Well, we are kicking off a brand new series, Modern Questions, Ancient Answers.  And today's modern question is a simple one, but it's an important one.  How do we find truth in a deep fake world?  So let's just begin with just a time of prayer.  Dear Lord, thank you so much that we get to be here in this place.  God, I pray that you would guide our time as we seek to open up your word.  Lord, would you open our hearts with your Holy Spirit?  Would you allow your word to sink down deeply, Lord, and to root us in the truth that can only come from you, God?   I pray that my words will be your words, not one word more or one word less.  In your name we pray, Lord Jesus.  Amen.   I'll never forget, it was late 2022 when I, for the first time ever, experienced AI.  Had no clue what it was, had never heard of large language models or chat GPT.  And I was in New Jersey, I was in one of my favorite coffee shops, sitting in like my corner high top table right there by the window, and my friend Vijay came in.  Now, Vijay is one of those friends I like to consider him like a Renaissance man, right?   He's into like everything.  He was a lawyer for the state of New Jersey.  He had a background in computer programming.  He had all these weird and interesting hobbies.  And he comes in, he's like, dude, you're not going to believe what I'm doing with computer programming and gambling and this thing called AI.  He goes, and I bet there's applications to your preaching as well.  And I was like, whoa, hold up.   Because of all the things Vijay does, he is not a seminary trained theologian.  And he goes, I'll show you what I'm talking about.  I will send you a sermon that AI writes.  I was like, okay, whatever.  So I get an email later that day with a sermon that he had written by prompting AI saying, give me a sermon with a biblical defense for why we should use AI.  And let me tell you something.  It was good.  It was good.   It was crafted well.  It flowed well.  At first glance, the Bible references made sense.  And all of a sudden, I'm sitting here going, all right, there's a lot of ethical implications here to some pastor sitting there going, oh, I need a sermon.  Give me a sermon on.  But it was good in 2022.   Fast forward to 2026.  I'm on vacation.  I'm sitting there with my brother-in-law and the kids, and he has pulled up one of his AIs, and he's making pictures.  The kids are like, make me look like I'm 20.  And so they do a picture of one of my kids at 20, and I'm like, wow, that looks kind of good.  And then they started saying, hey, make me do this in a video.  Y'all, I have hundreds.  Okay, that's a lie.  I have thousands of videos of my kids on my phone.   And the videos he would create through his AI, it was hard to tell they weren't real, and they're my own children.  Like, this is how good it's gotten.  And the AIs, when you're using them, they feel so personal, right?  They talk back to you, like, I'll sometimes be doing a chat prompt, and you're like, oh, thank you.  And somebody's like, why are you saying thank you to the computer chat bot?  I was like, I don't know, it feels polite.   In fact, recently, Kerry Newhoff, he's a thinker within the church space, and he looks a lot at like the future of the church.  He has this trends thing that he does every year, and he was updating his trends from 2026.  And in that, he quoted this about Gen Z, and I thought it was so interesting.  He said, Gen Z also doesn't trust what's real anymore.   They're looking online, they're seeing deep fakes that are impossible to tell from the real thing.  Technology's gotten that good.  They're seeing all this synthetic content not written or generated by real human beings.  They're seeing AI generated voices that sound exactly like their friends.  They're seeing video that may or may not be real when it comes to news.  So Gen Z is the first generation that really has to assume nothing they see online is real.   And they're not paranoid.  They're calibrated.  Boomers, this is Kerry Neuhofer, remember, think everything is real.   Even deep fakes.  And there's a problem.  If you've got elderly parents or grandparents, Gen Z actually assumes probably nothing is real.  So what's Kerry saying?  Well, Kerry's saying the boomer generation grew up in a generation where you had like three news outlets, right?  And generally, if you saw it, you could trust it.  And now you've got this other generation over here, Gen Z, that everything is fake.   And so they're sitting here going, I'm not sure what to trust.  In fact, when I was sharing this with the staff, Pastor Sam said, you know what they say in high school?  He says, in high school, if they're not sure if it's real or they think you're lying, they simply say, that's AI.  Yeah.  That's how far it's gotten.  And some of you may say, well, that's not really a big deal for me.  I don't really use AI that much.   But it's beyond just AI, right?  Now we have a thing called algorithms controlling a lot of our choices.  And some of you are like, oh, he brought the algorithms into it, huh?   In fact, it's really interesting because the algorithms don't just drive social media.  They literally drive the things that we see on TV.  In fact, I was listening to a great message from Louis Giglio in Passion Church.  And he was doing this sermon series called God Recommends.  And he opens up the series talking about how we are discipled.   and how we're called to follow Jesus, and yet we have all these other things discipling us that are out of our control.  And he did something interesting in the message I want to share with you.  He simply asked ChatGBT, how are the algorithms controlling my daily life?   And this is what he found out.  ChatGPT told him, by acting as invisible digital curators that shape your habits, curate the information you see and make automated decisions about your future.  They influence what you buy, what you watch, how you work, and the opportunities you receive.  They manipulate your daily experiences through several core mechanisms.  And then without prompting it further, it told him, number one,   They curate your reality and limit and personalize your content consumption, building customized platforms.  He didn't even have to prompt it again.  He said algorithms limit and personalize the content you consume, building customized echo chambers.   That shape your personal philosophy and worldview by repeatedly showing you certain perspectives that can exploit the illusionary truth effect.  Making you desensitized to or more accepting of extreme ideas.  And that's just number one.  Number two, it says by capturing your attention to maximize revenue.   Platforms are designed to be addictive.  Algorithms learn your unconscious behavior, tracking exactly how long you linger on a post when you swipe away, what time you scroll to feed you a continuous loop of engaging and relevant content.  So what's it saying?  Well, number one,   It's designed to keep showing you things you're unconsciously wanting to see and to take you further and further down that rabbit hole.  Why?  Not because it wants to form you spiritually or help you find what truth really is, but because it wants to literally monetize your attention.   And so sometimes when we think about deep fakes, we think about simply just AI and what AI is doing.  But the reality is there is this whole new culture of technology that's moving us in a direction sometimes we're unaware of.  And the deep fake is more than just a video you're not sure is real.  It's a real person on the other end trying to give you truth and what they are giving you is anything but.   trying to help you find peace, but what they are giving you is going to lead you anywhere but peace.   In fact, if you want to create a really engaging post that people look at, all you need to do is simply write the words, you are doing blank wrong.  Here are 10 ways you could do it better, right?  You are parenting wrong.  Here are 10 ways you could do it better.  You are doing your diet wrong.  Here are 10 ways you could do it better.  You're doing fitness wrong.  Here are 10 ways you could do it better.  You're doing your sourstow starter wrong.  Here are 10 ways you could do it better.  Shout out to Pastor Sam.   And like this is driving us, so now we're living in a culture where we're asking the question, how can I really know what is true?  Because everything around me feels so curated and at times fake.  And it's challenging when we're not sure where or how to find the truth, isn't it?   Well, I took some comfort over this last week because the reality is we are not the first generation to wrestle with that question.  The technology we're wrestling with it is pretty new and interesting, but we're not the first people to have to wrestle with that question.   In fact, if you open up your Bibles, if you need a Bible, you can raise your hand.  We've got some Bibles here for you.  If you don't have one, that's our gift to you.  The beautiful part of the paper one is it has no notifications, at least not yet, right?  Or you can open up your mobile apps.  You can look at the Faith Oakville app or you can pull up the YouVersion Bible app.  And let's start in John chapter 14.   It's the last gospel.  And in John chapter 14, Jesus is actually preparing his disciples for a time of big upheaval, a time where everything for them is going to change in ways that it's hard to really prepare them for.   And they're trying to kind of wrap their minds around this as Jesus, in this extended conversation during the Last Supper, is trying to prepare them for the fact that he's about to leave them, go die on the cross, rise from the dead, and then be ascended back into heaven.  And they're going to carry the message forward.  That's kind of a lot to take in, right?  And it says that as they're trying to take this in, Thomas looks at Jesus in John 14, starting at verse 5, and he says,   We do not know where you're going.  How can we know the way?  How can we know the way we're supposed to go if we're not exactly sure what you're talking about or where you're going?  And then Jesus says these words to Thomas, and they are so powerful.  He says, I am the way and the truth and the life.  I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.   If you had known me, you would have known my father also.  From now on, you do know him and you have seen him.  See, in this moment, Jesus does something really powerful.  See, oftentimes when we're thinking about truth, we're thinking about a concept, something we can try to find and understand.  And Jesus says, no, no, no, truth is not a concept.  It is a flesh and blood person.  And that person has a name.   His name is Jesus.  And Jesus says, not only that, if you have seen me, you've not only seen a man that does miracles and a man that always opens up the truth in ways you would least expect, but rather you have literally seen the face of God.  The clearest and most powerful picture of God right there standing in front of us is Jesus.  He's always been that.  He will always be that.   And so in a world where we're sitting here going, how do we know what is true?  What we realize is, well, as Christians, we don't simply have a truth we can understand, we have a truth that we can literally hold on to.  So how in our culture are we able to lean into that kind of truth?  Well, if we're thinking about it, I think it's a lot simpler than we realize.   It's about looking, trusting, and holding on to the one that always has been and always will be.  The one whose name is Jesus.   So let's break that down.  What does it look like for us to look on the one who always has been and always will be?  Why do we need to do that?  Why is that so important for us to start there?  Well, if you actually open up to Colossians, it was one of Paul's letters to the early church.  In Colossians, Paul quotes this poem that is so powerful, and he says this.  He says, Colossians 1, starting at verse 15.  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.   For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.  All things were created through him and for him.  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.   He is the head of the body, the church.  He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.  And through him to reconcile unto himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.  So what Paul is literally telling us is that when we look on Jesus, we look on the beginning of all things.  The actual one who created us.   And so if you want to know how life is supposed to work and how things are supposed to work out the best and what is true or what is false, start with the one that created everything, the things you see and the things you can't even see.  The one who always wants to lead you in the right direction.  Why?  Because it says he's not just the one that created it, he's the one that's literally holding it together.  And not only that, he's the one who's redeeming it.   Because he never intended for a world in which you wouldn't know what the truth was.  So what does he do?  He doesn't just sit there and lament it and go, oh, well, that stinks.  I never intended that to happen.  He steps into it to fix it and to hold it all together.  And so when we look on Jesus, we're looking on the one that created all things, who knows us in a way we can't even know ourselves.  And so if we're looking for truth,   The best place to start is with the one who created it all.  And not only that, we move on and John in the very beginning of his gospel wanted us to know the exact same thing.  John chapter one, he says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.   In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  So it's not just Paul going, I think this guy Jesus is God.  But it's all the disciples who encountered Jesus going, no, Jesus is God.  He's the one that always has been and always will be.  So if you want to find truth, what do you do?  You look to Jesus.  And it's not just the New Testament that's telling you this.   Over vacation, I started getting into this rhythm in which I take the day's date and I look at whatever psalm that day is and whatever proverb that day is.  Because if you look at the day's date, you could read through the entire book of Proverbs every month.  And I came across Proverbs 8, starting verse 22, and it said something really interesting that I thought was a powerful picture.  It says, the Lord possessed me, that's wisdom, at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.   Ages ago, I was set up at the first, before the beginning of the earth.  So before the beginning of the earth, there was this truth and this wisdom present.   And then if you skip down in chapter 8 to verse 32, it says, And now, O sons, listen to me.  Blessed are those who keep my ways.  Hear the instructions and be wise.  Do not neglect it.  Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting besides my door.  For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord.  But he who fails to find me injures himself.  All who hate me love death."   And I thought that was such a cool proverb and it was so intriguing that I actually jumped into one of my commentaries and one of the commentators said, yeah, he's talking about wisdom, but also that wisdom is personified in who?  Jesus.  Like he's been there from the beginning and when we lean into him and we seek him, we find truth.  And that's why we shouldn't simply look on the one who's always been, but we should trust in the one who's always been.   And some of us may sit back and go, but pastor, how do we do that in a world that's so rapidly changing, filled with these technologies that we can't even feel like we keep up with?  Then what I think is so interesting is if you open up the book of Psalms, you find out a reality.  Man has always created technology that was beyond himself.  And in fact, in Psalm 20, verses six through eight, it says this, now I know the Lord saves his anointed.   And he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand.  Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.  They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.  What was the chariot?  The chariot was this like innovation of ancient warfare.  Like if somebody had chariots, it was like somebody having a whole team of like drones and like smart missiles, right?  That's what it would have compared to at that time.   And everybody was afraid of the army that had chariots.  And if you had chariots, you began trusting in your chariots.  But what's the reality?  Those chariots will break down.  Those chariots don't always work the way they're supposed to.  And the people of Israel said, we don't trust in the chariots.  We trust in God because when the chariot fails, God succeeds.  The technology, however great it is, history tells us we'll fail.  We'll break down.   but God won't.  