Todd Atkinson emphasizes the importance of maintaining a right spirit in our interactions with others, particularly when faced with rejection or disappointment. He reflects on the disciples' reaction to the Samaritans' lack of welcome towards Jesus, highlighting their desire to call down judgment rather than extend grace. Atkinson reminds us that true discipleship involves practicing mercy and understanding the spirit of grace that Jesus embodies. He encourages the congregation to be open to correction and to examine their own hearts for any unsanctified attitudes that may arise in challenging situations. Ultimately, the message calls for a commitment to embodying a spirit of love and mercy in all our relationships.

Good morning, everyone. Nice to see you. Just a couple of things before I start. It was great meeting upstairs with you last Sunday. We had a fellowship time, and there was a team of people from the church, I think led by Ms. Swihart, who prepared all kinds of goodies. And thank you for those who prepared all those, the Hans. And it was just so nice to hear a message on intentional relationship, and then to see so many people follow through intentionally and go upstairs, and it was just a great time. And I really appreciate that. So great, in fact, that I think we're going to probably take about three months and experiment and make that a regular custom of the 9 o'clock service. So we'll be going up there again this morning after the service. You know that what we've done is we've taken a greeting time we normally had, a welcome time, and a time of shaking hands and hugging at the start of our service, and moved that to the end. Well, opinions on that are pretty evenly split down the middle, you'll be glad to know. From those that are saying that's great, we have longer to more uninterrupted time to worship. For those of you that have very kindly said, we missed that, and what are we doing that for? And so it's not irreversible, but we're going to run that for a while and just see how that goes. But what we do want to do is not to get rid of time to warmly greet one another. And I really appreciate those that have expressed concerns, because you're right, if we left that, we would be missing something very intrinsic to this service. So I'm hoping that what we'll do is provide something even better than a 3 or 4 minute handshake. We're going upstairs, and you can have a 20 or 30 minute coffee. And you can hug for the whole 20 minutes if you want. And coffee, and you know... So just to lay a couple challenges before you in that, you know that we're making some adjustments to our services because we are growing all the time, and so we want to provide a kind of place where people can come and join and feel like they're welcome. So at the end of our service, if you'd be so kind as to turn around and see either someone you haven't talked to for a while, or someone that you don't know and recognize, and say, would you come upstairs for coffee and a muffin with me? Because it's not just enough to advertise that we have it. If people are new here, that's not enough to get most people upstairs. Because when you first come to a place, you're still a little bit nervous. And it's nerve-wracking enough to be in a new church and to be in a new service, let alone to be up there and have to sit across from a stranger and talk with them. But if they hear you say, hey, I'm just going upstairs, would you come up with me? Then that just takes the nervousness right out of it. So we're going to just continue to run that. Instead of once a month, we're going to run that every Sunday. And we're going to go up and just be with one another. I understand the 9 o'clock service is short. It's an hour. It's very hard to get everything accomplished in that short span of time. But this will give us an unrushed time of fellowship together. If we get to be three months into it and you think, Todd, this isn't working at all, then tell me. And I'll tell Marcia and she'll fix it. Because she's good at that kind of stuff. And, of course, that blends into my only other thing, and that is that you know that we're starting an afternoon service. So together you know that we have children's programming now at this service. We want this to be able to be a viable service for young families. And so for you to be able to bring your children, for you to be able to bring your grandchildren, we are providing children's programming at the back. It's staffed. There's teachers. It's all go. And so I want you to be able to take advantage of that. And I just want to say, too, don't underestimate your role. Is that when a young family comes, just your welcome, your friendliness, your coming alongside them will just make the difference of whether this feels like a service that they would like to be part of for an ongoing basis or not. We're also starting a 1.30 service in the afternoon. When we've talked to young families about what time would work with them, again, it's proved to be evenly divided. Some would say, I'd love to go to a morning service and have it done a little earlier. And some say, there's no way I'm going to get my kids up and to a place by 9 o'clock. But they've expressed the other idea. They've said, as a family, that way we wouldn't be in such a rush, and we'll have lunch, so we'd like to come to church at 1.30. I was part of a church planning