Justice and the Mission of God
Christian Community Outreach helps others and introduces them To Jesus
Dan Franklin
Nov 13, 2022 34m
As Christians, salvation does not come by good deeds, but we are saved for the good works that God has planned for us. This message reminds us that community outreach allows us to help others and introduce them to Jesus. Video recorded at Upland, California.
TranscriptionmessageRegarding Grammar:
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
Intro: [00:00:00] Hey there. Thanks so much for checking out one of our messages here at Life Bible Fellowship Church. And we know there are two great ways you can connect with us. You can visit our website at LBF.church to learn more about all of our ministries and what we believe. And also, you can subscribe to us on YouTube to make sure that you don't miss one of our future videos.
Dan Franklin: [00:00:18] All right, I want to do something right off the bat, and it's not meant to put everybody on the spot, but just something to kind of unite us together. Raise your hand if you believe you could recite our church mission statement. All right, it's okay if you don't feel like you can, that might be more my failure or our failure if you don't feel like you can. But if you feel like you can, I'm going to ask you to say it with me right now, I'll kind of lead us in it. We exist to passionately pursue life in Jesus and to lead our neighbors to do the same. Yeah, I think more of you knew it than thought you knew it. You were like, oh, wait, no, that one, I know that. If you didn't catch it while we were saying it, our mission statement as a church, just a one-statement summary of what we're about is, we exist to passionately pursue life in Jesus and to lead our neighbors to do the same.
Dan Franklin: [00:01:15] We want to soak in, this is one of the weird truths that can feel counterintuitive for us as believers, is that first and foremost, when we approach God, our first relationship to him is that we are recipients. We don't even come to him primarily as servants or workers that he can put to good use, we come to him as recipients. We exist to passionately pursue life in Jesus because we are desperate for that life, and the way that we come to God is we come to Him as desperate, helpless, godless sinners that He rescues and brings into the family. And so we say, yeah, I want everything that God has to offer me, I want everything that he's going to give, all of his grace, all of his goodness, all of his blessings, all of his life, all of his wisdom, I want all of it. I want to passionately pursue the life that only Jesus can bring. And then the second part of the mission statement is that we want to lead our neighbors to do the same. We want the light of Jesus to spread near and far so that more people are brought into that goodness of God that spreads.
Dan Franklin: [00:02:23] And in many ways, this mission statement is being played out right now in the series that we're finishing today in Justice and Mercy, this is the last of ten weeks that we've been spending talking about this. And just as a reminder, as we've talked about this, the reason we're talking about justice and mercy is because, in the Bible, justice and mercy are the central outward sign that we belong to Jesus. And I also just want to say the wording there is very carefully chosen, it is not the central sign that we belong to Jesus, because the central side that we belong to Jesus is internal, it's something that he changes within us. But the central way that the world would recognize us, the central way that this is lived out in an observable way, is that we live out justice and mercy to our neighbors.
Dan Franklin: [00:03:14] And we've talked throughout the series about how justice is giving to people what they are owed, and mercy goes beyond that, mercy is when we're generous, even when it can't be proven that we owe something to someone. And one of the mantras throughout the series, I hope that you picked this up, especially in the last couple of weeks, is that when we talk about justice and mercy in the Bible, they become harder and harder to separate. Justice runs into mercy, and mercy runs into justice, and we get murky on where one begins and the other ends.
Dan Franklin: [00:03:46] In fact, I think one of the sad things about debates in our culture right now about justice is, I think a lot of the arguments we get into saying like, all right, yeah, maybe we should help those people, but I don't know if that's a justice issue, I don't know if they're suffering because of injustice. There's a place to ask that question, but really, it gets us distracted by saying, hey, whether they're in that mess because there was some oppressive injustice that led them to it, whether it was just because of the hardness of the world, or even if it was because of their bad decisions, we are still called to reach out and to spread the light of Jesus because thank God he didn't only come to save people that didn't need to be saved, he came to save us out of the messes that we made for ourselves. The central outward sign that we belong to Jesus is that we're living justice and mercy to our neighbors.
Dan Franklin: [00:04:36] And so today we're going to do something different. And I want to tell you about it now, even though it won't happen until about half an hour from now. But this church service isn't going to, we're not going to spend this entire church service here in this room, with about 15 minutes left in the service, we're all going to get out of our seats and go outside. Some of you might have noticed something unique on the lawn outside, we have signs from all 14 of our local outreach partners, and we're going to have representatives of each of them here today right after the service. And so here's what we're going to do; throughout this series, there have been multiple applications of how we live out justice and mercy in our more personal circle, but also in our community. And we've talked about these local outreach partners that we have, I'm going to explain more about them later, but these local outreach partners are a tangible way for us to live out justice and mercy in our local community and to be a light for Jesus.
Dan Franklin: [00:05:32] And the encouragement throughout this time, and if you're a church member, it's more than an encouragement, it's an expectation, is that each of us would adopt one of these local outreach partners. And here's what this means, this means that as an individual or as a life group or as a family, that we would all say, all right, I am adopting this specific partner, God has put them on my heart. And here's what adopting them means, it means that we pray regularly for them, that we commit to praying for what God is going to do through this local ministry partner. The second thing is that as we're praying, we're praying for God to guide us in any financial giving that we might do for them. And then thirdly, as we're praying, we're praying for open opportunities for how we may serve in tangible ways and volunteer there.
Dan Franklin: [00:06:22] So here's what's going to happen with about 15 minutes left in the service, we're all going to get up, the service is not going to be over, I want to be very clear on this. This isn't after the service; we're doing this within the time. So if you're like, I got kids in Life Kids, what's going to happen to them? They're still going to be there; we will be done with everything in time for you to pick up your kids. If you leave when we do this, we're watching you. We have cameras all over the place, we're going to know. I'm only half kidding, no, no, I am completely kidding. But I am wanting to emphasize this, to say this is part of our service. Don't look at this as an optional add-on, this is us saying, all right, here's what we're going to do at the end.
