All right, good morning. Welcome to the house. My name is Greg Hampton. I'm one of the pastors here. If we've never met before, I would love to meet you.
Anyone else that has ever heard that before knows I'll buy you coffee. I will. Wherever you want to go. I'll buy you coffee. All right.
Or if you like soda or tea or something else, just, you know, let me know. I would love to get to know you here.
Your story. Hear where you're from. What you're about. And maybe even field some questions. Maybe you can answer me some questions about Jesus. Okay, deal?
We'll get together and you can tell me about Jesus. It hasn't been said yet. I'm a little surprised. Right?
There is a tradition going way back in the life of the church that on Easter, I will say something and then you say a response.
I will say Christ is risen. You'll say he is risen indeed. Ready? Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Right?
If this is your first time here, we don't do that every week. Okay. That is an Easter only thing. It is a special edition.
Last week, we finished the series that was called Worship with Everything. In this week, we are starting a new series called Radical Effect.
Any planters out there who are green thumbs? Raise your hand if you got a green thumb. Rod's got a green thumb. I know he does.
Alright, so what are the kinds of things that you guys like to plant? Just shout it out.
Just everything. Just everything. Basil. Okay. What? Roses. Anyone else? Fruits, trees.
Yeah, if you guys aren't friends with Andy on Facebook, become friends with him if you like peaches and cherries and things like that.
Because every year, they are just dropping peaches all over his front yard and he is like, please come and take these.
If you plant a lot or if you are in seventh grade science, you probably already know this.
But when you plant a seed, that first root that grows from that seed, that is called the radical. R-A-D-I-C-L-E.
And then the plant that grows from that radical, that is called the effect. No radical, no effect. Remember that.
Now let's jump into the scriptures. I am going to go to John chapter 12 and 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
These are both in what is called the New Testament. If you don't have your own Bible, we have Blue Bibles out on the bookshelf that you can take with you.
They are free. You can have one take home otherwise you can download a Bible from any of the digital app stores.
But we are going to go to John chapter 12 and 1 Corinthians 15. It goes Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
And then it goes Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians. And so that is the neighborhood that those two books are in.
And then we have a tradition of giving the scriptures our full attention. You can do that any number of ways.
One of the ways we do that is by standing as you are able together. You can also sit and give it your full attention.
But anyone who would like to stand with me can do so now. I am going to first read John 12 starting in verse 24. It says this.
I tell you for certain that a grain of wheat that falls on the ground will never be more than one grain unless it dies.
But if it dies it will produce lots of wheat. If you love your life you will lose it. If you give it up in this world you will be given eternal life.
1 Corinthians 15 starting in verse 3. For I hand it on to you as a first importance that I in turn, what I in turn had received,
that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
Let us pray. God of every tribe, every tongue, every color, every nation, we thank you for the scriptures.
We pray that whatever you have for us to learn from the scriptures today, I pray that it would stick,
that it would become a part of the framework of our faith, that our faith would become stronger as we become more like your son Jesus. Amen.
Thanks y'all. I can have a seat.
Okay so maybe something like this has happened to you, okay?
I have this tree in my backyard and well it's probably more, it's just a giant 40 foot weed. Does anyone have one of those?
And it was leaning against my garage. It literally smashed my gutter against my garage and started doing damage to the corner of my garage.
It's currently kind of leaning a little bit on my fence and so a couple summers ago I took a small chainsaw and I ill-advised got up on top of the roof of the garage
and cut away the little pieces and took off little chunks. Is this not working?
Alright so I'll start all over. Ready?
So I have this tree in my backyard. You heard that part. Some of you laughed.
And so I decided I'm going to trim some of this stuff away because it's damaging my garage so I take a small chainsaw and I kind of trim away the things that are actually touching the garage, the parts that are actually causing damage.
Now that tree started growing long before we ever moved into our house.
A seed fell to the ground, it soaked in water, the radical emerged, and I've had to deal with the effect ever since.
And that's not my fault. That tree being there is not my fault.
But it is my responsibility.
I didn't plan it. I wasn't there when it was just a sapling when someone else should have pulled it up from the dirt.
But I am there now. And unless I want it to continue to do damage to my garage, isn't it my responsibility to do something about it?
It's not your fault you were born into a world that's broken.
It's not your fault that you were born with a proclivity for sin.
That problem predates all of us.
It's been around since the very beginning of humanity. Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and slothfulness.
They were all here long before any of us were born.
We're born. One person introduced sin into the world millennia ago. Countless people have perpetuated it since.
We are still dealing with it today.
