Mattering Week 4: Doors | Pastor Bryan Jarrett | Northplace Church

pastoring North Place Church in the Dallas Fort Worth area for almost 20 years. We're one church that meets in multiple locations even on multiple continents and today you are one of those locations. The church is not about buildings it is about people and we have the privilege today of sharing the hope of the gospel with you right where you are. There is no way I can know exactly what you're going through or dealing with right now but for almost 30 years I have preached about a God who I know I am confident knows you your struggles knows the very hairs on your head and the thoughts that you think before you think them and he is passionately in love with you and our prayer today is that in our time together you feel our love for you and his presence and we pray that this time together gives you hope. Thank you for joining us. Come on let's stand. We're going to come to bless the name of the Lord this morning come on. There's a fountain I know we're blessings overflow. We're living water runs free from the Mother's seed seed. There's a joy I know deep inside my bones never ending well where I first know more. Rejoice, rejoice my soul. Come on rejoice, rejoice my soul. Praise the Lord, Jesus came from me, sent me on my feet and now I see. Praise the Lord, by the power of his name I'm free and unashamed so I can see. Praise the Lord, there's a love I know washed me wide as snow. You just broken heart and made me whole. There's no power in hell that could separate. I'm a member hell by his amazing grace. Rejoice, rejoice my soul. Come on rejoice, rejoice my soul. Praise the Lord, Jesus came from me, sent me on my feet and now I'm seeing. Praise the Lord, by the power of his name I'm free and unashamed so I can see him. Praise the Lord, Jesus came from me, sent me on my feet and now I'm seeing. Praise the Lord, by the power of his name I'm free and unashamed so I can see. Praise the Lord, come on praise the Lord. There's a man I know, hunt upon a tree, gave his life that day on Calvary. But the great couldn't hold him and he can't hold me on my life in Christ. He's alive in me, on my life in Christ. He's alive in me, praise the Lord. Jesus came from me, sent me on my feet and now I'm seeing.

Praise the Lord, by the power of his name I'm free and unashamed so I can see him. Praise the Lord, Jesus came from me, sent me on my feet and now I'm seeing. Praise the Lord, by the power of his name I'm free and unashamed so I can see. Praise the Lord, by the power of his name I'm free and unashamed so I can see him. Praise the Lord, come on praise the Lord this morning, come on thank you Lord. I'm so thankful this morning that Jesus doesn't leave us the way that he found us but he moves us forward. We have such a faithful friend in him, Lord we glorify you this morning and we thank you Lord for how great. We bless your name, Lord. Come on, let's continue to worship this morning together. ♪ The greatness of the Lord ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ ♪ The greatness of the Lord ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ ♪ All splendor and glory ♪ ♪ Forever he is only ♪ ♪ The greatness of the Lord ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ Come on, the friendship of the Lord. ♪ The friendship of the Lord ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ ♪ The friendship of the Lord ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ ♪ Oh, Jesus, my treasure ♪ ♪ Abide with me forever ♪ ♪ The friendship of the Lord ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ Come on, the faithfulness of God. ♪ The faithfulness of God ♪

♪ You will never fail ♪ ♪ The faithfulness of God ♪ ♪ It will never fail ♪ ♪ My hope is in you, God ♪ ♪ The rock my life is built on ♪ ♪ The faithfulness of God ♪ ♪ It will never fail ♪ Come on, the kingdom of our God. ♪ The kingdom of our God ♪ ♪ It will never fail ♪ ♪ Come on, that's good news this morning ♪ ♪ The kingdom of our God ♪ ♪ It will never fail ♪ ♪ The great and glorious one ♪ ♪ Who was it is to come ♪ ♪ The Lamb of God is seated on the throne ♪ ♪ He turned on the array ♪ ♪ And we will sing the same ♪ ♪ The Lamb of God is trying hope for all ♪ ♪ The greatness of the Lord ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ ♪ The greatness of the Lord ♪ ♪ Is beyond ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ ♪ The greatness of the Lord ♪ ♪ Is beyond ♪ ♪ The greatness of the Lord ♪ ♪ The greatness of the Lord ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ ♪ The greatness of the Lord ♪

