The Unreasonable Way of Jesus

1. 0:00 a close at christ church miami we pause to remember not just events but lives changed prayers answered and a faithful god at work amongst us associate church we not only want to be your home we want to help you discover the gifts god has given you and empower you to use them my name is pastor james drake i'm the lead pastor for christ church miami which is launching september 7th right here at the location one of the most amazing churches in arkady kindle presbyterian church you set a table and invite us to calm your body we're a faith family all right we're getting a lot of work done getting ready for tomorrow's lawn sunday i could search the world and never find another like you another like you all right it's launch sunday here at christ church miami let's see what it looks like oh man this is looking good look at this we're headed to our launch team breakfast right now with all of our leaders hey you guys good morning good to see you oh it's looking good look at this guy you know always trying to outdo me it's hard working with this it's hard working with this guy always always went up to me my favorite part of the church practicing my sermon i'm so encouraged god is good scripture says when you lift jesus up he'll draw people to himself right now for the first time in a long time we have overflow parking taking place there's people are getting into church and getting here early in miami so we're seeing a miracle praise god this is what we're buying the kids in our story today a man who is looking for more so he is going to find all these trees he professed as well in a fluent position title he gave us all up because he finally found that which is truly life and that's what christ offered them and what he offers us today that we too who are outside from the end become a part of his family isaiah 53 says that we are to cast our burdens because he would carry them first peter 5 7 says cast your cares on the lord because he cares for you there is a hungry and a longing in our hearts that said god will you make things right will you make things whole and we long for that this is what jesus talked about in matthew 6 33 where he said seek first the king of god and all these things will be added up to you and there is no one there is no one like you You've been faithful every day of my life, I could search the world and never find another like you, another like you, I could search the world and never find another like you.
2. 6:09 Another like you, no other like you, Lord Jesus, matchless in every one, you're matchless in every one, you're matchless in every one.
3. 6:39 And He doesn't want just religion, He wants reconciliation and that is what Christmas is all about. There is no other like you, there is no other like you.
4. 7:11 There is no other like you, no other like you, Jesus.
5. 7:40 Jesus, you matchless in every one. Between now and then, we look back with gratitude, we look ahead with expectation. This is the season of Advent, a great expectation.
6. 7:57 This is the season of Advent, a great expectation.
7. 8:27 And His truth is beginning to shine through us. We look back with gratitude and ahead with faith. Because the same God who was at work then, is still at work now. We believe the best is yet to come. What a year, huh?
8. 8:57 We have so much to be thankful for. And as James told you earlier, God's in charge here. He knows what's going on with us. He knows our times, our seasons, the events and so forth.
9. 9:13 And so, we're in good hands with the Lord. I told James, too, after what he announced earlier, nobody's going to remember a thing I said today. So, I could get up here and do the ABCs. You all know the difference. Did I mention I'm starting my six-month sabbatical next week? Did I mention that to you?
10. 9:29 Folks, we're in God's hands. And God knew this long before we ever decided to do this crazy thing of putting these churches together. And so, we'll be okay by God's faithfulness. Let me ask you a question. Who do you know that is somebody that you can just count on?
11. 9:46 If you ask them to do something and they say yes, it's done. You don't have to think twice about it. You know she'll do what she promises. You know he'll deliver exactly what he says. Do you have people like that in your life? I know I'm looking at several of them. If I called their names out, they would not appreciate it, so I won't.
12. 10:03 We talk about people who go the extra mile, go the second mile for you. We're going to look at the text where that comes from today. I have a good friend by the name of Bill Hanson. Maybe some of you know Bill. He is one of the best caterers in the world. His company, one of his companies, is called Leading Caterers of America.
13. 10:21 And if you get Bill Hanson to cater your event, you're in good hands. He's not cheap. You'll get what you pay for. But if Bill Hanson tells you he's going to deliver, it's as good as done. He's written a book called Plating Up Prophets, which I just read recently.
14. 10:37 It's sort of an autobiographical guide to people who want to get into the catering business, which is not for the faint of heart. He tells stories in there about disasters that have happened. There was a time when a clumsy behind-the-scenes worker at a hotel stumbled, fell into a table that was holding the wedding cake, gashed his hand badly, bled all over the place, destroyed the cake about three hours before the service, before the wedding.