Dan Franklin: [00:07:04] And what we're going to do out on the lawn is we're really going to combine two of our all-church goals for this year, which are worldview, which has to do with what we're doing here and living out justice and mercy, and prayer, which is also an all-church goal. What you're going to do is you're going to go out on the lawn, you're going to find the sign with the local outreach partner that your adopting, and everybody who's adopting that local average partner is going to be gathered around there, a representative from the ministry will be there, they'll give a quick like one minute just spiel on how we can pray, and then we're just going to pray in groups for them. Not everybody's going to pray out loud, we're not going to have time for all of that, but you're going to gather in prayer. And so I want to say this. some of you come in this morning, you are locked in on who you're adopting as your local outreach partner. Some of you knew this before we even started the series, you're like, I was involved long before Justice and Mercy was a series here, you know where you're going. Some of you, you've been thinking and praying about this, but you're not quite decided. Maybe you've chosen two, and you're like, wait, we haven't yet decided where we feel like God is calling us. You know what, for today, just choose one, you're not locking yourself in for all eternity. Just choose one and say, all right, today we're going to go and pray with this one. Some of you probably come in here, and if you're honest, you're like, I've thought about this each Sunday when you've mentioned it, apart from there, I just haven't given it any thought. And if that's the case, here's what I want to encourage you to do, later on, I'm going to be briefly just giving a brief summary of each of our local outreach partners. During that time, have your eyes and your ears and your hearts open, and maybe just today one's going to catch your attention and you'll say, I don't know what the future holds, but today that's where I'm going to pray, today that's where I'm going with. Or maybe you go outside, and you still don't have a direction and you just notice like, wow, there's 50 people over there, but there's only like two people over at this one, maybe that's God guiding you to say, I'm going to join in with them because there might be a special need there.
Dan Franklin: [00:09:01] That's going to come later on in the service, but first, we have one more passage of scripture that we're going to go through in this series. You've already heard it read, it's a great passage because it talks not only about what our mission as God's people is, but it talks about what God's mission in the world is, and that passage is First Peter chapter 2 verses 9 through 12. If you have a Bible, you can start turning there now. We're going to walk through this passage where Peter really gives us two themes that will cover. The two themes are these, he's going to talk to us about who we are, and then he's going to talk to us about what we do, who we are, and then what we do.
Dan Franklin: [00:09:47] So let's look at it, verses 9 and 10 talks to us as believers in Jesus about who we are. And Peter uses four images that are Old Testament images that were ascribed to Israel, but now he's saying this is true of God's people in the church. And he's not just writing to a first century, to a specific congregation and saying these four things are true of you, he's writing, in the beginning of Peter, he says he's writing to all the believers who are scattered throughout Asia. So we can take this today, and we can say he was just writing to believers in general, this is true of us. He says, "But you are a chosen people." You are in God's family, not through some accident, and not through some technicality, and not because he twisted your arm and you said the right prayer and then he had to let you in, you're in the family of God because you are part of a chosen people.
Dan Franklin: [00:10:46] I don't know if any of you will relate to this, but when I was in junior high, my friends and I, we played basketball every day at lunch. And when we got ready to play basketball, there would be two captains, and what would they do? They pick teams. I don't want to brag, but in junior high, I was terrible at basketball. I was the worst, I had no basketball skills, but that's what all my friends wanted to do. So frequently when we had teams being picked, I was picked last, which is kind of like not getting picked. And sometimes I really wouldn't even get picked because there would be an odd number of kids, and somebody had to be left out. But sometimes here's what happens, sometimes one of my better friends, one of the guys I was closer to in the friend group, would become one of the captains and I was like the third-round draft pick out of pure mercy and not due to my skill, he would pick me. And do you know what? It feels good to be chosen, even if you know it's not because you deserve to be chosen, it feels good to be chosen.
Dan Franklin: [00:11:51] God has chosen us, not because we brought a lot to the table, he has chosen us out of his pure mercy. He wants you in the family, you are a chosen people, you're a royal priesthood. And here's the image, a priest connects people to God. And so when God spoke this about ancient Israel, he was saying, you as a whole nation, you as a people are going to connect other nations to God. And now, we as believers in Jesus Christ, have one great high priest, and that is Jesus. And we, as a people, as the people of God, connect other people to God. We are a kingdom of priests, a royal priesthood.
Dan Franklin: [00:12:36] He says a holy nation, and I hope you know, he's not talking about the United States here, he is talking about believers in Jesus scattered all over the world. We are a holy nation, to be holy means to be set apart. There should be people around you who think that you're weird, and they think that you're weird because you're doing things differently than the world around you because Jesus has called you to do things differently. We'll get more into that later, we are a holy nation, we stand out, and we're not trying to blend in. We stand out because God has called us to a specific purpose.
Dan Franklin: [00:13:08] And finally, he says, you're God's special possession. I mean, I know these days we shy away from possessive language because we look at it and we're like, oh, that's like somebody owning somebody else or somebody sort of running somebody else's life, like, God wants us so he can just order us around. That's not the heart of this, the heart of this is when in the best way, we might say that a husband and wife belonged to each other, that they are connected, that in a sense you could say she is his and he is hers. We belong to God, we are his special, precious possession. This is who you are if you're a believer in Jesus.
Dan Franklin: [00:13:49] And we talk a lot about identity today in our world, we talk about racial identity, we talk about gender identity, and sexual identity, and we talk about personalities, and Enneagram, we really like this subject, and we're trying to figure out who exactly am I? Here's what I want you to see, if you're a believer in Jesus, this is who you are in a more core way than anything else about you. You know your race and your ethnicity, that may be part of sort of your awareness of who you are and what God has done in your life and how you've ended up the way that you are, that that's fine. But Jesus breaks down all barriers between race and ethnicity, and we all become one in Christ. So any racial or ethnic identity takes a back seat to this reality, that we are God's precious people.
Dan Franklin: [00:14:39] And if right now you're wrestling through gender or sexuality issues and you're like, well, I'm a guy and I'm attracted to guys, so what does that mean about who I am? Or I'm a girl, but I don't really feel like I'm a girl, I feel like I should be a boy, and you're trying to figure out what does that mean about who I am? Here's what I want to tell you, if you're a believer in Jesus, this is who you are, all of that other stuff, you can work that through and you can try to figure that out. And for any of us, when there's ever anything that we feel like, I think this is who I am, but it comes in conflict with what God has called us to do, we say, I know who I am, I belong to God, and I'm willing to bring in submission to Him everything that I have about myself. Brothers and sisters, please don't buy into all the inferior identity stuff that is out in the world right now, this is who you are, you're God's precious people.
Dan Franklin: [00:15:31] He goes on at the end of verse 9 to say, "That you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. So there's even a purpose statement to who we are, that we would declare his praises, that we would be out in the world telling people about Jesus. Which, is it just me, or is this kind of hard to do? This is hard to do. We feel awkward and we feel nervous, and we feel inadequate for this, I don't know that I should go around telling people about Jesus, but I do just want to give us a quick reminder that there are other areas in life where we are all too ready to tell people about something great that we've discovered. Now we find a new show on Netflix we like, everybody knows about it, and we're posting about it, and we're just like, oh, you won't believe the show, it took me on a roller coaster ride. I mean, here I was excited, and then I was sad, I was crying, I was laughing, you've got to check out this show. We're willing to do this when there's something that we think will benefit someone else, we exist to passionately pursue life in Jesus and to lead our neighbors to do the same, and that means that we're declaring the praises of the one who called us out of darkness and into his light. It also means that as we do this, we're recognizing that even when we talk about living out justice and mercy, it's not as central to our Christian calling as declaring the Gospel is.