team in Kamloops once, and they had an afternoon service, and I thought I was going to loathe it. I didn't think I'd like that idea at all. When you've grown up going to church in the morning, who would ever enjoy that? But actually, it was very enjoyable as a young family to have made that adjustment. So please feel free to tell people about that 1.30 service, too. Well, I'd like to go on to my message this morning. Anybody know that I'm preaching a series? Or remember what that's about? I hope so. And that it's kind of hitting the mark. In some sense, I'm hesitant to move on from the theme of the last couple weeks. The last several weeks. The problem with looking at these disciplines is that every one of them could be a series in and of themselves. When you feel like the Lord speak to you about it, you just feel like, oh, my goodness, I could camp on that one for a couple months because my life needs work in that area. And so a couple weeks ago, we took a look at the discipline of rest. We looked at the latter part of Luke chapter 10. We looked at the story of Mary and Martha. And ever since that story hangs in the back of my mind when I'm overly busy and I feel like I'm not like Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, gazing up into his face, listening, and my inner posture is anything but restful, and I'm much more like a Martha, that story just reoccurs to me since we looked at it a couple weeks ago. So in a sense, I'm hesitant to move on because we could really spend some time there. And in a sense, it would be right to just camp there until we feel like we're actually practicing that spiritual discipline. Similarly, last week, we looked at another spiritual discipline, the discipline of intentional relationship, the intimate relationship that exists between Jesus and his disciples, and how that it was his practice to withdraw with them after ministry and to just be with them and just put into them. And we looked at that, and again, I'm hesitant. How do you move off of a theme like that? How do you move away from something like that? A discipline is not a discipline unless we practice it. So just hearing it on a Sunday, having even been temporarily inspired by it, maybe even somewhat challenged by it, is not enough to make it a discipline. It's enough to make it a momentary experience. A discipline is not a discipline until we've incorporated it into our life and we have begun to practice it, A, with some sense of regularity, and B, with some sense of sacrifice. In other words, until we get to a spot where you begin to say no to some other things and yes to the discipline, it's not a discipline. And until you get to a stage where we have to make some choices and that in the face of other alternatives, we're able to sometimes say no, I don't think I'll do that because it's really important for me to practice this, then it's not a discipline. And so let's continue to meditate on these things. Let's continue to make them part of our lives. Well, the Lord being my helper this morning, I'm hoping to touch upon a discipline that I hadn't anticipated speaking on. Before I had done this series, and I'd taken a few days, there was a family in the church who were away on holidays in August and they let me use their house for a week. And I just hung out there praying and asking the Lord for direction for the autumn and putting a bit of a plan together for this series. There's a discipline that had never crossed my mind. But this past Monday, I woke in the morning and just felt like the Lord was there speaking to me about a particular discipline and applying it to me. It's one I hadn't seen coming. It was associated, it comes out of a passage in Luke. And when I thought about it, it seemed so self-evident, how could I do a series and not touch that? And I know that He was speaking to me about it. And so we're going to take a look at that wonderful spiritual discipline this morning. We're going to take a look at Luke 9. A short reading. The very latter verses of that chapter. Luke 9, verses 51 through 55. And then we'll pray together. Luke 9. Okay, well, maybe I'll just read it out loud then. Luke 9, verses 51 and following. Oh, there it goes. As the time approached for Jesus to be taken up to heaven, He resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And He sent messengers on ahead of Him who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for Him. But the people there did not welcome Him because He was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples, James and John, saw this, that they did not welcome Him, they asked Him, Lord, do You want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them? But Jesus turned and rebuked Him. Some manuscripts add a phrase in there. So you'll notice it in some translations and not in others. But most Bibles, it's at the bottom. And it's this. And He said to them, You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. So if you look at your NIV Bible or whatever it is down at the bottom, it'll add that because many of the ancient manuscripts, that portion is added. Please just join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, we just want to thank You for the rich feast that the Gospel of Luke is. Thank You that in Your foreordained plan, Luke, this doctor, traveled with Paul and other apostles. And he gathered firsthand documentation on the