Checkpoints - Serve - Luke 7:11-17

Well, good morning again. Listen, I just want to tell you y'all look good today, okay? I can't say that every week about you, but something about today you cleaned up really well. So, we're so glad you're here. Um listen, I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of guests today and a lot of times on a holiday weekend, that's when we don't see as many guests. And so, really if you're here for the first time or maybe only come a couple of times, you're an out-of-town guest, we're really glad you're here. And it was mentioned in the video up there that there's a connect card in your handout. If you would take just a few minutes and fill that out, we always tell people we promise you we're not going to harass you. Here's what you can expect. You can expect a text from either myself or one of the other staff just to say thanks for coming. And this is our way of getting to know you, and then you've got our text number, and then you can harass us anytime you want to. So, that's how that works. But take just a few minutes and fill that out for us. But if this is your first Sunday, here's where we are in our sermon series. About 5 weeks ago, we began a sermon series called checkpoints. Um if you've been coming, how many been here for one or two of the weeks of this? Yeah. And here's what checkpoints is. It is more than just a sermon series. In fact, if you look in the book of Luke, it was Jesus that was sitting around and had some of his followers with him one day, and he said, "This is what I want from you." And everybody probably pulled out their pen and paper and they're ready to write something down because he was going to give them some a checklist of things to do. You need to do this and don't do this and because that's what we're used to in our religious circles, right? But Jesus had all of his followers around him and he said, "Follow me." Rather than giving them a checklist of all the do's and don'ts that they need to do if they're going to be a Christian, he said, "Just follow me." And so you can imagine those followers, they're sitting there going, "This is going to be great." Because if they want to be like Jesus, if they want to act like Jesus, if they want to resemble Jesus in their life, they really could literally follow him. If he went to this town, they could go to that town. If he stopped and ministered to this person, they could stop and minister to this person. If they stopped and prayed, he would or Jesus stopped and prayed, they would stop and pray also. So, those instructions, "Follow me," for those present-day disciples at that point had to be some very clear, somewhat easier following than what we might have today. But yet when we read scripture today and it says, "Follow me," we look on, "Well, where's Jesus's footprints? Where's he walking? Where's he stopping? It's not maybe as easy for us today to follow him." But yet Jesus would never give us instructions and not show us how to do it. And so we have the entire New Testament that we get to read, especially Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and we get to read about the life of Jesus and see how he lived his life and see how he responded to people, and we get to follow him and do exactly what he did. And so over this series called checkpoints, we've identified five different checkpoints, five different spiritual disciplines that Jesus himself participated in, that Jesus himself made sure he did. And here's what we step back and said this, as followers of Jesus, if we make sure that we're hitting these checkpoints in our lives, if we're doing the same things that Jesus did, if we're acting the same way he did, if we're going the same places he went to, then that would lead us in today's world to still follow Jesus. That he wouldn't be some ancient religious icon, but it would be a personal relationship with a living God that we would follow today. And so, if you've got your handout there, let me just real quick, let me just review those for you. And if you're here and new today, you can jot down the ones we've learned. We have um devotionals that we were created for every single one. If you want to know more about these, see us and we'll make sure you get the weekly devotionals for every one of these. But, the first one we talked about these checkpoints, if we want to follow Jesus in today's world, here's the the checkpoints. The first one is gather. And that just simply means centering your life around God's presence and God's people. That's what we're doing today. We're gathering together. We're praying together. We are worshiping together. We are we are fellowshipping together. We are laughing together. All of that is part of gathering as we center with God's people on God's presence. That's the first checkpoint, gather. Here's the second one, you can fill in this blank. It's connect. And here's what it means to connect, choosing authentic community over isolated faith. You see, just because we all come and sit on a Sunday morning, put our rears in blue seats, that does not mean we're truly connecting. We're gathering together. We're all in this one, but we may not know each other. And so, when we talk about connecting, that's really what we talk about in our small groups that we have here at the church. As you leave today, maybe as you walked in, you saw but as you leave today, there's a bunch of round tables out front and they've got black table cloths on them. Every one of those represent a different small group that you can participate in. It is one of the most life-fulfilling events I've ever done in my life. Because I get to sit in the room and I get to be Keith. You get to sit in the room and you get to be you, and you get to share hardships, you get to share encouraging things. It's just a time that we come together, and as it says, that we're