How many of you have seen Stranger Things season two yet? Okay, I'm not gonna, I'm not, I find a convinced Meredith to watch it and I'm not gonna blow anything for you, but there's this phrase that was used so much, and I want to go back and check the statistics out to see if it was used as much in season two as it was in season one. But think about what does what does Elle repeat over and over in her moments of frustration? Friends don't lie.
Like that phrase got repeated more and more and over and over. Friends don't lie. That was a very big part of this season. It may be starting to think about the other movies where the statements are made, and it's kind of interesting.
There's like these unifying statements throughout that movie. And in Stranger Things, this was about defining trust and loyalty because trust and loyalty had not been there before in her life. It was the way that she was seeing and experiencing the world. We think about these groups saying we were bound together with a purpose that we, and these sayings that typically play a part of our lives.
I'm a big movie in TV guy. Many of you all know that. It's sort of kind of racking my brain this week on other movies that had these tie-ins. It's not a quick jump to go from Stranger Things to go to the Goonies, right?
I think Goonies never die. Never say die. Think about that. It's like the persistence of that whole story, the dedication of these group of kids have to this idea of what does it mean to be an outcast and to be on the outside and to be working with a bigger purpose.
There's also one of my favorite ones was a few years ago, the movie about the World War II Tank Crew called Fury. How many of y'all saw this? My friend Russell Moore suggested the movie that launched a thousand haircuts with Brad Pitt's Very Distinctive of the Tanker. From that point, the line in that movie is best job I ever had.
And like in the beginning of it, like there in the middle, like this like tank combat, the best job I ever had. And at the end of the movie, it's the best job I ever had. It's a phrase that drew this tank crew together in adversity and of shared mission. Last week, I shared with you the first three of our core values that we have here at Foundry.
We talked about how statements are created to draw us together, the statements identify us, statements. They keep the team together and when the going gets tough, they remind us of the mission. Also, a line to out how across the history of the entire church and across the history of all of God's people, that there have been statements that bound his people together, that bound the church together, and these statements. They've always been used to draw boundaries against and around some of the most important cultural force that the church is up against.
If you miss that, you can go back and listen to the podcast or watch the video. And I share some of these ones across the centuries they've been used by the folks in the Old Testament, by the folks in the New Testament, and by the church historical that we've used these statements. And they're always had to help us understand the mission, to help us define what we feel called to do, and to help us navigate a tough world as God's called people. And so last week, I shared the first three values and this was, if you weren't here, some of these will sound familiar, if you were here.
This is just a little bit of rehashing. But the first one is this, that we believe Jesus is in our neighborhood. That's something we say a lot here at Foundry, and we've drawn so much from that. We get that from John, chapter 1, 114.
So the word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood. The second thing we said is that we will assume four things about Jesus, and this is something that's not uncommon for us a lot, that we will assume that Jesus is here, that Jesus is doing things that Jesus invites us to be part of his mission. And the last is that our greatest fulfillment in life is found as we participate alongside Jesus in his mission. And the last core value that I shared, last Sunday with you is that God's vision for this world is bigger than our vision for this world.
So this Sunday, what I want to share with you is the last three of these core values, but then I also want to talk to you about the group of people that kind of made a covenant to keep these values right in front of us and what leadership looks like at Foundry as we head into 2018, but also as we head into a season of change, and a season that makes me really excited for us as a church. We're just going to kind of jump straight in. This fourth value is this, and this is one of the things I'm probably the most excited about is that we honor real life at Foundry. The first value is we believe Jesus is in our neighborhood.
If Jesus is in our neighborhood, if he's here fully with us amongst us, no matter where we are, then we are going to honor that real life alongside of it. That we are going to tell a story of what life has been like with us. And this is what's funny is that this is us really thinking about this idea that the church is not for perfect people. Many of us have stayed away from the church.
Many of us have had issues with church before, because we feel like we don't belong, because we're not good enough. We feel that we're not perfect. The church was not made for perfect people. The church was made for holy people.
And sometimes we think, that same thing you're talking about here. This is kind of scary. It's kind of frustrating. I can't define this too.
