I want to start off this morning and ask you the question, what is your favorite play? Not play as in in sports to play, But, but play like a play that you have attended. My family was just blessed. Actually, even this morning with tickets to play coming up here in june and we're gonna get to take our boys. It's gonna be a lot of fun. But for myself, my personal favorite of play is not even for the play itself, but the moment around it is that actually moments after my wife and I got engaged to be married, we actually went and saw the phantom of the opera. And so for me, the phantom of the opera is, is my personal favorite play. Um, and so maybe some of you are thinking about other broadway shows that you've been to. Maybe it's wicked. Maybe it's, it's Hambleton maybe where it's like, I think the going rate for Hamilton ticket is $7000. I don't know, but it's really expensive. But um, just do me a favor and turn to your neighbor and and just go ahead and say, what is your favorite play that you've ever been to? And, and if you don't know, just make something up, go ahead and share with your neighbor. Okay, now, the premise of a play is centered around the idea of people gathering to watch a story. People come, they dress up, they come with friends and family, they purchased a ticket. You know, whether it's a little school play or a broadway show. There's tickets involved. There's, you pay, you go, you sit down and rose and then you watch the show, you watch the performance and the reality is is that I believe sometimes people treat church in this way. They come some give money some. Don't you have your seats. Maybe some of you even have your favorite seat and maybe even annoyed if someone sat in your regular seat, okay? And and you come and you sit down and and we're ready to watch and I can see where it would be easy to view a church sunday morning gathering that way, because we're sitting in rows, you came, there's lights, there's music and it makes sense. But the reality is church is not the play, right? It's not a play. Now while we've attended these shows throughout the years. And, and I know a lot of you have gone to place because there was a lot of talking just a few moments ago. But imagine your, how your experience would change if you were a member of the crew or a part of the cast and that before the play started, you were in the staging area. And, and in that staging area, it's busy, there's movement, there's interaction, there's different parts, the different roles, there's technical, there's, there's, there's audio, there's, there's the costumes, there's the different parts, practicing lines going over things. And so it's a little bit chaotic at times, but the staging area is a lot different than the stage, but also, if you've ever been a part of a play growing up or you would talk to members of a play, there's something bonding that happens when you do that, that you're connected for a greater vision, a greater story, a greater mission. And behind the scenes, behind closed doors, there's just a thing of beauty where people are working together for the common goal or common purpose of telling a story and see what I want to share this morning with you. Is that the gathering that we're in right now? The gathering known as the Church. Our gathering is not a play, but instead is the staging area. You see my Hope and my prayer is not that you've come to be entertained this morning, but that collectively we can go over lines, we can get ready, we can, we can talk through what we're who you're doing this, you're doing this, where, where are we going? We can, we can sing songs, we can go over things, but really what we're doing is that we are inspiring. We are building each other up for the rest of the week. See this is just one hour and so the 167 other ours is where we actually get to live on mission and live out our story because the audience that is watching is in fact our culture, they're watching to see if what we say lines up with how we live, They're watching to see if this God that we talk about is true And so what I want to do this morning is flipped the script and what if this one hour really launches us into the other 167 and that this is a preparation time, a staging time, a time to rally together to motivate, to encourage, to go over so that we can go into our weeks that we can go into that and actually share the same story and that is the story of God. You see the gathering that we know as the church is not the play, this is the staging area and we need every one of you to join the cast because the stakes are high, eternity is long, our culture is watching and everyone's got a part to play your unique gifts, your talents, your personality, your experience, your connections is needed in the body of christ and that if we could change our perspective and view sunday morning gathering as the staging area and not the play that we can rally together so that we can go out and collectively tell the world about the good news of jesus christ and the story of salvation that comes through love. The gathering is not the play, it's the staging area. You see, we've been talking these past five weeks on the topic of a healthy family And in this series, we've been working through five principles and five foundations to build a healthy family because churches, healthy churches don't make healthy families, healthy families build healthy churches and that I believe that whatever stage of life you're in that you want your relationships relationships to not only survive but to thrive. So in week one we talked about how healthy families put God first, healthy families put God first meaning that if God is not your first priority in life, I can guarantee your