TRANSCRIPT

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well thank you band for some amazing palm sunday worship and choir for singing that song a reminder of this week this beginning of holy week um yeah if you don’t know center center myself a little bit here if you don’t know yeah this this is palm sunday and it’s the kickoff of holy week as alex explained and um and Jesus does something very counterintuitive palm sunday sort of represents this idea of the triumphal entry it’s sort of this metaphor this image of like the king of kings is it is a sort of inauguration ceremony and then he does something very counterintuitive just like he does often in his teaching and his other actions is he he chooses to die on a roman cross instead of going up and setting up a powerful reign and in keeping with the very counter-intuitive things that Jesus does I will not be giving a palm sunday message this morning instead we’re continuing our series called how do you really feel if you came here for a palm sunday message I’m sorry I didn’t prepare one so I apologize for those of you who don’t know my name’s aaron bjorkland I’m the I’m the worship pastor here so normally I’m up here singing and uh but today I get the opportunity to bring the message but before we do that I’d like to pray because uh once you hear the subject we’re going to be talking about today you might need some prayer I’m just joking so will I all right let’s pray Jesus thank you so much for this morning thank you for this reminder we just heard about in that song that you conceived a plan for redemption thank you for conceiving of a plan for redemption Jesus we’re grateful and lord I pray that this morning as we interact with your scriptures and we we explore and try and learn a little bit more about what it means to live in your way with your heart that you would soften us that you would prepare us you would enable us to encounter you transform us we pray in your beautiful and matchless name amen and amen so some people might think that I have a broken gag reflex see I have a pretty strong stomach and I there’s not a lot in that I’ve encountered in my life that really gets me uh concerned when it comes to foods and stuff like that I think it’s probably because I was born and raised in africa so I encountered a lot of things that maybe some folks here who grew up in america might consider disgusting and I ate bugs I ate various different things I encountered experiences that may have disgusted some of of you out there and I think that part of that and traveling around the world it gave me a little bit of the ability to have a strong stomach now I didn’t really think that much about this talent that I developed in my childhood until later in life when I was working as a at a mission agency and part of my job was to go around the world and visit long-term missionaries and explore the option of of sending teams to other locations around the world and let me tell you by far the best way to do international travel is to visit long-term missionaries you have a built-in translator they know all the right places to go they they um they can bring you away from all of the tourist traps and all that stuff they know the best foods and all the stuff but and I I don’t know if this is true for everyone that visits them but for me as a young leader at the time especially and and maybe they’d heard that I was a missionary kid it was like they had this universal hazing ritual no matter which country I went to where they they said if he passes this test then we can have serious conversation about what he wants to talk about and they wanted me to try the strange foods of their country it didn’t matter where I went they all had these like they were gonna find the weirdest food from that country and then make me try it and it was sort of this hazing ritual now let me tell you I was pretty good at this game see I have a strong stomach and there’s not much that scares me when it comes to food I’m pretty adventurous and so all around the world I would sort of surprise these missionaries by the things that I would dive in and most of the time with a smile on my face except for once