♪ Is beyond compare ♪ ♪ Or slander and glory ♪ ♪ Forever he is holy ♪ ♪ The greatness of the Lord ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ ♪ Is beyond compare ♪ ♪ How great you are Lord ♪ ♪ Come on, baby, kingdom of God ♪ ♪ The kingdom of our God ♪ ♪ It will never end ♪ ♪ Come on ♪ ♪ The kingdom of our God ♪ ♪ It will never end ♪ ♪ The great and glorious one ♪ Eternally arrayed, and we will sing the same The lamb of God is triumphal Eternally arrayed, eternally arrayed And we will sing the same The lamb of God is triumphal Eternally arrayed, eternally arrayed And we will sing the same The lamb of God is triumphal The greatest of the world This beyond, this beyond compare The greatest of the world This beyond, this beyond compare Thank you, Lord. Great you are, Lord. Nothing is impossible for you.

We glorify you this morning. ♪ ♪ When did I start to forget? ♪ ♪ All of the great things you did? ♪ ♪ When did I throw away for the impossible? ♪ ♪ How did I start to believe? ♪ ♪ You weren't sufficient for ♪ ♪ Why do I talk myself out of seeing miracles? ♪ ♪ To miracles ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ ♪ Yes, yes, you are ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ ♪ Who am I to deny what the Lord can do? ♪ ♪ What if you thank the Lord? ♪ ♪ And now I see all that I have ♪ ♪ Who I've got my confidence by ♪ ♪ So I put my trust in love ♪ ♪ Who still does miracles? ♪ ♪ He does miracles ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ ♪ Who am I to deny what the Lord can do? ♪ ♪ Can you imagine ♪ ♪ With all of the faith in the room ♪ ♪ What the Lord can do ♪

♪ 'Cause it's gonna happen ♪ ♪ Just let the way make it through ♪ ♪ He's gonna move ♪ ♪ Yes, He's gonna move ♪ ♪ Can you imagine ♪ ♪ With all of the faith in the room ♪ ♪ What the Lord can do ♪ ♪ What the Lord can do ♪ ♪ 'Cause it's gonna happen ♪ ♪ Just let the way make it through ♪ ♪ 'Cause He's gonna move ♪ ♪ He's gonna move ♪ ♪ He's gonna move ♪ ♪ Can you imagine ♪ ♪ With all of the faith in the room ♪ ♪ What the Lord ♪ ♪ He's doing things all right now ♪ ♪ Can you imagine ♪ ♪ What the Lord can do ♪ ♪ He's gonna move ♪ ♪ He's gonna move ♪ ♪ Anything is possible ♪ ♪ Anything is possible ♪ ♪ Anything is possible ♪ ♪ Anything is possible ♪ ♪ Anything is possible ♪ ♪ You remind, you remind ♪ ♪ What the Lord can do ♪ ♪ Anything is possible ♪ ♪ Anything is possible ♪

♪ Anything is possible ♪ ♪ So, you remind, you remind ♪ ♪ What the Lord can do ♪ ♪ You remind, you remind ♪ ♪ What the Lord can do ♪ ♪ You remind, you remind ♪ ♪ What the Lord can do ♪ ♪ You are the name for the Lord, the faith for the truth ♪ ♪ You are the name for the Lord, the faith for the truth ♪ ♪ You are the name for the Lord, the faith for the truth ♪ ♪ You are the name for the truth ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ ♪ You are more than able ♪ Celebrate life change. Always love celebrating when God's doing things in people's lives. This story illustrates a little bit about what we're going to be talking about today in the sermon. I just want you to pause for a minute and think about how you got here if you're a believer. The reality is you have a spiritual lineage in a DNA. Somehow, somewhere along the way, one person reached another person and eventually through the years that got to you, either through a conversation or they led you in a prayer or were a part of getting you to an environment or creating an environment where you chose Jesus. We all have a spiritual DNA. It's been said, I repeat it often, really, this is how this happens. It's just one beggar telling another beggar where they can find bread. We encounter Jesus, we experience His love, joy, and have this life transformation. It becomes contagious and it spreads. That's how we got here today. Well, that happened. That's illustrated by what's going on in Tony Ramirez's life. Back in January, Tony was baptized, had a rich encounter with Jesus, was baptized in water. He went through our Discover 101, our Grow 201 and the Deeper Discipleship Journey of Foundations 301. Started serving in ministry. Actually, July, you co-led a team to intercity Dallas on a serve event that we were doing there.