choosing authentic community, not surface community, but deeper community over isolated faith. So, that's number two. The third checkpoint is this, give. We talked about this one a few weeks ago, and give is trusting God enough to live generously with what he's given us. You see, the reason that we don't want to live generously because I'm afraid I won't have enough left over for myself. Whether that's my time, whether that's my talents, or especially when it comes to my finances. If I don't hang on to it, I I I might not have enough. But to live generously says this, I'm going to trust God that you've given me enough for me and to share with other people. Isn't that what Jesus did his whole entire life? He shared what God had given him. Remember the story of of Jesus feeding the 5,000? One little boy, couple of fish and a few loaves of bread, and they fed over 5,000 people and had 12 baskets left over because this little boy lived his life generously. And so, when we talk about following Jesus, we need to pattern our lives around Jesus because he gave, so therefore we should give. And then last week, I was on vacation, but we had a guest preacher, and he talked about the checkpoint invite. And here's the definition that we use for invite. Leading others to experience the hope and the grace of Jesus. Leading others to experience the hope and grace of Jesus. I guarantee if I was out of town this past week and while I was in somewhere just traveling, and I stopped and got a lottery ticket, and I scratched it off, and I won a million dollars, guess what the first thing I would tell you today? I won a million dollars. Guess what the next thing would you would ask me? Are you giving 10%? And I have to say, yes, I would. If God let me win a million dollars, I might just give 20% of that one, right? But it's invite. If you have something good, you want to tell other people. We have the best thing in the world, and that is a relationship full of grace with Jesus Christ. And invite doesn't always mean you're walking on every door and every house on your neighborhood and saying, I need to tell you about Jesus. God may give you the opportunity, but simply inviting somebody to come to church with you for them to hear the good message of God's grace is also a way to invite. So, that's the first four checkpoints. Now, today's checkpoint, the last one. This last one should be the easiest one of all because we do it all the time. Not just when you come to church, when you go to work, when you're at home. This last one we do all the time. And the fifth checkpoint that we're ending our series, but more than a series, our way of life in following Jesus, is the word serve. If you're taking notes, write that one down. Serve. Right? You have this one down, don't you? If you've ever had kids living in your house, you know what it means to serve. Okay? If you have teenagers, that means you go to the bedroom and pick up the 15 bowls that they left there but eating cereal and they left in the room. That's what it means to serve. How many moms and some dads in here, you serve by going to the laundry room two or three times a day and washing and drying clothes over and over and over. You're cooking dinners, you're mowing the lawn. There's all kinds of ways that we serve our family. Maybe it's not kids you're serving right now. Maybe you have aging parents that you're serving. Maybe you have a spouse that's going through some health problems and you're serving. But we've learned to serve from day one when we live in a home with other people. And then you go to work and you think you're going to get away from it. But unless you're the boss, you're serving somebody, aren't you? You might be serving your co-workers, you might be serving your supervisor, but in work, and we call it work, but it is a form of serving, isn't it? And then you add to that list friends. You add to that list church. Serve, serve, serve. So, this one we have it down, don't we? And there's lots of reasons that we serve. Okay? Some of the reasons that we serve and and don't worry about writing these down, but maybe you serve out of obligation. May Maybe Maybe what goes through your mind when a serving opportunity rises, whether it's home or work or church or friends, it's like I'm supposed to. Like you feel guilty if you don't serve. There's just this obligation that you're supposed to do it. Or maybe you serve because it's form of repayment. Somebody served you, so now it's your turn to serve. The neighbor brought over a some kind of dish when you're in the hospital, now the neighbor's in the hospital, so it's your turn of repayment to bring those over. And so maybe you do it out of obligation, maybe you serve out of repayment, or maybe it's just a responsibility. Well, somebody has to do it. I mean, that stack of dirty clothes are not going to get washed if somebody doesn't do it. And so you just do it out of responsibility. Now, watch this. All of those are reasons that you and I will serve at home, at work, with our neighbors, and at church. And none of those are bad reasons. But here's what happens. If those are the only reasons we serve, before long we will get burned out and bitter. Ever had one of those days where you walk in going, "I'm not cooking tonight." That was a guilty laugh if I ever had or heard one in my life. I'm not cooking. I'm not doing the laundry. You go bring your bowls out of your bedroom and you put them in here. I'm not doing it. I'm not loading the dishwasher one more time. Or how many times have you had tension at work and you're just like, "I'm tired of being the one serving everybody. I know we get paid for this, but I'm the one that's picking up the the loose ends. I'm the one doing this one." And you just throw your hands up and go, "I quit." How many times have you been a part of church cuz there's no rule that