Welcome to our Together on Mission Podcast, when we seek to be with and like Jesus, as we begin a conversation with Jesus in the morning, through scripture, prayer, and meditation, and then continue that conversation with them throughout your day. Your host is Travis Twiney, the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. In this season of the podcast, we will be journing through the Gospel of Luke, specifically looking for moments in the life of Jesus of the Husker. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to a Daily Together on Mission Podcasts is Travis, and it is great to hang out in this morning, we are friends, our friends of Jesus, and today is the day that the Lord has made today.
And so let's rejoice and be glad in this day, in this time, in this moment, in what is right in front of us, and who is right in front of us today. And that brings me to the title of this podcast. The title of the podcast this morning is Do You See? Do You See?
And this is a line from Jesus in Luke chapter seven, and it's one of the most impacting lines in my opinion, in the Gospels. It's one of my favorite moments in the life of Jesus. It's always stood out to me as so powerful and so personal. And I think it's one of the most essential elements of the life well lived to actually see who and what is right in front of you right now.
And so there's a question, do you see who and what is right in front of you right now? Do we really see who and what is right in front of us right here right now, the person that is right in front of us right here, right now, the opportunity, the problem, the willingness to listen, the willingness to share vulnerably, the interruption, you know, the sadness of that person, the struggle of that person. Are we really able to see the beauty in the moment, even if it's a painful moment? Are we able to see what we might be called to do or to say, or how we're called to help someone or be there for someone?
Do we really see who and what is right in front of us? And as I like to do, I'll just turn that question around and ask it this way, with those closest to you, you describe you as a person that sees who and what is right in front of you. That's a good question. And so in Luke chapter seven, some of you might know this story, but Jesus is invited to Simon the Pharisees house and they're reclining at the table and doing a dinner, whole bunch of Pharisees and Jesus, and this woman who has lived a sinful life just barges in, barges in, falls at the feet of Jesus and she begins to cry on his feet and wipe the tears with her hair and Simon's thinking, oh man, if Jesus was a prophet, he would know what kind of woman this is and he would not allow her to touch him.
And then Jesus, and here's the one verse I want to read from Luke chapter seven, Jesus looks at Simon and says, Simon, do you see this woman? Do you see her? Do you see who and what is right in front of you? Do you see what maybe you didn't plan on seeing?
It wasn't your agenda for the evening, but it's right here, right now. She's right here, right now. Do you see who and what is right in front of you? Simon, do you see this woman?
And again, this is one of my favorite lines in the Gospel. And as I was reading this this morning, I was struck with this line again and encouraged by the Spirit of God to go through my day today. So I want to encourage you to go through your day today seeing who and what is right in front of you. And this may for you involve slowing down for you.
That might be what has to be done because in order to do this, we sometimes have to pause and we sometimes need to stop and we sometimes need to notice and we sometimes need to be way more aware than we normally are. But for some of us, this could involve getting up and, you know, moving forward because sometimes who and what is right in front of us requires effort and help and support and challenge, you know? And so in order to see who and what is right in front of us, sometimes it's going to involve slowing down and sometimes it's going to involve getting up. And as we choose to do this, we will be encountered by all the things that distract us from who and what is right in front of us.
You see in the story Simon the host, he was distracted by, you know, by himself, you know, Simon likes himself of himself, you know, that was distracting him that self love was distracting him from who and what was right in front of us. But he was also distracted by his guests, all his friends were over, you know, he was probably distracted by what he wanted to present to Jesus or how he wanted to look to Jesus or whatever. And so, you know, when we seek to be present to see who and what is right in front of us, we will have to encounter our arrogance and our agenda driven lives and our busyness and our unwillingness to be vulnerable and our perfectionistic tendencies and a whole bunch of other stuff. And also in order to be present to who and what is right in front of us, we're going to have to do what Jesus does in the story.
You know, we're going to have to be able to pivot. This is what my evening was going to be. So I thought, but now it's going to be this, you know, we're going to have to make room, whatever that might look like. We're going to have to let go.
We're going to have to learn to affirm, to listen, to realize that we're not always right, that our agenda is not always best, and that we don't always have the best answers. And so in order to be present, to be, you know, to see who and what is right in front of us, we're going to have to do what Jesus does in the story. So just think for a moment about your day, you know, what you know will happen today. You know, think for a moment about who and what will be right in front of you and prepare for that, prepare for them, prepare them room as we say around Christmas time.
What would it look like to be in that moment with them to see who and what you know will be right in front of you? How do you want to act? You know, how do you want to prepare for who and what will be right in front of you today? But of course, there's going to be a lot of interruptions in your life today.
And there's going to be a lot of interruptions in my life. There's going to be people and things crashing into my day and crashing into your day. And we often try to avoid that and minimize that. And the problem is when we do that, we miss the life that is actually in the who and the what that interrupts our schedule.
So, you know, prepare for interruptions, prepare for surprises, prepare for people barging in, prepare for that awkward moment, prepare for the thing that might interrupt the thing that we were planning on accomplishing today, prepare for God setting your agenda today, because that's one of the things that we step back and look at the story. Of course, this great line, Simon, do you see who and what is right in front of you? Do you see this woman? It's a great line.
And it's in the midst of a great story where Jesus is saying, God, you set my agenda. You're the one that guides me. You're the one that calls the shots for my day. So do you see, do you really see who and what will be right in front of you?
And again, this may be the most important, the most central virtue of a life that is well lived. Do you see? We'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to the Together on Mission podcast.
We truly hope that you were blessed and encouraged by it today. If you had any questions about the Inland Vineyard Church, our ministries or our Sunday services, feel free to connect with us on our brand new app, which you can find in the Google Play and the App Store and check out our social media pages like Facebook and Instagram, or even check out our website at inlandvignard.org.