And if we put our trust in the one that has always been and will always be, our trust will never be let down.  And if we're looking for truth and we're looking to him and we're holding on to him, we're gonna find that we will always have the truth we need, even if the rest of culture feels like truth is kinda up in the air.  Because Hebrews tells us Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today,   forever he is unchanging and that means we can look to him for the truth we're looking for and we can trust in him for the truth we're looking for and then ultimately we can hold on to him so how do we hold on to him now here's where I'm gonna throw out a little warning for you you may know where I'm going at this point and you may be like oh pastor that's too simple you know what   Sometimes it's the simple things in life that make the biggest impact.  Sometimes our most complex questions have the simplest answers.  And so when we're sitting here going tangibly tell me how do I hold on to a truth like this in a world where truth feels so up in the air and sometimes I'm not sure if what I'm looking at is true.  I would encourage you to do three things.   Scripture, prayer, and community.  See, I told you it sounds too simple, right?  But simple things done over time make the biggest impact.  If you will begin your day opening up what you know is true,   You will start each day beginning, not asking the question, is this true or is this false?  But you will know from the moment you open this up that this is true because literally scripture describes itself as the breath of heaven on a page, okay?  This is God's breath on a page.  Sometimes we sit here and we go, oh, I wish God would talk to me.  And we're sitting here holding a Bible right here.  Like if we open this up, what are we gonna hear?  We are literally going to hear God speaking to us.   There's nothing I've shared with you today that just simply comes from my thoughts or my opinions.  But when I was wrestling with this question, what does it look like for us to find truth?  What did I do?  I opened this up and God had abundantly shared stuff.  There's messages and verses in here that I cut out.  You're welcome.  Ask me later.  I'll share them with you.  The truth is scripture is the voice of God and the voice of God is always guiding you toward the truth.   And if you're like, yeah, but sometimes scripture is confusing.  Well, God gives you another gift.  He gives you the gift of a conversation.  Like God will literally speak to you, not just through his word, but through prayer.  A very dynamic way of talking to God.  So you could begin by opening this up and saying, God, would you help me see what I need to see?   You could begin your day simply sitting in silence and saying, okay, God, I'm ready to hear your voice.  And it's amazing how when you begin to quiet the noise, God speaks.  God hears your voice and God will respond.  That's what prayer is.  And it doesn't have to be complicated.  Prayer can be as simple as God, help.  God, speak.  And God will speak.   Like we have the opportunity to not only hear the words of the author, but to literally be in conversation with him as we go.  And it can connect us to a truth when we're not sure what's true around us.  Help us see things we wouldn't be able to see otherwise.  And the very last thing we all need is community.  You know, in faith, we never graduate from a need for community.   And we live in the 21st century in the most radically individualistic culture known to man.  We are taught that everything we need we can do on our own.  And so sometimes we can falsely believe that when we come to faith that we start connecting with Jesus, that it's just me and Jesus, right?  That all I need is the Bible and a little bit of prayer and I'll figure the rest out.  But you know what's so interesting is when you open up the pages of scripture and you see people start getting connected to Jesus,   Community always follows.  Where God is, God not only gives himself, but he gives you a community of people that gather around you.  In fact, I love that picture that you see in Acts chapter two.  In Acts chapter two, you see a picture of the early church and it says, when they started to coming to faith through the apostles teaching, it said that they gathered together, having all things in common.  It didn't mean that they all agreed on everything.   or that they all had the same background they were coming from it meant they all had that same common faith and understanding that however different we are we have the same creator and we have the same redeemer and it gathered them together in community and when they were gathered together in community you know what that community did they built one another up they helped one another as they were wrestling with what was true   They helped one another as they were wrestling in a culture that was quite literally hostile to what they believed.  It says in that community, there was no one that didn't have a need because all the needs were satisfied.  Not also because this was a radically wealthy community of people, but because this was a radically generous community of people.   We never graduate the need for community.  In fact, one of the greatest blessings I have in my life and in my faith today is the communities God has placed around me and the people that have poured into me and the people God has allowed me to pour into.  And so if you're wondering what is true, I would encourage you to lean in.  Lean into the one that always has been and always will be.   lean into his word, lean into a conversation with him in prayer, and lean into his community.  And in a world that is wondering what is true, in a world that's sitting down going, is that AI or is that real?  You'll know that what you have is real.  And not only is it real today, it will be real tomorrow, and to the day you die,   And that same hand of Jesus reaches down and picks you up and invites you into an eternity of truth where there are no more lies and there's only his loving presence.  That's where we can find the truth we're looking for.  So let's lean in.  Pray with me.  Dear Lord, we thank you so much that we get to be here in this place, God.   We thank you that in a culture where there feels like there's so many question marks around what is true, you are truth and that you are a truth that leans in, God.  I pray that you would fill us with your presence, with the reality of your truth, and that you would help us hold on to you, trusting that wherever you say, wherever you lead, God, you are leading us in the path that leads to life.   It's in your name, Lord Jesus, and it's by your strength we pray.

Stories have shaped the world, not just by entertaining us, but by changing the way we think, live, and believe.  Around campfires, on movie screens, across history.  Because when you want to change people, you don't just give instructions, you tell a story.   And that's exactly what Jesus did.  When people expected simple answers, Jesus told stories that challenged assumptions, flipped expectations, and revealed a completely different kind of kingdom.  A kingdom where the last are first.  Where mercy triumphs over judgment.  Where greatness looks like serving.   an upside down kingdom.  Let's walk through the parables of Jesus, stories that don't just inspire us for a moment, but transform the way we see God, ourselves, and the world around us.   Yes, and we're going to walk through that one last time as we conclude our message series for what is towards the end of summer.  And good morning, everyone.  It is really good to be with you, God's people in God's house.  For those of you who don't know me yet, my name is Sam.   I'm one of the pastors here, and I just want to just specifically welcome any of you who are joining us in worship in person for the very first time.  I thank God that you're here, and it's just, I'm incredibly grateful, I'm sure, along with everyone else, that you're really exploring who Jesus is, specifically with this church this morning, and really, I hope that you find this place to be a home for you.   But really, my prayer is that you would leave this place this Sunday with a clear picture of who Jesus is through this church.  And not only is this a welcoming and warming and wonderful people, but that through us, you get to see who Jesus is in this place, but also for you as well.  So that's my specific welcome to you.  And if you are ready for the sermon,   The best way to do that is, of course, through God's Word.  I'm a little rusty.  I've been away for four Sundays, so excuse me.  We'll be looking at Matthew chapter 13, and we'll have some of the verses up on screen.  Feel free to get your phone out and read the Bible app or Faith Oakville app.  But if you're a hard copy guy like me, you can use the good old Word in printed form.  And if you like that, don't have one, our hospitality team would love to put one in your hand if you just...   Simply raise them.  And so we're going to look at a total of three parables.  Yes, three parables.  Get ready.  It's going to be great.  Matthew chapter 13.  It's loaded with parables from our Lord.  And so we'll first hear one of them, and then we'll kind of work our way through the other two as we get through the rest of the message.  And so Matthew chapter 13, we'll start in verse 24, and I'll be reading from the ESV translation.   Where it says, and Jesus, he put another parable before them saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.  And so when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.  And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, master, did you not sow good seed in your field?  How then does it have weeds?   And he said to them, an enemy has done this.  And so the servant said to him, then do you want us to go and gather them?  But he said, no, lest in gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest.  And then at harvest time, I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.  This is God's word.  Will you please pray with me?   And now may the words of my mouth and may the meditation of our hearts be acceptable.  And I cite the Lord God, our rock and redeemer.  Amen.  In the spirit of having just come back from vacation, I just came across this funny quote I just couldn't help but share with you this morning.  And it says, no one is full of more false hope than a young parent bringing a chair to the beach.   If you know, you know.   False expectations, that's what that is.  These false expectations that we have in our lives, they can lead to frustrating experiences.  Like the time personally, I met this girl in my second year of college at marching band camp.  She was a freshman and I was hoping she was single, but turned out she still had that boyfriend back home from high school.  Man, what a bummer.  False expectations, but it's okay.  Spoiler, we ended up getting married after college.  Praise God.   But I mean, more seriously, some of you here this morning may be disappointed right now or frustrated with life because it's not what you expected it to be, not what you wanted it to be.  Some of you might be frustrated or even disappointed with Jesus because he hasn't fulfilled your expectations.  And I mean, you read the Bible, you pray, you regularly worship, come here, and...   You don't get the job.  You get dumped.  You don't get on that team.  It's tryout season, high schoolers.  And it's now August, and you're looking at the end of summer.  You look back at June and July, and it's not as good as you planned it to be.  You think, well, what's the deal?  Come on, man.  Come on, God.  It couldn't be, though, perhaps I was just putting an expectation on God that maybe He never signed up for.   And that perhaps if we have the wrong expectations of who Jesus is and what he's doing, we will inevitably be disappointed with him or with life.   And so in our reading today, we were going to hear three parables.  We heard the first one.  And in these three stories we're going to deep dive into, Jesus shows us that God's kingdom expands in unexpected ways.  And by telling these stories, Jesus is going to hopefully set our expectations straight.  Because he shows that God's kingdom is first, it's very subversive in its existence.   And then moving into that, it's surprising in its growth.  And then finally we'll see that God's kingdom is very subtle in the way it makes its influence.   But to be clear, hopefully you've seen throughout this message series, Jesus, he doesn't speak in parables because he wants to be evasive or intentionally nebulous, no.  Jesus speaks in parables because he tells stories, and stories not only have the power to point to a truth, but they give a vision for an entirely different world.   And that's hopefully what you find Jesus has done throughout our time here together, that Jesus, he paints these pictures with words of a whole new life that is shaped by the kingship of Christ.   I mean, if you think about it, if you really want to get to know a person, you don't like ask them for their data.  You're like, hi, I'm Sam.  Nice to meet you.  You know, what's your blood type and social security number?  Like, no, that's weird.  Don't do that.  We don't ask information to get to know people and their data.  Rather, when we get to know someone, we say, hey, what's your story?  You know, where are you from?  Where are you going?  Things like that.   And so by telling these parables, Jesus shows us who he is and how God's kingdom is arriving and how ultimately we're brought into this wonderful story.  And so notice with these three parables, you'll notice each one begins with the phrase, "'The kingdom of heaven is like.'"   And so right off the bat, Jesus is going to teach us about God's reign and what that means for our lives.  And that first one we just heard is about wheat and weeds.  Before we get there, I have one very simple question.  Is the world getting better or worse?  Simple question, right?  I mean, how would you answer it?  Is the world getting better or worse?  Yes.   And it seems, you know, you can make a case for either side.  You know, perhaps if you say, oh, I think the world's getting better.  Advances in science and medicine, education, technology, growth in life expectancy, growth in literacy, from airplanes to smartphones, good things.  You know, sure, it can be seen as better.  Others say, no, this world is getting worse.   And there's evidence for this side of the argument as well, that though science, education, and technology has brought a lot to us today, we still have world conflict, trafficking, genocide.  Our world is still plagued by school shootings, wildfires, and sex trafficking is the top of criminal activity in our world.  Science, it's brought development, yeah, but it's also brought atomic bombs.  So look at the world.   Is it getting better or is it getting worse?  In this first parable, the wheat and the weeds, Jesus tells a story of a sower who plants seed and the wheat begins to grow, but then another sower comes along and plants seed alongside the wheat, which then grows up as weeds.  Now, no one likes weeds, I don't think.  I mean, you've ever tried to pluck him out of a garden carefully without ripping up the other good stuff?  It's like, no bueno, it's awful.   But nevertheless, they're growing together.  And so in light of the parable we just heard, we'll ask that same question.  Is the world getting better or worse?  And the faithful Lutheran answer is yes.  The world is getting better and worse.  God's kingdom is advancing, but it is doing so in the midst of brokenness and in the face of evil.  God's kingdom is a subversive kingdom.   Just a little background.  Jesus, he's telling this parable in the midst of an agrarian agricultural society, and he's speaking their lingo to reach deep into their hearts.  And maybe perhaps for us today, it'd be more like Jesus saying, the kingdom of heaven is like traffic on 270 at 830 in the morning.  There are good drivers and there are bad drivers.  I don't know, maybe.  And so Jesus, he's speaking their lingo.  And one of the things we learn is that the weeds mentioned here are actually a particular type of weed called Darnell.   And what's interesting about this type of weed, Darnell, is that it looks exactly like wheat early on in its growth.  In fact, you can't initially tell the difference between the wheat and the Darnell until the wheat matures and starts to bear grain.  So they look the same until the wheat starts to bear fruit.   And so the main point of this parable is that God's kingdom is present.  It is growing, and yet sin and evil are simultaneously growing along with it.  And the people in Jesus' day, they expected God, right, when the Messiah would finally come, all evil would be put to an end.  But Jesus is saying here that evil will actually exist alongside of the good until the final judgment, which, yes, is yet to come.   