that was when I was traveling in the philippines I was visiting this island called davao and or the city called davao and I was visiting a missionary there and right off the bat I could tell that this particular missionary believed strongly in this hazing ritual because we hadn’t even made our way from the airport to the missionary campgrounds where we’re going to be staying that night and he was already talking about some of the strange foods that he wanted us to try and so I was bracing myself but again I was pretty good at this game so I was ready until he started talking about this balut so for those of you don’t know what balut is balut is a fertilized duck embryo inside so the this is probably the most palatable photograph I could find of this for you because inside of these eggs is actually a little duck that then they steam and uh yeah it’s got little feathers on it inside and it’s a partially developed duck egg and you crack it open and you you drink the juices out of this little egg and then you gobble down the protein part um what we’ll need is to say I think I’d met my match because I was starting to get a little concerned because they were serving this on every corner and this particular missionary was like oh yeah you’re going to get to try balloon you’re going to get to try to loot and I was like oh man fortunately we didn’t stop we had to get make it to our compound um for dinner uh and so we we didn’t do it right then but he promised that we were going to get an opportunity to do that and then we got there and we met in this outdoor dining hall for dinner and they brought out one of these this is called durian fruit and for those of you who have never experienced durian fruit some people call it stinky fruit and I didn’t know exactly what what was wrong with it at first until they cracked it open and let me tell you it smells kind of like three week old rotting trash mixed with bananas at least that’s what it smelled like to me let me tell that one of the only other foods that I don’t like is bananas and so but I I kind of felt like I could do this I could do this it’s fine um veloute not so much but this I was okay with and I I I was gonna do this but they decided not to serve it right away instead they were gonna serve it for dessert so they left it there on the table we had a great meal a wonderful time wonderful conversation and the conversation was so stimulating they just forgot to serve us the durian fruit so we went to bed got up the next morning went there for breakfast and to the same outdoor dining hall and there was this durian fruit sitting in there on the table covered in hundreds maybe thousands of little black ants and so it’s smelly and it’s covered in ants and oh man the missionary just lamented and he just said oh I’m sorry I’m sorry we’re gonna find you another durian you’re gonna have another chance to pass my hazing ritual this is really important stuff really important and what I did next I didn’t realize the benefits of this until later but what I did next really helped me out later in my trip I walked over to that durian and I grabbed a piece of it and I blew off a couple of the ants on it and I just ate it right there and this missionary was so impressed and appalled maybe by the fact that I was eating durian with ants covered all over it that he never even he’s like there’s no way I can face this kid he’s got I mean he’s past the test flying colors so he never asked me to eat balut and that’s the story of how I avoided having to eat balut so if you hadn’t guessed the subject for this morning is the emotion of disgust and so if you’re completely disgusted by my sermon I’m winning I’m winning so uh at the end of the last service someone said man that sermon was disgusting I was like oh so heartwarming and so I love that all right so we’re talking about the emotion of disgust or contempt we find ourselves continuing this series titled how do you really feel in this series we’ve been exploring these painful less desirable less enjoyable emotions that we encounter in the human condition and we’ve been asking ourselves uh what what does the way of Jesus have to teach us about these emotions if we’re gonna fall in the way of Jesus how should we engage some of these more painful emotions and along the way we’ve been asking ourselves how do we deal with this and if you’ve been following with us you may have noticed that alex has sort of returned to this sort of like thesis that’s over this whole series and it’s found in this quote by this guy named david benner it says this feelings bring new data that is missing when only thoughts are trusted feelings give us information new data that is missing when only thoughts are trusted in other words understanding your emotions makes you smarter that’s why we’re talking about this and and this is so true and that’s sort of a casual way of saying that but it’s actually it helps you engage the world around you in a really really important way we’ve all heard of this idea of iq right iq I think it stands for intelligence quotient it’s a it’s a tool that can measure someone’s mental capacity and and a lot of times people can determine how much an individual will succeed in life and there’s all these theories around iq but let me say something that is really fascinating this guy

travis bradberry in the emotional intelligence 2.0 book said this he’s actually explored this idea of emotional intelligence and he said it’s actually a better predictor the single biggest predictor of performance in the workplace and the strongest driver of leadership and personal excellence so so this is why this is really important stuff for us to learn to figure out if we if we can learn how to engage our own emotional world in healthy ways and understand the emotional world of other human beings we’re going to be better equipped to exist as human beings in God’s earth this is important stuff and that’s why we’re talking about it and you’re probably sitting there thinking yeah yeah I get this alex already told us this why are you telling us again it was my last ditch effort to make you think that this is important to deal with the emotional world but you’re also probably thinking okay I get it some of the painful emotions let’s deal with them in healthy ways but really disgust I already know how to deal with that emotion don’t eat the durian fruit with ants all over it that’s how you deal with the emotion of disgust right so if that’s if that’s what you’re thinking uh you’re probably right maybe that is part of what dealing with this emotion is about but as we’ve also explored each week as we explore one emotion at a time there’s some nuances there’s some subtlety to these emotions and they’re complicated and we’ve been learning this idea emotions are good are God designed but but but they can either function or they can malfunction when our emotional world begins to malfunction it actually hurts us it actually damages our brains our neurology it damages our relationships with other people it damages all these sorts of things and the same thing is true when we mishandle and let our emotion of disgust go off the rails so let’s start by exploring the definition of this word disgust disgust is a strong aversion for example to taste smell or touch of something deemed revolting so this sermon is disgusting that’s physical disgust physical disgust is actually this physiological response in our bodies when we smell something or see something that potentially is harming to us it could be harmful it may carry pathogens things like vomit and feces and durian fruit covered with ants and all of these sorts of things these are the kinds of things that we we sort of recoil against we make these faces it’s a physiological response to protect our bodies and it’s God designed but that’s not the only part of this definition it’s also a strong aversion toward a person or behavior deemed morally repugnant and there’s the rub