Just really getting all in, stepping into ministry. Well, he wanted to start serving on the serve team that does baptism Sundays. He wanted to be a part of that, helping people have an incredible experience in that powerful moment in their life. Well, he found out August the 30th, just a couple of weeks ago, his sister and her family were all coming to be baptized together. So he said, I want to start serving that day. I want to serve on this team, but I want to serve the day my family is getting baptized. So it was his first day to serve on that team, Tony. But his sister, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, and her husband, Joseph, and their whole family got baptized. Like, Michaela and Joseph Jr., they all got baptized together with mom and dad. And it was just incredible experience for that whole family and for Tony to see what God is doing in the broader family. It spreads. It's just like one beggar telling another beggar and then it starts impacting generations together. Some of you, I don't remember exactly what service Elizabeth was baptized in, but you might remember, she testified of Jesus healing her of clinical depression when she came to faith in Christ. And then he has been healing her like a domino effect in every part of her life. She's finding this wholeness that she did not know was possible all through the grace of God. It's this deep transformation. It happens through a conversation, through an invite. It's from one person to a whole family, then it starts impacting generations. And this is how this thing keeps going. And I just want to say thank you for serving, thank you for giving. The ministries that we operate here require resources, but if we had resources but not people to lead them, it wouldn't work. The ministries that you're a part of are growing people 'cause we don't want to just reach people. We don't want people to just follow Jesus. We want to grow disciples, people that are devoting their whole life, fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. And so you are making that happen through the way you give, the way you serve. We can tell stories like the Garcia's family

and like just Tony's family. And so just a massive thank you. Lord, thank you for what you're doing and Tony's life. Thank you for what you're doing in Joseph and Elizabeth and their family's life. I pray Father that you would continue that in hundreds and thousands of more lives through the reach of this church. Now, will you open our heart today to your word and let us be impacted by it, changed by it? In Jesus' name, amen, and amen. Last week, we spent a lot of time talking about pitfalls. They are roads that look right on this quest to live a life that matters. A pitfall is a road that looks right, but it eventually will turn our hearts back on themselves in selfishness. In that conversation, we talked about our dangerous desire to be needed, our dangerous desire to be noticed and our dangerous desire to be in control. We did what we've been doing this whole series, spending a lot of time doing the deep work that forms our soul, having conversations like understanding our significance and then counting the cost is gonna cost you something to live a life that matters and then learning to check your motives when you do because you can be willing to count the cost, but me motivated to do the right things for all the wrong reasons,

which we talked a lot about that last week, but here's the thing about interior work. When you're working on soul work, it was never meant to be the ultimate destination. It was meant to be the foundation of a life that has lived in a way that impacts other people because we're not monks, living in monasteries, closed off to the rest of the world. We live among people, been planted by God in those relationships to be salt and light, his word says, to those people, to this world, in those relationships. So the very purpose of us focusing on the transformation of our interior lives is so that we are formed into the kind of people that our life enriches the lives of other people that we're in relationship with. So today, the quest is really gonna make a shift from that deep interior work to now what that deep interior work is all for, we're gonna start focusing outward. Unless you recently started attending Nord Place, you've heard us use a life-defining phrase all year long, it's been our 2026 theme, give honor, add value to everybody, everywhere, all the time. Not just to the people that think like me or to the people that agree with me or to the people that look like me, everybody, everywhere, all the time, because every single human being bears the image of God.

And as image bearers, every human being possesses an intrinsic value and a dignity that we as the people of God are expected to acknowledge and protect in everybody, everywhere, all the time. That's why giving honor and adding value is not just a slogan. When you consistently show up for people with grace and generosity, skill and genuine care, something happens in those relationships that you can't manufacture. People start trusting you. And trust is not a small thing. I would say that trust is the most scarce commodity in our culture right now and because it's so scarce, it makes it the most powerful currency in our world today. Trust turns ordinary relationships into opportunities for something eternal. Paul says it this way in Colossians chapter four. We're gonna read two segments of chapter four, looking at them at different moments, but they're a part of the same conversation. We're gonna come back and connect them. Verse five and six, Paul says, be wise in the way you act toward outsiders, make the most of every opportunity, let your conversation be always full of grace seasoned with salt. Paul says there are two things that are supposed to make up the witness of Christ in your life, two things that make up Christian witness.