Maybe you've had expectations that following Jesus would get easier, life would get easier, that there wouldn't be struggle and so much opposition.  Jesus never promises that.  God doesn't guarantee to whisk away all our suffering, but he does promise to be with us always in our suffering.  God doesn't just meet us on the other side of our weaknesses.  No, his power is made perfect through our weaknesses.   So we shouldn't be surprised by evil, church.  But neither should we be afraid of it either.  Jesus is alive and God's kingdom is advancing even though it is in the midst of such brokenness and in the face of evil.  But I get it.  It's a lot easier to focus on the weeds than on the wheat.  Just look around and scroll and we just start questioning.   We see and hear of stories of churches closing their doors and we see Christianity losing its so-called foothold in society in the Western world and we get concerned.  Take heart.  Jesus is alive and God's kingdom is advancing despite appearances.   And so really these parables are like a megaphone which Christ is shouting out.  I am accomplishing my purposes in this world regardless of your expectations and despite what it may seem.  So take heart, friends.  Jesus is alive and reigning today.  Amen?  Amen.  I mean, just think about it.  We see it globally.   I mean, we readily notice the so-called secularism of the West, but globally, it is amazing what God is doing.  Just think of this fact.  In Africa, in the year 1900, there were an estimated 8.7 million followers of Jesus for the entire continent.  Not too shabby.   But today, in 2026, it is estimated around 700 to 750 million followers of Jesus, just 100-something years later.  A whole continent being swept by the grace of God.  In China, 1949, roughly 500,000 followers of Jesus.  Today, it's estimated to be over 100 million Christians.  And much of that happening under duress, meeting in secret locations, and yet the gospel is flourishing.   God is at work in great ways.  And it's not just global, it's local here too.  Right here at Faith.  People being delivered from their strongholds and their addictions.  People being redeemed from abusive relationships.  People saved out of religious legalism and into the freedom of Jesus Christ.   Jesus is at work, and Jesus is sovereign, and there is nothing or there isn't anyone can do to stop him from accomplishing his sovereign purposes.  And that is good news.  I mean, there's that famous 20th century philosopher, Frederick Nietzsche.  Ever heard of him?  Maybe.  You know, he's most notably known for one phrase, right?  God is dead.  Well, you know what?  Nietzsche's dead.  Right?   And Jesus is alive.  And the kingdom is advancing today.  Be encouraged.  Take heart.  You can have full confidence in Christ.  Don't be shaken by the evil of this world and know that God's kingdom is advancing.  Amen?  Amen.  And so if this parable still kind of troubles you a little bit, Jesus, he knows it full well.  He goes on to explain it later on starting in verse 36.   Then Jesus left the crowds and went into the house, and his followers came to him, saying, Jesus, explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.  So he answered, the one who sows the good seed is the son of man, the field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom.  The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil.   The harvest is the end of the age and the reapers are angels.  And just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.  For the Son of Man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace.  For in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.   So Jesus, he gives further explanation to this parable.  And what's interesting is that not only does Jesus explain the basics of this story, but he puts the focus on where?  The final judgment.   And I think the key point is this, that while the kingdom of heaven is active and present, the judgment is future.  It's a delayed judgment.  Jesus is saying the judgment is delayed.  God's kingdom has arrived in him, but the judgment will come at the end, which begs the question, why?  Why has the final judgment been delayed?   God has delayed the final judgment for now in order to extend his grace and grow his church.  God is patient.  And Jesus is extending himself even to those who still rebel against them.  And he still says, come to me.   God is patiently and lovingly calling and drawing all people to himself, giving that time for repentance and faith, giving time for people to turn from their sin and trust in Jesus.  But to be clear, God's patience and offer of salvation does not mean he will not ultimately judge all sin.  And so we cannot mistake God's patience for God's approval of sin.   I mean, Exodus 34, that was one of our theme texts over Lent.  The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.  God is merciful, he is gracious, and he's not giving out grace sparingly as if he only has a little bit left to lose.   He pours it out.  He's abounding and steadfast love.  But God's word is clear.  We all will stand before God's judgment.  We all will stand before the Lord and he will judge all sin.  And you know what?  That's a good thing.  And it's not something we need to just brush under the rug theologically like we followers of Jesus need to be ashamed of this.   And I know a lot of us struggle with this theological topic of the final judgment, but let me just say that I think it's first safe to say we all think justice is a good thing.  Like anytime we see injustice in our world, we cry out for justice.   And so it's a good thing that God is a righteous judge who just doesn't tolerate sin or overlook it because God loves his creation, because God loves his people, because God loves you.  His renewing process of that includes the purification of sin.  I mean, we all love justice when we've been wronged.  But what about when we're in the wrong?   And then we're more apt to say, hey, we're entitled to a little bit more mercy here.  Please and thank you.  And so maybe the issue isn't really whether or not we think justice is a good thing.  The issue is rather whether we acknowledge that we deserve God's justice and that apart from the grace of God, we can stand before him and have nothing to say to him and have no excuse.   But the good news is that God sent his son who upholds God's justice.  And yet God forgives us of our sin because he takes it from us, places it on his son who pays that penalty in full for our sins.  And that son is the one speaking these parables.  His name is Jesus.   He takes our sin and we receive his righteousness and God is then glorified in his justice and mercy and we're reconciled back to him.  God's kingdom is very subversive in its existence.  And then in the second parable, we see that God's kingdom is surprising in the way that it grows.  Verses 31 through 32.   And so Jesus put another parable before them saying, here it is, the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.  It's the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.  God's kingdom is like a mustard seed.   So not only we've shown the mystery of God's kingdom, we're shown its simplicity.  It's like a mustard seed.  It's tiny.  A mustard seed, you know, it's one millimeter in diameter.  It's 1 28th of an ounce, meaning that the weight of 750 mustard seeds would equal one paperclip.  There's your trivia for the week.  You're welcome.   I mean, it's so small.  And Jesus appeals to this to show that God's kingdom begins small, but it then grows into something huge and magnanimous.  And I just think it's a beautiful picture explaining that God's kingdom, it starts small and humble and yet will grow to majestically encompass all of creation.   God's kingdom begins in obscurity and advances in humility.  It is advancing, and it will encompass all of creation.  God is reigning.  And this story of the mustard seed, it won't be the last time we hear of something being buried in a garden with far-reaching effects.  In Jesus, he died on a cross.   His body, dead body, buried in a garden.  And when anyone would go pass by that tomb, they expected it to stay shut.  They expected Jesus to stay there, but he didn't.   Jesus rose from the dead.  He defied all expectation.  He rose as the king of the new creation and gathered his disciples.  And then he sent his disciples to make disciples of all nations.  And so what started as a small town in Israel has reached the ends of the earth and is still growing today.  Praise the Lord.  And he is calling all of us, you, to continue that right now.   That's the surprising growth of the kingdom.  It begins in obscurity and advances in humility.  And then find that third point with the third parable, verse 33.  And yet Jesus told them again another parable.  The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour till it was all leavened.   So we move from the surprising growth of God's kingdom to the very subtle influence it has in the world.  So if you think about this bread and everything, here's how leaven works.  You have dough.  You put leaven in it.  It mixes in and it makes the dough rise gradually over time.  Where are my sourdough people at, right?  You know?   Leaven works from the inside out to expand and rise the dough.  And so what's interesting in this parable, it's like we read she put in three measures of flours.  What?  That's really oddly specific.  Why three?  Well, here's how much flour Jesus is talking about.  Three measures back in the day, it would be enough flour to make bread to feed 150 people.   Because I know initially if you were like me, God help if you are, you hear this parable for the first time and you picture like this woman by the kitchen and you think, you know, I got my cute apron on, I got from Etsy, you know, bake it till you make it and like I got my late croisset dish, I got my dough, I'm ready to go.  No.  It's talking about probably 50 pounds of flour and three to four pounds of leaven.  And so yes, the kingdom of heaven is surprising in its growth, but it is growing subtly.   You can look at the dough with leaven in it at the beginning and initially be thoroughly disappointed.  Think, man, this leaven isn't really working.  You know, bread's not doing anything.  It's just sitting there loafing around.  Ha ha ha.  You know, I ask only for flour to feed my people.  But the leaven, it works from within.  It takes time.  It requires patience.  So maybe we need to shift our expectations of what it means for it to expand.   And so while the mustard seed points to the growth of the kingdom, the leaven points to its internal transforming power.  We tend to expect God's kingdom to come with flash and fanfare.  Just wait, it will at the end, but not right now.  Lasers, fog machines.  But Jesus, he wasn't born in a mansion, he was born in a manger.  He walked dusty roads and died on a rugged cross.  Friends, the gospel's not glamorous.   But it is glorious.  Because the gospel is the good news that Jesus the king came down as a servant to reconcile us to the father and draw us into what he is doing as king.  And what we're shown in this parable of the leaven is that yes, God's kingdom is growing, but it is doing so in a way that is subtle and therefore often hidden to the eyes of the world.  It expands from the inside out.   That from God's perspective, the kingdom is breaking in.  God's reign is breaking into this broken world.  But in daily life, the advancement of God's kingdom feels a lot more organic and subtle.  It's confessing our sins, turning away from sin and trusting in Jesus.  It's sharing Jesus with someone you meet.  It's praying with someone.   It's meeting together regularly to worship Jesus.  It's caring about the community we live in.  It's saying sorry when you did something stupid.  Saying I forgive you.  God's kingdom is much more subtle and organic than just this big pompous show.   I mean, people so often look for like a pompous politician to bring God's kingdom.  But we have the crucified and risen Messiah who has given himself out of sacrificial love.  Who's changing us from the inside out.  But not only is the kingdom expanding from the inside out, it's often hidden.  So notice it says, the leaven which is hidden in the dough.   So in between Christ's resurrection and when he returns again, God's kingdom is hidden beneath the cross of Jesus.  Yes, the kingdom is present, but it is hidden in service and suffering and sacrifice.  I mean, no one's going to look at the cross outside of the eyes of faith we have by the power of the Holy Spirit and say, yeah, that guy's in control.   But by the grace of God and by the faith he works us, we can declare, yeah, the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.  But to those being saved, it is the power of God.  No one is going to look at a people who are quietly serving, not posting about their service and sacrificing and saying, that's the kingdom of God.  But through the eyes of faith, we see God's kingdom advancing through Jesus as the servant and in his servants as well.   God's kingdom grows not only through our suffering and our service, but in the midst of it.  And we can cling to God as our king through that.  And so we started off by talking about expectations.  What do we expect of God?  What do we expect of life?  And that perhaps because of our expectations,   We often interpret suffering and persecution to mean somehow God doesn't care, he's not real.  But in fact, God's word says our suffering can be a sign of God's presence in our lives.  Because of some of our expectations, we might interpret slowness as if God's not working at all, but he is.  He's constant, he's faithful, he's moving forward, he's at work, he is growing us.   He's not only the sower who plants the seed, he's the one who waters it, grows it, brings it to bear fruit.  Perhaps because of our expectations, sometimes we might interpret opposition as if God is not for us, but God is for us, not against us, as Romans says, and opposition is a sign that maybe we're actually doing something.   God's kingdom is advancing and it is doing so in unexpected ways.  It grows in the midst of brokenness and in the face of evil.  God's reign will compass all of creation.  It begins in obscurity, it advances in humility because the kingdom is hidden beneath the suffering and service of its people.  And so after Jesus tells these three parables,   Matthew, one of the disciples that wrote this down, he explains to us why Jesus speaks in parables.  I think it's a great way to close out our series.  Verses 34 through 35.  And all these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables.  Indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable.  And this was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet.   I will open my mouth in parables.  I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.   He's saying that Jesus is teaching parables as a fulfillment of something greater.  And if you were to look, this is actually a quote back from Psalm 78.  Look it up this week.  It's a wonderful prayer, Psalm 78.  And it's about this epic story of God redeeming his people from the time that they were enslaved in Egypt and brought them into the promised kingdom in the promised land.  And so Jesus, he's telling these little stories of the kingdom in order to point to himself as   as the fulfillment of the big story of God's kingdom.  That's why it says, it fulfills what has been hidden since what?  The foundation, the beginning of the world.  So when Jesus is telling us what the kingdom of God is like, how it arrives in these unexpected ways, he's saying, hey, this isn't because we're changing our mind.  This has been the plan all along.  The plan since the foundation of the world.   And so when Jesus tells us these parables, he's opening us up to the grand story of redemption of what God has accomplished in and through his son, Jesus.  Not only to bring us his kingdom, but to bring us into his kingdom.  And if you really think about it, come on up, worship team.  You're invited.   You know, when a story, when you listen to a story, you start to like zone in and out of it, just like this message.  You know, when a story gets real exciting is when you find your own place within it.  You know, ever hear someone tell a story and you kind of just like wander off into imagination land and then they mention your name randomly and you're like, wait, wait, what, what?  You said my name.  Okay, got my attention now.  Pay attention.  I mean, the second you're invited into a story, it instantly becomes much more meaningful.  Amen?   Amen.  And so the story of Scripture isn't just a great story we can hear or sing about.  It's one that we're also brought into by name.  And when you see and believe how God has written you in, that then just shapes everything about our lives.  Amen.  Amen.  Let's sing about that.