But if you have a tree that's leaning against your house, you are going to need to do something about it.
It reminds me of the problem of racism because sometimes people that look like me, aka white folk, we want to say things like,
well, we had nothing to do with it. We weren't there for American slavery. I didn't do any of that.
I was born after the civil rights movement. It has nothing to do with me.
But just because we weren't there doesn't mean we can't see the trees leaning against the houses.
And if I see the tree leaning and I don't do anything about it, then doesn't that become my fault?
After all, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.
And if he is risen, then the scriptures are begging us to understand that the good news of Jesus isn't only that he is risen.
It's that because he is risen, God has planted something new in us, that there is a new seed with new radical potential.
Listen to what the scriptures say. Romans 5 18, sin entered through one man, but Christ,
one act of righteousness also brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone.
Colossians 2 14, he canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.
Second Corinthians 5 17, and if anyone believes in Jesus, the new creation has come, the old has gone, the new is here.
The roots of every sin have been crucified and buried with Jesus. Amen.
And they did not come back to life with Jesus on Easter morning. Amen.
Sin stayed dead in the grave, but we still have to choose to live in the reality.
We need to clear some space for that new life to grow without pretending that we don't see the old trees leaning on houses.
There can be this strand of thinking that says that if you believe in Jesus, you don't have to do anything.
Jesus paid it all so he has done it all. But I don't think that's exactly what Jesus or even Paul is getting at.
Jesus has paid it all. Absolutely. But he has paid it all so that we can be and do all that God has for us to be and do.
Not because doing earns us something better. That's not at all what it is.
But because what Jesus has done, because what we have been given in Jesus could not possibly be any better.
And so we are moved to act on what Jesus has done.
Maybe everyone in this room already knows what I'm about to say.
But if you've never heard any of this before, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, let me say it clearly.
Jesus is the Son of God. He is divine and perfect and eternal.
Because we are basically guaranteed to sin in this lifetime, Jesus did something radical and let the humans that he created kill him on a cross.
Why? So that he could take their sin, so he could take all of our sin with him to the grave.
When he resurrected on the day that we call Easter, he left our sin behind.
That doesn't mean we can't sin. Doesn't mean that we'll never sin again.
But the radical effect that is growing from his new life means that we do not have to.
That is no longer the root that is in your heart.
And we can choose to live from his radical effect.
So what do we do with that?
First, I think that we we need to ask ourselves, are we living from that old root?
Are we like purposely choosing to live from that old root or have we chosen to live from this new radical effect?
You still still living that old growth? You letting that tree lean?
I think some of us right now might feel like a literal tree has fallen on our house.
It's holding us down.
So why do we keep it?
If it's not helping us.
The truth is that tree in my backyard, I haven't cut it down yet.
Because I don't have the right tools.
Because it's too big for me to do alone.
Because I'm not qualified.
Because Jordan just moved back to town. He's been gone for five years.
Because I don't have the money to pay someone else to do it.
Right? Sure. Click, click, click, click, click.
All of the above. But the real answer.
Hear me. The real answer is I haven't cut down that tree yet because it hasn't yet done enough damage.
Yeah.
It has not yet caused me enough pain to actually do something about it.
Because I can trim it away to make enough room to put another gutter in.
While I know it's just going to end up leaning on that garage again.
Some of us have not gotten rid of the old tree because it has not yet caused us enough ache and pain and hurt.
When we could just get rid of it now.
We do not need it.
Jesus is calling us to cut down those old trees before they do all the damage that they can do.
Because Jesus cut the roots of that tree already. You hear me?
Jesus cut the roots of that tree already.
That tree is already dead. It has no life for you.
But we need to clear it out.
Let's be honest. Sometimes we don't cut down that old growth.
Because it's fun.
When I was a kid we had this old willow tree in our backyard.
And it was giant. I was a little kid so I don't know if it was as giant as I thought it was.
But for me as a little kid it was pretty giant.
And my dad would put a rope in it and we would do like acrobatics around it.
It was close enough to the tree that we would repel off the side of the tree and bounce around.
And I would do like two and three twists all the way around to the other side of the tree.
And I would be doing this for hours just having fun.
And I think even once the rope broke and I just went flying and plummeting to the earth.
And it hurt but I didn't care because it was fun.
I was like dad can you put another rope in the tree?
But that tree was hollow inside.
And that tree was dead.
And the fun that a child was having would have led to a tree falling on our house.
If my parents had not decided no we need to get rid of this tree.
It would have done more damage than the rope breaking and me falling while having fun.
Sometimes we love something that can really hurt us but it needs to go.