says this, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Have you ever went home going, "I need the other 80% to step up." And so there's nothing wrong with serving out of obligation, there's nothing wrong with serving because you want to repay somebody, there's nothing wrong with serving out of responsibility, but if those are our only for serving others. Before long, we will be worn out. We will be tired, and we will become bitter in our heart of serving. But here's what I know. If serving is one of the checkpoints that we're to model Jesus, Jesus had a different motivation than the three we just mentioned. And so I want to take you to story in scripture today that is going to show Jesus in a way of serving. And that's a story that that there's really a upper level and a lower level. As we read the story in a second, you're going to see Jesus is going to show his son of godness. He's going to show the man that that's just the savior that's come to this earth, and he's going to heal a young boy that has died. He's going to bring him back to life. That is the big picture. But as we read this story, I want you to watch and listen because in the middle of Jesus raising this little boy that had died back to life, we will get a glimpse of his heart. And his heart is serving the mother of the dead child. And Jesus won't be serving the mother of the dead child out of responsibility. He won't be doing it out of obligation. He won't be doing it out of repayment. There's another motivation that Jesus has. So if you have your Bibles, or we'll have the scripture up here on the screen. Here's what I want you to just read with me. Luke chapter 7, verses 11 through 17. And here's what it says starting in verse 11. Soon afterward, Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain, and a large crowd followed him. A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate, and the young man who had died was a widow's only son, and a large crowd from the village was with her. And when the Lord Jesus saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. If you're circling thing, you can circle that. His heart overflowed with compassion. And don't cry, he said. And then he walked over to the coffin, he touched it, and the bearers stopped. "Young man," Jesus said, "I tell you get up." And then the dead boy sat up and began to talk. And Jesus gave him back to his mother. Great fear swept over the crowd, and they praised God saying, "A mighty prophet has risen among us. And God has visited his people today." And the news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding countryside. So, what you see in the story is this interaction, this moment that Jesus comes face-to-face with a grieving widowed mother who had just lost her son. Now, here's what you have to understand to really grab hold of all this going on in the story. Funerals back then were similar to what we might have today, but I would say ratchet up a few notches as far as the emotion. And here's why. Most funerals back in those days, as we're reading this account of Jesus, the funeral would have occurred the very day the person had died. And so many of you are facing grief and have faced grief in your life. And when the funeral comes, you feel it, don't you? But many times in our society, the funeral may be 3 days, a week, 2 weeks, even a month afterwards, and we've had time to process. It doesn't mean the grief is still not there, but the raw emotions have kind of settled a little bit. But on this particular day, there's good chance that the woman's only son, and she'd already buried her husband before this. So, her only living relative with her had died just that day. Can you imagine the raw emotion she must have been feeling? She had the raw emotion of the loss of her son. She had the raw emotion of the lowness that she would feel because now no one else lived in her house. And she had the raw emotion because back in those days women didn't have a way to make money. When her husband died, her only hope of financial survival was her young son would grow up and he could take care of his mom. There was no social security plan. There was no pension plan. She was left destitute. The raw emotion. So, she's walking and she's grieving and she's feeling everything going on. And to add all this, it was normal back then that not only would the funeral procession of family and friends come, but they would actually hire professional mourners. There would have been unassociated people, unrelated people to this woman, and they would have come and they would have cried and they would have wailed. So, the story that I want you to see coming alive right here is there's this large group of people and they're just wailing and crying and weeping and they're carrying a coffin up on their shoulders. Some of the men that we might call pallbearers, they were carrying the coffin and the mother was leading the parade and she was just overwhelmed. And as she was leaving out of the city to bury her only son, Jesus and some of his followers come walking in. Now, here's what's interesting. In this particular story, nowhere does it let us know where Jesus would We knew he was going to Nain, but we don't know why. Maybe he was going to get some rest. He had just left another big city, done some big miracles over there, and maybe he was just trying to pull away. Let me find me a little town where people don't know who I am and I can rest. Maybe we don't know. But, what we can tell from scripture, his agenda was not, as far as anyone knew, was to have the encounter with the woman. But, here they come walking into the town. And the woman and her family and the mourners, they came walking outside the town. And there would have been a gate outside the city that they would have met. Or at least, we might say, they might have crossed paths when they got there.