generation stories have shaped the world not just by entertaining us but by changing the way we think live and believe around campfires on movie screens across history because when you want to change people you don't just give instructions you tell a story   And that's exactly what Jesus did.  When people expected simple answers, Jesus told stories that challenged assumptions, flipped expectations, and revealed a completely different kind of kingdom.  A kingdom where the last are first.  Where mercy triumphs over judgment.  Where greatness looks like serving.   an upside-down kingdom.  Let's walk through the parables of Jesus, stories that don't just inspire us for a moment, but transform the way we see God, ourselves, and the world around us.   Thanks for those of you who joined, and just for all of the people who have made things like the carpet, even though, yes, insurance helped, but so many of you have helped not only take care of the needs in this place, but so much more.  And we're going to share some testimony later today in this message, and I hope that you will just...   eagerly be listening to what God is doing, because no matter who you are, no matter if you came in this morning and you're like, this is the best season of my life right now, or I'm walking through something really hard, the parable that Jesus tells in Luke 18 is gonna speak to all of us in a different and unique way.  And I think it might be the simplest parable that Jesus teaches.  We're gonna look and read it in a second, so you'll know what I mean.  But before we read it, I wanna ask us a question today.   What do you do when the Christian life gets hard?  What do you do when the Christian life gets hard?  When you've been praying for weeks, for months, for years, and nothing seems to be changing?  When the diagnosis doesn't change?  When your child still is walking away or in rebellion?  When the relationship stays broken?  When anxiety keeps greeting you every morning?  What do you do then?   Well Jesus, he gives us an answer to that in our text for today because he tells us the story about a widow who goes and is crying out to this judge for justice.  She's crying out, she's continuing to do that, and she's doing, in many ways, exactly what God's people have always done and what he's asked them to do, which is to keep crying out in the midst of suffering.  She brings her pain, she brings her questions, she brings her doubt,   And the Bible has a word for this.  The word is lament.  Lament.  Have you heard that word before?  Let's say that together.  Lament.  The Bible has a special word for that word.  Over 40% of the Psalms, the prayers right in the middle of your Bible, if you open up the middle, you'll find the Psalms.  Over 40% of them are prayers of lament.  Prayers like, how long, oh Lord?  Why have you hidden your face?  Why do the wicked prosper?   Why have you forsaken me?  Now God didn't remove these prayers from scripture because he knew that his people, you and I, would need them.  He knows that life in this broken world scarred by sin is hard when justice seems like it's delayed.  Prayers seem like they're going unanswered and suffering is right in front of us.   And this morning, Jesus is gonna show us where faith goes.  So turn your Bible with me.  We've got Bibles in the back if you wanna raise your hand.  They'll give you one if you wanna open up your phone.  It's just simple eight verses from Luke chapter 18.  Let's read this parable together.  And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.  He said...   In a certain city, there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man.  And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him saying, give me justice against my adversary.  For a while he refused.  But afterwards he said, though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down with her continual coming.   And the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge says and will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night?  Will he delay long over them?  I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily.   Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?  Let's pray.  Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us your word.  Thank you that we can know it is true and it comes from you.  But Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would give us insight to believe what you're telling us, to ask you to speak to us even now in these next few minutes that you would show us how we can have faith like this widow.  Amen.   Amen.  Well, did you see why this parable might be a little simpler to understand than some other ones?  Because Jesus says what he's doing right from the beginning.  I love that there's no mystery really to it.  Luke tells us that the point of the story is   that Jesus wants them to keep praying.  Right in verse one, if you look back there.  And then Jesus explains it again at the end.  There's no hidden symbols to decode.  There's no characters you're trying to figure out who's who.  He's not trying to explain every mystery of suffering or answer all the philosophical questions that we might have.  He's trying to teach his disciples how to live faithfully while evil and injustice are still existing in the world.   In a world where justice has not fully come yet, God's kingdom has not fully arrived in all of its glory, which we know and cry out one day it will, right?  Jesus even says when the Son of Man returns, he's pointing to that day.  But Jesus says keep praying and don't lose heart.   Now Jesus, he's not saying that God is an unjust judge.  He's actually making the exact opposite point.  He's saying even if an unjust and selfish judge answers this persistent cry for justice, how much more will our loving heavenly father hear the cries of his own children?   And the widow in this parable, she's not presented as some extraordinary faithful character.  She's just somebody who has no power, right?  In that culture, a widow would have no power, no influence, but she has a voice that she keeps bringing.  And Jesus says this, this is what faith looks like.  Faith keeps bringing its laments to this father because there's nowhere else to go.  There's no better place to go.   every desperate plea that we have for a friend or a spouse or a loved one in this broken world, every prayer for someone who's sick or dying or struggling, and every tear in the face of the grave, Jesus says, keep bringing them.  Keep bringing them.   And the question isn't whether God hears them.  Jesus already answered that.  He hears them.  The question is whether we will keep bringing the prayers while we wait for an answer.  Did you see what Jesus says?  He says, nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?  Notice what he didn't ask.  He doesn't ask, will he find people who got everything that they prayed for?  That's not what he asks.   He says, will thee find faith on earth?  Will he find a people who keep coming to the Father, keep praying, and refuse to give up, even when the Christian life gets hard?  Now this morning, I wanna do something a little bit different.  I wanna show you, illustrate, because I know that many of you have had prayers like this persistent widow.  I know I have.   And there are ups and downs in that relationship.  There are times when we want to give up.  We don't know if God, I don't know if I have another prayer left in me.  Lord, you haven't answered that prayer.   But there are other times, there are other stories and testimonies and I've even heard from you, God's answered prayers in a miraculous way.  And that gives us faith, that gives us boldness.  So I want to bring Pastor Cyril up, my good brother in Christ.  He and I have built a close friendship.  You can come on up.  We're gonna sit back here for a little bit and we're gonna share some testimony.   from his own life, a life that God has answered prayers in powerful ways, but he's also had prayers that God didn't answer in the way he wanted.  And as you listen to these stories, testimonies, I want you to think about this parable, about the widow.   and about how you and I can keep calling to God in prayer.  So let's do that now.  Pastor Cyril, how are you?  Is the chair comfortable back there?  Yeah, very comfortable.  It is?  Great.  All right, well, I got us some water, and we're going to share for, I don't know, maybe about 10 minutes, and then I think there's some wrap-up.  But I want, we met about seven, eight years ago, almost.  Yeah.   And from the moment that you and I met, I knew that God had done something in your life I was looking to build, which is a life of prayer.  Now, you have a testimony you've shared about how God brought you from maybe not surrendering and following him closely to a powerful experience near death.  But...   Let's go a little farther than that into when did God really just start to show you the power of prayer?  Yeah, yeah, you know, I think it all started with when my mom said these words to me, said, Cyril, you could talk to him.  I think that changed what prayer looks like for me.  It was having a conversation with him and understanding that if I could talk to him, that meant he's hearing me out, right?   And that just changed the landscape to hear that I have a God that hears me and I can communicate to.  Yeah.  Yeah, and so we know that, right?  That's the theory, and it's true.  But when were some times early on in your journey with prayer that God just showed you, hey...   I'm not only listening, but I want to, like the parable said, he will give them justice.  You had a heart for the broken, right?  The refugees.  I met you when I was meeting you first, you were doing ministry with refugees in North St.  Louis, right?  You worked in housing.  So there was a heart for the poor.  I remember you told me one story about God just showing you something as you were praying that was a miracle.  Would you share that?   Yeah, no, it's amazing when you start talking to God what begins to happen, right?  Your faith increases, your trust in him increases.  So it was interesting up in North City, you know, you test the Lord, right?  The Lord says that scripture tests me and see, like, if I am God.  And interestingly, that day in North City, I was just like...   God, you sent me here.  I don't know what it is.  And then he put in my heart throughout this, I had a dream.  And in that dream, so I'm in bed, and in the dream, the Lord shows me and this young man reading the Bible together.  I'm like, God, okay, this is like a 300-plus apartment complex, and I'm reading with the persona that fits basically everybody, right?  But   God takes me out of here.  So I'm like, okay, God, you showed me this.  Let me go out by faith and see what this is.  I go in that neighborhood, and it's a hot St.  Louis day, like it usually is 110.  It's like burning up.  You don't want to be outside.  And I'm like, okay, I don't know where this young man is.  I can't find him.  But I remembered what God said.  I remembered in my conversation with God, God placed in me there the heart cry to say.  So I went to God in the simplest prayer.  I said, Lord, if you've called me here, show me him.   And I was walking out the gate.  So at this time, I'm like, okay, it's hot.  Nobody's going to come out.  I don't know where he lives.  I'm going to walk out the gate.  And as I'm walking out the gate, I promise you, this young man and his cousins come right behind me riding their bike.   And I said, God, this is you.  God has answered this prayer.  And I said, okay, God, let me get my nervousness out.  Let's play soccer, right?  And getting that nervousness out, I'm like, I just told a young man, I said, God laid in my heart and showed you and I reading the Bible together.  Can we read the Bible?   And that's how that ministry all started.  God placed it in my heart.  I went to God in prayer asking God, if you're real, show me this.  Show me how to do it.  And in a unique way, we started reading the Bible together.  And the next thing is, it grew as the Lord only can grow.  Wow.  So you're going to prayer.  He's giving you things like this in ministry to say, hey, I'm answering.  But there are other things, prayers that you prayed for a long time.   that were slow, slow in coming, right?  I'm sure for many years you prayed for a wife, right?  And your wedding was beautiful.  It was hot, too.  There's a theme here.  It was very hot.  I was sweating.  But you also prayed for a child, right?  So when you were going to God with that prayer with your wife, did he seem slow?  Did he seem fast enough?   Yeah, man, that's a great question.  So, you know, the humanness in us wants the answers right away and we want the answers we want.  And me and my wife got married and we're excited to start growing our family.  While we're seeking God, praying to God, the first child, we lost our first child.   And we're going to God again.  We're seeking God.  We don't know if we'll ever be really able to have a child.  And we're crying out to God, but it doesn't seem like God has answered.  We've cried out to God at our prayer time.  We've asked our family members to cry out to God.  I see my wife's heart crying out.  My heart's crying out.  And something that's so amazing, Faith, like this is what happened.  Pastor John said,   had my wife and i sharing this story and that day i don't know what happened but pastor john was moved and he asked my wife and i he prayed and he asked all the faith family members to stretch their hand out and pray for us and i kid you not brother we have been waiting for over almost like three years we went for like three years we lost our child and everything like that but at that moment   After Pastor John prayed, we went over to Randy Lohmeyer's house.  And then on the way back, my husband was like, you know what?  The church prayed.  Let's just go get a test.  No symptoms at all.  And brother, we went, we get the test, and we find out that we're expecting our child.  Wow.  The same day, church.  Can you believe that?  When I heard that story.   This was in 2023.  I remember I was singing.  I came up right after that.  And you were sharing powerfully.  Her story is powerful.  If you haven't watched that, go back into the.  There was another question series in 2023.  And God used that prayer to confirm a request that you had been praying for years.  That you had gone through.  And I'm sure when it happened the first time.   which is an experience.  Crying out to God.  Because we do a good part, and it's a celebration, but what was that moment like?  Well, you're hurt, right?   our emotions, and that's just going there and saying, Lord, we know your promise, but Lord, why would you let this happen?  Like, why would you let this happen?  What is going on?  What is wrong, Lord, with this situation?  Going out and lamenting and crying out, saying, Lord, please, please, please, and just consistently going to him and believing in what he says.  But it was not just an everyday, it was a   constant mode in our lives that we will go to god asking god for this yeah and god showed up and it's interesting you said that because in one of those quiet times this is again how god works uh my daughter's name is joy if you all know joy around here she loves to worship but the lord gave me her name in the quiet time   Even before Pastor John prayed, he said, you will have a child.  And that child, you should call that child joy.  And I believe with all my heart that it was.  It was a persistent brokenness and feeling like a failure, but knowing that, God, you're faithful no matter how long it takes.  Lord, I'm just trusting you.  My part is to just believe and have faith in you, and you do what you can do.   Yeah.  Amen.  Amen.  And so he delivered.  That was a celebration.  I will never forget when you told me the news and I was just like, wow, our church one day needs to hear that.  So here we are three years later telling, so thank you for praying.  Thank you for always bringing the prayers of the church forward.  Because even Friday night as we were praying, we're blessed when we get to pray for people, but we are also blessed when   You pray for us.  And I know so many of you do that for the pastors here, for the staff.  So thank you for doing that.  One more testimony before you go because I don't want to leave this time and keep going with the message without getting into the real fact that we have all had those prayers that God did not answer in the way we wanted, right?  And so after this testimony,   You've got a wonderful father and mother.  I knew your father before you.  Tell us about your prayers and even our prayers for what happened with your dad.  Yeah, so it's interesting.  You know, my dad got ill.  And I've seen God do miracles.  And if you've been hearing it, yes, yes, yes.  So we're praying for my dad to be healed.  He's in a sick bed, death bed.  And we're praying, Dad, you know,   to be healed.  We're believing.  We're calling on every pastor, every person, the faith family.  We're just asking to pray for my dad.  We know what God can do.  And if he has done it in all the situation, why wouldn't he do it now?  And we're praying so hard, brother.  I'm telling you, like every time I'm just believing, reading scriptures, being in this hospital bed, just crying out for him.  Everybody is.   