The God who serves us calls us to serve one another so that together we can serve the world.

October 21-22, 2018

Introduction and offering

Let me start with a couple questions.

How many of you followed the nomination and confirmation of new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh? Kavanaugh was confirmed on a 50-48 vote in the Senate—the votes strictly followed party lines with only a couple exceptions. It was a contentious process. Here’s the irony: Kavanaugh is replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy, the last justice to receive a unanimous confirmation vote—in 1988 Democrats and Republicans together unanimously confirmed him. Quite the change in the last 30 years! The political climate has become polarized and toxic.

How many of you have ever been trashed on social media or in an email or text? People feel free to hide behind their screens and trash others from a distance—they say things they are unlikely to say face to face. (This is another reason why I refuse to handle conflict via email or text.) The internet and social media have democratized knowledge, but also amplified rudeness.

There is so much hostility in our world; we’ve lost the art of civility, of being gracious.

Jesus calls us to live differently. We are recipients of grace and dispensers of grace. This gracious gospel behavior starts with God—it’s how He treats us—then it is shared among us, and spreads out to everyone we meet.

Galatians 6:10 (p. 1005) Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Let us do good to all people. Yet Paul s