life and the teaching of Jesus. And then he composed this amazing Gospel so carefully written through which we're able to have this contact with our Lord. So Father in heaven, speak to us again this morning. Lord, we want to be amongst those that You would call disciples. So disciple us. Train us. Speak to us. Lead us. Direct us. Lord, we want to be like that little boy in the Old Testament who said, speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening. So we say that every one of us this morning. Speak, Lord, for our hearts are listening. Holy Spirit, that You would illumine our minds and illumine our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen. I like this passage. As the time approached for Jesus to be taken up into heaven, in other words, knowing His time was short, knowing that His death was imminent, He set out for Jerusalem. And He had sent some of His apostles ahead of Him to visit the towns that He Himself was going to visit, to, as it were, prepare the way for Him. And they went on to a Samaritan village, and the disciples were there preparing for Jesus. Jesus Himself followed there soon afterwards. And there's this phrase in verse 53, but the people there did not welcome Him. That's familiar language in the Gospel of Luke, the language of welcome. When we started off this series on disciplines, we looked at a discipline that pertained to that very word. The first one was called the discipline of receptivity, or we could have called it the discipline of responsiveness, where we looked at this very thing, how that when Jesus came to places, when He acted toward a people, when He spoke to them, when He made initiative toward them, there was an imperativeness to be receptive to that, to listen to what He had to say, to receive His acts. And so we looked at a story that said Jesus couldn't do many miracles there, because they didn't believe Him, they weren't responsive, they weren't excited about what He had to offer. And when we looked through that entire spiritual discipline, we discovered a couple of things, and that's one of the things that distinguished disciples, their level of responsiveness. That when Jesus spoke to them and said, they were not hesitant, they were not half-hearted, but some of the disciples just left right out of their boats and swam to shore and wanted to heed the message to belong to Him and walk with Him and follow Him. And when we finished that particular morning, we drew this lesson. Jesus will be His fullest self where He is most fully accepted. So you'll see the greatest things of Jesus amongst the people who are most enthusiastic in accepting those things, in welcoming the very works and words of Jesus. So the theme of welcoming, welcoming Him, the importance of welcoming Him is reoccurring in the Gospel of Luke. If you have your Bibles, if not, you don't need to turn to it on the screen, but there's several of them just within Luke 9 and Luke 10. Luke 9, verse 10 says, when the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. Then He took them with Him. They withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, but the crowds learned about it and followed Him. He welcomed them. So there's a phrase of the word welcoming Him, welcoming them. Later on in the same chapter, then He said to them, whoever welcomes this little child in My name welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me welcomes the one who sent Me. Just a few verses into chapter 10. When you enter a house and are welcomed, eat what is set before you. But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, shake off the dust from your feet. So the language of welcome within chapter 9 and chapter 10 is common. And here it is right in the very passage that we're looking at. But the people there did not welcome Jesus. If there's something that the disciples understood, then it's this, the importance of welcoming Jesus when He comes to you. What they did not understand, however, was this. What do you do when He's not welcomed? They understood the importance of welcoming Jesus. What they did not understand is how to treat people when they are not welcoming. They wanted to call down fire from heaven and destroy them. What they didn't understand is what to do when things fall far short of your ideal. What they didn't understand is what to do when things don't go as planned. What happens, how to respond when things don't go as hoped. Even good things. How to respond when people appear to be rejecting us rather than accepting us. What do you do in that instance? Well, here's their response. It says, when the disciples James and John saw this... Now, remember, it's James and John. This is the inner core, Peter, James, and John. These are the three biggies. So in the inner core of 12 disciples, there's even another inner circle, Peter, James, and John. And this is when James and John saw this, that these people aren't welcoming. They're not doing the right thing. This isn't going as planned. They're not responding in the ideal way. When they saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven and destroy them? They feel insulted by this response, or lack of it. They feel offended. They feel affronted. They feel slighted. They feel maybe a bit disappointed. And a part of their hearts that had not yet been sanctified by Jesus arose due to this affront. And we all have those parts