15. 11:02 Bill and his people scrambled around. They found a Publix that could scramble together a wedding cake that looked so close to the original, the bride didn't even notice the difference. There was another time he set up for a huge event at Vizcaya under a great big rented tent. And one of our South Florida thunderstorms blew in off of Biscayne Bay, soaked the tent, so much water on it that the tent collapsed, ruining everything underneath.
16. 11:28 About five hours before the event, Bill and his team took everything in, dried it off, moved the vent inside. The event went off without a hitch. My favorite story from that book, though, is the time the bride's wedding dress was stolen out of the back of her car two hours before the wedding.
17. 11:49 Bill had somebody here in town that makes dresses that he called and said, here's what I got. And she made the bride a substitute wedding gown that she knew the difference, but nobody else did, all with about two hours to go before the service.
18. 12:06 Like I said, it's not for the faint of heart, but if Bill tells you he's going to, and Bill, if you watch this and you get a bunch of new bookings out of what I said, 20%, buddy, 20%, we're good. We call people like that second milers. They're part of the company of the second mile.
19. 12:24 Bill's motto is, I under-promise, I over-deliver. Maybe you've got people like that in your life. Here's a text it comes from. And I'd like to do the custom that James has us do. Would you stand in honor of the reading of God's Word as I read you from Matthew 5, 38-42. This is part of the Sermon on the Mount.
20. 12:42 Jesus says, Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
21. 13:12 This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. Would you pray with me? Our Lord and our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in whose hands are our lives, our times, our days, our going and our coming.
22. 13:28 From the moment we're born to the moment we breathe our last in this planet, you're with us from the beginning to the end. As we look now into the Word of God, these are your words, the very words of God spoken through men written down and preserved for us.
23. 13:45 The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of our God abides forever. Lord, that you would speak through this most inadequate and imperfect vessel and speak to your people this morning. And those who are not yet your people, but are just on the edge, checking this Christianity thing out.
24. 14:04 Speak to us, Lord. And that's enough. We ask it in Jesus' name, the living Word. Amen. Amen. Well, this is a great text for the first Sunday of a new year. You know, we've got the whole new year laid out before us. Lots of new opportunities, lots of new possibilities, lots of new challenges, and likely some obstacles, almost certainly some obstacles to overcome.
25. 14:27 But we've got the whole year in front of us, and here we have Jesus helping address what we are to do and what not to do. Once again, he is challenging the status quo. He's saying, you know what it says, what you've heard traditionally, you know what the conventional wisdom is, you know what the religious leaders say.
26. 14:43 But I say to you, he takes what they've said, and he turns it all over on its head, says it's a new ballgame. There's a new sheriff in town. His name is Jesus. That's why we're titling this series, Jesus Said What? Because the people on that hillside in Galilee 2,000 years ago, and Christians ever since, including this morning, we read these words, we say, Jesus said what?
27. 15:06 Jesus, did you mean that? Jesus, this is hard. I mean, are you serious, Jesus? And Jesus says, exactly. This is what you've heard, but this is what I say. And this whole passage now ties together in what Jesus tells us to do and to go above and beyond what is required of us, to go above and beyond what the world expects of us, to go that second mile, to go above and beyond what is typical in this culture.
28. 15:34 Let me illustrate it for you. You've gone through a drive-thru at your favorite fast food restaurant. How is the customer service? Yeah, that's right. No. The one exception we can think of to that is Chick-fil-A.
29. 15:51 And that's why not only is our food great, but year after year, they're rated everybody's favorite fast food service because their customer service is really, really good. You call tech support for a problem with your phone or your computer, and you get Bob from Dallas, and that's wishing you a very good day.
30. 16:09 I shouldn't do that. I know. All the way in your emails. How's the customer service there? How's the customer service there? Again, there's an exception. Apple's great. Customer service is great, and that's why people put up with all the other Apple stuff, right?
31. 16:26 Or how about the crowning jewel customer service? The Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. I don't even need to finish the question, do I? Customer service. You exist to serve us, seems to be the attitude there.
32. 16:44 But Jesus says, not so with my people. Not so with my people. My people go above and beyond. My people go way above and beyond what this world expects. That's what we're talking about this morning. That's what this sacramental meal is about.
33. 17:02 Our Lord and Savior, who left behind the rights and privileges of being God Almighty, the splendors of heaven, became one of us to give of his all that we might be saved. We talk about going above and beyond.