Dan Franklin: [00:16:53] Now, God is not calling us to choose, he's not like, all right, either you tell people about Jesus, or you live out justice in mercy, that's not the choice before us. But if it was, we would say, okay, we're going to tell people about Jesus. Because that is dealing with the most core problem that we have, and that is offering them life in a new way. But that's not the choice we're giving, we declare the praises of Jesus and we live out justice and mercy. Which we'll get to in the second part, but first, let's look at verse 10, it says something else, which again is referring to Israel and then talking about us. He says, "Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."
Dan Franklin: [00:17:36] It's already kind of referred to in the first part, you are God's special possession, that wasn't always true. You were estranged from God, and by him sending Jesus as the sacrifice for our sins and by him conquering death, we once used to be on the outside, now we are the people of God. And then I love that He puts in also, once you hadn't received mercy, but now you have received mercy. One of the core things you know, you ever have that situation where you meet somebody on an airplane, or you meet somebody and they're asking you to tell them about who you are? I'm not saying you would necessarily do this, but it would be 100% legitimate and accurate for you to say in that situation, Hey, I'm Dan and I'm somebody who has received mercy. That's who I am, I'm somebody that has received God's mercy. I didn't deserve it, he's not sending me to hell, he's brought me into the family, he's forgiven everything completely freely, I am someone who has received mercy.
Dan Franklin: [00:18:32] And speaking about this, I want to let you know something else that we're doing today as we close the Justice and Mercy series. Sometimes when we do a longer series like this, we give everybody some sort of takeaway to remember the series, and we're doing that today. We've got a whole bunch of tables outside that have this, which is something you can put on a keychain. And what it is, is it's just four links of a chain. Afterwards, outside, you're going to see little gray tables that have them all over, including on the lawn. And after you're done praying with your local outreach partner, you can grab one of these and you can just put it on your keychain, and here's the reason. We've talked about the image throughout this series, that one of the images for justice and mercy are broken chains, the idea that people are liberated. And the ultimate way that we're liberated is through Jesus, and then that we go out and we look to demonstrate this liberation in different ways. So here's what I want to encourage you, everybody, we have enough for everybody, grab one of these and put it on your keychain or put it on something similar to that. If you're like, keychains are old news, I don't even have a keychain anymore. But find somewhere to put it, and every time you look at it, here's what I encourage you to think about, two things. Number one, every time you look at these chains, remember and rejoice in the fact that Jesus has broken your chains, you're no longer a slave to sin or fear or death, you are liberated and free as a child of God. And then secondly, every time you look at these chains, you have the opportunity to remember that God has called you to be about the liberation of other people. First and foremost, that they would know Jesus and have the ultimate chains broken, but secondarily, that in practical ways they would experience more and more freedom from the pain and oppression of this world. Once we hadn't received mercy, but now we have received mercy, this is who we are.
Dan Franklin: [00:20:40] But then Peter says, all right, that's who we are, I'm going to tell you about what we do, and that's in verses 11 and 12. And he's going to tell us two things in two verses, verse 11 is going to tell us something that we abstain from, give us a negative command. He's going to say, don't do this, and then in verse 12, he's going to give us a positive command, he's saying, this is what you do.
Dan Franklin: [00:21:00] So verse 11, the negative command, he says, "Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul." He says, all right, there's something I want you to avoid, there's something I want you to abstain from, I want you to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. He already said back in verse 9, we are a holy nation, we are called to live differently. And even implies that, he says, we're exiles, we're foreigners, we don't quite fit in here. That this earth, as it is, is not our eternal home, so we're going to stand out. And that's difficult and that's awkward sometimes, but it's okay because, you know, the one who will bring about the final eternal home. And when Jesus comes back and makes all things new, you will be home. But he says what I want you to do now is I want you to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. And we can name them off, we kind of know what these things are. I think most of the time we you know that we're talking about lust, and we're talking about the way that that in our culture we really prize lust and sexual immorality, and we try to cast off any shame related to them, whether it's from sexual immorality before marriage, or whether it has to do with pornography, or adultery or anything like that. He says, no, you're going to abstain from that. You're also going to abstain from greed and materialism, which is a huge part of Southern California culture. You're going to abstain from all of the anger and outbursts of anger that we celebrate as you just being you, you're going to cast that off, you're going to abstain from that. You're going to abstain from the excess of overly drinking, and you're going to abstain from all the excesses that our culture prizes. There are going to be things that you say no to because you prize Jesus so much that you're going to say no to them, and they're going to make you look weird sometimes.
Dan Franklin: [00:22:56] Those of you who are high schoolers and junior highers, you already know this. You're like, oh yeah, true story, it makes you look weird if you don't talk this way, if you don't act the way everybody else is acting, and if you abstain from sinful desires. And look at what he says at the end, sinful desires which wage war against your soul. This is not Peter saying, man, it would be great if we could do that, but God says no. He says these sinful desires hold out a promise of satisfaction, but they're actually waging war against our souls, they're killing us from the inside out.
Dan Franklin: [00:23:30] Now, quick admission, I'm not going to ask you to show your hands, I think all of us doubt that, at least sometimes, like, I'm not sure that's true. I kind of think my life would be better if I just indulged all the flippant desires that I had all the time. If you ever feel that way, get out. No, I'm just kidding. If you ever feel that way, you are well within the norm of every Christian who has ever lived. In fact, a little bit of a plug for next week, next week, we're going to go through a passage of Scripture where a worship leader in the Old Testament talks about how he was on the verge of abandoning God because he was looking around and he felt like everybody who was doing what they wanted, had a better life than him. If you ever feel that way, you are well within the norm. But God gives us this warning, they are waging war against our souls. This is battle, so there are certain things that we're going to repent of, we're going to fight, we're going to get accountability, we are going to fight to abstain from things that would end up bringing shame to Jesus and harm to ourselves.
