Parables: Part 5 | The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector | Pastor Scott Sauls

Learn more at www.aclu.org Well good morning Church. Hey would all of you here in Broken Arrow help me welcome the men at Allen Gamble in our Battle Creek campus there today. We're so glad that you're joining us today. A couple of years ago I started hearing from some friends in a city called Nashville, Tennessee about this man named Scott Sauls and it was people that I respected and have a great relationship with and looked you know look to for different advice in different areas of my life and all of them started mentioning this same guy named Scott Sauls and today you have the privilege to hear from Scott Sauls. Scott is a pastor and an author. Scott was tapped by Tim Keller years ago to be his heir apparent replacement in that church but what God is using Scott to do in the city of Nashville is to create this cohort of men, highly influential men ranging from the governor to CEOs of Fortune 100 companies to country music stars and the writers of all the hits which is God's music is country music and he is gathering these men and pushing them in their walk with Christ and their intimacy with Christ not just to be good at business but to be great at home as a dad, as a husband, as a spiritual leader in the community and today he is our guest and we're gonna get to hear from him. He loves the Lord he loves the Word, he loves people, he loves his wife Patty and their two grown children who are in ministry and apparently he's an amazing coffee roaster I'm hearing from my friends and world-famous sourdough bread curator and maker. Come on Scott if you would put your hands together and welcome Scott Sauls today. So there are two sins that just were just committed all the exaggeration from your pastor and how much I enjoyed it. Great to be with y'all Battle Creek Church the gossip about you is so good in my hometown of Nashville Tennessee from the mutual friends that we have there and it's been great to see how all the things that I've heard about your team about the spirit of your community is all true and I have the privilege today as Pastor Alex has told you of being part of this series on the parables that that you are already well underway with

and our stop today is Luke chapter 18 the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector and so I'd like to read that now Luke chapter 18 verses 9 through 14 Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt two men went up to the temple to pray one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector the Pharisee standing by himself prayed this way God I thank you that I am NOT like other men extortioners unjust adulterers or even like this tax collector I fast twice a week I give tithes of all that I get but the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breasts saying God be merciful to me a sinner I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled but the one who humbles himself will be exalted this is God's Word so a little bit of background on me the very first church I had the privilege of serving as senior pastor was a church that we planted in Kansas City not too far away from Oklahoma and Kansas City like Tulsa is a city that is is hospitable to tornadoes. And any of you that have been adversely affected either directly or indirectly by the tornadoes of the other day, just want to tell you that our hearts go out to you, our prayers are with you. We've seen what natural disasters can do to a community and to individual lives, and just know that our prayers are with you there. And so that particular church, the climate, the culture, the core values, very, very similar to Battle Creek. One of the things that I love doing when I come somewhere to guest preach and get to work with the staff team

like I do tomorrow with your staff team, is I like to get on the website, read up a little bit, see what I can learn, and then when I show up, figure out how much of it is being lived out and how much of it might need a little bit of work and a little bit of tweaking. So some of those things on your website, we wanna be a perfect place for imperfect people, which I think is just a great way of expressing that. Come as you are, bring all of your joys and hopes and dreams and your messiness and your hurts and your fears, and let's put the gospel in the middle of the room and see what happens, see what Jesus does with it. It's a place where found people find people, where you invest and invite in your friends and neighbors and the places where you live, work, and play, love that. Life is better together than it is lived in isolation, love that. Everyone needs a place in the church and a purpose in the world. So the gossip and also what I've seen with my own eyes is that these are really an accurate description of what your leadership team is about and what your church community is about, and so bravo for that. I'll touch on that a little bit more toward the end of the message, but I will tell you this. One of the things that is the most rewarding things for pastoral leadership especially

as well as an entire church staff, board of elders, et cetera, is when the church says we're in, when the community of faith says we are in with this mission, with this vision, with these values, we're here because of this stuff, and here we are, let's go. There's nothing more rewarding from a pastor's perspective than when people grasp the vision of the church and start living it out, and it makes our jobs so much easier when that happens and so much more joyful, and likewise, every now and then, there's an outlier or two of individuals that contradict what you say your church is about, and they behave in a way that gives your church a little bit of a black eye. And I wanna share with you a situation like that from our Kansas City days, and it's a story about a man named Bill. I'll call him Bill because that was his name, and Bill showed up to our church for the very first time. I'd never met him, I'd never heard of him, but I noticed very quickly he had needle streaks going down both of his arms. He was wearing shorts. He had needle streaks all the way down his legs. He'd been in and out of prison. I came to find out he had been in and out of recovery centers, and he was now at the very beginning