34. 17:18 Jesus is the very model of going above and beyond. So this morning, I've got basically three applications of this text for those of us who would seek to follow in his footsteps. First is this. That is, go against what the world tells you to do.
35. 17:35 Go against it. When Jesus says to us in verses 38 and 39, you've heard it said, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Well, I say no. I say no. Go above and beyond. Go against what the world has to say. He says, somebody slaps you on one cheek.
36. 17:51 You turn the other cheek. Again, we hear these words. We say, Jesus said what? I don't know about you. Somebody slaps me on one cheek. I want to turn to their other cheek and spin it around about 360, a high rate of speed. I know you're too spiritual for that, but that's my first impulse.
37. 18:09 I'm supposed to turn the other cheek and say, hit me again? Man, that takes an incredible amount of the grace of God. An incredible amount of restraint, an incredible amount of the grace of God. And that's when we realize, if we're going to do this, we've really got to lean into and lean on the grace of God.
38. 18:28 And G.K. Chesterton, a favorite writer, a British writer of a hundred years ago, said this, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. Rather, it has been found difficult and left untried. Because Jesus is so counter-cultural.
39. 18:44 We forget that in this culture. Because for a long time in our culture, the gospel was sort of accepted. Not anymore. Now we know that we're going against what this world has to say. This is so counter-intuitive, counter-culture, counter-human nature to go against that immediate impulse to want to strike back, turn your other cheek, not that of your assailant.
40. 19:08 Somebody says, well, I kind of like the Old Testament version of that, you know, the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Let me show you where that comes from. This is from Exodus chapter 21, excuse me, verses 23 through 25. God speaking through Moses says, But if there's harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
41. 19:37 These verses, by the way, are highly endorsed by your local dentist and doctor's associations. More teeth to replace, more broken bones and wounds and burns to repair. Not really. They don't want to do that either. Contrary to what most people believe, this is not a prescription for vengeance.
42. 19:56 This is not saying, if someone knocks out your... Tooth, you should or you must knock out his tooth. If someone slaps you on one cheek, you must slap. No, this is putting a limit on vengeance. The law goes on to say, Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18, same God speaking to the same man, Moses, to the same people, old covenant Israel, you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself, says the Lord.
43. 20:29 See, these laws are there to provide a framework for the legal system of old covenant Israel. Not incidentally, they are also the backdrop, the framework, for our laws today, for our judicial system in this country, even if most of the people in Washington seem to have forgotten that.
44. 20:46 These are there to provide a limit to what you can do in return for an offense. This is to, to coin a phrase, to make the punishment fit the crime and not to go above and beyond that. If you knocked out, excuse me, if you knocked out somebody's eye and he wanted retribution on you, that meant if he, if he came looking for you, now depending on which eye he knocked out, if there's this one, you know, he might have a hard time finding you depending on where you were, right?
45. 21:18 But if he came back and looked for you, he couldn't cut off your head, but he could take your eye. If you knocked out someone's tooth, they came back looking for you. They couldn't push you off a cliff, but they could knock out your tooth. So as to put a limit on the amount of retribution or vengeance you could take on another person.
46. 21:38 Not to say you must, but say you must not go on any further past these limits. I wrote a blog a few years ago titled, titled True Greatness. And in it, I profiled a couple of people. One was Nelson Mandela.
47. 21:54 At the time, Nelson Mandela was president of the Republic of South Africa. He was also dying of a lung disease he contracted in prison. Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison for basically insurrection. And he spent 28 years of that life sentence on Robben Island in South Africa before he earned his parole, his pardon, in February of 1990.
48. 22:18 Four years later, in May of 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected the first black president in the first free and open election in South African history. I heard Mandela speak one time. He was a towering, commanding presence.
49. 22:33 And I want you to know, I'm not nominating him for sainthood. He was a flawed man. Great people are greatly flawed, and Nelson Mandela is no exception. But here's why I say he's a model of true greatness. When Nelson Mandela was elected president by the people of South Africa, he asked F.W.
50. 22:52 de Klerk to be his second deputy president. It's analogous to our vice president. F.W. de Klerk was one of the men who put him in prison for life, where he contracted the lung disease that eventually killed him. At his inauguration, he asked all his former jailers to sit on the front row as he was inaugurated president.