Dan Franklin: [00:24:37] But it's not just a negative, he has a positive command for us in verse 12. He says, "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." So if you guys are familiar, this is very similar to what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 verse 16 when he said, "Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." Peter says, live such good lives among the pagans, among the nonbelievers, that they end up seeing what you do. And he says, even though they kind of want to run you down, even though they're going to accuse you of doing wrong, even though they're going to have an agenda to say bad things about Jesus and bad things about you, they're going to find themselves coming up empty, they're going to have a hard time coming up with material. And I know some of you are thinking, like, they'll still find a way. And you're right, there are certain people that that just their attitude is going to be irreconcilable. But Peter is implying here, but there are also people whom that's not true of, there's people that maybe right now are sort of looking for an excuse to reject Jesus and reject his people, but when they see the good lives that we're living, they're going to be drawn not to praise us, but to praise the God who is so worthy to us that we're willing to live these kinds of lives. Live such good lives.
Dan Franklin: [00:26:06] This starts, it's unavoidable, this starts close to home. Are you married? Then your good work as men is to love your wife, and your good work as wives is to respect your husband. And your good work is children who are still in the home is to obey and honor your parents, and your good work as parents is to bring your children up in the fear and the instruction of the Lord. And your good work as a student is to be respectful and hardworking for the teachers and for the school. And your good work as an employee is to look to bless your employer and be faithful in your work. We start close to home. Let's not rush out to start trying to change the world before we have our own house in order, let's look to live those good lives. And frankly, in our culture right now, if you are just living in a loving, caring marriage, you will stand out to the world around you, and they're probably going to want to know what's up. Live such good lives.
Dan Franklin: [00:27:08] It goes beyond the immediate, though, it goes beyond, to our community, live such good lives that they'll see your good works. As Protestants, we have kind of a funny relationship with the idea of good works or good deeds that he talks about, because we're like good deeds, isn't that sort of like a Catholic thing, or isn't that a work salvation thing? I mean, here's what I want to do, just as a quick review, I want to bring up a passage that really helps us understand how good works, work into the Christian life, Ephesians chapter 2, we'll end up going through verses 8, ,9 and 10. For some of you, this is a review, for some of you, this is really important. Ephesians 2 verse 8, the Apostle Paul says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast." Nobody is in the family of God because they did good stuff and God said, you get to come in. Nobody is forgiven because they did good works or because their good works outweighed their bad works.
Dan Franklin: [00:28:14] And part of why I even want to pause on this is because I know I've referenced this throughout the series, there are some of you, that in this series, you're like justice and mercy, like, I'm not sure. You felt skeptical, not because you're against justice and mercy, but just because you felt like are we suddenly going to hear a message that that's the main thing, that the main thing is not Jesus, but the main thing is living out justice and mercy? But I'm going to bet that there are also some of you that with this series you were like, finally, like, finally we're talking about what we should have been talking about all along, we should have been talking about these good works and this justice and mercy that we're meant to live out. And if that's you, I just want to make sure that you hear this warning here, the warning is don't skip to the good works without experiencing the new life that doesn't come by those good works. We are saved by faith and not by works.
Dan Franklin: [00:29:03] But then look at what Paul says in the very next verse, "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." It's been said a lot of times, as Christians, we are not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works. And God has prepared them in advance, he has set us up for them, being a husband, being a wife, being a child, being a parent, all of these things, they are part of the good works God has prepared for us. But once again, they go beyond just our immediate circle and they spread to the community, that people will see our good works and glorify God on the day that He visits us.
Dan Franklin: [00:29:48] So here's what I want to do now, I mentioned I was going to do this, I'm just going to put up a slide that has all 14 of our local outreach partners here. I'm not going to give a super detailed description of each of them, but I'm going to take a moment just to talk about them so that later on you can be ready for this. And here's the deal, I know we're all at different places with this, if you've come in and you're like, I'm at square one, I don't know where I'm going to go. Use this as an opportunity to just see, is there something that stands out just for today that says that God has given me a heart for that, I think that might be the good work that God has prepared for me.
Dan Franklin: [00:30:27] So let's just run through them as they're up there.
Dan Franklin: [00:30:27] Adonai Family, some of you know about and Adonai Family, but this is an organization that serves parents of children who have cancer or other life-threatening diseases by giving them respite, and care, and gifts, and parties, and care for those who are deeply hurting.
Dan Franklin: [00:30:49] Adopt a School, it's sort of just what it sounds like, some of you are part of the local education system, but this is us finding ways to build inroads with the local schools in order to serve teachers, provide resources so that students can get a good education, and find gospel opportunities as we forge these relationships.
Dan Franklin: [00:31:09] Assure Pregnancy Clinic is one of our long-time partners, where they meet with women who are in crisis pregnancy situations, they give them care, they give them support, not just while they're pregnant, but far beyond that with baby clothes and diapers and parenting lessons. All kinds of ways that they care for the women in these situations, all the while advocating for the dignity of that unborn life that is in them.
Dan Franklin: [00:31:36] We've got...Sorry, this is different than what I had. All right, good, we've got CASA, CASA of San Bernardino County. If you have a heart for foster youth or for foster kids, this is a way to be involved in that process, in helping to provide support and care for those who are part of the foster system.
Dan Franklin: [00:31:52] City of Upland Public Works, this is us getting involved with our city and partnering with them to help beautify the city and to be good stewards of what God has given us, all the while, cultivating gospel opportunities not only with those being served but with those we're serving alongside.
Dan Franklin: [00:32:12] Crossroads, works with women who are just coming out of prison and getting back into regular life and giving them dignity as they train and equip them for that.
Dan Franklin: [00:32:22] Foothill Family Shelter provides care not just for homeless people, but for homeless families, in providing shelter and food in a transitional sense.
Dan Franklin: [00:32:32] FrontSight Military Outreach, what a great thing to talk about on Veteran's Day or Veteran's Day weekend. Some of you are not just going to serve there, some of you are going to receive ministry from FrontSight, because FrontSight is about working with veterans not only to help them get their benefits, which can be tricky to get, but helping them deal with the aftermath of different things that they've experienced. And it's an overtly Christian ministry that works to give them first and foremost, Jesus.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:02] Growing Pains, works with young moms and pregnant teenagers in order to help them with parenting and to give them practical support, what an amazing way for the least of these.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:14] Inland Valley Hope Partners, we've partnered with for a long time, giving food and giving care to homeless in the wider community, and other people who are in need.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:23] Newcomers Access Center, I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, working with refugees and immigrants to help them navigate the incredibly complicated American system that we have, and help them get the care and support that they need.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:38] Pacific Lifeline, is another long-term partner, working with homeless women and their children and helping equip them for lives that will be more sustainable.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:48] Our Upland Community Resource Center, which we're excited, we celebrated the two-year anniversary there, providing help and practical support, employment support, and housing support for people right here in Upland.