of recovery from a longstanding heroin addiction. And there's a guy that, there's another guy in the church that noticed Bill, and I'll call him the church guy. The church guy comes behind me, taps me on the shoulder. He says, hey, pastor, you see that man over there? And I said, yeah, I do. You know him? Are you the one who invited him? He says, oh, heck no. No way. Did you get close enough to him to see how much he reeks of nicotine? Obviously, he's addicted to nicotine, has no self-control, and doesn't look like he's had a shower in a few days. He certainly doesn't know how to dress in church, doesn't know how to behave in church. That's the church guy. The church guy said, hey, you want me to take care of that, or do you wanna approach him, pastor? And I said, you know what, I'll tell you what. You go on the opposite side, so you and he don't have to be close to each other, and I'll introduce myself to him at a certain point. And I was thinking to myself, during that service, and then after I heard Bill's story of coming out of heroin addiction, I thought to myself, what do you call it when somebody trades a heroin addiction

for a nicotine addiction? I call it an upgrade. Theologians call it sanctification, headed in the right direction. And a reminder of how all of us are unfinished, all of us are on the way and none of us has arrived. And so I had it out with God in the car driving home from church that Sunday and I said, God, number one, thanks for bringing Bill. God, number two, the worst thing about being a church is the church guys. Church guys hurt the church and so please don't send us any more church guys, just send us more Bills. And I felt in my spirit the Lord conversing with me, which I need to pay attention when that happens because I don't usually have those experiences. And I felt it very clearly in my spirit in, you know, after I had registered my complaint about the church guy, be careful Scott because you are well on your way right now to becoming the church guy because there is such a thing as a grace Pharisee who is high and mighty because he is so enlightened about the grace of God and the love of God and how to treat the down-and-out folks that he's arrogant about it toward those who don't get grace like he does. So be really careful, be really careful. The human heart is so tricky. We can so easily deceive ourselves with these us against them binaries where we think to ourselves and maybe we even say it out loud sometimes, over here are the good people, that's our people. And over here are the bad people, that's them. But Jesus, especially in places like this parable, communicates very clearly there aren't good people and bad people, there are only people in need of redemption, in need of mercy, in need of another opportunity, another chance, another future. That's all there is. And then there's me, the Redeemer, Jesus might say, who is the solution to that need. And so enough with all this good people, bad people, us, them stuff. You know Tim Keller once said that if you put your identity in your achievements then when you are successful it goes to your head, but if you are a failure it goes to your heart. Now that applies professionally but it also applies morally, spiritually, in so many different ways. And what we have in front of us is a Pharisee whose moral

and religious success went to his head and a tax collector whose failure at those realities went to his heart. And what we're here to learn at the feet of the Master Jesus is that he does not want us perched up on a high branch of the pride tree, but he also doesn't want us self-loathing on the ground feeling like we're, you know, the scum of the earth. He wants people who understand the love of Christ and then their hearts are humbled and their lives are transformed because they've been loved. So we'll start with the Pharisee whose success goes to his head. It says to introduce the parable, it says to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on other people with contempt, Jesus told this parable. So the Pharisee is the primary intended audience for this parable, but it's not hard to see that he also has a primary intended eavesdropper which is the tax collectors and sinners that are within earshot of the whole thing as well. And so he says the Pharisee, Jesus does, standing by himself prayed, God I thank you that I am NOT like other men, I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of all I get, etc. Who's the hero of this guy's story? Himself. He's the hero of his own story, God is an accessory to that story. He mentions himself five times, I, I, I, I, I, in a prayer and he mentions the name of God once in a prayer. He's a hero of his own story and God is a supporting actor to his hero story. I give 10% but everybody in that community knew that the Pharisees didn't just tithe on their income They also gave 10% of their expenses and and and when people did the math It was more like 20% that the typical Pharisee would give away to the temple treasury And they would do it very publicly in a very showy way Make sure everybody knew They were the big givers And then he says I fast twice a week now This is this is something spectacular because the Old Testament only called for the people of Israel to fast one time a year and so a hundred four times the requirement I