51. 23:13 What a picture of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of grace. And that's why I say he's a model of true greatness, even though he was a flawed man like the rest of us. Abraham Lincoln, our 16th and arguably our greatest president, was also a model of grace and forgiveness.
52. 23:33 When he ran for president, he had several men who ran against him who were his fiercest critics. They called him everything but a child of God, a country bumpkin from the backwoods of Kentucky and Illinois, a simple lawyer. What did he know? And when he was elected president, he asked his fiercest critics to be his closest advisors.
53. 23:54 That's why Doris Kearns Goodwin's incredible biography of Lincoln is titled, Team of Rivals. And when Abraham Lincoln lay dying on that deathbed after he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, those men were surrounding him.
54. 24:11 And it was one of his harshest critics, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who saw him die and pronounced those immortal words, Jesus of Nazareth, born to peasants in a nowhere town in the backwaters of Israel, rose to become the greatest, most important person the world has ever known.
55. 24:36 He taught like no one's ever taught. He preached like no one's ever preached. He did miracles no one's ever done before. He touched the outcast and the lame, the blind and the leper, like no one else ever would. And as he was dying, as he was being tortured to death by the men who had accused him on false charges and put him through the mocker of a child, beaten him and scourged him, he looked down from the cross and uttered the ten most unbelievable words ever uttered in the history of humanity.
56. 25:08 Father, forgive them. For they don't know what they're doing. Talk about someone who went the second mile and then some. The highest personification of that in human history is Jesus of Nazareth.
57. 25:25 The ultimate example of the second mile or the company of the second mile. Second application. Go against what the world says to do. Go above what the world says to give. Go above what the world says to give. There are basically two outlooks in life.
58. 25:42 And you know people who probably embody both or one or the other. One person says, whatever you do for me is not enough. Whatever you ask of me is too much. These are the people who give minimal efforts that go through the motions.
59. 25:59 He goes through the minimal effort going through the motions at his job. She goes through the minimal effort going through the motions at school. They go through the motions in their home life and their marriage. They go through the minimal efforts going through the motions in their spiritual lives.
60. 26:17 Just enough to keep a job. Just enough to stay in school. Just enough to stay married. Just enough to say, I'm a Christian. It is a surefire formula for a mediocre life and probably a miserable one at that. But people like that will go through this life and not leave a trace.
61. 26:35 The world will not be one bit different because they were here. Then there's the other attitude that says, everything I am, everything I own, everything I have, and the ability to get those things is all a priceless, precious stewardship from God.
62. 26:55 And if he can use what he's given me in service to others, it's not a burden. It's a privilege. I follow one who said, I'm not among you as one who needs to be served. I am a servant.
63. 27:10 I came to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. And if I can follow in his footsteps and give back and whatever he calls me to do, it's not a burden. It's a great and a high and holy privilege. And it is a surefire formula for a meaningful life.
64. 27:28 One leads to meaningless and mediocrity. The other leads to excellence and meaningful lives. First sit-down indoor job I ever had, I did all the other stuff most guys my age did, mowing lawns and cleaning gutters and laying sod.
65. 27:46 And my best-paying job was the grunt work on a crew putting in lawn sprinkling systems where the auger couldn't get in. They sent me strong back, weak mind, you know. My first sit-down indoor job was at a bank in Birmingham, Alabama. At that time, it was called Birmingham Trust National Bank.
66. 28:04 I think it eventually became Am South, maybe it is today. The man that hired me was a man I knew from church, Mr. Gilbert. Mr. Gilbert was an extraordinarily gracious and generous man. Made a lot of money. He was the CEO of the bank. And after my father died, he took an interest in me and tried to open some doors for me.
67. 28:21 So he gave me a job at BTMB one summer, sitting in an air-conditioned office behind a computer screen, back when computers were about the size of, you know, an industrial-strength refrigerator. Our sixth floor was a computer floor full of these huge machines.
68. 28:37 My job was to sit at a computer screen when bank personnel called in. I knew four codes. I can still tell them to you today. I type in one of those codes and give them the information. I was talking to Mr. Gilbert one time. Again, I knew he made a lot of money. I knew he was very generous. I knew that because he was one of our best supporters with Youth for Christ I was involved in at the time.
69. 28:56 He said these words to me. He said, Ken, I've just learned I can't out-give God. The more I earn, the more I give away, the more he sends me. I can't out-give God. He was a man with the spiritual gift of giving.