you see this is called moral disgust and the reason we’re talking about this and we’re spend a little bit of time talking about this moral discussion because it’s about how we interact with other human beings made in the image of God and when we feel moral disgust for someone else who’s made in the image of God it affects our relationships and when we let this emotion get off the rails it can be damaging and hurtful

now if you’re out there and you’re you don’t call yourself a follower of Jesus if you’re tuning in online thanks for tuning in with us and worshiping and that sort of thing but if you’re out there and you don’t call yourself a christian or a follower of Jesus maybe what I’m about to say it won’t surprise you but it also may be that what I’m about to say is the reason you don’t want to call yourself a christian and you don’t think you buy into this whole christianity thing but I’m going to say it because those of us who do call ourselves christians or followers of Jesus need to hear it so it might not be a surprise to you but it might be a surprise to us did you know that the leading reasons for that people give for why they do not feel compelled by christianity have nothing to do with Jesus did you know that the leading reasons why people are not compelled by christianity have nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus the leading reasons that people give have to do with the emotion that they feel from the church about them they think that we are disgusted by them in this report by the barna group this barna research group 90 of people between the ages of 16 to 29 felt that christians were judgmental when they’re feeling that from us what they’re feeling is they’re feeling like you christians are disgusted by me my choices my behavior I don’t know about you but that sounds like a little bit of a problem but this gets really tricky doesn’t it if you don’t call yourself a christian let me explain to you why this is tricky for some of us who do because we we encounter this teaching of Jesus to love our neighbor as ourself right to that sort of sounds like the the the classic accept people right love it’s beautiful good all right got it but then the scriptures also seem to lay out this high moral standard about how we’re supposed to conduct ourselves and the things that are good and the things that are bad and then we we we’re sort of caught in between this situation how do we love while also not compromising how do we love someone who’s living in a way that we think is contradictory to the scriptures and then while not at the same time like feeling like we’re condoning that thing it gets tricky right if anyone else has had these questions it’s this where is the line between love and leniency if you’ve had that question that question is actually sort of hovering around this emotion of disgust because again this this emotion of disgust is is is a physiological response to something that could potentially be harmful to us and moral disgust is sort of like this moral response to something or behavior or people or kinds of people that might be potentially dangerous to our spiritual lives or something and so it gets it gets down into our hearts it’s a hard thing to deal with well I think if we can figure out what to do with this emotion of disgust we’ll have an answer at least a start to an answer to some of these questions the scriptures have us a great uh story for us to help us with this because the early church wrestled with the same thing in fact God’s followers have been wrestling with these similar questions throughout all of time if you’re the kind of person who wants to follow along you can follow along we’re going to be in the book of acts chapter 10 today and while while you’re turning there let me explain to you what’s been going on in the story so far um acts was written by a guy named luke he actually most scholars think that he is using peter as a primary reference peter was one of Jesus’s closest followers arguably he’s sort of the leader of the early church in a lot of ways and um so far Jesus has has walked the earth he’s taught he’s gathered his disciples he’s died he was buried he rose again from the dead and then he came back and he commissions his disciples to form the early church and to take his message of goodness and beauty and love and the forgiveness of sin all around the world and he does that one of the places he does that commissioning is here in acts one verse eight but you will receive power when you have when the holy spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in jerusalem and in judea and samaria and to the ends of the earth and there’s some other texts where you can read about this commissioning of Jesus and it’s this grand vision of his goodness and his forgiveness and the resurrection of the dead and it’s a beautiful beautiful thing but when we read it we might miss some of the challenge the angst that they might be feeling when they’re hearing this commissioning and it’s found in this idea of the going and bringing this to the to samaria see samaria was the religious sellouts they’re the they’re the backsliders they’re the ones who don’t really take their faith of the true pure holy moral faith that seriously they’re they’re the disgusting ones I’m supposed to take it there and and then to make it worse and to the ends of the earth the ends of the earth that includes uh rome this this empire that’s ruling over us and that includes egypt this nation that can consistently derails um the israelite people along around their history and so they were actually trained from childhood to be disgusted by these other people groups and rightfully so in fact there’s all these warnings about over interacting with these groups because throughout israel’s history they’d encountered some of these groups and they started to interact with them a little bit too much and then it turned into worshipping some of their gods and then eventually they had shifted their worship from the one true God to these idols and that sort of thing and so in this season of the israel of the jewish nation these children were taught from infancy that they should be disgusted and avoid these things otherwise they might be contaminated by them and so this grand vision that Jesus has to bring his goodness in the world the biggest barrier to that is this the biggest threat to God’s plan for the world was the well-intentioned moral disgust in his own disciples