Dan Franklin: [00:34:02] And finally, Warrior for Children, which is an organization that gives assistance to kids that have experienced trauma, in deep, practical, and meaningful ways to help them know that they are seen when they feel unseen.
Dan Franklin: [00:34:18] These are our local outreach partners, this is part of how we do the good works God has prepared for us in the community, around us.
Recorded in Upland, California.
Dan Franklin: [00:00:18] All right, I want to do something right off the bat, and it's not meant to put everybody on the spot, but just something to kind of unite us together. Raise your hand if you believe you could recite our church mission statement. All right, it's okay if you don't feel like you can, that might be more my failure or our failure if you don't feel like you can. But if you feel like you can, I'm going to ask you to say it with me right now, I'll kind of lead us in it. We exist to passionately pursue life in Jesus and to lead our neighbors to do the same. Yeah, I think more of you knew it than thought you knew it. You were like, oh, wait, no, that one, I know that. If you didn't catch it while we were saying it, our mission statement as a church, just a one-statement summary of what we're about is, we exist to passionately pursue life in Jesus and to lead our neighbors to do the same.
Dan Franklin: [00:01:15] We want to soak in, this is one of the weird truths that can feel counterintuitive for us as believers, is that first and foremost, when we approach God, our first relationship to him is that we are recipients. We don't even come to him primarily as servants or workers that he can put to good use, we come to him as recipients. We exist to passionately pursue life in Jesus because we are desperate for that life, and the way that we come to God is we come to Him as desperate, helpless, godless sinners that He rescues and brings into the family. And so we say, yeah, I want everything that God has to offer me, I want everything that he's going to give, all of his grace, all of his goodness, all of his blessings, all of his life, all of his wisdom, I want all of it. I want to passionately pursue the life that only Jesus can bring. And then the second part of the mission statement is that we want to lead our neighbors to do the same. We want the light of Jesus to spread near and far so that more people are brought into that goodness of God that spreads.
Dan Franklin: [00:02:23] And in many ways, this mission statement is being played out right now in the series that we're finishing today in Justice and Mercy, this is the last of ten weeks that we've been spending talking about this. And just as a reminder, as we've talked about this, the reason we're talking about justice and mercy is because, in the Bible, justice and mercy are the central outward sign that we belong to Jesus. And I also just want to say the wording there is very carefully chosen, it is not the central sign that we belong to Jesus, because the central side that we belong to Jesus is internal, it's something that he changes within us. But the central way that the world would recognize us, the central way that this is lived out in an observable way, is that we live out justice and mercy to our neighbors.
Dan Franklin: [00:03:14] And we've talked throughout the series about how justice is giving to people what they are owed, and mercy goes beyond that, mercy is when we're generous, even when it can't be proven that we owe something to someone. And one of the mantras throughout the series, I hope that you picked this up, especially in the last couple of weeks, is that when we talk about justice and mercy in the Bible, they become harder and harder to separate. Justice runs into mercy, and mercy runs into justice, and we get murky on where one begins and the other ends.
Dan Franklin: [00:03:46] In fact, I think one of the sad things about debates in our culture right now about justice is, I think a lot of the arguments we get into saying like, all right, yeah, maybe we should help those people, but I don't know if that's a justice issue, I don't know if they're suffering because of injustice. There's a place to ask that question, but really, it gets us distracted by saying, hey, whether they're in that mess because there was some oppressive injustice that led them to it, whether it was just because of the hardness of the world, or even if it was because of their bad decisions, we are still called to reach out and to spread the light of Jesus because thank God he didn't only come to save people that didn't need to be saved, he came to save us out of the messes that we made for ourselves. The central outward sign that we belong to Jesus is that we're living justice and mercy to our neighbors.
Dan Franklin: [00:04:36] And so today we're going to do something different. And I want to tell you about it now, even though it won't happen until about half an hour from now. But this church service isn't going to, we're not going to spend this entire church service here in this room, with about 15 minutes left in the service, we're all going to get out of our seats and go outside. Some of you might have noticed something unique on the lawn outside, we have signs from all 14 of our local outreach partners, and we're going to have representatives of each of them here today right after the service. And so here's what we're going to do; throughout this series, there have been multiple applications of how we live out justice and mercy in our more personal circle, but also in our community. And we've talked about these local outreach partners that we have, I'm going to explain more about them later, but these local outreach partners are a tangible way for us to live out justice and mercy in our local community and to be a light for Jesus.
Dan Franklin: [00:05:32] And the encouragement throughout this time, and if you're a church member, it's more than an encouragement, it's an expectation, is that each of us would adopt one of these local outreach partners. And here's what this means, this means that as an individual or as a life group or as a family, that we would all say, all right, I am adopting this specific partner, God has put them on my heart. And here's what adopting them means, it means that we pray regularly for them, that we commit to praying for what God is going to do through this local ministry partner. The second thing is that as we're praying, we're praying for God to guide us in any financial giving that we might do for them. And then thirdly, as we're praying, we're praying for open opportunities for how we may serve in tangible ways and volunteer there.
Dan Franklin: [00:06:22] So here's what's going to happen with about 15 minutes left in the service, we're all going to get up, the service is not going to be over, I want to be very clear on this. This isn't after the service; we're doing this within the time. So if you're like, I got kids in Life Kids, what's going to happen to them? They're still going to be there; we will be done with everything in time for you to pick up your kids. If you leave when we do this, we're watching you. We have cameras all over the place, we're going to know. I'm only half kidding, no, no, I am completely kidding. But I am wanting to emphasize this, to say this is part of our service. Don't look at this as an optional add-on, this is us saying, all right, here's what we're going to do at the end.
Dan Franklin: [00:07:04] And what we're going to do out on the lawn is we're really going to combine two of our all-church goals for this year, which are worldview, which has to do with what we're doing here and living out justice and mercy, and prayer, which is also an all-church goal. What you're going to do is you're going to go out on the lawn, you're going to find the sign with the local outreach partner that your adopting, and everybody who's adopting that local average partner is going to be gathered around there, a representative from the ministry will be there, they'll give a quick like one minute just spiel on how we can pray, and then we're just going to pray in groups for them. Not everybody's going to pray out loud, we're not going to have time for all of that, but you're going to gather in prayer. And so I want to say this. some of you come in this morning, you are locked in on who you're adopting as your local outreach partner. Some of you knew this before we even started the series, you're like, I was involved long before Justice and Mercy was a series here, you know where you're going. Some of you, you've been thinking and praying about this, but you're not quite decided. Maybe you've chosen two, and you're like, wait, we haven't yet decided where we feel like God is calling us. You know what, for today, just choose one, you're not locking yourself in for all eternity. Just choose one and say, all right, today we're going to go and pray with this one. Some of you probably come in here, and if you're honest, you're like, I've thought about this each Sunday when you've mentioned it, apart from there, I just haven't given it any thought. And if that's the case, here's what I want to encourage you to do, later on, I'm going to be briefly just giving a brief summary of each of our local outreach partners. During that time, have your eyes and your ears and your hearts open, and maybe just today one's going to catch your attention and you'll say, I don't know what the future holds, but today that's where I'm going to pray, today that's where I'm going with. Or maybe you go outside, and you still don't have a direction and you just notice like, wow, there's 50 people over there, but there's only like two people over at this one, maybe that's God guiding you to say, I'm going to join in with them because there might be a special need there.