of our hearts, don't we? And we don't even know that we're there until we're affronted. We don't realize the unsanctified parts of our hearts that are not yet sanctified by Jesus because they lay slightly underground until a circumstance will trigger it. A circumstance where things don't go as we'd hoped. Where things don't turn out as we'd planned. Where someone doesn't respond the way that we thought they should have responded. Where we either are rejected or at least perceive rejection. The cap is taken off and things that are already there in me but just slightly underground, just slightly concealed are concealed no longer and they become very, very apparent. And so they find in their hearts thinking these good-for-nothing Samaritans. Because you know your history well enough to know that Jews of this period had little time for Samaritans. In fact, they held a strong historic prejudice against them. Now the disciples soon realized that Jesus didn't have that prejudice so they thought they were over it too. It's not the kind of thing you want to speak of in front of Jesus. Jesus loves Samaritans. Has He the people of all ethnic groups? So it's not a subject you want to raise in front of Him. But just the fact they weren't speaking about it didn't mean that they had lost it. Under a little bit of pressure, under a little bit of human conflict, under a little bit of disappointment when things don't go as planned it comes up. In an instance of disagreement it emerges. And what's more? They actually feel spiritually justified in holding it. They actually appeal to the Bible. So they don't think, OK, there's something in me that probably shouldn't be in me. I probably shouldn't want to destroy these people. They actually feel righteous in thinking that way. So they say, do you want us to call down fire from heaven? In other words, we should do what Elijah the prophet would do if he was here. There's an actual Old Testament appeal here. There's Old Testament precedence for this kind of stuff. And Jesus has come in the spirit of Elijah and they make all the connections. So we should be doing exactly what happened to Elijah when they were out for him. But Jesus turned and rebuked them. And I really like this part from some of the manuscripts that is not put in this place. You do not know, guys. James, John, you're some of my central guys. He absolutely loved them. This doesn't disqualify them. He doesn't love them any less, but he is training them because he is preparing them for a day when he's going to put the gospel on their shoulders. He's going to put an enormous weight of responsibility on their shoulders. But there's something they have to understand in preparation for that. They don't know, at least on this issue, what manner of spirit is in their hearts. That's not the Holy Spirit producing that. It's not the Holy Spirit whispering in his heart, hey, we should really destroy these guys for not listening. And the reason Jesus takes it so seriously is that they are going to be the apostles who carry out the gospel, but they're missing the whole point of the gospel. The gospel is not about going out and destroying people. That's why this part of this manuscript says, you don't know what manner of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man didn't come to destroy people. That came to save them from destruction. So here's these very top apostles missing the point so badly and not understanding that the gospel that they are meant to represent, they don't get it yet. It's not a gospel about destroying people. It's a gospel about saving them. It's a gospel of grace. Then there's no grace at all. And so how easily the doctrine of grace can become part of our words. We believe the doctrine of grace. We're saved by grace. But when it comes to an instance where grace is really called for, when it comes for an instance to put grace into practice and actually show someone grace, everything in our heart says, well, no, they did me wrong. But that's when grace really counts. When did Jesus show you grace? After you did all kinds of things wrong. He didn't say, well, you clean up your act first, and then I'll show you grace. That's the antithesis of the gospel. That's the gospel of becoming good people. The gospel of change your life first and then God will like you. Which is no gospel at all. I came to my absolute worst when we were sinners. Christ died for us. He didn't say clean my act up first. When we were in rebellion to God, didn't have a good thought in my heart toward Him. It says He loved me and showed me grace. He said, that's it, Todd, sin one more time, I'm going to destroy this guy. That's it. Fire from heaven. He's just going to be six foot five of smoldering ash. The truth is, that is what I deserve. That's the truth. The truth is, that is still what I deserve. And the truth is that because there is a gospel, I do not get what I deserve. But I get what I don't deserve. And that's called grace. And if anybody had to learn it, it was these apostles. They had to not just learn it in their heads, they had to model it. They had to walk it and talk it. They had to be living, breathing, walking billboards of the gospel. So long before they even opened their mouth, people can look at their lives and go, wow, they represent a gospel of grace. So the Lord put them in a pressure cooker and allowed the other to come