the well-intentioned moral disgust in his own disciples and I think the holy spirit and his wisdom knew that these early christians while they’re trying to figure out how do I live in this way of Jesus how do I take this message of Jesus to the world they the holy spirit knew that they needed some training wheels when it came to this particular issue that’s where we pick up our story in acts chapter 10. we meet this guy last service I forgot his name initially it took me a few minutes um people are even shouting at me and I couldn’t even remember his name I was like what in the world I’m staring at it cornelius is the centurion this roman centurion and we’re introduced to him and aside from being a gentile a person from that disgusting group he was also a roman centurion he’s part of the military that is overruling and sort of like heavy-handedly ruling the israelite people aside from that he’s a pretty good guy you know he’s actually a God fear the text tells us he he that means he worships the God of the jews he gives to the poor and all these sorts of things and so right off the bat there’s a sort of like mixture of emotions about this guy he’s like good and but he’s also sort of this disgusting gentile and that sort of thing but an angel meets with him and challenges cornelius to reach out and and send for peter who we were just talking about one of the closest disciples of Jesus and to bring in bring peter and then do whatever peter says well cornelius being a God fear does just that and then while those while he sends some of his messengers to go get peter we pick up our story in verse nine it says this and about noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city peter went up on the roof of where he is staying to pray he became hungry and wanted something to eat and while the meal was being prepared he fell into a trance and he saw a heaven open and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners it contained all kinds of four-footed animals as well as reptiles and birds then a voice told him get up peter kill and eat surely not lord peter replied I have never eaten anything impure or unclean the voice spoke to him a second time do not call anything impure that God has made clean this happened three times and immediately the sheet was taken back up to heaven so he’s he’s in this sort of trance state he has this vision and peter’s right off the bat maybe we don’t pick up on some of the subtleties going on here culturally but he’s disgusted by this moment he’s got the sheep some durian some balut in there

no but so culturally speaking some of the animals that are mentioned that are in this that are in this sheet are reptiles and these things that the the law of God who God gave God gave this law had said these things shall not be eaten in other words he had been trained from a childhood to be disgusted so right off the bat there’s our emotion right he has physical disgust for this whole interaction but it happens three times and then there’s this challenge do not call something unclean that I’ve made clean and I think he’s like he’s I’m trying to track here I’m I’m trying to understand what’s going on and while he’s pondering this the spirit then nudges on him and says by the way there’s some gentiles downstairs and they’re going to ask you to come with them go