priorities are out of order. But then secondly, we talked about how healthy families are based on grace, how grace sets the temperature for the room when it comes to your relationships. And then in week three we talked about how healthy families create a culture of honor and how honor is actually connected to value and that when you honor somebody with what you say and what you do, you're actually demonstrating that they have value because as sons and daughters of God respect is earned, that honor is given. And so if we create that culture of honor, we can actually lift each other up. And then last week we talked about how healthy families value relationship over rules because it's impossible to protect our kids from everything. Therefore what if instead we tried to prepare our kids for anything, it's not about protection, it's about preparation and that's through that we can invest and help launch our kids and launch and create a legacy so that we can prepare the next generation to go further for the name of jesus. So this morning we're gonna wrap up our series with principle number five and if you're taking notes, you can write this down that healthy families value serving over being served. This idea of church being the staging area and that our world being the play, that really it's here, that we come and we learn our lines and we find our part, we find our role and we connect with each other and we build each other up so that we can go into our workplaces, into our community, into our families, into our schools and actually show and share the love of jesus. If you have your bibles open up to Mark, it's one of the four gospels, one of the first books in the new testament. Um if you do not have a bible, we're gonna have the bible verses on the screen. But also we have some bibles at our guest services table that if you do not own a bible, we'd love to give one to you today, just as a gift for being here with us. But in Mark Chapter 10, jesus had just predicted that he was going to die, he told his disciples that I'm going to die in a little bit of time, but I'm going to go away from you And then, and we have actually, we're gonna pick up the story in verse 42. But before we get to verse 42, actually the story starts in 35 and there's two brothers, James and john who are nicknamed the Sons of Thunder, what do you think the personality was like? Alright, sounds like sounds like a wrestling tag team, doesn't it? The Sons of Thunder, Right, So the disciples just heard that jesus was about to go away from them and so the Sons of Thunder, James and john approached jesus and they approach them separately from the other 10 disciples and they say, hey jesus, look, you know, we've, we've been with you all these years, right? You know that, right? We got your back, okay, um can we just ask a favor of you? He's like, okay, what do you ask? He says in heaven, can we sit on your right and left side? They're thinking of themselves like, look, we're gonna get this position right, look, we've been faithful to you, jesus. Look, we want to call shotgun in heaven, can we do that? Debs, it's kind of like when you, you know the standard rules of shotgun, right? You have to be within view of the car. And so I think they looked at each other and like, look, we're in the view of the king, let's call it right? Dibs shotgun got shotgun for eternity with jesus, Okay, now jesus responds back and he says, well can you drink the cup that I drink? Can you be baptized with my baptism now based in the context that he just predicted his death, what he was saying was I'm about to drink the cup when you think of communion, drink the cup of God's wrath because I was about to die on a cross for your sins. I was about to carry that weight. Can you carry that weight? And I was gonna be baptized, I was gonna suffer and the weight of the world in my suffering. Now you're going to suffer as my believers and as being persecuted, but can you carry that weight now? They don't fully understand what it means. So they look at each other and go sure, yeah, but we still get shotgun right? He says, no, you don't get it, this is not for you to carry. And then we pick it up here in verse 42 and jesus says this, he says, and jesus called them to him and said, you know that those who are considered rulers of the gentiles lorded over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. So he's identifying the rulers of the day, he says, but it shall not be among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So here they were asking for position, they wanted to ride shotgun with jesus. They knew that they were being persecuted. But Jesus was going to be the king, he was going to save Israel and said, hey, when you do that, can we sit on the right and left and actually in verse 41 the other disciples get mad at them and I'm guessing that they got mad of one of two reasons probably number reason number one is, hey, how dare you do that? You can't call shotgun if you have siblings or friends. You know, you can't, there's always a fight over shotgun, right? You can't, you can't, you can't do that. And then reason number two, they were frustrated with the disciples because they probably quietly whispered man, I should have done that. Ah They called It 1st. no, and they were so worried about power and about a position. But Jesus says, no, that's how the world works. Not in my kingdom. If you want to be first, you have to be last. If you want to lead, you have to serve because even the son of man, which is another name for jesus, even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve not to get something but to give his life for us. Thus we have this ultimate picture and ultimate example of the value of serving over being served Last year in the May 2018 edition of Newsweek, they published a research study that despite growing economy, despite growing technology, growing wealth increased medical facilities and treatments despite all the progression that our country and our society has made on average us adults are actually more stressed and more anxious than they were several years ago. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that we have more wealth? We have more access, we have more stuff but yet we're actually more stressed and more anxious and and depression rates are higher and medicated rates are higher and our mental health field as a whole is growing astronomically. Why do you think that is that As a culture we are becoming more stressed and more anxious I believe because the culture of me is not working post Malone the artist made famous the line do it for the gram meaning you do it for instagram or for social media that you're doing it for the gram if you if you're not posting about it and it really happened right. Can a good meal with friends really happen unless you post about it. Can you actually take a trip with a beautiful sunset or a mountain top view without posting about it. Right. That's the culture we live in. I get it. I do the same thing and so like we live in a culture where the idea of wanting to share is not bad but really what we're looking for is self validation and what happens is you actually have two issues number one if you don't get what you want, you end up with envy right? Repeated studies have shown that if you scroll social media for more than 30 minutes you will be more depressed than when you started. Because you see you're you're watching everybody's highlight reels and comparing that to your reality when you know that person that posted that perfect picture of their house has dirty laundry just out of you. You know I'm talking about, you know it's true that picture of the beautiful sunset I guarantee has screaming Children behind them. Right? That's why they're pictures not videos, right? I've seen people like not talk to me and we were in the same coffee shop or same thing and they were just doing anything and everything. But then all of a sudden they posted a picture with their bible open, hashtag blessed. And I'm like dude, I see you what, you're not doing any of that right? Because we live in a society where we're doing it for the gram. We're doing it for validation. We're doing it. There's actually a study going on right now. I just heard a podcast on it that actually instagram is doing social experiments in Canada. Okay, test on Canadians first um where they actually remove the like count off of post and see how does that change how people post. They're actually doing a social experiment to see does it change how often and what people post if they removed the public like count off of the photo does it change? Because they're curious, see we live in a society where we have to post these things and so what happens, you have two issues if you don't get what you want, you end up in envy, but if you do get what you want, you actually end up empty because you've been chasing after something and you finally get it, but when it's of the world it leaves you empty and you know, you're like, man, that's not, that's not what I was looking for. And so if you don't get what you want, you end up feeling envy. If you do get what you want, you end up feeling empty. And as the writer of Ecclesiastes, t so King Solomon who had more wealth than anybody at the end of the day, he said, you know, chasing vanity is like chasing the wind, It doesn't matter. You don't find it. The culture of me is not working. And healthy families are built by valuing serving over being served because too often I feel like we live in a society to where like we're scared what I'm talking about. Have you ever woke up like, oh no, you turn on the news, Oh no, they're posting, there's controversy. Oh no. And like as christians, I hear christians being like, man, I'm fearful, I'm scared, I'm nervous, okay, But if you believe in jesus, I want to tell you, I've read the end book of revelation, God wins. Like when this happens, when when we truly believe that God wins that, that he is king, then that should change our perspective on how we live life. I've shared with some of you before that I love the show 24 and Jack Bauer um may or may not have played into the fact that we named our first son Jackson, I don't know, just, just starting out there, But I remember watching a show and we were on like season four and man, he was in trouble. Jack Bauer was in trouble. I was nervous and I was like, oh my God, how is he gonna get out? And then all of a sudden it hit me. There's like seven seasons, 17 seasons were on season four, I've seen his picture on season seven, why am I worried about him in this scene when I know he's going to make it to the next one. And so in the same way, I think sometimes we live in fear as Christians, but I'm here to tell you today that we are not victims in a godless society, but we are victorious, champions and a glorious kingdom for God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and self control. And that when we enter situations, we enter with the power of the king, we enter with his glory and we use this power not too domineering but to love and to serve. And we completely flipped the script so that when the culture sees this play, when the culture sees the story of God and true love and true meaning, it changes everything. I believe. It's time for our church to play offense, right? For too long. We've lived in a bubble and we have created our own subculture, our own music, our own movies, our own language, everything