Fast twice a week. You ain't got nothing on me people. I Got this thing licked Lord Isn't it obvious as obvious to you as it is to me how lucky you are to have me in your corner God This though is more if we look at the original language the Greek New Testament where we get our our English translations from We see very quickly that the Pharisee even though he presents himself as the Navy SEAL of rule-keeping clean-living and Moral policing is also incredibly self-absorbed and like every self-absorbed person is incredibly insecure This is more a pep talk than it is a prayer and the pep talk is to himself It literally says in the Greek that he prayed these things to himself Not just about himself, but to himself. This wasn't even a conversation with God This was a show for the people that were listening and This was a pep talk to himself like the guy on Saturday Night Live. You remember him Stuart Smalley? played by played by Al Franken What was his line right to deal with his very? obvious deep insecurity his line was I'm good enough I'm Smart enough and by golly, you know it I'm seeing you up here What did he say? What's people like me? That's right. What's your name? Thank you. Ellie Kelly. Thank you, Kelly But you could see in Stuart Smalley no, he doesn't believe a thing he's saying here He's trying to medicate something within him He's got all this big talk because of how small he feels You know Self-esteem the thing we call self-esteem can if it comes from the wrong place if it comes from a fragile place self-esteem Can actually have a shadow side There's a psychologist named Lauren Slater who wrote this She said studies have all resulted in the same central message people with high self-esteem Pose a greater threat to those around them than people with low self-esteem

Feeling bad about yourself is not the cause of society's biggest problems now She's not advocating that people feel bad about themselves. She doesn't want that But she is saying you know the higher the higher you are on a perch of self-righteousness and self-importance The more danger you are to the people around you The more threat you are to society she says The bigger deal that you think you are it's as if Jesus is saying to us The bigger deal that you think you are The more the Pharisee spirit has potential to poison your heart and then poison The relationships and connections that you have with other people Either They will join you in your smugness or they will feel very anxious in your presence Very off-center in your presence You know the Pharisee thinks that he is God's part of God's choice people not just God's Graciously chosen people he thinks he's something special And he is special We all are the tax collector is special because we're all created in the image of God We all have the dignity that comes from being made in the image of the most high God And if if our if our trust is in Jesus Christ it that elevates to the fact that we are also daughters and sons Freely adopted and embraced and beloved to that God So Yes, mr. Pharisee you do have importance you do have dignity you are special but it's Not because you're so awesome. God has not called any of us to be awesome. God has called us to be humble, faithful, and free. That's what God's called us to be. And it plays out in the way he treats other people. That's the sad part, is he bleeds out his, the anxiety from his self-righteousness bleeds out in contempt toward other people.

You know, self-hatred always leads to hatred of other people. Thank you that I'm not like other men, like this one especially. So I remember one heated election year. Have y'all ever been through a heated election year? Do people care about politics in Oklahoma? Is that part of your conversations? Or people probably really don't care. Nobody gets politically anxious here, right? Especially church people. Church people, we got bigger things to care about than American politics, right? Donkeys and elephants. Okay, so this was a particularly heated contest one year between two presidential candidates. And one of the young men from our church community approached me after the service, said, pastor, I'd like to relay to you a conversation that happened in our small group this past week, just so you know some of the stuff that's going on on the ground. I said, okay, hit me with it. And he said, well, in the middle of our small group Bible study, somebody said, hey guys, I don't know if you've noticed it, but there are all these pagans and sinners and awful people going to our church now. And somebody's like, come again? What are you talking about?