and he’s like okay I’m tracking I think they he goes downstairs he tells them I’m I’m the one you’re looking for and he invites them in for that night they explain the whole angel visiting their master situation and then he goes with them the next day the next day peter started out with them and some of the believers from joppa went along the following day he arrived in caesarea cornelius was expecting them and he called together his relatives and his close friends awesome so uh yeah let’s go to a place a gentile place with disgusting people and then let’s just call them all let’s just make a big old party of it right so cornelius was gathers all of his relatives together as close friends as peter entered the house cornelius met with him and fell at his feet in reverence but peter made him get up stand up he said I’m only a man myself but peter is starting to track peter’s starting to get what what the holy spirit’s trying to teach him here so he’s like well I guess I’m going to preach I’m going to preach a sermon so he he starts to preach he starts to preach about this vision that Jesus has for changing the world this kingdom of God he talks about the resurrection he talks about how Jesus came and taught and he and died for our sins he talks about this stuff and and he maybe just right when he thinks that thinks that his sermon is going super duper well uh he’s actually cut off the holy spirit’s like yeah yeah yeah good sermon well peter’s still speaking these words the holy spirit come came on all of them who heard the message like the spirit just interrupts the moment it says yeah good sermon all right I’m gonna just show up

the circumcised believers in other words the clean ones the morally clean the the holy ones who had come with peter were astonished that the gift of the holy spirit had been poured out even on the disgusting gentiles I’m adding these little terms of disgusting to help you this is how they would feel about this moment for the for they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God then peter said surely no one can stand in the way of them being baptized with water they received the same holy spirit just as we have so he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus christ then they ask peter to stay with them for a few days

that’s another step in this test for peter to go into a gentile’s house to have dinner sleep over that was like a different level of association

but I think peter’s starting to get it he’s really starting to understand what the spirit’s trying to teach him about what to do with this emotion of moral disgust and I think he’s starting to remember maybe maybe the text doesn’t say this but I like to think that maybe he remembers that this isn’t the first time he’s stayed with a gentile in fact earlier when Jesus was walking and teaching and raising up his disciples they’d stayed with a gentile before maybe the only other time in the new testament to this point Jesus he meets the samaritan woman along the way he encounters her he sees her he meets her needs emotionally all these sorts of things and she starts to embrace her his way and then she goes and tells the whole town and then this happened many of the samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony and he told me everything I ever did so when the samaritans came again samaritans they were the disgusting ones these sellouts samaritans came to him they urged him to stay with them and he stayed two days peter was there and I think he says oh rabbi teacher lord king of kings lord I see you’ve done this and so I feel free to stay at cornelius’s house

now be awesome if the story ended there lesson learned you know but it doesn’t end quite yet because the word starts to spread

acts chapter 11 the apostles and believers throughout judea heard that the gentiles also had received the word of God so when peter went up to jerusalem the circumcised again the morally clean people believers criticized him and said you went into the house of uncircumcised men and and and you ate with them you see for for an ancient jew to eat with someone was to like identify with them to associate with them the same thing that was going to go into your body the same food that went into your body and sustained your life was going to go into their body and sustain their life it was like becoming one in some way shape or form it was like embracing them wholeheartedly and they were just maybe this is a little bit of how they were feeling

no way you’re gonna you’re you’re gonna eat with them I can’t believe it and so peter is sort of left out on a limb right he’s supposed to be this leader of the church and he’s already doing really disgusting things with really disgusting people but I think peter is equipped with something that enables him to stand up to the lesson that he’d learned to stand up to them with this lesson that he had learned you see he was equipped peter was equipped with relationship with cornelius that equips him to deal with their disgust so they’re disgusted but this is no longer a theory to peter no this isn’t just a vision that he had about some sheets and some weird animals no no no this is cornelius this was the guy who he’d had dinner with this is the guy who he had breakfast with he’d met his kids he met his wife he knew cornelius and there’s something powerful about relationship that helps us to relinquish our disgust relationships helps overcome moral disgust because it humanizes people and this was about another human being made in the image of God for peter now and so he boldly stands up for the lesson that he’s learned and he he starts to tell them the story one of the ways that you can tell if you’re reading the scriptures and trying to figure out what the author wants you to really focus in on is just pay attention to how much an author an ancient author would give to a subject how much real estate on the page because it was an expensive thing to write back then it was expensive there’s parchment and all this stuff and so they were highly efficient with their communication like it was like a communication on concentrate sort of situation but when they wanted to highlight something for you they would repeat it or they’d they’d extend it out and sort of milk it for all it’s worth and it was their way of saying don’t miss this this is really really important and this was so really so important to dr luke who wrote this for us and to peter who is probably the primary source for this text that they tell almost the entire story all over again in chapter 11.