like, oh no, let's protect the world is evil. But when we do that, we create an us versus them mentality when the reality, it's us and us and we're called to reach people with love and we do that through serving. And our greatest example is Jesus, he had all the power he spoke the world into existence. But what we learned in Mark 1045 is that he came not to be served, but to serve. And if Jesus gives us the example, we can live that out. You see in John 1718, he actually says this, he says he's praying to God, his heavenly father. And he says, as you sent me into the world. So I sent them into the world. And so we have this picture that God sent Jesus to provide salvation. And then Jesus sends us to proclaim salvation. It's a progression. God sends jesus to provide salvation and then Jesus sends us to proclaim salvation. It's not called good advice, It's called good news, Victory has already been won love and forgiveness and purpose and joy is available to all who come to him and we can see the power and we can see this story, Paul writes in Galatians chapter five verse 13 and 15. He says, you my brothers and sisters were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge in the flesh. Rather serve one another humbly in love for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command, love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour each other each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. Doesn't that last verse kind of describe our society today. If you bite and devour one another, watch out. You will be consumed and destroyed. Same thing with our families when we're focused on the culture of me versus a culture of we and it's about what can I get, what can I do? And we're doing it for the gram and we're doing this for for validation and we're doing this for our purposes. When we enter relationships to see what we can get, not what we can give. It's not healthy. But when we actually come and we actually use our freedom in christ to love and to serve it changes everything One more verse here for you first Peter 4 10 it says each of you should use whatever gift you have whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms, I love that picture, even the wording at the end it said that God's grace in various forms, that means that are there are different ways that you can serve and love people within your context. Many of you are familiar with the Gary Chapman's, the five love languages, right? There are different ways to love people, different ways to serve and connect. And God has wired you in a way so that you can make better, your family, your workplace, your community, your school. So if you're taking notes, write this down, because here's what it looks like. It's the question is not are you called? But where and how? The question is not, are you called? But where and how jesus did not just call pastors. I cringe when people say, oh, I left the workplace to go into ministry. No, everything is ministry, your business, your job, your family is ministry, everything is sacred to God. And God has given us this calling to everyone. There's not a separate calling. There's not a separate thing from, Okay, there's people who believe in jesus, but then there's the real ones. No, he's been given this calling to all. It's not, are you called? But where and how, where and how? And ultimately I believe it's not. Service is not about a position, it's about posture. We think, well, if I get to this, if I do this, if I make this much money. If I go this far then I will serve. If my schedule frees up or I go this far, then I will do this, then I will serve. We have an if then situation when God has really called us to serve here and now serving is not, it's it's it's less about position and it's more about posture, your attitude in every job you can serve in every relationship you can serve and make a difference. Let me just show you one example of someone who takes a normal everyday job but done in a way of service and it makes a radical difference. Go ahead and let's check this out. As the school year ends. Steve Hartman plays pays tribute to a hero in tonight's on the road. You can see why someone might hate being a school bus driver the early hours when the weather sours the abundance of responsibility combined with the absence of eyes in the back of your head. Nevertheless, Curtis Jenkins loves delivering these little ones to Lake Highlands elementary in Dallas texas. Emily Gruninger is the principal. He goes way beyond the outline responsibilities and duties of a bus driver. I mean that bus is like a family. These are my Children, these are my community, I love them all to establish community. What's your job man. He starts by giving everyone responsibility. This is one of the police officers. It's an elaborate flow chart. She's administrative assistant, the president, administrative assistant, everyone working together to build a yellow bus utopia and we're going to care about each other and we're gonna love everybody right? I put time effort, love care, understanding, understanding each and every one of those kids to show his love and understanding Curtis gives presence throughout the year. Like baseball. Each gift personally selected with that child in mind. He gave this girl a T shirt her first book with a picture from a book she made, I'm hoping this t shirt inspired her to keep on writing books. Over the years. He has bought these kids bikes, backpacks, handed out cards on birthdays and even turkeys at thanksgiving. He has spent thousands out of his own pocket. And yet if you ask the kids what they like most about Curtis, the gifts don't even come up. He really cares about us is really kind and he helps anyone in need Ethan. Engel