And so, this led the writer Luke of this particular account to say these words in Luke chapter 7 verse 13. We read it earlier. I had you circle it, but I want you to hang on to this because here's what it says, "When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion." When Jesus looked upon this woman, his heart overflowed with compassion. And that word compassion, if you take it back to Greek, the original language, here's what it means. That word means this, to be moved to the deepest sense. He didn't walk back going, "Oh, I feel so sorry for her." and keep walking. The Bible lets us know that his heart hurt. That his heart just gave out to her. That it gave forth himself. In fact, the NIV translation says this way, "His heart went out to her." You see, what Jesus saw with his eyes of this grieving woman went to his heart, and we will find out it will come out his hands and his feet. We will discover in just a moment that he moved from just seeing and hurting to responding and acting. That he moved from compassion to serving. See, if you want to know what motivated Jesus in his serving, it was not obligation. It was not responsibility, and it definitely wasn't repayment. It was compassion for this woman. His heart went out to her. You see, compassion is the bridge between seeing a need and doing something about it. Let me say that again. Compassion Compassion is the bridge between seeing a need and doing something about it.

Can I just be honest with you? Too many times I never crossed the bridge.

Too many times when I see somebody in need, it is what it's like. It's like there's a river in between us and I'm on this side of the bank and the need is on this side of the bank. And I can look over there and I can think how sorry I am for that person. I can think how much they need something. I can look and I can ponder and they catch my attention, but I never cross the bridge. Because my serving is based on my obligation. My serving is based on my responsibility. My serving is based on my repayment. Make a list, but my serving too many times is never based on my compassion for the person.

So, if you're taking notes, here's what our definition for service. Choosing compassionate action over personal convenience.

Our definition as we round out our checkpoints when it comes to serve is choosing compassionate action over personal convenience.

But I don't get there very often. Now, do I serve? Yes. Do you serve? Yes. Do you go home sometimes just going, "Can I just sit in this chair and do nothing because I'm tired of serving?" Or how many times you catch yourself just going, "Let me have my phone and can I just numb scroll because I'm totally so tired of doing stuff for everybody else. Let me just find some place and numb myself." Or maybe it's not scrolling. Maybe it's a bottle. Maybe it's a binging on whatever TV show you're watching. How many ways we're just like, "I can't do it anymore."

You know why? Because the need is on that side of in river. And what I do is I take a running jump and I try to jump through my responsibility. I try to jump through my obligation and I wear myself out trying to get to the need more than actually meeting the need.