70. 29:12 We're all called to be good stewards and to tithe what we own, right? But some of you have a gift of giving. They can give way over and above and beyond and God gives them more because he knows they'll be faithful with it. And as a pastor, I'd like to say, I'll take all the people with the gift of giving that you can send me, Lord.
71. 29:30 It is a spiritual gift. I'll take all those we can get. I'll take all those with the gift of encouragement we can get. Because there are always going to be those in this body of Christ who think they have this spiritual gift of complaining and criticizing. Now, if you have that gift, I'm kidding, it's not a gift, I want you to know we need you in the church.
72. 29:52 We do. We're not above correction and criticism, Pastor James or myself, especially Pastor... James. We're not above. What? Wait, what? We're not above being criticized and being corrected. And as a great E.
73. 30:09 Stanley Jones once said, my critics are the unpaid guardians and watchmen over my souls. Everybody wants to give the pastor the good news. We need people who give us the bad news. We need people who will say the emperor is buck naked. We need people who tell us what other people want.
74. 30:25 We do. But for everyone with the gift of complaining and criticism, I think about 10 with the gift of encouragement, about 100 with the gift of giving, you know? We need us all in the body of Christ. But I can tell you, God tells us if we want a meaningful life, go above and beyond what the world says for us to give.
75. 30:47 And remember that we follow one who gave so much more than any of us could ever give. Go against what the world tells you to do. Go above and beyond what the world tells you to give. And finally, go farther than the world says to go.
76. 31:03 Go farther than the world says to go. About a year and a half ago, I attended a seminar out of Chicago by the Global Leadership Network. I did it online. A bunch of great speakers gave great talks on leadership and excellence. It was a remarkable conference.
77. 31:18 One of the last talks was given by a man by the name of Will Gadara, who owns a restaurant in Manhattan called Eleven Madison Park. The only thing I know about food is that I like to eat it. I don't know how to cook.
78. 31:34 I don't find it interesting. I'm glad for those of you who do. You will never find me watching one of those cooking competition shows. What's the name of that? The British guy that's like Darth Vader of cooking shows. You know what I'm talking about? What's his name?
79. 31:50 Now I know who all the foodies are. Good. I'll get with you after this, sir. I knew I just wanted to see. Yeah, Gordon Ray. I don't find that interesting. If I have a choice between watching a cooking show and watching paint dry, I'll have to pray about it.
80. 32:06 But I'm glad for those people who handle food well. He's the owner of apparently one of the best restaurants in the world. Is it Michelin? They've given him five stars and rated him the first best restaurant in the world at one point.
81. 32:21 And I wasn't that interested until he started telling what made his restaurant so great. He called his talk Unreasonable Hospitality. He talked about the lengths they go to to make their guests feel special. Just a couple quick examples. One of the ones that stayed with me the longest was there's a group of four British tourists in New York City.
82. 32:45 And they made it a point to go and eat all these different places in New York City. And they're at this fabulous restaurant having this fabulous meal. And Will Godara comes by to ask how they're doing. And they say, the one thing we haven't had in New York City, we haven't had a hot dog that you buy off a street vendor.
83. 33:00 Five-star restaurant, five-star meal, they hadn't had a hot dog from a street vendor. So he rushed out to the corner and bought what New Yorkers call a dirty water dog. Took it into the kitchen and much against his wishes, he had his chef divide that hot dog into four slices, put it on silver serving trays with some very fancy garnishes around it, came out and served it to those British tourists.
84. 33:25 He said when they were done that night, they weren't talking about the champagne and the caviar. All they could do was rave about that hot dog. That's what they went home and told their friends in England about. He did what he needed to do to make them feel special.
85. 33:40 A couple came in one night, they had just gotten married. Their wedding was not what they wanted it to be because of conflict and tension between those two families. Can you imagine conflict and tension between families at a wedding? Who's ever heard of such? So it wasn't the wedding they wanted it to be, but they got married and they treated themselves to this fabulous meal at this five-star restaurant.
86. 34:04 And the lady who was serving them was talking with them and they found out that, she found out that one of the things that they hadn't gotten to do, they hadn't gotten to have their first dance. And she even sort of casually, surreptitiously discovered what song they want to have that first dance too.