is 1\/5 grader means a lot to you. Yeah. He says the bus ride is often the best part of his day. My mom got divorced when I was only four. He's the father that I always wanted in some ways. I, I just, I wish my dad could have been like that. We make the mistake sometimes of thinking certain jobs are more important than others. But Curtis Jenkins made his job important and in doing so even created his own salary. That's the paycheck right there. If I can get that you can keep the money steve hartman on the road in Dallas. And as the band comes back up on stage, I just remind you that the question is now are you called? But where and how how have you been called to make a difference first think of yourself, it starts by receiving jesus himself, The one who served the one who gave us the example. Have you received jesus into your life? Think of your family, how are you creating a value system or culture to where you serve one another When you go home today, are you looking to get something from somebody? Are you looking to give something from someone? Are you looking to better and lift up your spouse or your kids? And if you notice it's really easy for kids to claim like those little birds are finding nemo mine, mine mine, that's our default setting. So if you're wanting to teach your Children how to serve, let me ask you a question, do they see you serving? Do you give them an example? Just like jesus gave us the example because they're going to mimic what you do when you think of the church, when you think of our body, when you think of here in this gathering this place exists because of the service of others and we need you on the team. We need you connected everything from a setup team to technical team, to guest services, to greeting to Children's ministry, to hospitality, to decorating to making, creating that field. So that when people come onto our campus, they don't feel like they're coming into a school but there connecting with the family. You know, I think of Greg and Rachel McKay who after service go and pick up the flax, I think of the Infeld who with their kids are greeting out front, right, this is something you can do as a family that you can serve, that we can serve one another. That when we serve each other, God has lifted up and we have that feeling of family. What about for our community? One of our themes as a church is to be for our community in the first five months of 2019 so far our church has helped out harvest compassion center. Hope kids, singleton moms, horseshoe trails, elementary, wildfire elementary, we've done carnivals, we've done teacher lunches, we've done breakfast. Is the Aviano community, the boys and girls club, homeless ministry, refugee ministry, all these different things. And guys, let me just tell you, we're just getting started. Yeah, This summer we're gonna look at maybe doing a sports camp for kids here in the community. We're gonna look at serving homeless ministry. We're gonna look at refugees were gonna be handing out bottles of water on four July no agenda other than to just show our community, you know what we are here for you, we love you and we want to surf. Mhm. So when you think of yourself, when you think of family, when you think of our church, when you think of our community, the last challenge is to just think about, okay, well, what about your mission field? What about your workplace? What about your kids sports team? How is it that you have invested in other people that you've lifted other people up because you value not being served, but serving and see here's what people don't tell you is that when you serve you experience the love of jesus and that your life has changed and you receive blessings and you receive joy and purpose because it truly is more joyful to give than it is to receive. And so we just want to end with this is that Mhm. It's God's job to build the church. He gave that promise. It's our job to bless the city. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of. The first thing people think of when they hear the name christian is words of hypocrisy and judgment. We are not victims in a godless society, we are victorious, champions of a glorious kingdom. And we can do that as sons and daughters of God to serve and love our community. So that when they see or hear the word christian they said, you know what, I don't know exactly what they believe. I'm curious. I want to find out. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I felt loved, I felt served and I felt connected and they are more unified than anybody I've ever seen that my friends is the church. If we were to obey simply this concept of serving one another, I believe we would see radical change in our families, in our relationships and our church in our community, in our world is this gathering? It's not the play, this is the staging area and we need you to play a part because the stakes are high, eternity is long, our culture is watching and you have a part to play. Let's play that together. Dear, heavenly father, We just thank you, We come before you now and receive that's all that you've done for us. Yeah, we just pray that you would just open up our hearts so that we can commit our lives to you God man, we stand now and phrase you for who you are. But we understand that we're about to enter our mission field which is our workplace and our families and our communities wherever we go. And when we lift up those relationships and create those healthy foundations by recognizing that's not if we're called, but where and how and God may we enter our family relationships this week with the value of serving and not just being served. We love you God and we give this morning up to you and your sons and we pray amen