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Now, I have to let you all know, this Thursday is finally my last day working with Harris

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County.

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Yes.

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Oh, my goodness.

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Very, very happy about this.

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But it's been one of those things where it's like you're glad to do it, and then also you're

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kind of glad when it's done.

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But with it is there's been a lot of work to focus on affordable housing in the area,

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so I'm glad to have been a part of it, and I think it would be a lot of different lessons

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to take from it.

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But something that stood out to me, one of the lessons that came out of it, was in interacting

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with my team at one point.

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So my job is supposed to be to get community feedback, find out what they see that they

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need, and then make sure that where money is going takes that into consideration.

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Well, one of the problems was that during one of our meetings, I'm sitting there communicating

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what it was that we had just learned from all these surveys, and then I find out that

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they'd already decided where all the money was going to go anyway.

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And I'm just like, wait, but you're supposed to make sure that this reflects what the community

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wants.

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That's literally one of the stipulations for the funding, and it just kept going around

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and around and around.

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And finally, it was just like, when are we going to get the community feedback into

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the plan?

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And then I was written up for being too passionate.

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And that feeling, the desire to be able to speak and to stand up for what's needed, at

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the same time, oftentimes it kind of gets squelched by this idea that, yeah, you don't

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want to rattle up too many people.

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You don't want to ruffle too many feathers.

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Well, what was interesting to me, though, is that after a few months, there was a lot

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of turnover.

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A lot of people got changed up, in part because a lot of things were not getting done the

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way they were supposed to be.

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Well, in that, though, one of my superiors, as she was leaving, said, Jason, don't forget

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to still be passionate.

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And what stood out to me was that, OK, how do I take that passion, but how do I guide

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it in a better way?

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And one of the things with that is some of the new people that were there, it was like

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I had a chance to start over.

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Well, in starting over, I started focusing on how do I teach more people how to do the

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same work?

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How do I encourage other people where they're at?

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How do I make sure that other people see that I'm on their team, that I'm alongside them?

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How do I make sure that whenever someone has done something great, I point it out, and

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when something isn't the way it should be, how can I find a more productive way of doing

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that?

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And not only did it make it easier to get some of these jobs done, but also more people

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were excited and happy to do those jobs in the first place.

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And it ended up creating a stronger team.

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Now, a lot of times, we might end up looking at these things as just sort of like a human

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resources kind of an idea.

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But it's interesting because in many spots, that's what we see Paul talking about in his

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letter.

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You see, oftentimes we miss out on the fact that the gospel is meant to change the way

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that we look at the people and the circumstances around us.

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Paul says that we are to acknowledge workers.

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How often do we actually find people at work making sure that other people get credit for

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the things that they've done when we're trying so hard to make sure that we get credit for

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things?

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How many times is it easy to live in peace with others?

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And that just doesn't mean live in peace with others who are nice to you and making it easy.

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Live in peace with others.

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That doesn't exclude the ones who are making things difficult.

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Or even things like warn the idol and the disruptive.

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And sometimes we can end up going one way or the other.

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I mean, people who are idle and not getting the job done, hey, I worked for government.

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I totally get how that is.

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With it is at the same time, how do you encourage them to stay on track and find ways not just

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just tell them, go be productive because that's never going to work.

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Or how is it that you convince them that they want to be doing more?

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Or the disruptive?

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How do you help people instead of putting their feet in the ground and saying, I'm not going

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to do it?

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How do you instead encourage a change of heart?

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Encourage those who are disheartened, be patient with people and help them defeat evil with

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good.

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We're not used to defeating evil with good.

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We're used to defeating evil with strength, with power, with snarky comments.

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That's America, defeat everything with a snarky comment.

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And with that is we're used to treating evil like evil.

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And you have to make sure that people get put in their place.

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And yet somehow we're being called to something different.

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Because somehow the good that we're meant to do is what will actually stop the evil

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that's in the world.

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It's sort of like there's this, you know those memes that have the glass that's half

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full or half empty.