The way you act and your conversation, your witness is comprised of both how you live and your speech, the conversation that comes out of your mouth. To frame the conversation today, I'm gonna introduce you a word that Paul keeps using. There are five times Paul uses this Greek word, thyra, which is our English word for door. Five times he uses it in the Pauline epistles and his writings. And there's a pattern that emerges. When you keep reading, Paul talk about these doors. There's a pattern that emerges. 1 Corinthians 16, verse nine, Paul says, "A great door for effective work has been open to me, and there are many who oppose me." Second Corinthians chapter two, verse 12, I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me. Colossians chapter four, this is the same passage we read from verse five and six, a minute ago, this is verse three, right above that. And pray for us too that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. He wrote Colossians from a prison cell. The next one we're gonna read was actually written by Luke, but it is in reference to Paul and his ministry. And Luke is actually quoting something or telling us something that he heard Paul say,

Acts 14, verse 27, on arriving there, they, Paul and Barnabas, gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. As you read through all these references to open doors in Paul's life and ministry, a pattern emerges. First, God is the one who always opens the door. Paul is never the subject of that sentence. He's the one that walks through the door, God opens, or Paul is waiting on God to open a door, or Paul is asking for believers to pray that God would open a door, but Paul is never the one forcing the door open. There's a second thing that emerges here. An open door is never proof that it's gonna be easy. Look at 1 Corinthians 16, 9 again. He said, "A great door has opened, and there are many who oppose me. In the same breath, there is a divinely open door and great opposition." A lot of us assume that resistance means we've misread the situation that if God were really in it, that it would go smoothly, but Paul kind of assumes the opposite as if the size of the open door and the size of the fight are correlated. Third, Paul walked away from an open door. This is really interesting to me because in Troas, we read about that just a minute ago, there was an open door for him. He said in Troas, "The Lord opened the door for him,

but Paul didn't walk through that door because his friend Titus wasn't there, and the scripture said Paul didn't have peace about it, and it shows us that Paul valued a person over an opportunity." Here's what it says again. It's 2 Corinthians 12. "Now, when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind because I did not find my brother Titus there, so I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia." Now, here's what this means. It means that every open door is not an obligation. And this is relieving to me as somebody who is trying to give my life to serve people. There are opportunities around me all the time. So every open door is not an obligation. And in this case, Paul was valuing a relationship in front of him more than an opportunity in front of him. Go back to that Colossians 4 passage, the one where Paul tells us what our witness is made of, verse five and six of chapter four, in the way you act and then in your conversation, the way you live your life and in the way you talk. That's what derives your Christian witness. I don't want you to miss what we read in verse three above that. Two verses above that, Paul is telling the Colossians from his prison cell to pray that God would open doors. But then he tells them to live wisely,

toward outsiders, full of grace, seasoned with salt. The same paragraph, it's the same flow of thought. Pray for the open door. Notice this, then he says, live in such a way that when that door gets open, you're somebody worth letting in. Paul's letter to the Corinthians is one of his, to the Colossians here in Colossians. This is one of his prison epistles. He wrote seven letters from a prison cell and he's actually trying to pastor the people of Colossae from this prison cell and he only asked them for two things. Number one, pray that God would open doors. And number two, be the kind of people that when God opens the door, you're worthy of the opportunity that God provides. You don't get to decide when the door opens. You only get to decide what kind of person is standing there when God opens the door. Here's what I've noticed. don't spend a lot of time praying for open doors to have spiritual conversations or minister to other people or when God does open a door, they don't walk through the door. Here's the big reason. They don't feel equipped. They don't feel prepared. They don't feel capable. They've convinced themselves that they're empty-handed because somewhere along the way we decided

that the people that God opens doors for are the highly gifted people that have something impressive to offer. They've got an outgoing personality. They have a platform and some influence or they're really good with words. And since you don't think you have any of that, you quietly excuse yourself from the whole thing. It's not that you resist a message like this. You just assume a message like this is for somebody else. And if that's you, and I would say it probably is a lot of you listening to me right now, I encourage you to stay with me because the next part is for you. In Exodus chapter four, this is that famous burning bush moment where God literally transforms Moses's life at the burning bush. He's standing there having this conversation with God. Moses is listing every reason why he is the wrong man for what God is asking him to do. And if you go back and read chapter three and chapter four, God doesn't argue with all of the limitations. He gives Moses no objections to the limitations that Moses throws out there. He just changes the subject. Chapter three is a list of reasons why Moses can't do it. It doesn't speak well all those things. Chapter four begins this way. The Lord said to him, what is that in your hand?