it’s like they’re trying to say you can’t miss this this was like a turning point for this church we’re trying to figure out how to follow away of Jesus and bring this grand vision and this moment was so so critical for us so don’t miss it I’m not going to read that whole thing for you but he sums it up with this he tells the whole story about cornelius and about the vision and about the sheets and do not be disgusted by things that I’m I’ve made clean or don’t call it unclean all of this and then he says this as I was speaking to cornelius and his family the holy spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning then I remembered this voice in the back of my head of my savior Jesus said or of john john baptized with water but you will be baptized with the holy spirit spirit so if God gave them the same gift he gave to us who believed in the lord Jesus christ who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way when they heard this they had no further objections and praised God saying so then even even even gentiles even gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life

so peter had been telling this story already in the book of acts to fellow jews about the forgiveness of sin

but it was part of his interaction with cornelius where he realized that forgiveness and the way of Jesus was in an invitation not just for it was an invitation for all people not just his people the cross the doorway to a new interaction with God and this grand vision that Jesus was painting was open to all people and the early church partially from peter’s leadership started to understand this truth they started to know where to put this moral disgust and they they learned it so well that it transformed all of history since secular historians to this day have said that some of the things that this early church did with their what would normally disgust people was one of the reasons why the early church has changed all of western history

the early church learned to set aside both moral and physical disgust for the sake of love

if Jesus dealt with every moral failure on the cross is there any place for moral disgust it’s a question you might be asking so okay I got it just I can feel physical disgust because I don’t want to get uh sick or something like that but maybe I’m supposed to just take moral disgust and set it aside well as we learned earlier actually every emotion is God designed but they can either function or they can malfunction and here’s what I would like to propose to you is that there is a place for moral disgust maybe you’ve heard a story about someone who was horribly abused a child someone taken advantage of and you’re just disgusted by it

moral disgust is a healthy reaction to the dehumanization of another person

you can feel disgusted towards something it’s like your way it’s your bodies and your minds and your soul’s way of saying that’s not okay it’s an emotion that says that’s just not how it’s supposed to be but it’s more than that this emotion is more than that if you’re a follower of Jesus it’s an invitation to re-humanize the moment

so when it swells up in you it’s actually saying step in and re-humanize this moment if you don’t remember anything else I say maybe just remember this moral disgust is an invitation to re-humanize not to dehumanize and it can be one or the other when you feel that emotion it’s you there’s someone in the story or something in the store that someone is being dehumanized when you feel moral disgust and you’re supposed to step in and say I see this moment and it’s disgusting and it’s horrible but I would like to rehumanize this moment or if you feel disgust towards the humans in that situation you actually dehumanize them a few weeks ago kevin butcher preached a message on shame and one of the things he talked about in this message is that shame is probably one of the most damaging emotions that a human can experience and I think after studying this subject this week I think that when someone feels like you are disgusted by them it is probably the leading reason why people feel shame so we we we’ve gotta we’ve gotta be really careful with this emotion and how we portray it towards others because it could damage them and shame so back to our question where is this line between love and leniency the only law for a christian is the law of love that’s where the line is love and man I’m I’ve got to hurry up here so um Jesus Jesus taught this and he made this really clear to his disciples actually when he was asked a very similar question about uh about what things to prioritize as far as moral things are concerned Jesus actually taught in matthew 22 he says this love the lord your God with all of your heart with all of your soul with all your mind this is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself all of the law all of the moral rules all the regulations all the things that you thought made you disgusting are taken care of if you can obey these laws love God and love others so what are we supposed to do with all those rules what are we supposed to do with all those rules how do we not get corrupted by the world around us and all this stuff well let me tell you all of the rules of scripture all of the commands of scripture are not about you getting to the good place when you die anymore it’s not about that what those things are is their invitations to life and no one has ever been shamed into the kingdom of God no one has ever been shamed into a better moral life no only love is invitationally strong enough to cause someone to take to go from this direction in their life to this direction in life so there’s one rule for us as christians and that’s to love and then maybe if relationship is restored enough