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And it'll show how different people respond to it.

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So it might say like the optimist looks and says that the glass is half full.

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The pessimist will look at it and say the glass is half empty.

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But I love the engineer that says the glass was designed poorly and put way too much

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space in there.

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And I love that.

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It's just a whole other way of looking at it.

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And this whole idea of the circumstances that you see, the way that we view it ends up changing

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the way we respond to it.

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There was a story about a farmer.

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It's a Chinese story about a farmer that one day his horse runs away.

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And the neighbor comes up and says oh no, what bad luck you had, your horse ran away.

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And the farmer responds with maybe, maybe not.

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Well the horse comes back.

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Well the horse came back with other horses.

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And so then the neighbor comes back and says wow, what great luck.

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You've got more horses now.

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And the farmer says well maybe, maybe not.

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But then when they were trying to tame the horses, the farmer's son falls and breaks

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his leg.

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And so the neighbor comes back again and says oh what terrible luck.

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Your son's got a broken leg and the farmer says maybe, maybe not.

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And then because they were forcing people into the military at the time, they saw, bless

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you, that the son had broken his leg and said oh well we can't force you into the military.

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And so the neighbor comes back and says oh what good luck.

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He wasn't forced into the military because of a broken leg.

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And what did the farmer say?

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Maybe, maybe not.

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And the original story is meant to explain that oftentimes things go back and forth.

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You never know what's going to lead to a good outcome or to a bad outcome.

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You really have no idea.

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But more than that is that we know that it can be so easy to focus on the things that

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are going poorly that we miss out on what God might be doing for our good and the good

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of others.

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And that's a tricky part about this.

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Is that there are a lot of things that God is doing in our world around us but also through

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us.

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We don't necessarily understand today what God is doing.

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It may very well be not only hard but frustrating and we might just see it as a curse but we

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don't realize that tomorrow God is meaning to use it for something that we didn't even

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get or it may be something that we never get to see in our lifetime why.

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But a lot of times this view of how we view the things around us, it ends up turning

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on the way we view God.

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You see, this idea that whatever we do or don't have is still meant to be a blessing.

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This Sunday is sometimes a tricky Sunday.

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See, it's the one right before Advent.

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This is also oftentimes, since it's right after Thanksgiving, it's also the one that

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a lot of churches like to spend their time making sure is stewardship Sunday.

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So everybody needs to know that they need to give money to the church that week.

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And I get it and it makes sense.

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But more than that is that if we don't already realize how blessed we are in Christ to the

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point of wanting to share what we have, then how is one day of giving going to actually

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matter?

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Because it's more than just trying to convince people to be kind but rather is to say what

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is it that God has already done in your life that then we can share with others.

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I mean, for crying out loud, the kids got it pretty easily.

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How often do we not get it?

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But with that, is it then goes into something where it says, do not quench the spirit, do

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not despise prophecies, but test everything, hold fast what is good.

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We oftentimes get confused on what that prophecy part is meant to be.

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We can sometimes think, oh, that just means you're prophesying about what's going to

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happen in the future.

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But that's not necessarily what prophecy means.

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Rather it's saying test what people are saying to you in God's name.

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See the thing is that no matter where you go, you're going to come across a lot of different

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teachers having a lot of different ideas, a lot of different ways of trying to explain

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what they say God would want you to do.

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But here's the thing.

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Does it actually match with what God has said and done already?

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You see, when Jesus predicted his death and he said that the Son of Man will be taken

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and will be killed on the tree and then on the third day will rise again, the reason

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why that prophecy was so important was because everything Jesus said was completely reframing

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what people knew.

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And he had to show them that what he was doing was truly coming from God, the God who could

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point and say what was to come.

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But do we do that?

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Do we spend the time taking what it is that we hear from other people and actually comparing

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it to what God has done, who God is, and what he's called us to be?

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If something sounds like a good idea, then asking the question, is this actually going

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to lead us somewhere that we know God would want us to go?