We're going to talk about that. But in Luke, chapter 5 verse 31 and 32, this is what jumps out so much these words of Jesus. He just directly says, it's going to be the word. It's going to be behind me.
You can read in your Bible. But this is Jesus that said Jesus answered them. Healthy people don't need a doctor. Sick people do.
I've come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know that are sinners and need to repent. This is kind of heavy. Those who know that are sinners and need to repent. But it works into this idea of awareness that we've talked about for a long time.
Church is not perfect for people. But it's for holy people. And this idea of being holy is an active concept. It's not a passive concept.
And holiness is not defined by man's idea of righteousness, but it's defined by God's idea of righteousness. But one of the reasons I'm excited about this is value is because this one really actually came up the most out of Foundry 101. And many of you have been to Foundry 101, some of you have not been to Foundry 101 yet. But this is a time where folks who are new to Foundry, we get together, we meet in your rights with our classroom, and we eat Johnny's pizza.
And we drink Coke's out of cans, which makes me excited. That's the best way to drink Coke. I try not to drink too many Coke's. Foundry 101 is like a cheat day for me.
I get to sleep in the kitchen, a couple cans of Coke. We sit around a table and it's kind of nerve-wracking sometimes because it's so casual. One of the questions we ask people is, how did you get to Foundry and what do you love about Foundry? And from the last year and a half I kept hearing from people.
No, it's just a locket. It's casual. It's not very threatening. I feel like I belong.
I'm not worried about this. It doesn't feel like some sort of a club that I have to try to get into. It's just casual. And we've thought a lot about that.
And the only explanation I can think of is how casual this church is. The fact that we have to set this stuff up every single Sunday, so that means a lot of us are going to wear shorts because it gets hot. But the more we thought about it and the more our leadership and the more our staff and the more I just had one-on-one conversations with what I explained. What makes you say this, what we realized is that this is a church with an environment where it's all right to bring your stuff in.
It's all right to be exactly who you are. And the best way for us to talk about that is to say that we honor real life. It's not that it works out. It's the fact that Jesus is in our neighborhood.
Jesus is here with us. And if Jesus is going completely to us, he's always meeting us right where we are. See life is not surprising anymore. And if we're more honest with ourselves and more honest with other people, what we'll find out is that there's more folks that are going through the same stuff that we're going through at the same time.
And we fight against idea of sharing that. We fight against idea of letting other folks know what's going on. But nine times out of ten, there are two or three more people in this room that are going through the same stuff that you are. Jesus will take us wherever we go.
And Jesus will go wherever we are to get to us. And this is a tough piece because Jesus is not asking us to stay there. Jesus doesn't come to us to spend forever there with us. He comes to us to get us to bring us to a new place.
And if we talk about honoring real life, we also have to talk about the fact that this is about being holy, not perfect. And that Jesus does ask us to change. I think something a friend of mine said to me years ago, when I was going through a really tough period of life. And I kind of come through it.
And I was at that weird moment where I was kind of straddling it. Like one side was doing good. The other side was really, really tough. Now I was trying to justify something I was doing.
I was trying to justify behavior. And he said to me, he said, Chad, does it make you any more holy? At that moment I realized I'm trying to justify that what I was doing at that point in time, it probably was not doing a good job of making it more holy. But I held on to that phrase for years.
Honestly, that was almost 20 years ago that he said that to me. And what's so interesting is, over the years is my life has shifted and changed. I keep going back to my friend Jason's question and asked me. And realizing that Jesus never lets me stay still.
That Jesus is always drawing us further and further into who he is. Deeper and deeper into his love and his expectation and his design for our life. Founded we honor real life. Jesus will come to you wherever you are.
But he does not want you to stay there. And I was praying to him also said one time and I said this before in church that we need to learn what does it mean to make sin our sworn enemy instead of our secret mistress. What does it mean for us to realize the power that sin has over our lives? And I was reading devotionally through Psalms this month.
And I've spent like three days reading Psalm 31. This one verse just stuck out in my head as I was preparing this message. And over and over. But Psalm 31, says this, I am dying from grief.
My years are shortened by sadness. And these last two lines, that sin has drained my strengths. I am wasting away with sin. I've probably read that 50 times in the last couple of weeks thinking about that and realizing that this idea of holiness is us not fighting against a list of do's and don'ts but us realizing that God has designed a world for us.