First Corinthians 13 and 11 says, When I was a child I spoke as a child.
I understood as a child. I thought as a child.
But when I became a grown person I put away childish things.
The martyr and missionary Jim Elliott once said,
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.
Whatever it is Jesus is asking you to let it go.
Cut it down. Clear that old growth and live in this new radical effect.
A new life in Jesus.
How does that new life grow? Yeah?
Many of you probably already know this but there is a bar in town that some of us like to hang out with.
It's called Radical Effect.
We 100% stole the name of this series from that bar.
Don't worry I told Rich the honor.
And I'll tell you why because it's actually a very clever name for a bar.
It's not because of the visual of a seed sprouting and then obviously the plant is the effect and that grows up.
And that produces grain that then you can make a beer from.
It's clever because when a seed drinks something the word for that is imbibition.
And when you drink something or I drink something that's called imbibing.
It's the same word.
That's clever because a dry seed does nothing.
It just sits there.
It has to drink something to grow something.
The implication of naming your bar Radical Effect is that something new can come if you come here and have a drink.
Maybe a new friendship, maybe a new story, maybe a new feeling in case of some bars, maybe even a new community.
Remember what I said at the very beginning.
No radical, no effect.
Really no drink, no radical, no effect.
So what are you drinking for your spirit?
We can all very easily think of something that might be weighing us down.
But we also need to think about what we are drinking into our spirit.
Scriptures tell us that we can now sow, we can plant into the Holy Spirit and that we can reap from the Holy Spirit.
The scriptures say, but do not do not let God be mocked.
Do you not know that the things that you sow to you will also reap from?
Means that we don't just clear the old out.
It means that we replace it with something new.
Now, I'm not encouraging anybody to go drink if that's not your thing, okay?
You have to show, you have to have wisdom in what you do.
But I'm encouraging you to drink something in by the Holy Spirit.
Matter of fact, if you've never been baptized, maybe it's time for you to consider that.
Every year on Mother's Day, which is about six weeks from now,
we pull that big blue thingamajigger from the corner over there and we fill it with water.
It's ill advised, but we fill it with water indoors.
And we baptize anyone that would like to be baptized, because in baptism,
what we are doing is we are participating with the symbol that we are going under the water into the grave with Christ,
that our sin goes with us, our old self goes with us.
When we are raised up out of the water, we are raised up with resurrection in Christ, a new creation.
It is a physical representation of a spiritual reality that has already happened.
If you believe in Jesus, that has already happened, but this is a physical representation.
It is a practice of what we believe the Spirit has already done.
Last thing that I want to bring to your attention, I want to let me ask,
Jude, come help me, and Hope, come help me, and Wallace, come help me.
I want you guys to pass out these seeds to everybody.
Now, these are special seeds.
Most of you probably played with these seeds when you were kids.
Those of you that don't have one yet, we call them helicopters.
These seeds, listen, y'all, these seeds are like the best.
And the reason that they're the best is because they're like Mother Nature's toy.
They're just like built in.
You see these as a child and you're immediately like,
oh, I want to throw that up in the air as high as I possibly can.
So, when you get your seed, go ahead, throw it up in the air.
Go ahead, do it. See what it does.
And, you know, we'll pick them up. You can pick it up.
You can do it again. Have fun with it.
I mean, I don't want to leave the place a mess.
So we pick them up. Andy, pick up your seed, man.
But there's something fun about these seeds.
There's something playful about them.
But everyone hear me when I say this, ready?
These seeds will not grow in this room.
It does not matter how high you throw it up.
It does not matter where it lands.
These seeds will not grow in this room.
If that seed that you have been given has any chance of becoming a tree,
it has to find soil.
The only way that that is going to happen is how?
If you do something about it,
if you take this seed and you take it somewhere that it might actually find soil.
So listen, those seeds aren't going to grow in this room.
I'm going to say something else that pastors aren't supposed to say.
You are not going to grow very much in this room.
This room is not meant for the us coming together and worshiping together
is not meant to meet all of the needs of the extent of spiritual growth that your heart needs.
This church, this message, it isn't just for us.
We have to take Jesus out there.
Take these seeds out there and see if you can grow something out there.
Let Jesus be a part of your life outside of the walls of this building,
inside of Greenbush, inside of old Chicago, down 11th Street, up the hill,
wherever you find yourself, let Jesus, in that radical effect,
grow something that is new.
Water it with things that are good, prayer and scriptures and fellowship with each other.
But do not keep it in this room.
Do not keep it in this room.
Take it with you.
Amen?