And, you know, it's so interesting because, fortunately, the answer that I was hoping for, my family was hoping for, is that he would be alive, that he would be alive today.  But it's so interesting what happened that, unfortunately, he passed away.  But I believe it was interesting.   It was what God at that season wanted because he fulfilled something in me by saying this.  After my dad passed away and I'm saying dad's going to be healed, he's not healed in this physical world, I had a dream.  And in this dream, the Lord shows my dad getting up from the grave in his 30s.   In the age of 30, something I never saw.  My dad had me when I was older.  Something I never saw.  So I saw the resurrection of what Jesus Christ promises in his well body and well state in heaven.  And for me, that was all the peace I needed to know that God did exactly what he wanted to do.  And my prayer was answered, but it was answered the way the Lord knows that was best for him and for our family.   Amen.  Amen.  You know, that's our hope, right?  That hope in a resurrected body.  And I remember, you know, when you shared that with me the first time, and it was hard.  This, on the other side of years, and I'm sure it's still emotional for your family, but you've trusted that God will answer ultimately.  Can we thank Pastor Cyril for sharing some of this with us today?  Thank you.   You know, I wanted, when I was prepping for this message, I had a couple stories in my mind, a couple of my favorite books that I have read that have just powerful stories of prayer, and I was thinking, man,   What's a way, if Jesus is calling us to cry out to him in faith and be persistent, one of the ways that we can do that and build that trust and faith is hearing when he's answered, right?  But also hearing how the church answers when God answers in a different way than we'd want.   But then now that Cyril and I, we share an office and we were talking, I was just thinking of all the times in our relationship that God's answered prayers and thought it would be better to hear from him than a book.  So thank you so much.  And maybe this morning you're thinking, that's awesome.  That's great.  But I've been praying a prayer for 20 years, 30 years.   And that person hasn't recovered.  I buried that person.  That marriage that I prayed for, it still ended.  That mental health struggle I've been having, it's still there.  And I've been praying and praying.  And if that's where you are, I just want you to know Jesus isn't disappointed in you.  Jesus isn't disappointed in you.  In fact, I think he gave us this parable because he knew that you and I, we would find ourself right in this place.   We would find ourselves feeling like God must be an unfair judge and that justice will never come.  And if you felt that way, like I have, we need to remember something about who our God is.  He's a God who didn't just send a man into the world to tell us stories about suffering people.   No, he sent a man to join them in their suffering.  Jesus entered the same broken world that we lived, and as a baby, he entered that world in flesh, fully God, fully man, and he lived 30 years experiencing brokenness, experiencing a normal life and just dealing with all of it, losing loved ones, living under Roman oppression, probably living in poverty.   And even when his ministry began, after he was baptized, what happened?  For his three years of ministry, right after he's baptized, he gets sent into the wilderness to face temptation, hunger.  And over the next three years of his ministry, he experiences opposition, rejection from his own family, and ultimately betrayal from one of his closest friends.  Jesus joins us in our suffering.   And the God who told us to pray in spite of suffering is a God who was willing to become that man of prayer in the midst of it himself.  The one who judges all of creation, the ultimate judge of heaven and earth became the one who was on trial for us.  He went to experience the ultimate pain even though he was innocent.   The only man who ever lived a sinless life took on our guilt so that we could be declared righteous.  And one of the most remarkable things to me is when he was in, on that night, whipped, beaten, mocked, tormented, and hung on a cross, he prays a prayer.   But it's not a new prayer.  It's not something that we wouldn't be able to pray.  He prays a psalm of lament from Psalm 22.  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?   So if you've ever wondered if you can bring your hardest questions, your hardest prayers to God, Jesus is showing us you can.  He cries out to God in anguish.  Even before that, he's crying out with tears and with blood saying, Lord, would you take this cup from me?  He's asking God in prayer.   He knows what it is to suffer.  He knows what it is to surrender himself to the Father even when the cross of suffering was right in front of him.  But Jesus didn't just come to enter our suffering.  He did, but he also came to defeat it.  Amen?   See, scripture, it never asks us to pretend that suffering or that evil is good.  Death is still the enemy.  Disease is still a part of fallen creation.  Injustice is still evil.  And when Jesus stood outside of Lazarus's tomb, he didn't say that it was good.  He doesn't say that when we lose someone on this earth that that's good.  No, Jesus wept.  And when we lose someone to death, we weep because that is not how the Father created it to be.   But as our seminarian Owen preached so succinctly last week, this is a result of sin.  This is a result of sin and a fallen world.  So Jesus, he went to that cross carrying the weight of sin so that he could defeat it.  So that Satan, sin, and death would no longer have the final word in this world.   But even after Jesus went to the cross and three days later we know he rose and defeated death, he still bore those scars from the cross.  And they're no longer signs of defeat though, of pain and of suffering, but they're signs of victory.  And in the same way, Christ, he promises to redeem our suffering and our pain in this world one day.  And that day, we pray, will come soon.  But what do we do while we wait?   What do we do while we wait?  We do exactly what the widow did in this parable.  We keep coming to the Father.  We keep crying out for justice.  We keep praying, Lord, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, not because every prayer is answered right away or exactly as how we want it to, but because Jesus has told us the end of the story.  We have hope that one day his kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.   And in this parable, he says, it will come speedily.  So all of the church for 2,000 years has been saying, Lord, would you come?  We're waiting for your return.  And his delay is not absence.  His delay is not an unanswered prayer.  His delay is actually patience.  His delay is mercy so that more people will know they have a Savior.  When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?   And as he waits, we get to share the message of faith and hope in a resurrection.  So I'll invite the band forward as we close this time.  But as we wait, we're not waiting alone.  Romans chapter 8, it says the Holy Spirit intercedes, right?  We groan.  There's something inside of us that grieves.  Even when words fail us because grief is heavy, we cry out to God by the Holy Spirit's power.   Sometimes that's all faith can look like because that's all we have.  This is what the church does as we wait.  Like the widow, we keep crying out.  We keep praying.  Even when we pray words that we don't see the fulfillment in this lifetime.   We say, Lord, bring your justice.  Make all things new.  Lord, finish what you began.  Bring faith.  And we know that Christ has brought the ultimate victory because of his death and resurrection.  And one day, we will see that.   John, in the book of Revelation, gives us a glimpse of that.  In Revelation 21, we see a multitude from every nation, every tribe, every tongue, and they're worshiping the Lamb.  And he hears the promise of God himself that he will dwell with us again.  And what does it say?  There will be no more tears.  There will be no more pain.  There will be no more mourning because all things will be made new.   That means that all those prayers that we have, every disappointment, every heartbreak, will be redeemed.  It will be made new.  And just like Cyril's dad, just like John, we will be in the flesh seeing a God who loves us.  Why don't you stand?  We're gonna worship to a song called Welcome Home.  It's a song about that day, about when heaven comes in all of its fullness.   And I just want you to worship with that song, experiencing it.  Before we do, let's bow our head and pray.  Lord, Heavenly Father, thank you for being a God who always hears us.  Thank you for being a God who answers every prayer, maybe not in the timing we'd want, maybe not in the way we'd want, but you answer us.  And you're calling us to cry out to you by faith, knowing that you love us, that you want what's best for us, that you want to show us who you are.   I pray that even now, this time would encourage us in prayer that we would keep coming so that when you come again, you will find faith on this earth.  In Jesus' name, amen.

stories have shaped the world, not just by entertaining us, but by changing the way we think, live, and believe.  Around campfires, on movie screens, across history.  Because when you want to change people, you don't just give instructions, you tell a story.   and that's exactly what jesus did when people expected simple answers jesus told stories that challenged assumptions flipped expectations and revealed a completely different kind of kingdom a kingdom where the last are first where mercy triumphs over judgment where greatness looks like serving   an upside-down kingdom.  Let's walk through the parables of Jesus, stories that don't just inspire us for a moment, but transform the way we see God, ourselves, and the world around us.   All right, well, good morning.  As I was introduced, my name is Owen Erickson.  I'm your seminary student.  I go to school at the local Lutheran Seminary just over in Clayton here.  I just wrapped up my first year in the fall and pumped to start year two in the spring.  So if you don't know me, I'd love to get to know you.  Just find me after the service today.  All right.   But year one of seminary, it was pretty sweet.  So I got to spend countless hours just soaking up our Lutheran theology.  No, I wasn't paid to say that.  And I got placed here at Faith.  So I'd say it was a pretty good year overall.   But throughout that year, I faced a little bit of a challenge.  And it was, to be honest, a little bit of a challenge of identity.  When I first arrived on campus, I thought I knew what it looked like to be Lutheran, and I thought I knew what it looked like to be a Lutheran pastor.  I mean, after all, that's kind of the whole point of the seminary, isn't it?  Just forming and shaping the next generation of Lutheran pastors.   But what I thought I knew going in, well, they totally broke down.  So they could form me and shape me into the kind of person that they want to ship out of there in a few years.  And as you might expect, there's a little bit of resistance in that process, but there's also pressures.  Pressures like, am I keeping up with my classmates?  Do I look like an authentic Lutheran?   Or really, do I even belong here?  I think it's fair to say that I was suffering from a little bit of an identity crisis.  And over the course of the year, I talked with a lot of my classmates and found out they too, many of them often felt the same way.  Not sure if they were cut out for this role, not sure if they were worthy to be there.  We all kind of had a bit of an identity crisis.   And so that was my identity crisis.  I'm sure some of you can relate to that feeling here today.  But even if you can't relate to that, from the moment that we are born, we all suffer from an identity crisis.  It's an identity of sin.  From the moment that sin entered into the world through Adam, all of us have been plagued with an identity of sin.   I want to turn our attention now to Romans chapter 5, verse 12.  It might pop up on the screen.  We'll see.  But it reads, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.   Our identity crisis, our identity of sin, it condemns all of us.  We are all deserving of death because we all have sinned.  From the moment that you and I were born, we have all suffered from immediate identity crisis.   Now you might be thinking, who gave this kid a mic?  He's just up there just like swinging right away this morning like, this isn't fun.  I don't know, they hand me a mic so I get up there and do it like, you're up today.  But no, the reason why I bring this up is because our text for today, well, it's all about identity.  Over the course of this summer, we've been going through a message series called The Upside Down Kingdom where we look at Jesus' parables   and how his message was counter-cultural to his time and both ours now today.  And so let's turn our attention to our text for today.  It's from Luke chapter 16, verses 19 through 12.  You can follow along on the screen or pull out your Bibles.  Again, that's Luke chapter 16, verses 19 through 12.  It's the parable of two identities.   So there was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and who feasted sumptuously every day.  And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell on the rich man's table.   Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores.  The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.  The rich man also died and was buried.  And in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.   And he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me.  And sent Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and to cool my tongue.  For I am in anguish in this flame.   But Abraham said, Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus and like man are bad things.  But now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.  And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.   And he said, Then I beg you, Father, to send them to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.  But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets.  Let them hear them.  And he said, No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.   He said to him, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.  So I told you that this parable is all about identity.   But where is it?  That was my initial thought when I got assigned this text.  It's like, dude, come on, you really just saved the hardest parable for the seminary steward, like any other parable.  And Pastor Matt, who I know is watching this online, be honest, dude, I was thinking, like, please, Matt, any other text.   But I knew that my one year of seminary training wasn't for nothing.  So I did exactly what I was taught to do.  When you're given or confronted with a really challenging text, go to someone who's much smarter than you.  And so that's exactly what I did.  I whipped out my commentaries and started reading.   I remember reading through these commentaries, you kind of just have to sift through a lot of details, but I remember this really subtle detail.  The rich man is unnamed, and Lazarus is named.  This parable was about two different identities.   And, well, there's an immediate problem in this parable.  And it lies entirely in the rich man.  See, the rich man's identity, it is wrapped up entirely in his wealth.  He is stuck in his identity of sin.  And now I want to be clear about what this parable is not saying.  This parable is not saying that you have to be poor to go to heaven.  It's not saying that.   Neither is the parable saying that if you're wealthy, you're going to hell.  It's also not saying that.  Rather, what the parable is saying, the problem that Jesus is pointing out is that our identity crisis, our identity of sin, it condemns us.  It is a serious, major problem.   But why is sin such a problem?  Why is sin, or this identity of sin and identity crisis, why is this a problem?  Well, let's take a moment to take a break for a parable and let's go back all the way, all the way to the beginning of the Bible, back in the book of Genesis.   We read about our God, who is a relational God.  He's three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but they're all dwelling together in perfect relation and unity with one another.  And at the beginning of creation, when God created man, he created man in the image of God.   That was man's original identity, created in the image of God.  And God desired to have a relationship with man.  He desired a relationship with his creation.  We read in Genesis that God walked in the midst of the garden, in the midst of the man, that he had a relationship with this man.   But when this man sinned, his original identity, well, it was forever corrupted by this new identity, an identity of sin.  And ever since, all of humanity has been plagued with an identity of sin.  And this identity crisis, it forsakes the relationship that God so desired to have with each one of us   Remember what we read in Romans 5.12 earlier.  All have sinned and all deserve death.  Our identity of sin has forsaken our relationship with God and it is a serious identity crisis.  