And I miss the bridge of compassion.

So, let me do this. If you're taking notes, let me just just identify with you. Um if we're going to have compassion like Jesus and therefore serve like Jesus. Now, watch me. I want you to make sure you get this. Most of us can look in the mirror and say, "I serve like Jesus." No, we serve but not like Jesus. Because Jesus serves out of compassion. See the difference? So, let me point out identify us just some specifics about serving with compassion like Jesus. So, serving with compassion like Jesus requires me, number one, to see what I could easily walk past.

If you're taking notes, you can write that one down to see what I easily can walk past. Let me go back to the story for a second. Where Jesus had been before he got to Nain and this this woman who was bearing her child, he'd been in Capernaum. Capernaum was about 25 miles away. It would have been normal when he would have walked from Capernaum to Nain, he would have done it in a full day. Anybody walked 25 miles lately? Anybody walked 10 miles lately? Anybody walked 5 miles lately? You may look good, but you're lazy people. Let me just say that right now. But if you had walked 25 miles, what's the last thing you want to do when you get to your destination? Serve somebody. I mean, Jesus would have got there and if he probably just said, "Can we just Can we find a hotel room? Can we go make our camp somewhere? Does anybody know somebody we can go stay at their house? Can we just rest and can we chill? But because Jesus had compassion, it required him it required him to see the woman. You know how my walk would have been if I walked into that gate?

Looking down, don't make eye contact. Can I get on my phone? Therefore, I'm looks like I'm busy doing something else. But Jesus made eye contact with the woman. He needed to rest. He probably wanted to rest. But the scripture says this, when he saw her.

That means when he saw her with his eyes. You see, when he saw the crowd, didn't say when he saw the crowd. It says he when he saw her. When Jesus observed the situation, he didn't see a problem, he saw a person. And when it comes to serving, it's a lot easier to not to have compassion for a problem than it is for a person. If all I see is a problem, there's a lot of other problems that one day when I feel like it, one day when I have time, one day when I have energy, I can go serve over there. But when I see a person, they need me right now.

And so if we want to serve and have compassion like Jesus, we have to get to the point that we see what we can easily just walk past. Compassion begins with seeing people like Jesus sees them.

Say it again. Compassion begins when you see people like Jesus sees them. So let me just give you a self-reflective question. Here's the question. Who have I stopped noticing? Your neighbor? Office worker? Something here at church? A family member? Who have I stopped noticing because I'm not seeing them like Jesus? Let me go to number two. If we're going to serve, if we're going to have compassion like Jesus requires as we serve, here's number two. We need to care about what doesn't directly affect me.

We need to care about what doesn't directly affect me. Think about this for a second. I know Jesus is the son of God, right? So all things affects him because he's God and all things come under him, but Jesus was fully man. He's walking by. The funeral procession is walking by this way. He doesn't know the woman. She's a stranger. He sure didn't know the son, the boy that had died. I mean, this particular town name was not even anywhere he was from. You can read the entire New Testament. This is the only time that we record a New Testament that he even visited there. Now, it's probably like he didn't even know anybody in the town. So everybody was a nobody or no name to him. It would have been easy for Jesus to see the need and just go, "And but it really doesn't affect me. I don't want to bother them. I don't want to step out of my own comfort zone. This is not my funeral."

Do you remember back in the day when we had funeral processions from a church to cemetery? And everybody got in their car, and what did you do? Turn the lights on. And the funeral procession continued, and all the cars lined up with all the lights turned on or all the all the cars moving, lights turned on, and what would everybody that had no personal part of this funeral, what would they do? They would pull over. I'll never forget years ago when I was in middle school, my church youth group took a trip from Texas to the to the Ozarks to go see um the Passion Play there. And we didn't have vans or buses, so we took about eight different cars. And so the lead driver said, "Everybody turn your lights on so people can see we're together." From Texas to Arkansas or Texas to to the Ozarks, everybody pulled over. We had the best time we've ever had in our life because they thought we're in a funeral procession.