And there are certain things that we throw ourselves into that have the capacity to destroy us. To drain us from every single thing that's life giving. To stop us from doing what God has designed for us to do and what he loves us for deeply. And so for us to honor real life, we honor real life and we also realize that God has put us into a process called discipleship at the fancy church word.
But that God is drawing us to this new place. And we want to be alongside of every single person right where they start that journey. That sin is the currency and the economy of brokenness. But God has called us to a life of wholeness.
The second value that we've talked about a lot is this, is that we desire ears to hear and eyes to see. Both of these are deeply prophetic words and phrases from the Old Testament. But it comes from this. If we're going to assume four things about Jesus, but as we assume those things, that we also assume that he has a full range of experiences that are opened up to us.
That he has a world for us to see and function and live in and that he wants to engage us. He wants us to experience him. So we will assume that we will experience Jesus and all he has to offer. Matthew 13 puts this in a beautiful way.
Matthew 13, none. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. It's about us having the capacity to experience Jesus. Jesus is like, I'm going to give every single thing to you.
I want you to see this. I want you to hear this. But I want you to realize that following me opens you up to this. So we want to have ears to hear and eyes to see.
It's coming down before God from his open hands saying, I want to experience you. So I need you to change and mold and shape and make and transform me so I can't experience you. I can experience you at the full level that I can. And for some of us, our walk with Jesus has not been going on very long.
We just can't experience that much. Our minds, our soul, our heart might not be able to take it. This is a journey that we're on day by day. There's something about this Word of God about hearing the voice of God.
Genesis 1, God spoke creation into existence. He spoke the world into turning into this, creating force. What is now John chapter 1 says the word became flesh. In the beginning was the word.
The Word was God. There's something about this audible voice of God. God who speaks to his people. We want to prepare ourselves to hear that.
We want to prepare ourselves to see this. We want to ask Jesus. We want to see this world as you see it. Jesus, we want to see what rescue and what redemption and transformation looks like.
We don't want to see a world that's about despair but we want to see a world that's about hope. We don't want to see a world that's about difference but we want to see and hear and experience a world that's about unity. We don't want to see a world that sets us apart from each other. We want to see a world that is full of people that are deeply beloved by God no matter who they are and no matter where they are at.
Walter Bruggemann, a man with a very, very complicated last name, and a very great way of saying things. And his book, The Prophetic Imagination, said this way, we recognize our world and its dominant culture. It isn't the kingdom of God. And we prayerfully desire an intentional and perceptive alternative.
Dad, here's to hear and I see as us simply saying, Jesus, we want to know what you are up to and we expect to experience that in its fullness. In the first place we find this freedom is us asking Jesus to make us fully aware of ourselves. For us to say, Jesus, where do I need to let you in? Where are the places of my life?
I don't even want you to see. What am I holding back from you? Jesus, what does it mean for you to speak and show yourself to me? We've all been at places and times in our life where we need a deeply personal idea of who Jesus is for us in the moment, that we need a deep touch, of the Holy Spirit, a deep touch to his power.
It says moments where we need Jesus to be big enough. We say, Jesus, I need to show yourself to me. Jesus, I need to know who you're making me to be. We can't do this as a church.
We can't do this as a corporate culture until we're able to ask those things for ourselves in our own life. Jesus, give us us to see and ears to hear. The last value that I'm excited about is this, is that we are better together. Our third value is that God's vision for this world is bigger than our vision for this world than that means that his vision for this world has always been about understanding his covenant, his holy promise with his people.
God's world is not full of rampant individual, okay, full disclosure here, it was all scripture. How many of you all have seen those YouTube videos I ain't doing it? You all know the label that the Snapchat filter and the big lips? First of all, I can't figure out how to do that on Snapchat.
Jack Lockbury's tried to explain Snapchat to me like 40 times and I can't do it. But I found those videos earlier this week and Meredith and I, we kind of sit down, we'll watch YouTube as written dinner to go, kind of take turns. And those things are only a minute long and they're funny. But they're all about saying, I am more important than somebody else.