This is exactly what we see in our parable for today.  The rich man, well, he's not named.   If anything, he's named according to his wealth.  He's named according to what he's put his identity in.  In verse 19, Jesus tells us that he feasts daily, he's clothed in purple, a sign of his royalty and wealth, and that he lives quite comfortably.  But by placing his identity and trust in his wealth, he has forsaken his relationship with God.  He has an identity crisis.   And this problem that Jesus speaks of, it doesn't just happen in the text, it happens in our world today too.  Our world leans in to all of our identities of sin.  Our world tells us to be whoever it is you want to be, to make your own identity.  If you desire to be a successful businessman, the world tells you to be consumed by that identity.   If you desire to be a big time athlete, the world tells you to be completely consumed by that identity.  And if you want to stay living in your life of sin, the world tells you to be consumed by that identity.  Be consumed by your sin.  Make it who you are.   Our identity of sin forsakes the relationship that God so desired to have with us.  It is a serious crisis and it condemns all of us to death.  That's the consequence of an identity crisis.  It condemns us to death.  We see this very plainly in the text.  The rich man who once had a life of comfort   It is now replaced with eternal anguish, pain, and suffering in verse 23.  His life of comfort has been replaced with eternal thirst.  He desires just a drop of water to quench his thirst, but there's no mercy left for him.  He's suffering in the eternal fires of hell.   And this is the same reality for everyone's identity of sin.  We too all face this weight of this identity.  An identity crisis, an identity of sin, it is a major problem with an eternal consequence.  Well, now what?   We're all stuck in this identity of sin.  We have all forsaken the relationship that God desired to have with us.  Now what?  Well, God himself has offered us the solution.  God desired to have a relationship with you and I so much that he became man and   leaving his heavenly kingdom for this lowly earth.  And this man, while he was on this earth, he performed many miracles.  The blind could see, the lame could walk, and he taught boldly and profusely, declaring that I am the way, the truth, and the life, that I am the narrow gate, that no one comes to the Father except through me.   And to back up everything he taught and did, he died and rose again.  This man is Jesus Christ, our Lord, who desires to give each of you a new identity, who desires to replace your old identity of sin with a new identity in him.  So what is the solution God offered?  Well...   The solution to our identity of sin is a new identity in Christ.  And we see this, well, exactly in our parable.  Remember Lazarus.   It's a subtle detail, but he is named, not according to his sin, although he's born into sin just like anyone else, but he is truly named.  And after death, his miserable life is replaced with a life of eternal comfort.  Lazarus's new identity, Christ, has saved him.   So now, I want you to do this with me.  Take a moment.  Look around the whole church, right?  Look around.  Look at all these people sitting in these chairs.  Everyone filling up all these chairs.  Who do you see?  What are their identities?   Well, I'll tell you what God sees.  God sees a people gathered here together to worship, praise, thank, and adore him for all that he has done for you.  God sees a people clothed with their new identity in Christ, people who have been bought back from their old identity of sin.   and are destined for a new eternal life with him.  You all have a new identity in Christ.  You all have the solution to your identity crisis.  And if you're sitting here today thinking, oh, gee, I've put too much time or attention into my finances or career or anything else, I want you to know that   that your repentant mind, your repentant attitude is a sign of your new identity in Christ.  You all have a new identity in Christ.  And this irreplaceable, unshakable new identity, well, it even stands firm in the face of death.  Our Lord Jesus Christ's entire ministry was centered around his journey to the cross.   And in the face of the cross, in the face of death, he did not waver in any way but stayed firm in his identity.  And it's according to the cross that we identify ourselves as Christians.  And it's according to his identity, Jesus Christ crucified, that you and I will die and rise with him to live and reign in eternity forever.  Amen.   Now, just as the problem of an identity crisis had its own consequence, so too does a new identity in Christ have its own benefits.  But believe me, the benefits abound all the more.   We see this played out in the parable.  Lazarus, who once lived in his deplorable state, living and sleeping with the dogs, desiring just a scrap of food, his new identity has a firm hold on him, even in his deplorable state.  And yours and I's new identity in Christ, it has a firm hold on us and our identity of sin.   And Lazarus, after he dies, his life of pain and suffering, well, is replaced with a life of comfort.  Lazarus is now strutting down the golden streets of heaven, dwelling with all of the saints.  This is the glorious eternity that awaits even you when Jesus Christ welcomes you home with outstretched arms, the same arms he stretched out for you on the cross.   The solution to our identity crisis is a new identity in Christ.  Well, now what?  What are we going to do with this new identity in the meantime?  Are we going to live this one out?   But remember in our parable for today that the rich man who was condemned to hell, he implores that someone be sent back to his family.  He says he has five brothers and he knows that they too have an identity of sin.  They too stand to be condemned to death.   This rich man even implores that someone might be raised from the dead so that they might believe.  And he gets a reply that they have Moses and the prophets.  Moses and the prophets.  And no, this wasn't just like some snarky comment.  It's because Moses and the prophets, they all attest to the same thing.   They attest to the need for a new identity in Christ.  The word that we teach, preach, and share among each other all attest to the same thing.  The need for Christ.  The need for a Savior.  The need for a new, restored identity.  So...   What are you going to do as redeemed people of Christ, this new identity?  Well, I think we ought to do what the rich man desires.  You and I all have the means to testify to our Lord Jesus Christ, who has risen from the dead and has given all of you an irreplaceable, unshakable new identity in him.   Well, when you look around this world today, I don't know about you, but I see a lot of people in need of that.  People stuck in their desire for wealth, just like the rich man.  People consumed by sports.   people consumed by lusts, anything else, you and I all have the means to share Jesus Christ with them who has given all of us and even desires to give them a new, unshakable, irreplaceable identity.  Please bow your heads and pray with me.   Heavenly Father, we thank you this day that you have given us the greatest gift we could ever ask for.  We thank you, God, that you have redeemed us from our old identity of sin, our identity crisis, and that you have given us a new identity in Christ.   Help us live this day with this new identity and help us to hold on to this identity until we face the fight, face life everlasting.  In your name we pray.  Amen.

In every generation, stories have shaped the world, not just by entertaining us, but by changing the way we think, live, and believe.  Around campfires, on movie screens, across history.  Because when you want to change people, you don't just give instructions, you tell a story.   And that's exactly what Jesus did.  When people expected simple answers, Jesus told stories that challenged assumptions, flipped expectations, and revealed a completely different kind of kingdom.  A kingdom where the last are first.  Where mercy triumphs over judgment.  Where greatness looks like serving.   an upside-down kingdom.  Let's walk through the parables of Jesus, stories that don't just inspire us for a moment, but transform the way we see God, ourselves, and the world around us.  Well, good morning again, faith family.   I hope you're doing well this morning.  I just got a text while we were in the middle of communion from our student mission team where Pastor Sam, they're traveling back.  So I should have told Cyril, hey, let's lift them up in prayers there.  We're praying for their safe travels.  We're praying for Pastor Matt, his family.   as they're getting away for a few weeks.  And Pastor Sam, after this trip, which is hard work, I've already heard some stories, he's going to take some time with his family.  So Pastor Cyril and myself, we're looking forward to being here, holding down the fort for the next couple weeks.  So buckle up.  We're going to be in for a longer...   I won't say that.  We're gonna be in God's word for a long time this morning.  So I'd encourage you, pull out your Bible, pull out the phone app if you've got that.  If you need a Bible, you just raise your hand, we'll bring you a physical copy.  And we're gonna be in Luke chapter 10, verses 25 through 39.  So if you need a Bible, raise your hand.  That's where we're going.  Because we've been in this parable series talking about the stories that Jesus told during his earthly ministry.   And stories are powerful, aren't they?  Because I know this as a father, I've learned this, that stories can be used as a tool to teach.  So one of those ways in our household that I like to use is by having this archetype of a very troubled boy, okay?  Because I have five boys and we struggle with, you know, lessons as everybody does, but the archetype is named Rodney.   So if your name's Rodney, I'm sorry.  We just picked a random name.  It could have been anything.  But what happens, these stories, they've evolved over the years, but they start as an illustration of a negative behavior, right, that the kids may be struggling with, like fighting, disobeying, hitting, manipulating a younger brother into trading Pokemon cards.  These are not real examples, though.   And I'm sure none of your kids would ever struggle with some of these things, but in our case, we tell a story about Rodney who exhibits these characteristics at an over-exaggerated, hyperbolic level, and then he doesn't learn his lesson.  And at a certain point, they start to realize, oh, maybe this story isn't only about Rodney, but also about me.  You know, Jesus, he does that in parables.   He does this in the parable of the Good Samaritan that we're gonna read today.  One of the most famous parables, but it doesn't just teach us about God, it exposes something about ourself and our own heart.  In Luke chapter 10, this is probably the most famous of the parables, if I were to just say from Christian and like culture in general.  I mean, we've got organizations who use that word.  Hospitals are named after it.  If you change someone's tire on the side of the highway, you'd likely be called a what?   A good Samaritan, right?  But I wonder if our familiarity with this parable is making us, when we just think about it, miss some of the shock of what Jesus was actually saying to that audience in that day.  Because he's not simply telling a story about being a nice person.  He's telling a story in response to a man who asks him a question that we all ask, what must I do to inherit eternal life?   So I'm gonna do something a little bit different.  I'm not gonna read the entire text up front.  We're gonna walk through it like two verses at a time.  So let's pray, let's bow our heads, and then let's jump into the first verses.  So we say, Lord, we lift up this morning to you.  We give you this time.  Would you teach us from your word by the power of your Holy Spirit?  Would you get our distractions out of the way?  Would you get myself out of the way and just show us what you want us to see from your word this morning?  In Jesus' name, amen.   All right, so if you'd pick up with me, we're gonna start in verse 25 and read until 29.  Here's how it starts.  And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?  He said to him, what is written in the law?  How do you read it?  And he answered, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.   And he said to him, you have answered correctly.  Do this and you will live.  But he, that's the teacher, the lawyer, sorry, desiring to justify himself said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor?  We'll pause there.   So the first thing we should notice here is who are these characters?  Luke tells us, the gospel writer Luke tells us this is a lawyer.  But don't think of like a courtroom lawyer in our setting.  Think an expert in God's law, a teacher of the law.  He knows God's commandments perfectly.  He knows how to apply them in that day.  He knows all the Jewish customs around the law and how to synthesize the Old Testament together.  He even does it in his response.   He knows what God requires of people.  And Luke also, he tells us something about this guy.  He tells us his motive.  He doesn't simply ask Jesus this question because he's curious and he really wants to know.  How does it start?  It says he stood up trying to put him to the test.  That's important, right?  But then what question does he ask?  What shall I do to inherit eternal life?   Now, people throughout the Gospels have asked Jesus this question.  Think about the rich young ruler, right?  I think it's in the Gospel of Mark.  He says, what must I do, right?  Again and again, people ask Jesus this question, and we should ask Jesus this question.  We should know the answer to this question because it is the most ultimate question.  If we truly are eternal beings with a soul, we want to live an eternal life.   And what Jesus answers is fascinating to me because he doesn't lower the standard.  He doesn't say, hey, you know what, you need me.  I am the way.  That's not how he responds in this interaction.  He doesn't start with grace.  First he says, what is written in the law?  How do you read it?   and the lawyer answers by weaving two passages together that every good and faithful jew would know deuteronomy 6 love the lord your god we sang it in that song with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind your strength and then from leviticus 19 which sums up the ultimate law love your neighbor as yourself what does jesus say to this jesus actually says this is the right answer   This lawyer, he gets his theology exactly right.  Jesus just says, do this and live.  Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with every affection, with every desire, with every thought.  Go ahead, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.   And that should have ended the conversation, right?  Because the only answer to that question, to that response, should have been the lawyer saying, you got me, Jesus, right?  I can't do that, I haven't done that.  I haven't loved my neighbor the same way that I naturally care and love and put myself first.  I haven't loved God with everything I am.  But the lawyer doesn't do that either.   He gives us one of the most important phrases in this account to understand it, to understand the story that's about to follow of the Good Samaritan.  It says, but he desiring to justify himself.  The lawyer doesn't confess.   He doesn't repent.  He looks for a loophole which is far more familiar in our own sinful hearts, in my sinful heart, than I'd like to admit.  I wish I would have just said at that moment, I wish I could say I would have done a different response or that any of us would have.  But how often in our own heart do we, instead of trying to be righteous and to say, Lord, you know what?  I can't follow that.   We want to define what righteousness is.  This lawyer, he would rather define the boundaries of love than admit how often he's failed to love.  We know the command of God, don't we, just like this lawyer, to love God with all our heart, love our neighbor, but instead of acknowledging that we can't keep it, we start to ask where that ends so that we can try to feel better about our attempt to follow it.  Because we naturally extend compassion to people who are like us,   but quietly excuse when we ignore people who are different, who are difficult, and who are hard to love.  So what does Jesus do with this situation?  With all of us and the lawyer who naturally want to justify ourself by asking the question, who is my neighbor?   He tells a story.  So let's pick up in verses that are following.  Verses 29, sorry, verses 26, 30, 32.  There we go, 30 through 32.  I've got it right here.  Jesus replied.  Start with Jesus replied.  A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.  He fell among robbers.   who stripped him, beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.  Now by chance, a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.  So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by the other side.  Pause.  So Jesus answered the lawyer's question with a story.   The story that started on a road that everyone listening would have known.  