And the person in the small group said, have you guys seen the bumper stickers in the parking lot? Have you seen how many bumper stickers there are supporting the evil party as opposed to being on the side of the good in American politics? And this young gentleman said to me, what I didn't have the heart to do was tell her and the whole group that one of those bumper stickers was mine. It was on my car. There are a few topics in the American landscape and in the American church that are more risky than the political conversation. Now, God wants to redeem politics and government like he wants to redeem every part of life and every part of culture and society. But sadly, in many Christian and church contexts, it's the spirit of the Pharisee, not the spirit of the tax collector that prevails oftentimes in those political conversations. So here's a fact, though, about every city. Your city, Tulsa, my city of Nashville, New York City, San Francisco, Birmingham, et cetera. This is true in every city. You can have two zip codes and you can have two churches,

one in each of those zip codes, and both of those churches would say, we believe from Genesis to Revelation that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible word of God, the only rule for faith and practice. This is the only authority that we know for sure tells us what to believe, how to live, what matters, et cetera. What the primary things are, what the secondary things. You can have two churches, two different zip codes saying that and saying, because we believe that about the Bible, of course, 90% of us vote red state and watch Fox News. And the other 10%, we're still working on them. And then this other church in this other zip code would also say, because we hold a high view of the Bible like that, of course, 90% of us vote blue state and watch CNN and we're working on the other 10% to pull them over to the side of righteousness. And what we're missing, whichever zip code we're in and whichever church we're part of in that scenario, what we're missing is that our politics are not, as much as we would like to think that our politics are 100% and only governed by what's in the Bible, we mustn't fool ourselves into thinking that our economic situation, that how life is for us at work, how our kind or our people are talked about on news outlets. and in the community, our personal histories,

our upbringings, the neighborhoods in which we live don't influence what we think is morally absolute, politically. We are subjective, fearfully and wonderfully made people who want to submit ourselves sincerely to the truth of God, but we have blind spots. All of us have blind spots. Remember, there's a professor at Duke named Christina Cleveland, and she said that one of the best ways for Christians to grow in their awareness of the mind and heart of God is to get into community with fellow Christians who have different political beliefs than they do and put the Bible in the middle of the room and have conversations about the issues. That will either drive you away from real Christianity or that will drive you into it. So that's the Pharisee, but then there's the tax collector. He's the one where failure goes to his heart, and the tax collectors weren't just moral failures. They had really injured people, systemically injured people, and they were publicly, publicly despised. And so it's all coming home to this tax collector who probably for the first time in his life walks into the temple to pray and to come to terms with the guilt and shame of the life that he had lived and the path that he had chosen up to that time. And it says that the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but he beat his breast and he said,

God have mercy on me, a sinner. And here's again where the original Greek is helpful, because he doesn't say in the original Greek, have mercy on me, a sinner. It says, have mercy on me, the sinner. There's a definite article here, and if you just think about it for a second, here's another guy, five, 10 feet away, who is very loudly, probably in front of other people and before God, humiliated him with a so-called prayer. Thank you that I'm not like him, that guy over there. And the guy, for whatever reason, he doesn't fight back, he doesn't punch back, he doesn't show any signs of taking it personally. He actually agrees with the dude. Have mercy on me, the sinner. It reminds me of an anecdote from the life of G.K. Chesterton which he was like a public thinker in London back in the day, and the London Times invited him to write an op-ed answering the question, what's wrong with the world? Read a whole article on that, and he said, I'd be happy to write that article. It took him seven seconds to write the article. He said, dear sirs, what's wrong with the world? I am. I am. You notice what Jesus does with the tax collector here. He steps in, there's no lectures, no scolding, no probationary period to see if the guy

can get his act together, get the needle streaks off his arm, or at least wear longer sleeves to cover it up, because we don't wanna bring that kind of reality into the sanctuary, do we? He didn't do any of that. He doesn't ask him to do anything, doesn't punish him, doesn't scold him, doesn't shame him. Instead, he answers the guy's prayer. He gives him exactly what he asked for. He gives him mercy. Jesus says out loud in front of everyone, this is wonderful, Jesus very publicly reverses the negative verdict that the community is holding about this tax collector based on what the Pharisee had just said about him, and Jesus steps in and says, uh-uh, we're not gonna deal with this privately. We're gonna deal with this publicly. I'm gonna reverse this guy's shame, not just personally, but publicly. And so I say in front of all of you, Jesus says, this man, not the other, went home justified before God, for all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. You know, Saint Augustine was asked, what are the top three Christian virtues? What are the top three Christian character qualities? And Augustine said, that's easy. Top three Christian virtues are humility, humility, and can you all guess what the third one is?