And just ranting about the McDonald's line one. Yeah, you all heard me talk before about my driving habits, the slow lane driver. But I'm watching these and I'm laughing and I'm realizing, wow, we are in a culture now. That's all about me and myself and me justifying how I am more important than every other person around me.
You all experience that every moment of this day. And the values of statements are always about the church, defining itself and drawing boundaries against prevailing cultural standards. We need to realize this is about God's people, not about us. God's always been calling at people.
That's so fun. It's nice. God calls at people and we don't matter inside of it. But when God calls an individual, it's always in the context of his people and it's always for the sake and the purpose of his people.
The book of Judges is all about God calling individual people to draw his entire nation back to himself. And from the very beginning, when God started talking about calling something, it was always calling at people. Exodus chapter 19, this is a handful of verses we'll read up on the screen behind us. But this is what it says.
This is the heading in my Bible, said, the Lord reveals himself at Sinai. This is God showing his absolute presence. And this is what he says when he reveals himself. Exactly two months after Israelites left, Egypt, they arrived in the wilderness of Sinai.
After breaking camp, they ref it them. They came into the wilderness of Sinai and set up camp there at the base of Mount Sinai. Then Moses climbed the mountain to appear before God. And the Lord called him from the mountain and said, give these instructions to the family of Jacob.
Announce it to the descendants of Israel. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to myself. And now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth.
For all the earth belongs to me. You will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation. This message you must give the people of Israel. So Moses returned from the mountain and called together the elders of the people and told them everything the Lord had commanded him.
And all the people responded together, we will do everything the Lord has commanded. So Moses brought the people's answer back to the Lord. In Scripture we see God calls a people. And God calls a person.
It's always for the sake of his people. And this is the place that makes me take comfort in this. The very first thing that God saw in Moses is this is my family. I'm talking to you as family.
I'm speaking of his family. Family is a lot deeper than calling you, my property, than calling you, my constituents. Like this is like government. And calling you my citizens or my inhabitants.
Now you are my family, Ephesians chapter one. It tells us about this. That God decided in advance before the foundations of the world. God decided to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.
People brought together to be part of the family of God. And as we see our culture of the self differentiation and just rampant individualism, we know that God loves and makes beautiful self-expression in our own personal experience. Each one of us matters to God because he knows us deeply and personally and individually. But we find out who we are by being part of God's people, by opening ourselves up to others, by being self-aware, but also going through the deep struggles of being group aware.
When was the last time you went out a small handful of people speak absolute truth into your life? It's really gnarly when somebody tells you something you're doing wrong. And what our world tells us to do is instantly write that person off to make a rant video about them and never speak to them again. I'm really glad I've never been a rant video.
I'm always going to be honest with you all. But instead saying, you know what? I trust this person enough. I've opened myself up to this person enough.
I've exposed myself, I've been myself vulnerable emotionally and spiritually to where we were growing together. That we're growing together as God's people, as God's church, but also as God's church across this world. That we're part of thousands of years of covenant relationship and Jesus' movement of redemption and transformation. That we are better together.
That every single one of you, when you came here, this might be your first Sunday here, we're better this morning because you're here. You might have been one of the crazy people that helped us start this church in my backyard three years ago. We were better because you showed up then in every other single way in between. That we believe we are better together.
So these six values right now, they're how we feel God's asking us to say who we are. Let's pray together. Jesus, help us to see a world through your eyes. Not through our own eyes, not through the eyes of something we're creating for ourselves, but the eyes of something that sees the world much bigger than us.
Jesus, each of us have stories where we've seen and impacted and counted you. I've got to pray that as that grows, as that goes on and on, we pray for us to continue hearing those stories, because we know that you're always involved with us. Jesus, you didn't come to us once and say, all right, I'm done with you. I need to go on to the next person, but this is a lifelong relationship.
It's a lifelong move and shape. Jesus, thank you for loving us. Thank you for loving us before this world began. Thank you for loving us so much that you don't cast us aside, but instead, no matter where we are at the moment, you draw us into yourself.
You say, hey, I want you to come be part of this with me. God, my own life so many times I've been shaped and shifted personally about what I've seen outside of myself. Thank you for what you do to us.