This road from Jericho to Jerusalem, you could travel it both ways, but going from Jerusalem down to Jericho was a steep descent.  A lot of altitude through mountains, through rocks, dangerous road.  A road where robbers could hide behind the rocks, come out and steal and then be gone before you knew what happened.   This is a road, even though it's a parable, that everyone hearing is recognizing, is familiar with, right?  And a good story does that.  It grounds you in a context that you can relate to.   So what happens?  This man, he's beaten and stripped.  He's left for dead.  And I think there's a detail here that I often pass by.  I didn't see this before studying for this message.  The question of the lawyer was, who is my neighbor, right?  But what does Jesus do?  He strips this man of everything that might allow us to categorize him.  He just says a man, right?   We can't tell if he's rich or poor.  We don't know his occupation.  We don't know his name.  We don't know if he's Jew, Gentile, or Samaritan.  He doesn't allow the lawyer to categorize him.  His clothing's gone, his body's broken, and he's unable to speak for himself.  Jesus gives us this man without qualifications, without categories, I believe on purpose, so that all we can see is his need.  Now, I don't know about you, but that's convicting for me.   Because how many of us want to know the story before we extend mercy to someone, right?  We want to know why they're homeless.  We want to know why they're in debt.  We want to know if they're here legally.  We want to know if they've done everything they could to try hard enough before we extend mercy.   We want to know if it's someone else's bad decisions that's caused suffering before we decide if compassion is appropriate.  Now hear me carefully because this doesn't mean that discernment isn't important.  Wisdom matters, right?  Christians are called not to enable destructive behavior or ignore truth, but there's a difference between exercising wisdom and demanding that someone justify their own suffering before we extend mercy, right?   Now we may get a little more into that later, but here Jesus simply says, this man's broken.  He's lying on the side of the road.  And two men come along who should have understood exactly what the law required, right?  A priest and a Levite.  But they didn't stop.  They passed by on the other side.   Now people have debated for centuries why they did that.  Was it because they were afraid of getting beaten and robbed too?  Was it because they were worried about ceremonial uncleanliness?  Were they just in a hurry?  The Bible and Jesus doesn't answer that question because their excuses are not what's important here.  What's important here is for us to look at why we pass by on the other side.   Right?  We all know how to explain why we've kept walking.  We don't have time.  Someone else is gonna help.  I wouldn't even know what to do, right?  But that's what makes this sin that Jesus is getting at so tricky.   Because the sin here is not loving God and our neighbor with our whole heart.  It's not a sin of commission.  They're committing something.  It's a sin of omission.  They're walking by the other side.  It's for what they failed to do that Jesus is giving this illustration.  The lawyer asked, who is my neighbor?  And Jesus has already begun answering by saying, your neighbor is often the person who interrupts your life.   who gets in the way of what you think should be getting done, who makes it hard for you.  Let's see how he continues the story.  Pick up in verse 33.  But a Samaritan, but a Samaritan.   As he journeyed, he came to where he was and when he saw him, he had compassion.  He went to him, bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.  Then he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii and gave it to the innkeeper saying, take care of him and whatever you spend, I will repay you when I come back.  Let's stop there.   Now, I wish I could have seen the lawyer at the crowd's face when Jesus said, but a Samaritan, right?  Because this is exactly where Jesus' story would have been like those Rodney stories that I tell the lawyer starts to realize in an instant.  All right, this story, it's   He's talking to me because Jesus, knowing this man's heart, just like he knows all of ours, he's found his boundary of who he wants to be a neighbor.  You see, the hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans had gone back hundreds of years, descending from disagreements over ancestry, what constitutes true worship.   of God, and the bitterness ran so deep.  We see it in other accounts in the Gospels.  In Luke chapter 9, just the chapter before, James and John, Jesus' own disciples, asked Jesus if he'll call fire to destroy a Samaritan village.   In John chapter 8, you see the Pharisees insulting Jesus by calling him a Samaritan and demon-possessed.  So this is great hostility, right, between these two people groups.  Everyone listening to this story when he says, but a Samaritan is thinking, all right, this is going to get uncomfortable, right?  And who would Jesus put in that story if he were talking to you?   if he was talking to me?  Who would he have put but a, who is it or what group is it that you've quietly placed outside the boundaries of your compassion or love?  Now maybe it isn't someone you hate.  Maybe that's not the challenge.  Maybe it's someone that you've just stopped seeing.   or have decided they're too difficult to love, too far gone, Jesus reaches right into that place and says, who is that for you?  Unlike the priest and the Levite, the Samaritan doesn't see the wounded man, only he sees him, and it says he has compassion.  He has compassion.   He cares for him through the night.  He puts him on his own animal.  He dresses his wounds and he pays two denarii, two days wages, right?  This isn't just throwing 20 bucks.  This is two days wages and says, I will pay you whatever it costs, unlimited, when I come back.  Here we see in the scripture that having compassion should lead to actions that cost us something, right?  It's not easy.   Now let's pick up the final verses and see how Jesus ends the parable.  Verses 36 and 37.  Jesus said, which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?  He said, the one who showed him mercy.  And Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise.   Now, Jesus, he does something remarkable here, right?  The lawyer, he asked him, who is my neighbor?  But instead of answering that question directly, Jesus asks another one to the man.  Which of these prove to be a neighbor?   The lawyer wanted Jesus to define the object of his love.  Tell me who counts.  Tell me who's in and out.  Where's the line?  And Jesus flips the question entirely and says the neighbor isn't simply someone you choose to love.  It's the person God puts in your path no matter who they are.  And the question is will you be a neighbor to them?  And did you notice something else in these few verses?  The lawyer, he can't even bring himself to say the word Samaritan, can he?   He simply answers with the one who showed mercy.  Even after hearing this story, hearing that Jesus has made this person the hero of the story, Jesus answers the question.  Your neighbor is precisely the one who you don't want to be in your heart.  That's who your neighbor is.   And Jesus is answering, you can't love in the way that would make you inherit eternal life.  We can't do this on our own.  We all have those people in our heart, in our life.  Maybe it's not the hard people to love.  Maybe you don't have some of those things.  Maybe you struggle loving the people who can't love those others.   I know for me, often growing up in a household where we did missions, it was easier, honestly, because of how I was raised, to love those people different, but to judge and to struggle to have love like God's love for people who didn't love those.  That's, if you were to put someone in for me, that would be the person who ignores, right?  Who is it for you?   But Jesus, he is telling this lawyer, this is the command of God.  Love with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.  This is how you inherit eternal life.  And then at the end he says, go and do likewise.  Those are the bookends to the story if we reflect on it.  It begins with that question and the law and it ends with Jesus giving him that law.  So where does it leave us this morning?   The purpose of this parable firstly should be to show us our incredible need for mercy, right?  Because we've not loved this way.  The purpose of this parable isn't simply to tell us, go be a better neighbor.  We can try, but first we need to see the one who has been that good Samaritan to us in our brokenness, in our sin, in our imperfection, in our failure to love.   And that's exactly where Jesus wants the lawyer and us to end.  Not trusting in ourselves, but recognizing what he is about to do.  Because before we can become a neighbor who shows mercy to others, we need to be shown and receive that mercy by our Savior.  Think of that first question again.  What must I do to inherit eternal life?   It really answers it itself.  You can't do anything to inherit something.  You inherit something because of the family that you belong to, amen?  And what family is that that we belong to, church?  It's the family of God, because he's given us our identity in baptism, because he called us his own children.  Galatians 4 tells us that Christ was born under the law to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as God's children.   The good news of the gospel is that internal life is not inherited by perfect love for God and neighbor, but by God's perfect love for you and me.   He did what none of us could do.  He alone fulfilled this commandment.  He alone loved his father with his whole heart.  He alone loved his father with everything that he had and loved every neighbor that God put in front of him.  Think about it.  The sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the Pharisees, Jesus loved even them and even the ones who nailed him to the cross.  Jesus loved every neighbor that God put in front of him.   And on that cross, he saved us.  And what I love about this parable, what I loved about studying this parable, and if you listen back to Ben's song that he wrote, he shows us this in the song.  But unlike most parables where God is just one, you see him as one character, you see us, this parable is unique.   Because yes, we need a God who is the true good Samaritan, who comes to us when we're helpless and has compassion, who binds us our wounds and pays the debt that we couldn't repay.  Yes, we need that God.   But how does that God do that?  How does he accomplish it?  But by becoming the man on the side of the road who's beaten, who's mocked, who takes on death itself.  He wasn't left half dead.  He was left for dead, forsaken by his heavenly father so that you and I would not have to experience that, which is what we deserved.   So Jesus, he is our good Samaritan by becoming the man who's dead on the road.  And by his wounds we are healed, amen?  Through his resurrection we are given the gift of new life.  And before we end this message talking about how we can live differently in light of this parable, how we can love by the power of the Holy Spirit those who God's called us to love,   Before we go there, I know that many of us, it's our natural bent, will want to walk away from this message and just hear, you know, I got to go be a better neighbor.  I got to start looking for people and feel that guilt.  That's not what I want you to hear from this sermon today.  If all you hear from this sermon today is love your neighbor better, then I haven't preached it well.  I haven't preached the gospel from it.   Because if you know what this says today, love your neighbor as yourself.  We so often forget that part at the end.  God calls us to love our neighbor as ourself, which means for so many of you, you forget that you have a God who created you worthy of his love.  That commandment assumes that you are a child created to receive God's love.   And it's only because you receive that love because of what Christ has done that you can say, I'm gonna give away compassion and mercy and extravagant grace.  You are worthy of love.  The cross has settled that question forever.   So if you ever wonder if God thinks what you're worth or if you're worthy of that, don't look at your life, don't look at how well you're loving other people, but look to the cross to see how deeply God has loved you.  Look to the heavenly father who was willing to give his own son to make you his child.  We love because he first loved us, right?  That's so important.  We love because he first loved us.  So as we close today,   what would that life of mercy look like?  Because I don't think most of us wake up and we just think, today, I'm gonna be like the priest.  I'm gonna pass by on the other side.  I don't think we intentionally think that.  But so many of our rhythms, so many of our habits are built around a life that just simply isn't on the road with people.   Think about it, we pull into the garage after work, we close the door behind us, our evenings are filled with work and practices and meetings and activities.  We spend long weeks surrounded by people but never really having the opportunity to love our neighbor.  Loving your neighbor begins by making time, by making space around the table, in conversation, inviting people in.   Look at the life of Jesus, how he does this.  Being willing to be interrupted on the road when you're in the middle of going somewhere or doing something, but saying, who is God putting in front of me to love?  Proximity, it really matters, right?   Now God, he isn't asking you, I said we maybe mention this later, but God isn't asking you to save everyone, all right?  I think that's important.  It's not just we give away needlessly in terms of everything that we have and we just throw it out to anybody.  We need to have wisdom and discernment and God himself, Jesus on his earthly ministry, he modeled Sabbath rest, getting away, spending time with God.  He modeled discernment.   He helped some on his way, but he didn't go out of his way to save everyone on his three years of earthly ministry, did he?  That reminder for somebody in ministry and for people, we have a church who wants to be in ministry.  I'm excited to see that all the time in my week as missions pastor.  I see people serving.  I see people giving.  But we shouldn't have that guilt or fear of, I need to do it all.   Who has God called you to?  I love our vision statement because it makes it so applicable.  Where we live, work, learn, and play.  Right around you.  You don't have to save everyone.  You don't have to heal everyone on your own.  But who is God putting in your life that you can love?   I want us to spend a couple moments just thinking about that as our worship team comes forward.  I'll invite them to play.  They're gonna play the final song, but I'll leave you with one more thought on this question of who is my neighbor and how can we love that neighbor.  In Matthew 25, Jesus is talking to his disciples and they're talking about the end.  They're talking about eternal life.  Who will inherit eternal life, right?  And he talks about the sheep and the goats.  He prophesies about the end times and then he says,   As you did for one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it unto me.  Do you remember that passage?  When the disciples are saying, when did we feed you, Lord?  When did we clothe you?  When did we visit you?  And Jesus says, however you love the least among you, you did that unto me.   So this morning as we close this message time, I want us to sit not thinking of the guilt of what this parable can bring.  If we do it like the lawyer, we failed, right?  But if we do it with a gospel motivation of we are invited to love Jesus because everyone around us has been created in the image of God and Jesus and his image is in people.  And so when we go out and love our kids, our families, our coworkers,   our neighbors, we're loving a God who on the end, I love that parable that we read, Pastor Matt preached, we'll be able to say, good, well done, good and faithful servant, right?  So would you stand and would you pray with me as we close?  Lord, thank you for this morning, giving us a parable that is so familiar to us, but I pray that you've given us different eyes to see something this morning.   that you would answer in our own heart that question of who is the neighbor who's been tough to love?  And that by your Holy Spirit's power, that you would get us out of the way and show your love to that person, not perfectly, not in a way that has to fix everything, but Lord, that you would be glorified as we go out this morning and love those around us.   Lord, I pray against the enemy.  I pray against the distraction.  I pray against the guilt that would come upon us by his accusation that we're not good enough, that we don't love God well enough, that we don't love our neighbor well enough, and that we would be able to say, that's true.  That we wouldn't seek to justify ourself, but we would say, I have a God who's loved me perfectly.   who calls me his child, and who's sending me out to love others in his name.  In Jesus' name, amen.  Amen.  Let's sing as we close.