Humility. It's like that great. Theologian Michael Jackson said, I'm starting with a man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways. No message could have been any clearer. If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make the change. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. You know, C.S. Lewis defined humility this way. He said, humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's not, you know, saying I'm a worm, I'm a dirtbag. It is not that at all. You're insulting the image of God when you say you're a dirtbag. That's not just good therapy, that's good theology. That you do not speak about yourself in that way because you're talking about an image bearer of the most high God. C.S. Lewis says, humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. It's a lack of self-consciousness. It's a lack of walking into every room anxious about what other people may or may not be thinking about you. Because you have come to a place where you understand that the voice that defines you is not the opinions of other people. The voice that defines you is the grace and love of the God who loved you and gave himself for you.

It's mind-blowing, isn't it? And it just gets better. How do you know you're growing in Christ? There are two signs. One sign that you're growing in Christ is that there's a dynamic in your life that the late Henry Nouwen called downward mobility. And in the United States and the Western world, we're all about upward mobility, and I highly encourage that. I work with a lot of upwardly mobile career people. This is not about career, this is about the heart. This is about the way you ascend in the family of God and in the kingdom of God, the way you ascend is by descending. The way to get high is to get low in the kingdom of God. John Newton, who famously wrote Amazing Grace, which is I think the most sung song in the history of the world. Amazing Grace. Now, his story was a rough story. He had been a slave trader before he came to know Christ. And then he came to know Christ and realized, I have to walk away and say goodbye to my family and walk away and say goodbye to my old life and I need to repent and I need to make repair any and every way that I can and part of the way that he made amends and part of the way that he pursued repair was he got into the ear of William Wilberforce

advocating for the emancipation and abolition of slavery through Parliament and Wilberforce became the champion of abolition through Parliament, which then influenced abolition eventually in the United States, et cetera. But it was John Newton, this former slave trader, the Amazing Grace guy, that God used to ignite that whole movement, contradicting everything that he had formerly built his life and career and name on. John Newton, it's reported that these were his dying words. Although my memory is fading, I remember two things very clearly. I am a great sinner and Jesus Christ is a great Savior. The Apostle Paul had a similar story. You know what he was before he was the Apostle Paul? He wasn't just a Pharisee, he was the Pharisee of Pharisees. You know, talk about, he was like the goat of Pharisees. At a very young, he was like that Mark Zuckerberg of religion crushing it in his 20s, you know? Had people twice his age reporting to him at the temple. The Apostle Paul, when he meets Christ, he's kind of eager, like maybe I can be a hero in the Christian movement like I've been a hero in the Jewish movement maybe. Maybe I can be the goat over here. The funny thing is, he is the goat, but not for those reasons. He starts out his life as an Apostle and Evangelist of the Gospel as Paul the Apostle in his early letters, and then in his later letters, I'm Paul the least of the Apostles.

And then in his later letters, I'm Paul the least of all Christians, the least of all the saints. And then, as he's about to die, similar words as John Newton. Here's a trustworthy saying. that deserves full acceptance, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst. But did that lead to self-loathing for Paul? Was that Paul belittling himself or was that Paul being more in touch with reality than he'd ever been and having eyes more opened and being more clear-eyed than he'd ever been about the reality of the gap between the holiness of God and the sinfulness of Paul and the brokenness of Paul? I think it was that, because what he writes directly after saying that he's the chief of sinners is this, catch this, 1 Timothy 1. I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever, amen. What does this mean for the rest of us? There's a lot of shame that walks into every church sanctuary every Sunday, a lot of guilt, a lot of what Brandon and the music team did for us.

You see how they led us in so many grace and forgiveness songs that remind us of what our standing is with a God that we have offended repeatedly and yet he gives us this gift of forgiveness and clean slate as far as he sees from the West, so far as he removed our transgressions from us, but he also, according to this, gives us another thing. He takes our sin and filth off of us and then he puts his righteousness upon us. He clothes us with it, he swaddles it like new parents swaddle a child, very delicately, but gets that thing around us and holds us and hems us in with his love, taking pleasure and delight in us. I love what one pastor in my hometown says. This is how he sums up the gospel. They've actually made it the motto of their church. It's right there on the front page of their website. At our church, we believe this. I am a complete idiot. My future is incredibly bright and anyone can get in on this. Isn't that great? It's not just great, it's true. It's true. Do you know this? Speaking to Christians in the room, I don't presume that everybody has bought in yet. I hope you will if you haven't yet.