He said a staff. Moses answers that question with one word, a staff. It's a shepherd's stick. Now you have to understand, Moses grew up in the Royal Egyptian court. He was considered royalty but now since he has fled Egypt, he thought his life had fallen apart. He's on the backside of a desert in Midian and he's come to the place where he's a lowly shepherd and this staff was just the simple tool of his dirty job. It is not a symbol of some grand calling. If anything, this staff was a souvenir in Moses's life that represented 40 years of what he probably felt like was a wasted season of his life. But this staff is the only thing God asked him about. Here's what you can't miss. Notice the different way the staff is referred to at the beginning of this conversation and at the end of this conversation before the encounter with God and after the encounter with God. In verse two, at the very beginning here, it is simply referred to as a staff. A few verses later, listen to this, in verse 20, and Moses took the staff of God in his hands. Same object in the same hands but after his encounter with God, when Moses surrenders a simple stick to God, a staff becomes the staff of God. And here's what's remarkable.

Scripture keeps calling at that from here on out, 40 years later at referendum. Moses is standing holding the staff of God in his hands. Next to the 17, verse nine, this is 40 years later. Tomorrow, I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands. This is what you have to see. Nothing happened to the staff. Something happened to who was holding it. The only thing that encountered between verse two and verse 20 is that Moses obeyed God. He threw the staff down. He did what God said. He surrendered the staff to God and watched the staff become something he couldn't control. And then Moses picked it back up on God's terms instead of his terms. And that's when it went from being just a staff to the staff of God. It was just a stick as long as it was belonging to Moses. But it became the staff of God when Moses surrendered it. Every single person listening to me right now is holding on to something. Not something you need to go acquire. There is something already in your hand. You possess a skill, maybe you're good at setting a table and hosting people and you have a hospitality gift or maybe there's a story you don't really tell because you don't think it's your life story but you don't really think anybody

be interested or willing to listen. Maybe you're in a season of life where you have a little extra free time and some margin in your schedule. Maybe you've got a network of people who already trust you for reasons that have nothing to do with church. You have a lot of earned relational equity with those people. But the reason those things feel so unimportant to us or unimpressive to us or underwhelming to us, they feel like just a staff, a shepherd staff. The reason is because we've never God didn't give Moses a better tool. He gave the same tool back with a different name on it. Moses' staff became the staff of God. You will never understand the power of what is already in your hands until you're willing to surrender it to God and his agenda in the world. This last Friday, all of our minds were focused on the 25th anniversary of 9/11. And I always have bittersweet emotions on that day. For sure, I relive all of the emotional things that I went through watching the unhorrors of that day unfold. But at the same time, just four years later, on September the 11th, 2005, Haley and I were elected to serve as your pastor. So for the last 21 years, now there have been some really good emotions associated with what was a tragic day,

this mix of emotions. And over the last 21 years, you've heard me repeat a lot of phrases that are a part of my vocabulary, a part of my life and the culture of my life. And one of those phrases I keep repeating is this, an embodied apologetic. I say that quite often. That's what we're supposed to live, an embodied apologetic. Apologetics is just a defense of the faith. It's a reasoned case for what we say we believe, but an embodied apologetic isn't an argument that you make with your mouth. It's not a verbal debate. An embodied apologetic is a defense of the faith that is made with your actual life. It's putting flesh on what you believe. It's being the hands and feet of Jesus. It's being Jesus with skin on. Earlier, we were talking about survey coming up on October the 10th. Survey, you'll often hear me say, this is our chance to present an embodied apologetic for our faith. The love of Christ compels us and it is an, when we serve, it is an embodied apologetic. The apostle Peter wrote this, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who ask you to give the reason for the hope that you have. Every class that I've ever taken on Christian apologetics