When's the last time you pulled over for a funeral?

You might say, "Well, I don't see cars doing that anymore." Could it be the funeral director just finally said, "It's not going to do any good." You with me? Why? Because that's not really our problem. That's not really our concern. But if we want to start caring with compassion and serving with compassion like Jesus did, then we have to start caring about things that don't directly affect me. Again, his his The scripture says his heart overflowed with compassion. Didn't know or didn't know him, it didn't affect him. He could have stayed the night and moved on to Nain and never thought about him again, but it had a compassion in his heart for them.

Following Jesus means allowing my heart to be affected by what affects others' hearts.

Following Jesus means allowing my heart to be affected by what affects others. Here's a little self-reflection question you can think about. When was the last time someone else's situation genuinely moved you?

When was the last time that someone else's situation genuinely moved you? Here's the third one. Going down the list, just four things that if we're going to have compassion like Jesus when it comes to serving, here's the third one that we need to be interrupted when it's not convenient. Again, we don't know where Jesus was going, why he was going to Nain, what he had on his intentions, but they were going this way, he was going this way, and it would have been easier just to pass in the middle of the night like two ships passing in the middle of the night. But he allowed whatever plans he had, whether he had specific dinner plans, maybe he had some ministry plans that we never heard about, maybe he just had a big nap as a plan. But he allowed his plans to be interrupted. You see, here's what happens. When it's about convenience, convenience asks this question, do I have time for this? When it comes to compassion, the the compassion asks the question, does this person need me? You see the difference between convenience and compassion? Do I have time for this versus does this person need me?

Again, that's why we use the definition for serve, choosing compassionate action over personal convenience. That's when our serving becomes like Jesus. Is there anything wrong with serving out of obligation? No. Is there anything wrong with serving out of responsibility? Absolutely not. Is there anything wrong with serving other people out of repayment? Absolutely not. They're all reasons we serve, but if we spend our whole life serving, but we never serve out of compassion, we will end up bitter and burn out. But when compassion enters our soul like it did Jesus, and we all of a sudden look around, and we allow ourselves to be interrupted even when it's not convenient, then we're starting to serve like Jesus. Now, let me give you an example how not to do this. Last night I got a text that Jody Estelle or or Jeremy Estelle here that his wife Jody, they were taking her to the emergency room. The text was to me and to Lori Reed, just letting us know. And so, you know what I responded in the text? Hey, if you need help with your two young kids, let us know. I'm sure Delores will be more than happy to go over and help.

Now, that was all in fun. But how many times do we just assume somebody else can help? Why? Because it's not convenient. And so, compassionate serving allows ourselves to be interrupted, even when it's not convenient. Here's a great self-reflection question. Am I too busy? Am I too scheduled? Am I too focused on myself to be interrupted to serve? Here's the last one. The last one. If we're going to serve like Jesus, we need to

take action when our heart is moved. We need to take action when our heart is moved.

Now, watch this. We can mistakenly as we read the scripture, remember I said, "What's the key to it?" Jesus looked and had compassion, right? And I said, "Circle that cuz you need to know that one. That's the key to all this." Can I change my answer? That's not the key to it. The key to this particular passage and us learning to serve like Jesus is not when his heart was moved to compassion. That was a part of That was the bridge, right? But look within verse 14. Here's what it says in verse 14. Here's the key to it. Then, after his heart was moved to compassion, then he, Jesus, walked over to the coffin and he touched it and the bearers stopped. And and then Jesus said, "Young man, I tell you to get up." You with me? The key is not the compassion. The key is getting up and do something about the compassion. The key is not just saying, "Ooh, there's a bridge out. I'll walk that bridge." If you never walk the bridge to get over to the need from the compassion, then what good's the compassion do? You see, compassion with no action is actually just sentiment, not serving. You should be writing that one down. Let me see the pens moving, okay? Compassion with no action is actually just sentiment and not serving. I don't care how much your heart goes out. I don't care how much you Have you ever watched a commercial of all the hurting puppies and dogs that they want money sent in? And have you like, "Oh, I hurt. I hurt. I hurt." I've never spent a dime in my day.