out. As he does with me. Monday morning I wake up and there's the Lord right there speaking to me. Todd, what about this discipline? The discipline of keeping a right spirit. You do not know what manner of spirit you're of. So there's a discipline of keeping a right spirit on subjects. Why is it a discipline? Because you have to work at it. Why is it a discipline? Because there's a thousand reasons in life that will want to steal from you a right spirit. There's a thousand opportunities that happen every day of misunderstanding, where things don't go as you'd hoped. Someone at work isn't kind to you or thoughtful to you, gyps you off a few dollars. There's a thousand reasons every single day for something down here to get out of place. Then there's a thousand reasons if you want to, to live out of that place. In other words, to stay there and to harbor those things. And there's a thousand reasons to even say I'm not even moving on to that place because that guy at work, after all, he did me wrong and the truth is he probably did. He probably did. So the discipline of his saying, it's easy when someone hasn't authentically done you wrong. But what happens when they really have? Do we walk out the gospel then? Because that's when the gospel was shown to me, when I really did do something wrong. In fact, untold things, a number of things wrong. Jesus gave me the gospel. The Bible says this, mercy triumphs over judgment. Is judgment a reality? Yes it is. And one day I'll stand before God and there will be a judgment and there will be an accounting for things. But the mystery of the gospel is that he has offered me mercy in the place of judgment. Mercy triumphs over judgment. And so he put them in a spot, the disciples, and he wanted to see what come out of their heart when things didn't go as planned. Was their first response mercy or was their first response judgment? That's Bible. That's Bible. Yes, mercy is a reality. Yes, judgment is a reality. But which one triumphs over the other? Which foot goes first? Which foot do we lead with as Christians? It's the foot called mercy. It's the foot called mercy, which is why in the gospel he didn't judge me first and then show me mercy. He showed me mercy and yes, there will be a final judgment. You lead with this foot, mercy. And so when they were put under pressure, this one came forward, judgment. Let's just kill them all. Now none of us would want to literally kill anybody. They actually did. But the moment I stop wanting someone's welfare, the language of blessing someone means I want their welfare. I genuinely want their welfare. I want every part of their life to be in welfare. Every part of their life to be enriched. To bless somebody. The moment I don't want all that to happen to a person, that's paramount to a curse. Or at least the withholding of blessing. So it made me ask on Monday morning, Lord, boy, it's my day off. You're really getting me first thing in the morning here. So guess what I had to think about much that day? I said, okay, Lord, what in my spirit? You do not know what manner of spirit. What down here? Not out here where anybody can see. What down here do you want to speak to? Which raises me to another part of this discipline. It says, and Jesus rebuked them. And after that, they're silent. There's no comebacks. There's no justifications. They don't argue against that rebuke. They don't try to explain themselves out of it. It's just the end of the story. Which is this, the discipline of being easily corrected. The discipline of receiving a good rebuke from the Lord sometimes. And taking it on the chin and go, yeah, Lord, thanks. Years ago, I was traveling with a friend. And we were doing a lot of conferences and revival type settings. And there was a lot of really beautiful kind of prophetic activity. And at the end of a service, because we were speaking, we drew a lot of that. So there'd be people praying for me and people praying for my friend Nolan. And they'd pray for him. And they'd pray the most grandiose things. All this kind of prophetic stuff, and God's going to do those amazing things. They'd pray for me, and it would be a warning. I just feel like the Lord gave me a warning for you. Until it happened so many times that I'm like, Lord, what's up? He gets all the great prophecies, and I get warnings. Like, what's up with that? I'd like a few of those. All the great things. Well, you get to do all the great things, and he gets all the great words. And I get warnings. Like, am I that dangerous of a guy? And the Lord began to speak to my heart. He said, Todd, when I warn you, you do not feel loved. You feel scolded. But you do not feel loved. So I'm going to keep this up until you genuinely feel my love in it. Because or else in the future, when you go to deliver a warning, you will make someone feel exactly how you feel. They will not feel loved by you. They will feel scolded. So the Lord did not give up. Every place I go, what do I get? Warnings. And at first, it was like, Lord, out of principle, I feel loved by you. I'm not sure what that means. Out of principle, I choose to feel loved by you. When that journey was done, I felt so loved by God. I felt that he was, like, watching out for me. That he was watching the path I'm on, and he was saying, Todd, just up ahead of you, there's a hole, and it's covered by a few branches and leaves, and I