or every book that I've ever read on Christian apologetics begins with 3 Peter 3.15. Because we usually quote this verse as the command to be prepared to debate or to verbally reason with others about what we believe, about our faith. But there's an assumption that is hiding in that command that most of us overlook. To be able to do what Peter says, to give an answer for the faith that is in you, the assumption is somebody ask. You were living in such a way that they were asking about the difference in your life and you were prepared to give an answer. To give an answer, somebody's gotta ask. So Peter is picturing people living here when he writes this, people that are living in such a way that the others in their life eventually want an explanation. Because something about them doesn't make full sense apart from the gospel. Their hope is strange, their generosity is irrational, their forgiveness is unexpected, their peace doesn't match their circumstances and their love is reaching to people that can never pay them back. The way they live their life is creating curiosity about Jesus, and when that happens, Peter said you better be ready to give an answer for the hope that you have. He says basically the same thing in chapter two. He says, be careful to live properly

among your unbelieving neighbors. They will see your honorable behavior and they will give honor to God. Our life doesn't make the gospel true. The gospel is already true, but our lives will either clarify the gospel or contradict the gospel in the lives of others that are watching us and our witness. Are you clarifying the gospel by the way you live your life or are you contradicting the gospel by the way you live your life? Four people that are trying to make decisions about following Jesus. Imagine the power of somebody in your life saying something like this. I don't really understand everything you believe about Jesus yet, but I know what I see happening in you since you've made the decision to follow Him and I wanna know more. That's an open door. That is an opportunity for you to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that you have. Now here's a question that every one of us need to be asking today. It is a very sober question. Does the way I live make anybody curious about the God I follow? We need to sit with that. You need to think about that. Does the way I live my life,

is it making anybody curious From the beginning of this series, the anchor verse for this whole conversation has been some of the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 where he says you, talking to us as his followers, you are the light of the world and then two verses later he says go let your light shine before others so they see your good deeds and they glorify your Father which is in heaven. He says when he says you are light, he's saying you have value, you are light, you are valuable. Then because of that I want you to go shine that light, I want you to go add that value in the lives of other people through what you do to adding value so they will glorify the Father. Here's where this gets sticky for a lot of Christian people. And this is one thing that keeps coming up in the conversations that I have with people who don't go to church. People that are not believers and when we have that kind of close relationship, I will ask them honest questions. What are the hurdles? What are your hindrances? What are you not like? What are we doing wrong? And this keeps coming up is this one thing has kind of turned a lot of people away from God. Giving honor and adding value cannot become your strategy to persuade people. Adding value to another person and living a life worthy of the gospel can earn trust that opens doors for meaningful conversations about faith. But adding value to another person can never be a bait and switch strategy where I'm just serving you so I can convince you to believe what I believe. That's not real love. That's manipulation. The business world actually gave us a simple equation to help us tell the difference of whether or not we're motivated by real love or whether we're motivated by manipulation. In a book called The Trusted Advisor, the author's proposed a formula that's been used in business schools and corporate training for some time now. Here's the equation. Trust equals credibility plus reliability plus intimacy. Those three things create trust. But notice at the end of that equation it's all divided by self-orientation. Credibility means you know what you're talking about. Reliability means you do what you say you'll do. Intimacy means it is safe to tell you things. If you're credible, reliable and trustworthy, intimate enough that people can trust you with their life, their information, that builds trust. But notice the trust that is built by those three things is divided by how much of it is about you and your agenda. So just sit with that for a minute because the Bible tells us that our hearts, which means our motives are deceitfully wicked and we can be doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons. So listen carefully. Self-orientation in a relationship does not just subtract a little bit from trust. It completely divides it. You can be the most competent person, the most reliable person, the warmest reperson relationally. But if you have an agenda, every good thing about you gets cut down by how much it is about you and your agenda.

And here's the trap. You can't be self-focused by trying not to be self-focused because trying to appear less self-focused is in a sense a form of self-focus. So here is a question that will help us diagnose whether our hearts are motivated by real love or manipulation. If I knew for certain this person would never come to Christ, would I still show up for them? Am I just loving them? Loving them? I guess you can say conditionally and serving them because I need a box checked and try to lead somebody in a prayer. You know, I call those people that are not really, they're not interested in the person or the relationship. They just want to convert. I call those people rambos. You know, they're just out there trying to get another notch in their battle belt. They don't really care about converts. They don't really care about people. Paul cared about people. Jesus cared about people. And it authentically built bridges that open doors where Peter says they want to know more and they ask. And you answer. You be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you. That is the kind of love that was modeled by our Savior. He loved his life so much. He sacrificed his life for you, giving you an opportunity for eternal life. But in the end, you still have free will. You still have a choice. And he doesn't quit loving you if you don't choose him. He fed. Jesus fed and served people that came back. He healed people that never said thank you. He even washed the feet of a man who was already on his way to sell him out. Let me show you what this looks like. When Jesus people love like Jesus loves,