Did I really have compassion? I had compassion. But if I never sent a dime to hurt the help these dying animals, was I really serving them? You with me? This here means yes. This means no. Or you can even say, "Ouch, preacher. You're preaching. You're stepping on my toes right now."

Compassion that stirs me but never moves me is simply sentiment. Let's go back to the story. Let's rewrite it for just a second. Now, we're not going to rewrite scripture, but what if Jesus is walking and they're coming this way and Jesus is like, "Ooh, disciples. You following me, right? Yeah. Ooh, see that woman? My heart hurts. You may not know this, but that's her only child. Her husband's already dead. I'm the son of God, so I know these things you don't know, but ooh, makes me so sad. Hey guys, can we come over here and just pray for her for a second? Yeah, amen. Jesus, that's right. Okay guys, let's go take a nap.

That's not a good story, is it? It's a horrible story.

But is it our story when it comes to serving out of compassion?

And so, the last one. The last one says this, take action when my heart is moved. Great self-reflection. What have I been feeling? What have I been feeling something about but not doing anything about? What have I had compassion for but never crossed the bridge? Use that as a bridge. And so I want to close this way, real easy. I want to give you three ways that you can move over the bridge towards serving. Three ways. And we've in this whole series, we've had our our walk, we've had our run, we've had our crawl, our walk and our run. So in other words, we're all in different places spiritually. That's the cool thing about following Jesus. It doesn't look the same for all of us. And so these four stages, maybe you're just taking baby steps with Jesus right now. Maybe you're kind of kicking the the the the tire of Christianity and following Jesus. Maybe all you need to do is just take this little bitty baby step. Or maybe, and that's your crawl. Maybe you go, "No, I've been crawling long enough. It's time I stand up and start walking." Or maybe you're ready to run in your following Jesus. So here they are. Now, I'm going to tell you this one. The ones I'm about to share with you are focused on serving here at South Sub Church. We know serving Jesus out of compassion should take place at home, should take place at work. I'm just going to give you some specific things here at the church. Here's the first one. If you're just a crawl, just think about it. Here's the easy. Talk to someone about serving at church. I didn't say commit. I didn't say do, just talk to somebody. And the best way to talk to somebody, on your your connection card that all of you got this, fill out your name, put a a contact information on there, and just on the back just going, "I would like to talk to some about it about serving." We have weekly serving opportunities, we have once a month serving opportunities, we have occasional serving opportunities. We have serving opportunities that you don't have to talk. You just have to hand out bulletins. We have serving opportunities one of the best easiest ways our coffee cafe needs new volunteers. If you can smile and hand somebody a coffee cup, you don't even exchange money. You just look at him real like guilty and make him think they should give you a tip, but you don't even have to exchange money. But we have all kinds of ways. So you go, "I don't know what I should do." Just put your name on there and say would somebody call me and help me find the best place to serve for me. Now, that's your crawl. Here's a walk. Maybe you're done thinking about it. And you need to volunteer regularly at church. I would say take the same card. And write on there, "I'm done thinking. I'm time to put some action to my thinking." See the difference in those? One is not committed. One is like, "You're committing on paper before you know what it is because you need that push." And so just write on there, "We need some help." We'll do in a few months or the end of October we'll do our trunk or treat out in the parking lot. We'll need about 25 to 30 cars that will decorate the back end of their car just to hand out candy so we can reach our neighborhood. That's a one-time shot. Put that on there. Like no, hey that coffee cafe put my name down before somebody else gets that. Write that on there. I'm out of town in a few weeks. If you need to pre want to preach put your name on I'm sorry Angela already has that one over here. So I've already volunteered her for that one. But say, "I want to serve." Our kids ministry still needs about four to five volunteers on Sundays once twice a month downstairs at our 9:00 hour or they need two or three volunteers in our nursery area on Wednesday night. So maybe you don't want to mess up your Sunday morning routine but come for an hour on a Wednesday night and just love on babies like Jesus would. That is serving. Now, here's the last one. This is the one I'm most excited about. You ready to run? Okay, look at your neighbor going, "You need to run." Cuz we know you don't walk. You've already confessed that, right? So, here's the run one and I'm so excited about this. Volunteer to serve with a brand new ministry we're launching called Helping Hands Ministry. Now, let me tell you about Helping Hands Ministry. Several weeks ago, we have three of our members, um Mati, he's back there and working the control room right now. His friend Rosh is back there and Mati's wife right here, Ella, they came to me said, we want to create some kind of serving like we serve here in the church, but how can we serve outside the church because we want to be the light of Jesus? And so, we sat down and we brainstormed. So, here's what we're going to do. You know the neighborhood behind the church, wherever behind the church is, right? Over there. There's about five or six streets over there. It's a smaller Now, we have neighbors all around us, but right behind the church, if you go out the back parking lot, there's five or six streets back there. We're going to use this kind of as a test module. And we've got cards and actually you're going to get one of these cards when you walk out of here today and it's called our Helping Hands Ministry and we're going to go door to door and just drop this off and guess what the card says. We're the church next door and we want to look like the church Jesus next door. If you need help, rides, if you need help with little fix-it problems, if you need help with you name it. We may not going to do everything they need, but we want to walk out going, if we're going to be the church next door, then you need to see Jesus in us next door. Now, what kind of needs do we have? Probably who knows? I don't know. We're just kind of saying, Jesus, we see the bridge, we're walking across the bridge and whatever the need is, we're going to be your hands and feet. And so, maybe you have a little fix-it abilities. Maybe you have some extra time you can drive somebody to a doctor's appointment. Maybe somebody needs lights bulbs changed because they're elderly and you can go to their house and change their light bulbs or batteries in a smoke alarm. We're just going to We just want to be the hands and feet of Jesus. One of the ways you can run is simply going, "Put me down, Keith, and keep me posted, and I will get and we'll get with you and find out what you can do." This is one of those things, it's ready, fire, aim. Okay? We don't know what God's doing. But when Mighty and Ella and Arash came, I'm just going, "How can we not be the hands and feet of Jesus?" And so on your card, just write it down there. Contact me so I can know more about helping hands. Does that make sense? Here's the deal. Checkpoints.