Dan Franklin: [00:09:01] That's going to come later on in the service, but first, we have one more passage of scripture that we're going to go through in this series. You've already heard it read, it's a great passage because it talks not only about what our mission as God's people is, but it talks about what God's mission in the world is, and that passage is First Peter chapter 2 verses 9 through 12. If you have a Bible, you can start turning there now. We're going to walk through this passage where Peter really gives us two themes that will cover. The two themes are these, he's going to talk to us about who we are, and then he's going to talk to us about what we do, who we are, and then what we do.
Dan Franklin: [00:09:47] So let's look at it, verses 9 and 10 talks to us as believers in Jesus about who we are. And Peter uses four images that are Old Testament images that were ascribed to Israel, but now he's saying this is true of God's people in the church. And he's not just writing to a first century, to a specific congregation and saying these four things are true of you, he's writing, in the beginning of Peter, he says he's writing to all the believers who are scattered throughout Asia. So we can take this today, and we can say he was just writing to believers in general, this is true of us. He says, "But you are a chosen people." You are in God's family, not through some accident, and not through some technicality, and not because he twisted your arm and you said the right prayer and then he had to let you in, you're in the family of God because you are part of a chosen people.
Dan Franklin: [00:10:46] I don't know if any of you will relate to this, but when I was in junior high, my friends and I, we played basketball every day at lunch. And when we got ready to play basketball, there would be two captains, and what would they do? They pick teams. I don't want to brag, but in junior high, I was terrible at basketball. I was the worst, I had no basketball skills, but that's what all my friends wanted to do. So frequently when we had teams being picked, I was picked last, which is kind of like not getting picked. And sometimes I really wouldn't even get picked because there would be an odd number of kids, and somebody had to be left out. But sometimes here's what happens, sometimes one of my better friends, one of the guys I was closer to in the friend group, would become one of the captains and I was like the third-round draft pick out of pure mercy and not due to my skill, he would pick me. And do you know what? It feels good to be chosen, even if you know it's not because you deserve to be chosen, it feels good to be chosen.
Dan Franklin: [00:11:51] God has chosen us, not because we brought a lot to the table, he has chosen us out of his pure mercy. He wants you in the family, you are a chosen people, you're a royal priesthood. And here's the image, a priest connects people to God. And so when God spoke this about ancient Israel, he was saying, you as a whole nation, you as a people are going to connect other nations to God. And now, we as believers in Jesus Christ, have one great high priest, and that is Jesus. And we, as a people, as the people of God, connect other people to God. We are a kingdom of priests, a royal priesthood.
Dan Franklin: [00:12:36] He says a holy nation, and I hope you know, he's not talking about the United States here, he is talking about believers in Jesus scattered all over the world. We are a holy nation, to be holy means to be set apart. There should be people around you who think that you're weird, and they think that you're weird because you're doing things differently than the world around you because Jesus has called you to do things differently. We'll get more into that later, we are a holy nation, we stand out, and we're not trying to blend in. We stand out because God has called us to a specific purpose.
Dan Franklin: [00:13:08] And finally, he says, you're God's special possession. I mean, I know these days we shy away from possessive language because we look at it and we're like, oh, that's like somebody owning somebody else or somebody sort of running somebody else's life, like, God wants us so he can just order us around. That's not the heart of this, the heart of this is when in the best way, we might say that a husband and wife belonged to each other, that they are connected, that in a sense you could say she is his and he is hers. We belong to God, we are his special, precious possession. This is who you are if you're a believer in Jesus.
Dan Franklin: [00:13:49] And we talk a lot about identity today in our world, we talk about racial identity, we talk about gender identity, and sexual identity, and we talk about personalities, and Enneagram, we really like this subject, and we're trying to figure out who exactly am I? Here's what I want you to see, if you're a believer in Jesus, this is who you are in a more core way than anything else about you. You know your race and your ethnicity, that may be part of sort of your awareness of who you are and what God has done in your life and how you've ended up the way that you are, that that's fine. But Jesus breaks down all barriers between race and ethnicity, and we all become one in Christ. So any racial or ethnic identity takes a back seat to this reality, that we are God's precious people.
Dan Franklin: [00:14:39] And if right now you're wrestling through gender or sexuality issues and you're like, well, I'm a guy and I'm attracted to guys, so what does that mean about who I am? Or I'm a girl, but I don't really feel like I'm a girl, I feel like I should be a boy, and you're trying to figure out what does that mean about who I am? Here's what I want to tell you, if you're a believer in Jesus, this is who you are, all of that other stuff, you can work that through and you can try to figure that out. And for any of us, when there's ever anything that we feel like, I think this is who I am, but it comes in conflict with what God has called us to do, we say, I know who I am, I belong to God, and I'm willing to bring in submission to Him everything that I have about myself. Brothers and sisters, please don't buy into all the inferior identity stuff that is out in the world right now, this is who you are, you're God's precious people.
Dan Franklin: [00:15:31] He goes on at the end of verse 9 to say, "That you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. So there's even a purpose statement to who we are, that we would declare his praises, that we would be out in the world telling people about Jesus. Which, is it just me, or is this kind of hard to do? This is hard to do. We feel awkward and we feel nervous, and we feel inadequate for this, I don't know that I should go around telling people about Jesus, but I do just want to give us a quick reminder that there are other areas in life where we are all too ready to tell people about something great that we've discovered. Now we find a new show on Netflix we like, everybody knows about it, and we're posting about it, and we're just like, oh, you won't believe the show, it took me on a roller coaster ride. I mean, here I was excited, and then I was sad, I was crying, I was laughing, you've got to check out this show. We're willing to do this when there's something that we think will benefit someone else, we exist to passionately pursue life in Jesus and to lead our neighbors to do the same, and that means that we're declaring the praises of the one who called us out of darkness and into his light. It also means that as we do this, we're recognizing that even when we talk about living out justice and mercy, it's not as central to our Christian calling as declaring the Gospel is.