87. 34:22 So it's late in the evening, the restaurant's closing, and the staff's upstairs having a meal together. Normally had a little bit of a celebration at the end of the day like that. But this night, they were upstairs, they weren't having this celebratory meal together and wrapping up a day.
88. 34:38 They were turning their upstairs dining room, their private dining room, into a dance floor. And when the day was, when the meal was over for those newlyweds, they invited them to come upstairs where they had them chilled on ice, the bottle of their finest champagne, and they had a spotlight and they played their song that they wanted for their first dance.
89. 34:57 It was Bill Withers' Lovely Day. That song will be in your heads for the rest of the day now, I know, you're welcome. And they gave that couple the gift of a first dance. Now, he and his staff do all that in the name of a restaurant.
90. 35:14 In the name of making themselves a great restaurant known for their hospitality. I'm challenging us, all of us here today, this first Sunday of 2026, especially knowing that we're going to have some major challenges with our lead pastor away for the next six, seven months.
91. 35:33 I'm challenging all of us to incorporate that spirit of unreasonable hospitality. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to take it upon yourselves. I don't care if you're an introvert or not. Most people are. Pretend you're not. And on Sunday mornings, I want you to look for the person who's here by herself, who's here by himself, or the couple that looks like they haven't been here before.
92. 35:56 I want you to be our greeting parties. Pastor James and I, we can't get to everybody. I wish we could. We get to as many as we can. Our elders get to as many as they can. Our deacons do as well. But we can't get to everybody. So I want you to take it from me.
93. 36:12 You are hereby authorized and deputized to be our greeting committees. And I want you to reach out to people. And if somebody comes here by herself or himself, look, take a risk. You want to come in and sit with me? If so, if a mom shows up with a child and wants to know where children's ministry is, don't point.
94. 36:31 Walk them over there. Walk them over there. Get to know them. Same thing with the restrooms. Where are they? Don't point. Here, I'll show you. Take the person by the hand, literally or figuratively, and engage in that unreasonable hospitality. God did it for us.
95. 36:46 He went way beyond what was required. He became one of us. Took us by the hand. And leads us into the presence of God. I'm challenging all of us to do that.
96. 37:01 Starting today, this week, that you be the person to reach out. I want to tell you one quick story on that. I didn't ask for permission to tell it again. I hope they're all right with it. Nita Nolan. Y'all know Nita? She's a flight attendant. I don't know if Nita's here today or not, but if not, I'll hear about it.
97. 37:17 Nita showed up here one day about eight, nine years ago during a terrible time in her life. Her daughter had died. She'd gone to another church where they weren't terribly, she was a member of another church, where they weren't terribly sensitive to her needs. Her granddaughter and her husband looked us up online.
98. 37:34 For some reason, thought we were a church they might want to visit. So her granddaughter came that day from out of town, took Nita by the hand, and brought her here to visit our church. And Nita told her granddaughter, if they don't embrace me at this church, I will never come back again.
99. 37:49 I want you to know, our Ines Graham, Signor Ines, I hope you'll forgive me if I talk about you for a minute, saw this woman and her granddaughter coming up the walkway, and that sort of sense they were probably new to us, walked up to Nita Nolan and put her arms around her and hugged her.
100. 38:09 And Nita's been a valuable member of this church ever since. I just want to pose the question, what if my man's hadn't been here that day? What if she decided, I'll just stay home today? What if she decided, I don't know these people, I'm not going to reach out to them.
101. 38:28 What if she hadn't gone that second mile, that extra mile? We wouldn't know Nita today. We'd have missed out on one of our beloved, valuable members. And she would have missed out on us. I'm asking each of you, I'm challenging each of you, all of us, to go that second mile.
102. 38:46 Starting today, be a part of the company of the second mile. He did it for us. Is it asking too much for us to do it for him? That's what this table is about. That's what this morning, what this service is about.
103. 39:02 That's what this church is about. And that's what I want all of us to be about. Let's pray together. Our Lord and our God, again, we thank you for the gift of your son who came and became one of us and lived the perfect sinless life we could not live and died the sacrificial atoning death to pay for our sins that we could not pay so that we might be forgiven, cleansed, renewed, redeemed, made new creatures in Christ.
104. 39:38 Lord, as we gather around now, around his table and celebrate his meal in remembrance of what he has done for us in anticipation of how we look forward to his coming again. Lord, meet us at this time, in this place, and in these elements.
105. 39:54 For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

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