When we follow the checkpoints, it's more than a sermon series. It is the way of Jesus. And we're following him in a relationship, and that brings us closer to him. Would you pray with me? Father, thank you for this moment. Thank you for your word that is living. God, though this story was 2,000 years ago, it is alive because it is our story and we can learn from it. And so Jesus, would you live in us, and would you live through us? In your name we pray. Amen. We're going to wrap up our service with a time of communion. I'm going to ask the deacons to come forward here. Um if you're new to our church, here's what we believe about communion. Communion is something for all believers. You don't have to be a member of our church or an attendee of our church. If you follow Jesus Christ with your life as your Lord and Savior, you are invited and welcome to participate in communion with us. And here's how we're going to do it. In just a moment, once the deacons get up here, I will they'll be standing up front and I will dismiss you. We're going to take communion when everybody gets it together, but you'll file up here and get your communion from the deacons, and then return back to your seat, and all will return it together. If you're on the side aisles, you can come down the middle aisle there and go out the outside and the middle aisles can just come the middle and then go that way as well. So, would you just pray with me as we pray over our communion. And then again, once everybody has received it back at your seats, we will take it together. Father, for this moment in the service, we remember you. We remember the death and the burial and the resurrection of your son Jesus.

And so in our hearts

and our mouths and our hands we die with him but we live because of you. So, thank you, Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen.