Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - I’m In, Part 1: I’m Invited

Episode Date: September 15, 2019

You have a God-given purpose waiting to be discovered. You have people around you ready to encourage you. And you may not know it yet, but you have everything you need to chase your passion. We just have one question: Are you in? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, it's awesome to have all of you with us today. What an honor to gather at 34 different locations around the nation to lift up the name of Jesus, to worship our Savior to experience God's Word. I want to welcome you. This is an amazing time of the year. Right now, we're launching new life groups. If you're not yet in a community, you may feel like something's missing in life. If you ever feel like something's missing, it could be,

because something's missing. I don't know how people battle the forces of darkness day in, day out, without a community of others standing together, lifting you up, encouraging you, praying for you. Our pastors will tell you how you can be a part of the community. You can give it a try for four weeks during this message series if you want, and it could be a decision that really impacts your life in a positive way spiritually. Today, I'm always excited when we start a new message series.

we're launching one called I'm in. I've got a question for you. Are you in? If you're in, say I'm in. Are you in? We're going to look at some themes today, and I want to give you a little behind the scenes on how I plan out message series for the year.

What I like to do is I like to try to give you kind of what I'd call a balanced spiritual diet. So each message series will have a different theme for a different purpose. For example, earlier in this year, we looked at the high points of a book of the Bible. We looked at Nehemiah. Then we did something called at the movies, and that's designed to bring people that don't

normally go to church. Our last message series, we talked about stress. We're applying God's word into a very felt need that we all battle with, or many of us battle with. This message series is really more about identity. What I want to do is help you understand the heart behind our church and to embrace four qualities that are true identities of who you are in Christ. They all begin with the letter I in.

I'm in. And I'll show you the big four themes today with some icons from the wall. The envelope means I'm invited. At all of our churches, would you say I'm invited? I'm invited into God's family. The diamond says I'm invaluable. Somebody say, I'm invaluable. I'm invaluable to God's work.

You all have a gift. Every gift is important. Everyone matters in the family of God. You're invaluable to. the work of God. The magnet says you're influential. Somebody say, I'm influential. The good news is every single one of you, you have influence. If you're a follower of Christ, you are created by God to be the salt of the earth, the light of this world. You are to influence others for God's glory. And finally, the last one is this theme, I'm invested. Somebody say,

I'm invested? I'm invested in the work of God. Who are you in Christ? Let me give you some big themes. Say it aloud. Number one, what are we? I'm what? I am invited. Number two, I am invaluable. I am what? I am influential and I am invested. Today I want to talk to you about one of the core themes of the gospel and that is that you are invited into God's family. Now, I don't know about you, but to me, one of the worst feelings is to feel left out or to feel uninvited. I don't know if you've ever been like scrolling along Instagram and you see all your really good friends somewhere else and you're not there. And suddenly there's a sinking feeling of why wasn't I invited?

I had an experience years ago where I actually saw someone else that was kind of uninvited. And to me, it was one of the most heartbreaking ministry-shaping moments of my life. And I'll tell you about this because it impacted me in such a profound way. I was a young preacher, 23, maybe 24 years of age. and I was invited to be a guest speaker at a small church on the south side of my community. They had two services. The first service had about 40 people. The next one was booming.

Had about 50 people. I preached the first one, and I thought it was going okay. But whenever I would tell something funny, I noticed this one guy would look really, really angry. The funnier I got, the madder he looked. When I got really funny, this mad vein would appear on his brow, and I'd get funny and it'd grow more and more and more. more. Well, after the service, I was out greeting the people that were coming in the next service, and the co-greeter with me happened to be mad, vain guy. I said, sir, were you upset in the service?

He goes, no. So, were you mad? Angus? No. So why did you look so mad? He said, because you were so funny. What do you mean? I said, why didn't you just laugh? He said, oh, no, I had to fight against laughing because we never laugh in church. That has nothing to do with a message I'm just telling you because it helps me feel better. If you let, don't give me Mad Vane, please. That's no fun. If we're coming to the House of God, we might as well have some fun. And everybody said, thank you. So that had nothing to do with it. So I'm greedy with Mad Vane guy. And the receptionist comes running up and she said, Pastor Greg, you better preach good in the next message, which implied that maybe I didn't in the first one. But she said, you better preach good in the next message because we have a guest

coming to church. I said, how do you know you have a guest coming to church? And she said, because somebody just called and asked for directions. This never happens here. You better do good. And the next message. Well, I saw the guest she was talking about. And the reason I know she was a guest is because this lady, when she got out of her car, she didn't look like any of the other ladies there. All the ladies there were dressed up. They were wearing very nice dresses. They were all carrying Bibles, big Bibles, like the size of a Honda Civic. They're coming in with her Bibles. This lady had no Bible. Her clothes. were not nice, they were the opposite of nice. It looked like perhaps she didn't have many outfits,

and she might have worn this one the night before. She looked scared to death. Timid, her body language you could tell as she was approaching, and angry vain guy stepped in front of me. I never will forget this. And he looked at this woman and said, young lady, is that the best outfit you have? He said, we wear our best for God at this church. Well, she did what you think she'd do. She turned away and dashed back to her car. I did everything I could to stop her. It was too late.

She was too ashamed. She was too embarrassed. And she drove away feeling uninvited. If you've ever felt ashamed. Unworthy, unwanted, or uninvited. I want you to hear one of the greatest truths of the gospel about Jesus, and that is this. Jesus invites the people, others reject. Jesus invites those that religion despises, that others overlook, that those who feel like they're not good enough.

You're invited to the family of God, because Jesus invites the people, others reject. What we're going to do today is dive deep into a story in Luke's gospel, Luke Chapter 7, and I want to give you the context of the gospel, so you'll understand what's going on. It was about 2,000 years ago or so, and Jesus was walking the face of the earth, and Jesus claimed to be God in the flesh. People didn't know, should we believe him, or is he a crazy man? Certainly, though, almost everyone would have thought, if Jesus was indeed God in the flesh, then certainly he would be in favor of the Pharisees. Because the Pharisees were the most outwardly pious, outwardly visibly religious. They wore these flowing robes. They prayed long,

eloquent prayers. They had these elaborate tassels and elaborate cleansing ceremonies. They were impressive spiritually, and surely they would never, ever be around anyone impure, anyone unclean. they would always distance themselves from sinners. Surely if Jesus were God, he would be for the Pharisees. Well, one day, a Pharisee named Simon decided to throw a party at his house. A party that a Pharisee would throw is very much different from a party today. For example, they wouldn't be roasting hot dogs and they wouldn't be listening to the latest Jewish rap songs. It was very different than this.

What they would do is they would gather with kind of the who's who of Pharisees, and they would put on a display or a show talking about weighty, important, and impressive things. It was kind of a public discussion where they would show off the wealth of their knowledge. They'd have this meal, and the meal would take place in what was known as the outer room of the house. The outer room was on the edge of the house,

and almost always would be surrounded by a porch. So they would meet and dine, recline in this outer room, talking about really important things, and then they would leave the door to the porch open so the common people could come from the outside and listen to the Pharisees show off talking about cultural trends, about politics, about theology, and such. Why did people come and listen?

You have to understand this was the first, there was no internet, there's no Wi-Fi, there was no TV, there were no video games, there was no Fortnite, there was no Netflix. No one could sit around and binge watch the housewives of Jerusalem or whatever like that. You know, this was like free first century entertainment. What happened is Jesus got invited to this party and suddenly someone else came that was not invited.

And when this person walked into the party, it was the most shocking thing these pious Pharisees had ever experienced and they hated every moment of it. Luke tells us this in Luke chapter 7, verse 37, He says, a woman in that town who lived a sinful life, let me pause there for a moment, and tell you, that's code language for the town prostitute. That's what that essentially means. A woman there in town who had lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisees' house,

so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. So imagine this. The Pharisees are sitting in the outer room. They are waxing eloquently, talking about the ontological arguments of pneumatology, and pressing everybody there. And suddenly, a call girl walks into the party. And every Pharisee gasps. They're besides themselves. This isn't right. She wasn't invited. She's unclean. She's impure. She's a sinner. She's one of those people. We don't hang around those people. She's unworthy. She was not invited. I want you to pause for a moment if you can and try to get into the mind of this young

hurting woman and imagine what would it have been like to be her. I'm going to be creative in thinking about her situation. I can't prove any of this. But with all of my heart, what I believe is this. What I believe is although she did make some wrong decisions, unquestionably, I would bet my life on the fact that she never dreamed of growing up to be a prostitute. I can guarantee that. There's never time she's got her 11-year-old girlfriend's over, having a slumber party. They're playing truth or dare, light as a feather, whatever they did back then, you know. And they're, what do you want to be when you grow up? And one girl says, I want to work in Mary Kaye, and I want to be in real estate, and I want to be a doctor,

and I want to be a YouTube star. And she says, I want to be a hookah. I want my own, my own pimp. I can have a pimp one day. I know I can. She never said that. I promise you. She never said that.

So if that's not what she wanted, how did she end up there? This was not a profitable career as it could be in some big cities today. It was a shameful, dark, degrading thing. I have some ideas. I don't know if any of these are true, but what could have led her into that lifestyle? Well, maybe she had a very distant and uninvolved dad that didn't protect her from the wrong influences. And so maybe early on she made some bad decisions and those things spiraled, got in the wrong crowd, in that letter in a bad direction.

Or maybe worse than that, her dad wasn't uninvolved, but her dad was abusive. Maybe her dad had a very twisted mind and took advantage of his daughter sexually early in life. And maybe she just got confused and felt this deep sense of shame and even guilt, even though it wasn't her fault. And because of that, she never really became secure in her identity. and she ended up looking for love in the wrong ways. Maybe, I'm just thinking out loud, maybe both of her parents got killed somehow

or died early. They often did. And maybe she was 15 years of age and her younger brother and sister. And maybe she couldn't make enough money in other way. And one day maybe her little sister or baby sister was crying. I'm so hungry. I'm so hungry. And she found a way to make money that she hated and despised

every single day. But once she started, she couldn't stop. And maybe she felt trapped. maybe something like this happened. She dated the wrong guy. He was older and he pressured her. Come on. Come on.

Hey, if you love me, come on. If you don't, I'm not going to be with you. And so maybe he took her out parking on a deserted road on the back of a donkey. I'm making this up. I don't know. You know, whatever they did. And then he said, you need to do it now. And she said, no, I don't want to.

And he said that I'm going to break up with you. And so she gave in. And he got her pregnant. and then he skipped town and he left her alone. And that day, you couldn't just give your baby away for adoption. You couldn't get help from the government. You are shamed. You were despised.

You weren't welcome at synagogue. You weren't employable. Maybe she felt like the only way I can support my baby since I can't get a job anywhere else is to do something that I hate every day in my life. I don't know for sure. What I do know is that she never wanted that lifestyle. What I do know is that every day.

Everywhere she went, every day, men used her and abused her, and women would have glared on hatefully, scorning her every step of the way. What I do know is she would have felt unloved, she would have felt very ashamed, and she never, ever would have felt invited to anywhere safe and anywhere that mattered. What I do know is she might feel like a lot of us feel. Not good enough. Guilty for where we've been. Wondering how we ended up where we are today. I never thought I'd be whatever. Divorce filed bankruptcy.

Not in contact with one of my children. I never thought I'd be here today. She felt uninvited. What does she do? This woman walks into the Pharisees party, dashes straight over to Jesus, and falls to her knees in a posture of worship. Then she breaks open a jar of perfume and pours it on Jesus' feet.

Why was this so significant? I can't tell you how significant this was. For two reasons. Number one, because this was her most valuable possession, meaning we learned in script. that perfume is actually very rare, almost no one could afford it, the value of it would have been about a year's worth of her salary. That was her nest egg, that was her savings. Not only was it valuable financially, but it was in many ways a symbol of her future because perfume was kind of like

your business card or your advertisement, because normal women couldn't afford to wear perfume. And so if you were wearing perfume and a guy's like, oh, oh, she's available. It was a form of saying, hey, I am one who is selling my body. And what did she do with that? In one glorious single act, she simultaneously, extravagantly worshipped Jesus and was symbolically repenting of her old lifestyle saying, I'll give away my most valuable possession

and that which represents my future. It's the best I have, and at this moment, offering it all to Jesus. She worshipped him in that moment, crying in repentance. Verse 38 says, as she stood behind Jesus at his feet weeping, she couldn't stop her crying. She began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair and kissed them and poured perfume on them. She couldn't stop the emotion, and she was just crying.

then she wiped his feet with her hair. Now, I need to pause for a moment and tell you the significance of this. First of all, my bride is with me, and I love her hair. Like I really do. She says, do you like it this way? Yes. Do you like it that way? Yes.

I love it when it's in a ponytail, something about that. I love it when it's down. I love it when it's curly. When we met, it was permed. Bring back the perm. Bring back. I love it every single way. I love it every single way.

I love her, everything about her, who she is. I love her. I got to be honest, anytime she takes her hair and flips it, oh, that makes me feel close to God and to her. I love, do that again. I love that. And that's considered appropriate and fun and attractive today. In the day of Jesus, that would have been considered completely inappropriate because a Jewish woman would never unbind her hair in public. She is overcome with emotion just worship.

worshiping Jesus, and she doesn't have a towel, and she realized, oh, my God, I just cried over his feet. And so she takes her hair down and just uses her hair to wipe his feet because she just is, she can't contain her love and her adoration and her worship for the son of God. Verse 39, the Pharisees were beside themselves. When the Pharisee, who had invited Jesus, that's Simon, when Simon the Pharisee saw this, I want you to watch, he said to himself, notice he didn't say it out last, but he thought this in his mind. He said to himself,

if this man, if Jesus were a prophet, he would know who's touching him and what kind of woman she is, that she's a sinner. In other words, Simon thinks the fact that Jesus is letting this prostitute touch him proves he's not the son of God and he's not a prophet. Then Jesus goes a little bit cocky

and he basically responds, oh yeah, I just read your mind. That's what he does. And he says, watch this. Jesus speaks to him and says this. Jesus turned toward the woman and said to Simon, Do you see this woman, Simon, I came into your house and you didn't give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.

Simon, you didn't give me a kiss, but this woman from the time I entered has not stopped kissing my feet. Simon, you didn't put oil on my head, but she poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, Simon, I tell you, yes, she's a sinner. Her many sins have been forgiven. as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little. Then Jesus looks at this hurting woman and says, your sins are forgiven.

You are whole. You are new. You are white as snow. Here's a question I'd like to try to answer. Why? did this woman risk so much to be at the feet of Jesus? Think about this. Why? Why did she apparently rush across town when she heard Jesus was at this party? Why did she walk past men who might have propositioned her or even mocked her? Why would she have gone through the porch

where the common people were who would have whispered there she is, stay away from her, don't ever go near her children. She's one of those people. Why would she have gone into the house of a Pharisee who wouldn't have even walked on the same side of the street of her sinful nature? Why would she have ignored every other person in the room

and gone straight to the feet of Jesus? I can't completely answer that question because the text doesn't tell us, but I can tell you what I absolutely and completely believe. What I believe is she must have somehow, somewhere experienced his unconditional love and indescribable grace. She certainly must have seen a miracle or heard him teach or sensed his divine nature. In fact, let me tell you what I think happened.

I think, because Jesus was now in her town, I think she probably heard him preach. My guess is it was probably that day because of the urgency of her nature to break into the party where she knew that Jesus was. If it was that day, what message did she hear? Well, Luke doesn't tell us directly. But earlier in this very same chapter, Luke does tell us that on that day, the disciples of John the Baptist came to question Jesus. Matthew's Gospel tells us the parallel version of that very same story. and talks about the day when John the Baptist disciples came to question Jesus. And on that very day, which would have been the day that she came to the party of the house of the Pharisees,

Jesus gave a message. What was his message? I will summarize it, then I'll show you the message. The summary of the message that Jesus gave that day that perhaps this woman heard on the back of a crowd because she was too ashamed to get up close. The summary of the message that Jesus gave on that day was, this, you are invited to God's family. You are invited, you are welcome, you can come just as you are. The message this woman would have heard if she was there in the crowd on that day she broke into

the house of the Pharisee. This is the exact message she would have heard the Son of God proclaim. Jesus said this on that day, come to me. You're invited. Who's invited? Who's welcome? Jesus said, come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Can you feel his love? Come to me. Those who are wrecked and overcome with guilt. come to me those who are burdened by shame come to me those who are tired of trying and never living up to their own standards much less living up anywhere near to God's standards come to me those who've been rejected

again and again by people come to me those who religion turned away come to me those of you who didn't have the right clothes who wear to the right church because someone who didn't represent truly the level of life of God. Told you that you aren't invited or you aren't welcome. Come to me.

Come to me when you feel like you've got nothing left. Come to me when you've lost all hope. Come to me when everything in you feels desperate and doesn't know if you can go on. Jesus says, you come to me when you're weary, when you're overwhelmed, and I will give you a heavenly rest. Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn for you. me, for I'm gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Jesus said, you're still invited.

You're welcome in God's family. My father sent me to tell you he loves you. You're invited. You're invited. I want you to notice a few things about this story. This is really important that we understand this. I want you to notice that pointing out this woman's sins didn't lead her out of a lifestyle of sin.

Did you see that? Judging her lifestyle didn't change her lifestyle, aiming her for what she did, didn't set her free from her painful past. What was it that changed her? An invitation to know the Son of God. To experience his grace, his goodness, his love, and his freedom. Because you have to understand this.

Jesus didn't come for the healthy. Jesus came for the sick. Jesus did not come for the self-proclaimed righteous. Jesus came for hurting and broken and repentant sinners. And Jesus said, you're invited. Come as you are. Come now. Come quickly.

Come and know, my grace. It doesn't matter who you are. Listen to me. If you've ever felt unwanted, and maybe you feel like you failed, you doubted God, or you questioned God, or maybe you feel like you were hurt by God. You're still invited.

If you've let you. God down if you tried and failed and tried and failed again, you're still invited. Come to me if you feel ashamed. Come to me if you feel unworthy. Come to me with your doubts. Come to me with your addictions. Come to me with your hangups. Come to me with your baggage.

Come to me with your past. Come to me with those things that other people don't like. And judge, just come to me, Jesus says. Come to me and I will give. You rest. come to me. I told you about that lady that was turned away

from church because of her clothes. I made a decision in that moment on that day that if I ever had the chance to lead a church when it comes to the dress code it'd be simple. Please do.

Put something on. Listen to me. Come in as you are, where you are. Come in with every kind of hang-up, doubt, insecurity, those things that hold you back.

You just come to Jesus as you are. We're all equal at the foot of the cross. You come to Jesus. You come to Jesus. You're still invited. You're still invited. You're still invited. You're still invited. There's still room. There's still room. Come to Jesus. Come now. Come quickly. And listen to me. When you come, don't come alone. Don't come alone. When you come to him, you invite others to know his grace, his goodness to experience the mercy from heaven. Don't come alone. Don't ever come alone.

Come to Jesus. But invite others to know him as you do. Jesus told another story. This one was in Luke's Gospel, Luke 14. Jesus said there was a guy throwing a wedding banquet, a reception of party. And Jesus said the guy invited a bunch of people to come. come to the party.

But everybody had their excuses. Well, we just got married. Well, we just bought a house. We just can't go. In our world today, it'll be, well, I'm just so busy. I'm just so tired. Well, we've got the big game this weekend. The big game.

The big game this weekend. The state fair is in town. State fair. Ah, state fair. Where you get fried butter and fried twinkies and vomit on the zipper. Listen to me, you can be set free from the fair in the name of the Father's Son and Holy Spirit. you can be delivered today and set free. Come to me and they all say, we can't, we, we don't have time.

We're just not interested. So you know what Jesus said? Here's what Jesus said. He said, listen, if they're not interested, you go out and you compel them to come. You show, you describe this party. You described by love. You help them see what my kingdom, my family offers. And then let me tell you what he said.

He said, compel the blind, the lame, and the cripple to come. If all those that everyone expects to be at my party don't care about the party, you invite the blind, the lame, and the cripple. Why does this matter? Because in the day when Jesus lived, if you were blind or lame or cripple, everyone just assumed you did something really, really bad to deserve that. And Jesus is saying those that everyone else rejects are still invited to my family. You compel the blind, you compel the lame, you compel the cripple, you compel the cripple,

you compel those that everyone else despises, overlooks, or rejects. You compel them to come into my kingdom. Feel his love. Sense his grace. Let it draw you. there's still room. There's still room. It doesn't matter who you are.

It doesn't matter how unworthy you feel. You are invited to the family of God. At all of our churches, let's pray today. Holy Spirit, would you draw people? Invite us into your family today. At all of our churches, as you reflect in prayer today, I wonder how many of you would say that I'm a faithful follower of Christ, but there might be one person in my life that I really love that isn't,

or maybe a lot of people. It could be your husband. It could be a child. It could be your dad, your mom. It could be someone that you work with, someone you went to school with, someone that you do life with that's not a follower of Christ, and you would want to pray that they would experience His grace today. Would you lift up your hands right now if you have someone in your life like that?

all of our churches. There are more of you than that. Come on. Have some faith today. Have some faith today and say, I'm believing for these people. God, we pray today that you would inspire us as your family to so fall in love with your kingdom and your party that we just compel people. Show them what life and life abundantly is like, God, that you would draw people by the power of your spirit. God, I know that there may be those who will go and bring someone back to another service this weekend or invite them to church online to hear your invitation or god just make us a living letter a living invitation showing the grace the beauty the love the transforming power of your risen son jesus we pray god for those that we know and love that don't yet know you

god we won't judge their lifestyle we will lead them to you and let you heal forgives sin and make us new, oh God. We all need your grace. Use us, God, to compel them, to come in and experience your party, your family, your love. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, some of you may sense, this is what I need. I felt unworthy when it comes to God. I feel guilty about what I've done. You're invited. Who is Jesus? He is the son of God. sinless and perfect in every way. He became the sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. He died on the cross in our place,

and our God raised him from the dead so that anyone, and this includes you, anyone who calls on the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus, anyone who calls on the name of Jesus would be saved, forgiven, transformed. It doesn't matter what you've done. Doesn't matter how dark your life is. Doesn't matter where you've been.

Doesn't matter those secrets that nobody else knows. When you come to him, he hears your prayers. He forgives your sins. He's calling you today. You are invited to the family of God at all of our churches, those who say, I need his grace, I need his mercy. Today as he invites, I accept the invitation. I turn from my old life.

I turn toward him. I give my life to him. That's your prayer. All of our churches, I need his grace. I give my life to him. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high. Now all over the place right now.

Lift them up and say yes. That's my prayer right back here and over here as well. Others of you right back up here in this section. Lift up your hands and say yes, Jesus. Both of you up here. Praise God for you. Others today, I need His grace. I need His grace.

Church online, you click right below me. And as we take a moment in the presence of God, it would mean so much to me at all of our churches if you would just stand to your feet together. In honor of those today, choosing Jesus, responding to his invitation.

We're all going to pray together. Nobody prays alone. Would you just pray aloud? Pray Heavenly Father. Forgive all of my sins. Change my heart. Accept me now. Jesus, make me new.

Fill me with your spirit so I could know you and walk with you and serve you and compel others to know you. My life is not my own. I give it all to you. Thank you for new life because of Jesus.

Now you have mine. In Jesus' name I pray. Could I have someone give God some praise today? Give them some honor today. Welcome those born into God's family. Come on, church. Feel it. Feel the power.

Feel the power. We're not praying for revival. It's here. It's here. God's presence is here. Thanks again for joining us. You know, it's always our heart to see you continue to take your next steps in your relationship with Christ. We have a great resource to help you do that.

It's called life.church slash next. There you can find all kinds of different ways to help you take your next step in your faith journey. And if you enjoy today's message, we'd love you to check out our YouTube page or all of our messages inside of our free Life Church app. It's available today wherever you download your apps from. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.