just want to say, son, don't fall into that. Because it would hurt you, and I don't want to see you hurt. And I would just say, Father, thanks. I wouldn't have seen that coming. Thank you so much. And I honestly felt, from the top of my head to the sole of my feet, I felt loved by God. And then the Lord started to give me warnings for people, just like he said. And by revelation would give me quite detailed revelation of people. One time there was a young couple where he showed me in prayer, they're sleeping together, they're not married. So he sends me to them, and then he tells me this, if you make them feel any less loved than I would make them feel if I was there, then I'm going to discipline you instead of them. So I was careful. Long story short, when that whole episode was done, I didn't know the Lord still was going to confront it. There was still something that needed to be done and said. But I tell you what, God loved them so much, that lady visited me about a year later, and she says, that of all the moments in life when God could reveal his love to me, that was it. I said, oh, thank God. When I was in Scotland, one day I'm in prayer, the Lord gives me a word for the local drug dealer. He's not a Christian, has nothing to do with the church, the Lord gives me a warning. So I go over to his house, come on, I want you to come be with me. I tell him this whole story of how God trained me, and how he gave me these warnings, and I just would feel like he didn't love me, because why does he have to warn me all the time? I just felt so loved by God, and I said, so the Lord wants to love you today. He's got a warning for you. And the warning pertained to his boys, that if he didn't cease his drug activity, some of the consequences that that would bring into his life for his boys. And I'll tell you, that guy felt so loved, he followed me around like a puppy all day, the local drug dealer. I'd like to say he did that warning for a long time, he may have did for a few months, within a year he hadn't. Now his son is an absolute drug addict. Exactly what the Lord warned him about. The Lord wasn't trying to, the Lord was trying to save him a heartache. The Lord was trying to protect that family, not judge it. And here's the disciples, the Lord rebuked them, they knew him, they saw the look on his face, he loved them. And they allowed themselves to be corrected and rebuked by that kind of love. Sometimes as Christians we need to have a sensitivity to say, Lord, is there anything in my spirit that you need to speak to? Is there something I'm harboring that I need to hear your voice on, I need to let go of? Some relationship with another person, some thought toward you, some pain from the past. My spirit's not right on it. But I'm open to your correction. Because I know you got my back. And I know you love me. Sometimes it takes some ground to cover. My early years of the ministry, I could be corrected so harshly sometimes in such lack of love. I'm still working on it to try to get to a stage where I can receive it from the Lord, because I know he loves me. Let's wait on him for a few minutes this morning. This is a discipline, not just a message. Would you join me in prayer? Will you do what I've been doing all week? I said, Lord, you spoke this to my heart. In what way is my spirit, what correction would you like to bring into some area of my spirit? Holy Spirit, would you speak to our hearts this morning? Just come and speak to us. Some area of our hearts where we don't know what manner of spirit is in us. Would you come in your love and point that out to us this morning? It could be toward you, Lord. It could be toward ourselves. It could be toward a family member, an estranged family member, a previous church, a fellow employee. Lord, we're your disciples, which means we are subject to you. And any adjustment you need to make to our spirit, we receive it. Any area we're moving in judgment instead of mercy. Forgive me, Lord. I know you spoke. You didn't speak this to me just to give me a message for Sunday. You spoke to me because Todd Atkinson needed to hear this. Thank you. I relish your word. I've sought all week to meditate on it and to deepen it and to receive it. Thank you so much for caring enough about me. Marianne, just whatever he speaks to you about. John chapter 2, whatever he says to you, do it. Because he knows that the Christian life is better lived with a clean spirit. With a right spirit. What pains from the past, what prejudices like they had toward the Samaritans, is it now time to let go of? Because in an instance of misunderstanding or disappointment, they keep coming up in you. Like a big water wheel, it goes underground most of the time. But in an instance of misunderstanding, disappointment, conflict, it comes back up again like a big water wheel. Which area now is it? It's just time. Time to lay that down. So Lord, may your word be planted deep in our hearts. Go home with us and grow up within us. May we feel loved, deeply loved by you. If you have any needs whatsoever, Mervyn, Connie, Jackson or a former prayer team at the front, I really encourage you to come forward and have them pray with you. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God our Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Now in Christ's name. Amen. Let's all go upstairs and we'll go and have a coffee together.