you can invite them into a different way of living a more beautiful more whole way of living but the rule is love the band’s not already up here yet I think last time I invited them up and they were already up here I’m going to invite them up they’re going to close our time with a song

now the early church they got this they started to figure this out so well that it actually kicked off the fastest most beautiful and majestic revival in all of human history in ads 165 to 270 there were two plagues the antonian and the cyprian plague and during those plagues the christians the followers of Jesus did something that the human history had never seen before they actually started to care for the sick they risked their own lives they took their physical and their moral disgust for outsiders and other people and they said it along on the side and they said I’m gonna step in and I’m gonna care for people and because of that action one the most beautiful fastest growing revival in human history broke out and that’s why the church grow grew so quickly and that’s why the church to this day has changed the world we can’t afford to get this wrong

we can’t afford to get this wrong when we make the world feel disgusted we’re getting it wrong instead we show up with love at the risk of our own lives just like Jesus did at the risk of his life not just the risk he actually gave his life for disgusting morally reprobate human beings like you and like me that’s our leading voice to the world

so if you’re asking okay how do all right I get it

how do I go about doing this how do I deal with this these emotions that I was trained as a child in my religious upbringing to to put people in boxes and their behavior and their lifestyle and their sexual orientation their political world view and all of these different things what do I do with those feelings here’s a quick few tips

respond as discussed with a relational question if you feel that emotion get to know the person ask him where you’re from

how’d you get here why are you doing this job get to know them it’s amazing how disarming relationship can be to this feeling of moral disgust tell an imaginary backstory about the person that disgusts you this helps you maybe rewire your response to them if you hear a story about someone who’s done something done some heinous crime and you’re just sort of disgusted by their presence maybe back up and say well maybe maybe the reason they abused that person was because they were abused as a child maybe maybe they were so hurt and so wracked by shame that the only framework they have for human existence is to hurt other people hurt people hurt people and it disarms the moment it allows you to step in with love ask yourself how can I rehumanize this moment remember that death isn’t the worst outcome you’re completely safe to enter into disgusting moments because death isn’t the worst outcome you’re completely safe to enter into morally disgusting moments because the cross has paid for it all

so the band’s going to be singing this song and I want to point out this pre-chorus just a little bit for us and then we’re going to sing into this this is about us encountering the world well and it’s about us bringing revival to a world that needs the way of Jesus to see this grand vision that Jesus talked about come to fruition there’s no prison wall that you can’t break through Jesus in fact he came from clean morally pure heaven to disgusting earth and became a man in order to reach us no moment you can’t move mount mountain you can’t move all things are possible there’s no broken body no disgusting broken body that you can’t raise no soul that you can’t save all things are possible we’ve got to get this right because if we get this right then we might see some of the move of God that the early church saw they saw it because they actually took this invitation seriously all right let’s pray Jesus help us to love people well we ask amen

yes God we ask you to pour it out to pour out your love through us to the world around us we need you lord we need you to give us wisdom this to know what to do with our emotions to know how to lean in and how to meet people where they are to know how to show love in a way that heals help us we pray this week

amen amen thank you sal thanks for coming this morning uh if you want to know a little bit more about the subject and have more questions about it you can tune in for our live stream midweek with alex and I will be discussing the subject a little bit deeper if you have questions you can also post in comments there and ask more questions if you still have someone answered questions along the way but otherwise have a great holy week come back enjoy the seder dinner good friday celebrate with us resurrection sunday next week let’s leave with love south

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