Every generation, stories have shaped the world, not just by entertaining us, but by changing the way we think, live, and believe. Around campfires, on movie screens, across history. Because when you want to change people, you don't just give instructions, you tell a story. And that's exactly what Jesus did. When people expected simple answers, Jesus told stories that challenged assumptions, flipped expectations, and revealed a completely different kind of kingdom. A kingdom where the last are first. Where mercy triumphs over judgment. Where greatness looks like serving. An upside down kingdom. Let's walk through the parables of Jesus, stories that don't just inspire us for a moment, but transform the way we see God, ourselves, and the world around us.
Well, please pray with me. Dear Lord, we thank you so much that we could be here in this place. God, I pray that you would allow your word to sink deeply and root deeply into our hearts, God, that you would allow us to be able to experience the love and the grace that comes through that, Lord, and then to be a witness to that and be able to share that wherever we're going, God. May my words be your words, not one word more or one word less. In your name we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.
So in May of the year 2000, on an outdoor lawn in Memphis, Tennessee, 40,000 college students gathered together for a day of prayer and worship and teaching for their Passion One Day Conference. And it was at this conference that a message was shared that changed the trajectory for so many of those young people's lives. And I remember re-watching it because it came from the most unlikely speaker. You've got all these college-age students, anywhere from 18 to 24 years old, 40,000 of them gathered on a lawn. And who stands up to speak? Not the trendy college-age pastor, but a guy who was old enough to be their dad in a button-down dress shirt tucked into his khaki pants.
But he went on to share a message with an image that would radically change many in that generation. An image of some seashells. And as he stood up to share this message, he had a simple prayer. His prayer was that a generation would answer one simple and yet pivotal question: How will you invest your life?
Now, when John Piper was preparing to stand up and share this message, about three weeks earlier, two women from his congregation were on a mission trip. Ruby Eliason, 80 years old, spent a career as a nurse, and now she's on a medical mission in Cameroon, alongside Laura Edwards, also 80 years old, who spent a career as a doctor. These two women in their retirement decided to go to Cameroon to give people medical care they couldn't find on their own and use it to share the gospel. And as they were there, driving from one city to the next, the brakes on the car went out. They careened over the side of a cliff to their death.
And John Piper, in that moment, looked out on 40,000 students and he asked a simple question: Is this a tragedy? Is this a tragedy? And then he looked at those students, to their shock, and he said, "No." He said, "This is the tragedy."
And he pulled out an article from a magazine most of them would never read. You wouldn't find it sitting there on the coffee table in somebody's dorm room. It was a magazine some of you may know: Reader's Digest. A 1998 article, and the title of the article was this: Start Now, Retire Early.
It told the story of 59-year-old Bob and 51-year-old Penny. Bob had spent a career in the Northeast in finance, and he had earned enough to be able to retire early. So at 59 and 51 years old, they found themselves in Punta Gorda, Florida, trolling on their 30-foot cruiser, walking, playing softball, and collecting seashells on the seashore.
John Piper looked out and he said, "This, this is the tragedy." He said, not the 80-year-olds who are investing their retirement years in mission, but the person who works so hard to do nothing more than invest in themselves. And John Piper said, "This is the tragedy. And there are people in this country spending billions of dollars to get you to buy it. And I have 40 minutes to plead with you. Don't buy it."
Now, this is what John Piper was saying. He was not saying retirement is wrong because now John Piper is retired. He still preaches, probably doesn't pick up seashells, but he preaches. What he was saying was this: This life we've been given is a gift. And it doesn't matter what you've been given. How will you invest that gift in the kingdom of God?
And what John Piper was doing is what we sometimes see the parables do. In fact, the story was so locked in my mind because for the past several weeks I've been reading this parable from Matthew chapter 25. One of the things the parables do is they simply share with you what the kingdom of God is. They expose you to the concept of God's kingdom.
Another thing the parables do—and we've heard parables like this—is they teach you what the kingdom of God looks like and how to live and move in the kingdom of God and how to live out the kingdom of God in your own life. Those are fun messages to preach.
But the third thing the parables do—these are the parables that tend to be the most uncomfortable—is they look at you and ask a pivotal and critical question: How will you respond to the message of the kingdom of God?
And this is what Jesus is doing today in our parable. He tells a parable that asks the very simple question: How will you invest the gifts of grace and life you have been given in the kingdom of God?
And so, to show you what I'm talking about, let's open up to Matthew chapter 25. So if you have a Bible, it's the first Gospel. If you don't have one, raise your hand. We've got one there for you that is our gift to you. And of course, if you don't have a paper Bible in front of you, you can always pull out your smartphone, open up the YouVersion Bible app or the Faith Oakville app, and we've got the Bible in there.
I'm going to be in Matthew chapter 25, starting at verse 14 in the English Standard Version. It says this:
"For it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away."
Now, really important, Jesus is telling, once again, a series of stories. And so the "for it will be like" he's talking about is the kingdom of God because he's just told a parable in which the reference was the kingdom of God. So you could read it like this: "For the kingdom of God will be like a man going on a journey..."
Now here's what you need to understand. This was a normal practice back then. Somebody would go on a journey. In Luke it calls him a king. In this one it calls him a wealthy master. They would go on a journey, and when they were on that journey, they would hand some of their resources to their servants and have their servants invest them and do business on their behalf.
Now, you don't give a lot of instructions when that happens. Why? Because travel is not like travel is today. In the first century, travel was a lot different than the 21st century. Some of you have taken vacations. You know what I'm talking about. When you're going to go somewhere, you know exactly when you're leaving, when you'll arrive, how long you'll stay, and when you'll return. Give or take a few hours, maybe a day if you're incredibly unlucky.
But travel was not like that in the first century. Even the best-laid trip plans were tentative. You weren't exactly sure when you'd get there. You weren't exactly sure when you'd come back. So when a master left, they left, and nobody knew the timeline.
So of course you don't add a lot of parameters around what you want them to do with the investment you're about to give them because things could change, and there's no way to communicate quickly. So you give wide parameters, which is what this master did.
Now, you may be asking yourself the question, how much is a talent? Because isn't that the confusing and frustrating thing when you're reading the Bible? We have no clue how much money they're talking about.
Well, I looked it up, and many commentators differ on their conversions, and I remembered very quickly that I am a pastor and not a financial analyst. But one thing they said consistently was this: One talent was worth about 6,000 days' wages for the average laborer.
So I went to my friend ChatGPT and asked, "How many days will somebody work in a working lifetime?" If you work for 40 years consistently, taking normal vacations and time off, you'll work anywhere from 9,500 to 10,000 days in a working lifetime.
So literally, if you are the one-talent servant, you were given about half a lifetime's worth of wages to invest. Not an insignificant amount.
And it also says—and this is important—that the master gave each according to his ability. He gave the five-talent servant five talents because he figured he could use five talents well. The two-talent servant got two because he could use two well. The one-talent servant got one because he could use that well.
Then this is what happened:
"He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money..."
After a long time, the master returned and settled accounts. The five-talent servant presented ten talents total. The master said, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master."
The two-talent servant received the exact same commendation.
Then the one-talent servant came forward and said, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man... so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground."
The master answered, "You wicked and slothful servant... You ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest."
Now, first, it sounds harsh. But here's another interesting thing I learned this week: the banking system back then was pretty safe, and because of how interest worked, he could have earned around a 50% return just by depositing it. The other servants' returns weren't extraordinary. He simply refused to do anything.
You've got three servants, three different amounts, but really only two outcomes: "Well done, good and faithful servant," or "wicked and slothful servant."
So what's the difference?
The difference is simple: What did you do with what you were given? Two servants invested it. One did not.
So what does this mean for us today?
The master is God—specifically Jesus. The servants are Jesus' followers.
And that's important because it would be easy to read this as though God is telling people to earn their salvation. That's not what's happening. The only people given talents were already servants of the master. This is about those whom God has already brought into His kingdom and entrusted with gifts.
This is not about earning salvation. Everything we have is given as a gift from God. But when God gives gifts, He expects us to use them.
So what is a talent?
I spent two weeks wrestling with that. Is it God's grace? Is it literal money? Is it our abilities? Is it our very lives?
My answer was: Yes.
It's everything.
Anything and everything we have is a gift from God. Every breath we take is a gift. Nothing we have is deserved. Nothing we have is earned. It is all a gift from the giver of all good things.
So when Jesus talks about talents, He's talking about the gifts He gives us.
Paul says we were dead in our trespasses and sins and made alive in Christ. God gives us physical life and spiritual life. Everything we have has been entrusted to us by Him.
The question is: How will you invest it in the work of God?
The world spends billions of dollars telling you, "Everything you have is yours. Use it for yourself."
God says, "Everything you have is Mine. How will you invest what I've entrusted to you?"
So what does investing look like?
Peter writes in 1 Peter:
"As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace... in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ."
Peter says you've been given gifts so you can serve others.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 that there are a variety of gifts but the same Spirit. God isn't expecting your gifts to be my gifts or mine to be yours. If He's given you the ability to speak, then speak. If He's given you hospitality, then show hospitality. If He's given you mercy, then show mercy.
Your gifts are not lesser than someone else's. God simply asks you to use what He's given you.
Romans 12 says:
"Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them."
And at this point, some of us start feeling that holy guilt. We think, "I'm not even sure how to use my gifts."
Years ago, I felt the same way.
So I prayed, "God, You've given me gifts, and You're going to hold me accountable for them. Please show me how to use them."
And you know what?
God will.
He's not trying to set you up for failure. He gave each servant according to his ability. He will show you where to use what He's already given you.
And when you do, your life becomes a picture of God's glory.
Sometimes we think only pastors invest in the kingdom. But often it's much simpler than that.
The other day my kids wanted to play pickleball. It was hot, and honestly, I wanted to stay inside. We got to the courts, and a younger kid pressed his face against the fence and asked, "Can I play?"
My first thought was no.
Then I wondered, "Is this an opportunity?"
So I told him, "Finish this game with us afterward." He and his friend joined us. We taught them how to play. They stayed for about 20 minutes.
Later, my oldest son said, "Dad, that was really cool."
I thought he meant one of my shots.
He said, "That you let those kids play."
And I realized something.
It wasn't really about pickleball.
It was about teaching my kids what the hospitality of Jesus looks like.
God gives us little opportunities every day to invest in His kingdom. Sometimes you'll realize it. Sometimes you won't.
One day you'll stand before the Father, and He'll say, "Well done, good and faithful servant. I gave you grace, and you shared grace. I gave you forgiveness, and you shared forgiveness. I gave you resources, and you shared resources. I gave you health, and you used it to help others."
Not because you lived someone else's life, but because you faithfully lived the one He gave you.
Earlier in Matthew, Jesus said:
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth... but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
The more you invest in God's kingdom, the more your heart grows in love with the God who first loved you.
Don't worry about what He's given someone else to do. Worry about what He's given you.
Because you cannot out-give God.
He will always pour more into your life.
Let's pray.
Dear Lord, we thank You so much that You allow us to be in this place. Thank You for giving us the opportunity to invest in others the way You've invested in us. Help us share the grace, love, and every good gift You've given us with a world that desperately needs You. Strengthen us and open our eyes to see where we can invest in Your work. It's in Your name, Lord Jesus, and by Your strength that we pray. Amen.