82, 60, right after 260 years after the life of Christ. A plague swept through the city of Alexandria. It's a northern city in Egypt. It was a part of the Roman Empire. A bishop named Dionysus described what he witnessed Christians doing during the horrors of that plague. He wrote that they nursed the sick, they stayed with the dying, and cost many of them their own lives, but they refused to leave. Everybody else was fleeing the city, trying to get out of the plague. They were abandoning their own families. They were throwing the half dead into the streets. The dead were left unburied, but the Jesus people stayed, and they served and they loved. Years later, an emperor named Julian was trying hard. Because of that kind of love and embodied apologetic, Christianity took root and grew all throughout the Roman Empire. By the time Julian comes along, he's trying to push Christianity back out and re-establish paganism in the Empire. And he writes a letter to one of his own pagan priests, and he admits in frustration why his efforts weren't working. He says, quote, "It is disgraceful that "the Empire's Galileans," his reference to Christians, "support not only their own poor, but ours as well,

"while our people receive no assistance from us." You can't miss that. The emperor that was trying to destroy the Christian faith is telling us why it spread, not because we were good at debating or arguing verbally, but because when the city was dying, they were the ones who stayed and served. That is an embodied apologetic at the scale of an entire empire. So here's the order. Faithfulness builds trust, trust creates permission, and permission opens doors. I had a conversation a few years ago that illustrates this perfectly. I was with a small group of pastors eating dinner at a table with John Maxwell, and John served for more than 30 years as a local church pastor before he became the well-known writer and speaker and leadership expert that he is today. And as I've gotten to know John, I would say he's probably the one of the greatest gospel conversationalists that I know. He has personally led thousands of people to Jesus in regular everyday ordinary conversations. Many of those are people that you and I would consider kind of closed off because they're highly successful. They're celebrities or they're corporate leaders or political leaders from around the world. And when I asked John at that conversation,

how is this so natural to you? Why are you so at ease having conversations about Jesus with these people? And he went on to explain that because he had spent years developing trust in the relationship and that God used that earned trust in order to open doors. And then he just started talking off the cuff and I've got my phone out and I'm taking notes as fast as I can type. Literally I took these statements right out of my notes. He said that night at dinner. He said, Brian, you have to be interested in them in their world. Paul said, I became all things to all men that I might win some, which means he entered their world and tried to experience things from their perspective and it earned trust in open doors. John went on to say, you can't add value to people, you devalue and you can't just value the people that share your values. He said, this is what I've learned from going from a pastor to a corporate coach. The church is really good at valuing people that agree with them, but there's not a lot of value for the people that outspokenly don't, but you can't just value the people that share your values. Jesus didn't value just the people that shared his values. And then he framed it this way. He said, how you view things determines how you do things.

It's all about how you see people, it's perspective. If you see a person is weak, you're gonna try to help them. If you see them as broken, you're gonna try to fix them. If you see them as valuable, you're gonna serve them. And then he said, when you consistently add value to people, you become invaluable to those people, which points back to the statement, faithfulness builds trust. Trust creates permission. Permission opens doors, which is why all year long, we have been saying, all we need to do is give honor, add value to everybody, everywhere, all the time. Now, let me give you a couple questions. I think that can help you as you carry this out, sit with this, think about it, work on it in your groups or in your own personal devotion. Who are the people in your life who don't know Jesus, Begin to pray, God, like Paul did, for an open door. Pray, God, will you let the trust that we've established in this relationship with his family member, this coworker, this neighbor, let that trust be a bridge that leads us into meaningful conversations about you and about eternity. In the way I live my life and the conversations I have around them, may they begin to get curious about you. And I then be prepared like Peter asked to give an answer to the hope that was in me, let the trust, the relational, equity, build a bridge,

