his kids looked and how they acted. Which I'm like, it makes sense. It makes sense.
[00:38:18] And I said, so what do you mean how? Like, he was pretty intense about it, like, what you couldn't do. And he said, it's not about what we couldn't do. Let me just tell you what he did. He sowed my jeans pockets shut so I couldn't put my hands in the pocket in church.
[00:38:36] He said, I grew up with jeans and my pockets and all my pants were sewed.
[00:38:43] And I looked at him and I was like, oh.
[00:38:46] And that's why when I invite you to church, you're like, not interested because of the trauma that has caused on a kid.
[00:38:58] So what do you think the parent cared for, cared about? See, sometimes we can just care about the wrong things. And while we're caring about the wrong things, we can traumatize the people in our lives because our goal is never, hey, we want to be a place of peace.
[00:39:19] So what if you and I, we worked for places of peace. We're not just people of peace. We create them. We work at it because God blesses us. He's like, hey, you're going to be God called my kids if you work for peace.
[00:39:33] So today I say, let's be people who create peace in our lives. Let's be people who look at our families or our kids or our friends or our co workers and we go, hey, I have mutual honor and respect. You're not below me, I'm not below. We do different parts, different things, but you're the same. I can't treat you.
[00:39:54] I can't call you names. I can't do that. And then I celebrate your uniqueness. I don't want you to become just like me.
[00:40:00] I don't want you to come. I want you to be who you are.
[00:40:04] And then I want us to be on the same page when it comes to what we care about the most. What do we care about the most?
[00:40:12] And let's work towards peace.
[00:40:15] So some of us might need to have a conversation within our souls about that. Others of us might have. Need to have a conversation with our people, the people around us, or maybe our closest, maybe your spouse. You go, hey, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? Because we're not able to create a place of peace. And God blesses those who work towards that. So can I pray for you? Can I do that? Let's do that. Lord God, I thank you so much, God, for how you create a place of peace for us. God, in your presence there is peace. Because your presence, your presence is so welcoming.
[00:41:06] It's so welcoming because it allows me to be who I am.
[00:41:12] God, I pray that this morning we would remember that you allow us to be who we are.
[00:41:20] That in your presence, you're not trying, you're not hoping for us to perform and do the right things. In your presence, when eyes are closed, when we're just kind of focused. God, you love us because you made us.
[00:41:36] You made us unique.
[00:41:39] And you care so deeply about us.
[00:41:44] So, God, would you.
[00:41:46] Would you allow us to see, God, that you're closer, so much closer than we think you are, that you want to be in our lives, that you care about the same stuff we care about.
[00:42:02] God, I pray that you move us, allows a song to speak to us.
[00:42:09] Let's just sit in this in Jesus name.
[00:42:14] Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic church in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more audio and video content, visit us at MosaicChurch TV.