Dan Franklin: [00:16:53] Now, God is not calling us to choose, he's not like, all right, either you tell people about Jesus, or you live out justice in mercy, that's not the choice before us. But if it was, we would say, okay, we're going to tell people about Jesus. Because that is dealing with the most core problem that we have, and that is offering them life in a new way. But that's not the choice we're giving, we declare the praises of Jesus and we live out justice and mercy. Which we'll get to in the second part, but first, let's look at verse 10, it says something else, which again is referring to Israel and then talking about us. He says, "Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."
Dan Franklin: [00:17:36] It's already kind of referred to in the first part, you are God's special possession, that wasn't always true. You were estranged from God, and by him sending Jesus as the sacrifice for our sins and by him conquering death, we once used to be on the outside, now we are the people of God. And then I love that He puts in also, once you hadn't received mercy, but now you have received mercy. One of the core things you know, you ever have that situation where you meet somebody on an airplane, or you meet somebody and they're asking you to tell them about who you are? I'm not saying you would necessarily do this, but it would be 100% legitimate and accurate for you to say in that situation, Hey, I'm Dan and I'm somebody who has received mercy. That's who I am, I'm somebody that has received God's mercy. I didn't deserve it, he's not sending me to hell, he's brought me into the family, he's forgiven everything completely freely, I am someone who has received mercy.
Dan Franklin: [00:18:32] And speaking about this, I want to let you know something else that we're doing today as we close the Justice and Mercy series. Sometimes when we do a longer series like this, we give everybody some sort of takeaway to remember the series, and we're doing that today. We've got a whole bunch of tables outside that have this, which is something you can put on a keychain. And what it is, is it's just four links of a chain. Afterwards, outside, you're going to see little gray tables that have them all over, including on the lawn. And after you're done praying with your local outreach partner, you can grab one of these and you can just put it on your keychain, and here's the reason. We've talked about the image throughout this series, that one of the images for justice and mercy are broken chains, the idea that people are liberated. And the ultimate way that we're liberated is through Jesus, and then that we go out and we look to demonstrate this liberation in different ways. So here's what I want to encourage you, everybody, we have enough for everybody, grab one of these and put it on your keychain or put it on something similar to that. If you're like, keychains are old news, I don't even have a keychain anymore. But find somewhere to put it, and every time you look at it, here's what I encourage you to think about, two things. Number one, every time you look at these chains, remember and rejoice in the fact that Jesus has broken your chains, you're no longer a slave to sin or fear or death, you are liberated and free as a child of God. And then secondly, every time you look at these chains, you have the opportunity to remember that God has called you to be about the liberation of other people. First and foremost, that they would know Jesus and have the ultimate chains broken, but secondarily, that in practical ways they would experience more and more freedom from the pain and oppression of this world. Once we hadn't received mercy, but now we have received mercy, this is who we are.
Dan Franklin: [00:20:40] But then Peter says, all right, that's who we are, I'm going to tell you about what we do, and that's in verses 11 and 12. And he's going to tell us two things in two verses, verse 11 is going to tell us something that we abstain from, give us a negative command. He's going to say, don't do this, and then in verse 12, he's going to give us a positive command, he's saying, this is what you do.
Dan Franklin: [00:21:00] So verse 11, the negative command, he says, "Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul." He says, all right, there's something I want you to avoid, there's something I want you to abstain from, I want you to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. He already said back in verse 9, we are a holy nation, we are called to live differently. And even implies that, he says, we're exiles, we're foreigners, we don't quite fit in here. That this earth, as it is, is not our eternal home, so we're going to stand out. And that's difficult and that's awkward sometimes, but it's okay because, you know, the one who will bring about the final eternal home. And when Jesus comes back and makes all things new, you will be home. But he says what I want you to do now is I want you to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. And we can name them off, we kind of know what these things are. I think most of the time we you know that we're talking about lust, and we're talking about the way that that in our culture we really prize lust and sexual immorality, and we try to cast off any shame related to them, whether it's from sexual immorality before marriage, or whether it has to do with pornography, or adultery or anything like that. He says, no, you're going to abstain from that. You're also going to abstain from greed and materialism, which is a huge part of Southern California culture. You're going to abstain from all of the anger and outbursts of anger that we celebrate as you just being you, you're going to cast that off, you're going to abstain from that. You're going to abstain from the excess of overly drinking, and you're going to abstain from all the excesses that our culture prizes. There are going to be things that you say no to because you prize Jesus so much that you're going to say no to them, and they're going to make you look weird sometimes.
Dan Franklin: [00:22:56] Those of you who are high schoolers and junior highers, you already know this. You're like, oh yeah, true story, it makes you look weird if you don't talk this way, if you don't act the way everybody else is acting, and if you abstain from sinful desires. And look at what he says at the end, sinful desires which wage war against your soul. This is not Peter saying, man, it would be great if we could do that, but God says no. He says these sinful desires hold out a promise of satisfaction, but they're actually waging war against our souls, they're killing us from the inside out.
Dan Franklin: [00:23:30] Now, quick admission, I'm not going to ask you to show your hands, I think all of us doubt that, at least sometimes, like, I'm not sure that's true. I kind of think my life would be better if I just indulged all the flippant desires that I had all the time. If you ever feel that way, get out. No, I'm just kidding. If you ever feel that way, you are well within the norm of every Christian who has ever lived. In fact, a little bit of a plug for next week, next week, we're going to go through a passage of Scripture where a worship leader in the Old Testament talks about how he was on the verge of abandoning God because he was looking around and he felt like everybody who was doing what they wanted, had a better life than him. If you ever feel that way, you are well within the norm. But God gives us this warning, they are waging war against our souls. This is battle, so there are certain things that we're going to repent of, we're going to fight, we're going to get accountability, we are going to fight to abstain from things that would end up bringing shame to Jesus and harm to ourselves.
Dan Franklin: [00:24:37] But it's not just a negative, he has a positive command for us in verse 12. He says, "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." So if you guys are familiar, this is very similar to what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 verse 16 when he said, "Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." Peter says, live such good lives among the pagans, among the nonbelievers, that they end up seeing what you do. And he says, even though they kind of want to run you down, even though they're going to accuse you of doing wrong, even though they're going to have an agenda to say bad things about Jesus and bad things about you, they're going to find themselves coming up empty, they're going to have a hard time coming up with material. And I know some of you are thinking, like, they'll still find a way. And you're right, there are certain people that that just their attitude is going to be irreconcilable. But Peter is implying here, but there are also people whom that's not true of, there's people that maybe right now are sort of looking for an excuse to reject Jesus and reject his people, but when they see the good lives that we're living, they're going to be drawn not to praise us, but to praise the God who is so worthy to us that we're willing to live these kinds of lives. Live such good lives.