I'm speaking directly and only to Christians right now in the room. You know that whatever you're going through right now, your long-term worst case scenario is resurrection and everlasting life. That's as bad as your future can possibly get. God has taken your future judgment and he has relocated it to the past, planted it into Jesus on the cross of Christ, absorbed it so that all that is left for you from God's vantage point is love, welcome, delight, intimacy. Zephaniah 3, 17, he takes great delight in you. He rejoices over you on your worst day with loud singing because you're covered with the beauty of Christ and the glory of Christ. How is this even possible? Okay, the four gospels, they all talk about tax collectors. To society, we see that tax collectors are considered the crooks and the scoundrels and the scum of the earth in many ways for good reasons, despised and rejected, and yet in Luke's gospel, which is where this parable is presented to us, there are 10 mentions of tax collectors and all 10 of those mentions of tax collectors put tax collectors in a positive and a hopeful light. So you just think about the people that you are most angry about politically and that you insult at dinner parties or you love to hear other people insulting them

at dinner parties or on your chosen cable news channel. You just think of the worst of the worst among politicians and then imagine Jesus telling 10 positive stories about that politician and not pointing out any of the flaws, which are clearly there, but Jesus says, you know what, I'm majoring on mercy. You're majoring on judgment. I'm majoring on mercy, I'm minoring in judgment. Judgment is there if my mercy isn't received, but I'm majoring in mercy as an invitation. to the worst of the worst even. Won't you join me? He might say to us. One more story I'll close with. Bill, remember Bill? His wife Anne also came to church with him that day, as well as their young boys. And there was stuff that went wrong in the nursery with their boys that morning. Several other kids had bloody noses and the boys were picking fights and became kind of like a tornado in human form in the nursery that morning. And the person who was in charge of the nursery that morning when she came and picked up the kids, said, I'm so sorry, I have to let you know that it was a really hard day this morning in here. And I know it's your first time at church, but your boys have really injured some other kids

and have broken a lot of stuff. And just thought as their mom, you might need to know that and we're gonna be good. It's all good. And the mom very loudly said, shoot, except replace the two O's with one other vowel. Said it in front of the children, in front of other parents, in front of all the people that were walking by. And she walked out very clearly ashamed of herself, very clearly thinking just another failure, just another mess up, just another community that we won't be welcome in because of how messy our lives are. And the woman at the nursery decided, if they've left their mailing addresses back when people wrote personal notes, I'd like to write her a note. And they did put their address in. So she wrote a note and the note said, dear Anne, I just want to thank you for demonstrating to me how we ought to act in church. We come all polished and we cover up our hurt and we don't bring to the table the very things that we need, things like church and Jesus for, and that's the broken places in our lives. And so I just wanna thank you. And if y'all ever come back, you just need to know I'll be the first to welcome your boys.

And we would just love to see you again. And so that woman that we never thought we would see again, and that man we thought we would never see again, came in again smelling like nicotine the next week, but with a bit of a strut, like I belong somewhere now. And a few years later, Bill became a deacon in the church. He was a really good one. And Anne, get this you guys, she became the nursery director on our staff. And she was not a very good one, but she was such a good human and such a glorious picture of what the redemption and love of Jesus can do in the life of somebody who's just available to say, have mercy on me, have mercy on me, have mercy on me. Everything I've heard, everything I've seen and experienced here at Battle Creek from before I got here all the way to now has proven that all these things I've taught about this morning, you've already been taught these things for years, for decades. And so I'm not saying anything that's new to this community. Not saying anything that is a new insight to you all. This is the culture that you're already committed to create and protect.

This is the kind of disciple that you wanna raise up, build up and deploy for ministry. You got young people, you guys sitting on the floor in front of the church. You know how rare that is? Like in the average church, the first five rows are empty. You can tell about the health and the life of a church when you got kids sitting on, the front row is not enough. We wanna be even closer to this. It's incredible. Keep being that kind of church. Keep doing those kinds of things and the Lord will be with you. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you are the one who humbled yourself for our sakes. And now Lord, we humbly ask that you would teach us and help us to humble ourselves for your sake. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Thank you. Amen.