open the door, Lord, open the door. But it leads to the second question, if you can't think of anybody where that applies in your life, that second question, or do you only fill your life with people who agree with you? Jesus didn't, it's funny when we were talking, I asked John, what's the difference in being a pastor all those years, and then now doing what you do? And he said, Brian, I used to spend all my life with Christian people, now most of my life I'm spending with people that are not Christians. And he said, this is what I learned. I'm gonna spend eternity with Christians. I don't have very much longer with these people. And I need to leverage the time that I have and serve them at value and live in such a way they start asking questions about, John, why are you this way? And then I can introduce them to my best friend that changed my life. Here's a very simple question you can ask yourself today. What do people consistently thank you for? And I know that sounds really simple, but what I'm trying to do is get you down to the basic thing to point you to that thing that you're looking at in your life that really is a gift from God in your life, that you're saying it's just a staff, it's not that important, it's just a stick, maybe you're really good at hospitality,

maybe you're an a Barnabas, you're just a natural encourager of people. I mean, those things are incredible, but they feel unimpressive to you compared to other people. But those little things are the things want surrender to God that become the staff of God, that little stick that you don't value. When you give it to him, he uses that little thing to make a difference in other people's life. You don't have to wait until you're handed something new. You're already holding it in your life. So what is the staff in your life that needs to become the staff of God? And one question that can help you find that is what are people often thanking me for? Just think on that for a little bit and see where it leads you today. Here's what would be a shame. I'm talking to Christian people about how to really love people that are not Christians. What would be a shame is if you're in this room today and you're not a follower of Jesus and you're listening to me talk about loving you and then not give you an opportunity to meet Jesus. I don't want to do that today. I realize there are a lot of things in your life you may not understand, you may not know. I talk to people all the time and I start talking about Jesus and they were like, yeah, this Noah thing

or yeah, this thing. And they start bringing up all these Old Testament. I'm like, look, what you believe about Noah, we can talk about that. But what you believe about Noah isn't going to determine where you spend eternity. Eternity, what you believe about Jesus is going to determine where you spend eternity. You got to get the Jesus thing, right? And there are a lot of people that don't have an issue with Jesus. And if you're sitting here today and there's a lot of stuff you're seeking you're trying to get worked out, my question to you is, what are you going to do with Jesus? And if your heart of hearts, you really believe he is who he says he is, your heart of hearts, you really think, I could follow him, then start there. Start with surrender to him. Give him your life and watch what happens. All the rest of that stuff will take care of itself. Would you stand with me across the room today and across our campus family? I'm gonna ask our prayer teams if they would to come and make themselves available at every campus to pray for you. And I'll just tell you, these alters are open for any need that you have. We were praying just in the last service

and people were coming forward to testify of miracles that happened from last week when they came forward to pray. So don't miss the opportunity for us to carry each other's burdens to the Lord in prayer. That's what this is about. But if you're that person that says, I need to surrender my life to Jesus, you can do that right here today. The people at the front of this room, our greatest joy is to pray that prayer of surrender. And what's incredible, we're having baptism next week. Perfect timing to go public with your faith. So Lord, I just pray today that you would take your word, search our hearts, fill us with love, that we're not those alienating people that we are the people right in front of us. May we genuinely love people. And may our genuine love just to love, build bridges, the grace questions that makes people curious about you. And then with integrity and authenticity, we can be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is in us. I pray, Lord, you'll bless them, keep them, that you'll make your face shine down upon them, that you will be gracious to them, that you'll turn your countenance their direction today, and you will give them peace. In Jesus' name, amen, amen. These altars are open today.

God bless you. - Hey friends, I just wanted to spend a second with you at the end of this message today and just encourage you. If in some way you've made a spiritual decision, maybe you've given your life to Christ today, you've recently given your life to Christ, you wanna talk to somebody about giving your life to Christ, our team would love to help you. We're on the Pando app and have several ministries into various prisons because God has called us to you. We have a heart for forgotten people and forgotten places, and that means we serve widows and we serve orphans, and we serve special needs, kids, and God has given us a heart for men and women in the prison system because I believe Jesus died for you. He has a plan and a purpose for your life, and we wanna help you know that and discover that. There is an address on the screen that you can communicate with us. We have a team of people that would love to hear from you, especially if you've made a decision to follow Jesus so that we can resource you and point you to tools that can help you grow. Just know that we're praying over you, and we're genuinely honored that you've taken time to watch our channel and these messages from North Place Church. (gentle music) (gentle music)