Dan Franklin: [00:26:06] This starts, it's unavoidable, this starts close to home. Are you married? Then your good work as men is to love your wife, and your good work as wives is to respect your husband. And your good work is children who are still in the home is to obey and honor your parents, and your good work as parents is to bring your children up in the fear and the instruction of the Lord. And your good work as a student is to be respectful and hardworking for the teachers and for the school. And your good work as an employee is to look to bless your employer and be faithful in your work. We start close to home. Let's not rush out to start trying to change the world before we have our own house in order, let's look to live those good lives. And frankly, in our culture right now, if you are just living in a loving, caring marriage, you will stand out to the world around you, and they're probably going to want to know what's up. Live such good lives.
Dan Franklin: [00:27:08] It goes beyond the immediate, though, it goes beyond, to our community, live such good lives that they'll see your good works. As Protestants, we have kind of a funny relationship with the idea of good works or good deeds that he talks about, because we're like good deeds, isn't that sort of like a Catholic thing, or isn't that a work salvation thing? I mean, here's what I want to do, just as a quick review, I want to bring up a passage that really helps us understand how good works, work into the Christian life, Ephesians chapter 2, we'll end up going through verses 8, ,9 and 10. For some of you, this is a review, for some of you, this is really important. Ephesians 2 verse 8, the Apostle Paul says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast." Nobody is in the family of God because they did good stuff and God said, you get to come in. Nobody is forgiven because they did good works or because their good works outweighed their bad works.
Dan Franklin: [00:28:14] And part of why I even want to pause on this is because I know I've referenced this throughout the series, there are some of you, that in this series, you're like justice and mercy, like, I'm not sure. You felt skeptical, not because you're against justice and mercy, but just because you felt like are we suddenly going to hear a message that that's the main thing, that the main thing is not Jesus, but the main thing is living out justice and mercy? But I'm going to bet that there are also some of you that with this series you were like, finally, like, finally we're talking about what we should have been talking about all along, we should have been talking about these good works and this justice and mercy that we're meant to live out. And if that's you, I just want to make sure that you hear this warning here, the warning is don't skip to the good works without experiencing the new life that doesn't come by those good works. We are saved by faith and not by works.
Dan Franklin: [00:29:03] But then look at what Paul says in the very next verse, "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." It's been said a lot of times, as Christians, we are not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works. And God has prepared them in advance, he has set us up for them, being a husband, being a wife, being a child, being a parent, all of these things, they are part of the good works God has prepared for us. But once again, they go beyond just our immediate circle and they spread to the community, that people will see our good works and glorify God on the day that He visits us.
Dan Franklin: [00:29:48] So here's what I want to do now, I mentioned I was going to do this, I'm just going to put up a slide that has all 14 of our local outreach partners here. I'm not going to give a super detailed description of each of them, but I'm going to take a moment just to talk about them so that later on you can be ready for this. And here's the deal, I know we're all at different places with this, if you've come in and you're like, I'm at square one, I don't know where I'm going to go. Use this as an opportunity to just see, is there something that stands out just for today that says that God has given me a heart for that, I think that might be the good work that God has prepared for me.
Dan Franklin: [00:30:27] So let's just run through them as they're up there.
Dan Franklin: [00:30:27] Adonai Family, some of you know about and Adonai Family, but this is an organization that serves parents of children who have cancer or other life-threatening diseases by giving them respite, and care, and gifts, and parties, and care for those who are deeply hurting.
Dan Franklin: [00:30:49] Adopt a School, it's sort of just what it sounds like, some of you are part of the local education system, but this is us finding ways to build inroads with the local schools in order to serve teachers, provide resources so that students can get a good education, and find gospel opportunities as we forge these relationships.
Dan Franklin: [00:31:09] Assure Pregnancy Clinic is one of our long-time partners, where they meet with women who are in crisis pregnancy situations, they give them care, they give them support, not just while they're pregnant, but far beyond that with baby clothes and diapers and parenting lessons. All kinds of ways that they care for the women in these situations, all the while advocating for the dignity of that unborn life that is in them.
Dan Franklin: [00:31:36] We've got...Sorry, this is different than what I had. All right, good, we've got CASA, CASA of San Bernardino County. If you have a heart for foster youth or for foster kids, this is a way to be involved in that process, in helping to provide support and care for those who are part of the foster system.
Dan Franklin: [00:31:52] City of Upland Public Works, this is us getting involved with our city and partnering with them to help beautify the city and to be good stewards of what God has given us, all the while, cultivating gospel opportunities not only with those being served but with those we're serving alongside.
Dan Franklin: [00:32:12] Crossroads, works with women who are just coming out of prison and getting back into regular life and giving them dignity as they train and equip them for that.
Dan Franklin: [00:32:22] Foothill Family Shelter provides care not just for homeless people, but for homeless families, in providing shelter and food in a transitional sense.
Dan Franklin: [00:32:32] FrontSight Military Outreach, what a great thing to talk about on Veteran's Day or Veteran's Day weekend. Some of you are not just going to serve there, some of you are going to receive ministry from FrontSight, because FrontSight is about working with veterans not only to help them get their benefits, which can be tricky to get, but helping them deal with the aftermath of different things that they've experienced. And it's an overtly Christian ministry that works to give them first and foremost, Jesus.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:02] Growing Pains, works with young moms and pregnant teenagers in order to help them with parenting and to give them practical support, what an amazing way for the least of these.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:14] Inland Valley Hope Partners, we've partnered with for a long time, giving food and giving care to homeless in the wider community, and other people who are in need.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:23] Newcomers Access Center, I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, working with refugees and immigrants to help them navigate the incredibly complicated American system that we have, and help them get the care and support that they need.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:38] Pacific Lifeline, is another long-term partner, working with homeless women and their children and helping equip them for lives that will be more sustainable.
Dan Franklin: [00:33:48] Our Upland Community Resource Center, which we're excited, we celebrated the two-year anniversary there, providing help and practical support, employment support, and housing support for people right here in Upland.
Dan Franklin: [00:34:02] And finally, Warrior for Children, which is an organization that gives assistance to kids that have experienced trauma, in deep, practical, and meaningful ways to help them know that they are seen when they feel unseen.
Dan Franklin: [00:34:18] These are our local outreach partners, this is part of how we do the good works God has prepared for us in the community, around us.
Recorded in Upland, California.
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