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See, the thing is that oftentimes we can end up getting so distracted from doing things

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that we think sound like a good idea, but we miss asking the question, is this actually

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something that God is leading us to do?

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Here's an example.

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Whenever I was young, we used to have to memorize a bunch of verses.

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So what we had to do is if we wanted to go to camp, we wanted to go to camp for free.

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We had to memorize verses every week for several months, and we had to say them in front of

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the congregation.

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So imagine all of my confirmation students, imagine that I may all come up here every single

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week for half a year and you had to say a verse in front of everybody in the congregation.

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Yeah, I know, right?

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I'm very, very nice.

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With it is that we spent so much time making sure we had the verse perfectly right, but

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at no point did we spend time seeing, yeah, but did we understand what the verse was meant

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to be about?

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Whenever we were going through all this stuff with COVID and we had to meet online a lot

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of times, it was really hard to pick and choose what is it that's going to be important and

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what is not as important.

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And at the end of the day, I had to ask how important is it that I make sure every one

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of the kids memorizes the Apostles Creed, and I had to decide I'd rather make sure that

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I know that they know for sure what it's about, and then I'll just tell them you should probably

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learn it later.

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So yeah, I think all of you got it memorized by now though.

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Yeah, all my good students, all my good students, there we go.

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And that's the thing with what we follow as being God's desire is that oftentimes we spend

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our time focusing on the things that we think make sense.

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We understand if we do this, I can clearly see how I'm going to get where I want to go,

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and then we stop and we pause and we say, yeah, but is that where we actually see Jesus

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leading us as well?

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There was a quote, it's a C.S. Lewis quote.

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He wrote in his book, Mere Christianity.

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In it, he says, if I am drowning in a rapid river, a man who still has one foot on the

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bank may give me a hand, which saves my life.

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Now should I shout back in between my gasps?

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No, it's not fair.

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You have an advantage.

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You're keeping one foot on the bank.

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That advantage, you can call it unfair if you like, is the only reason why he can be

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of any use to me.

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To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?

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In a nation that has prided itself on, I can do it.

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I'm strong enough.

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I'll pull myself up by my bootstraps.

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I still don't know what a bootstrap is for the record.

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And I will make sure that I get it done.

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Because that's kind of part of the problem.

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We keep coming up with solutions to things that satisfy what we think will work instead

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of looking to the one who actually conquered death for us.

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That's a hard part.

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But that's also where all the difference is made.

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See, as we're finishing our study of 1 Thessalonians, we end up seeing Paul finish off with

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what sounds in many ways like, it's just kind of a nice way to finish up something.

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Just kind of a good conclusion.

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Just sort of like, take care.

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Don't forget to write your mom.

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Make sure you eat your vegetables, all that stuff.

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And he says, brothers, pray for us.

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Greet all the brothers with the holy kiss.

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I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.

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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

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Nobody greet me with the holy kiss, please.

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That'd be very awkward.

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But with it, though, is to realize that it's actually revealing the whole point of this.

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We are meant to pray for others.

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Because as you're praying, is what you're feeling toward that person something that

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God actually wants to hear from you?

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When we pray, it's also a chance to be reset to where God wants us.

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Greet people with love.

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Do we really go to the people around us and focus on how am I loving this person?

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Read the scriptures.

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Sometimes the most obvious ones are the ones that we miss the most.

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Because this is where God focuses us on who he is and what his word is proclaimed.

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And the grace of Christ.

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Because here's the thing.

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We've got all sorts of different ideas and speculations in our world about what's going

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to fix things.

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Whoever has the right plan or the right economy or the right discussion points or makes sure

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that they get people riled up in the right way.

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But the only one who can actually bring any hope is the one who suffered through everything

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we had to throw at him.

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And still come out the other side with new life.

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So if we truly wish to see this world become what God has wanted it to be, let's let go

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of what we think is going to work.

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And go after what God has called us to in Christ Jesus.

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His forgiveness and his mercy is the only thing that will truly make the difference.

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Thanks be to God.