Well, hey, everybody.  Welcome to Valley Creek Church.  It’s great to be with you.  Let’s do this.  From wherever you’re engaging at, whether you’re at our online campus, you’re in Denton, Flower Mound, Gainesville, Lewisville, The Venue, let’s all welcome each other together today. 

I love hanging out with you.  So, hey, let me kick things off today with kind of an interesting question.  Have you ever seen anyone that doesn’t have any shame?  You’re all like, we’re at church, it’s like, “Well, yeah.  Nobody has any shame.”  Just hang with me, like, somebody just has no shame.  Like maybe you saw some people at the beach or maybe there’s that guy that, you know, he’s like completely normal at work or at school or in church.  He’s kind of quiet and reserve until you get to his favorite sports team.  And then all the quiet and reserve goes out the window and this same guy, he’s now like screaming at a TV, and jumping and throwing stuff.  Or you see this same guy at a game and now this guy who’s quiet, never speaks in class, or raises his hands in meeting, now he’s got his shirt off and his chest painted.  And he’s like hugging complete strangers and screaming advice at a referee, like no shame, none at all. 

How about the parent with the kid who does a little bit of art work.  Like maybe the five year old that draws a picture and now his parent thinks like, “This is the greatest piece of art that is ever hit the face of the earth.”  They’re posting about it, they’re printing copies.  They’re calling the news like, “My kid’s the next Rembrandt.”  And you’re looking at it like, it looks like that kid did it blindfolded with his foot.  Like, it’s not so good but the parents got no shame at all.  It’s kind of some extreme examples but, let me kind of use that to take us to a question, where do you live life unashamed?  Where do you live unashamed?  Think about what unashamed means, totally free, confident, secure, no self-conscious at all.  I mean, it’s the guy with no shirt and his chest painted.  He’s totally free.  He’s unashamed.  Where do you live life like that?  I think all of us probably, we have some places where we live unashamed.  You know, places, things we are passionate about that we enjoy and that we really believe in. 

Let me narrow that down a little bit more.  How about with Jesus?  Do you have any shame at all when it comes to Jesus?  And I’m talking about shame with Jesus, I’m talking about shame about Jesus.  I’m not talking about shame with Jesus.  Were you got shamed about your past, your failures and mistakes?  All that’s taken care off by Jesus.  I’m talking about shame about Jesus, who he is and what he’s done.  Because I think normally, I could answer that question as, “No, I’m not ashamed about Jesus.”  But over these last several weeks when we were reading through the book of Acts, and I’m looking at this early church and this early followers of Jesus, the disciples and all.  And I’m like, “Wow.”  I mean, there’s this amazing group of people who -- they were strangers.  Now that this family on mission is so unashamed about Jesus. 

And there’s this verse that kept coming up that even I was really familiar with it that the Holy Spirit kept bringing it up for me to wrestle with.  It’s Romans 1:16, it says, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it’s the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.”  I’m not ashamed of the Gospel, the good news about Jesus, because it’s the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes in it.  And that verse is like really challenging me, but what’s fascinating is that verse is written by Paul who used to be Saul.  The guy who is probably the most unashamed about hating Jesus, of anyone in the bible.  I mean, before he was Paul, he was Saul the persecutor.  I mean, he’s this Pharisee, this religious leader who makes it his life ambition to just hate and persecute anything, all thing Jesus and any follower of Jesus just to torment them, to intimidate them, to arrest them, to kill them.  And he truly was unashamed in his hatred for Jesus. 

I mean, he’s the guy who in Acts 7, he holds the coats for all the guys that are stoning Steven to death.  Like, “I don’t want anything to get in your way.  I want you to really wind up, let me have your coats.”  He’s got no shame at all.  And then he has an encounter with Jesus, with the Gospel and changes everything.  And Saul becomes Paul.  And you see this guy who is so full of hate in his hard heart and his encounter with Jesus, he’s blinded.  And over these next three days, like his complete transformation and when his sight comes backs, he’s now looking through eyes of Grace.  And that hard heart was pierced by the grace of Jesus and it’s now soft and it’s full of love.  And now, he can’t help but talk about Jesus everywhere he goes.  He’s now completely unashamed about Jesus.  That’s because Paul knew what it was like to be Saul.  Paul knew that he needed salvation. 

Like that word salvation in Greek, it’s the word Sozo.  It means to heal, to save, to make whole.  Because salvation is not about heaven -- one day.  It’s about being saved and heal to made whole today.  And that’s what Paul experienced.  He experienced the complete transformation today.  And so, he was wholeheartedly like unashamed about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done.  And so he’s living just like that guy with no shirt and his chest painted.  Like he lives this whole different life.  Like most of the New Testament is all Paul living this unashamed life, totally free and confident and secure in Jesus.  Look at this verse, Paul writes this in 1st Timothy.  He says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worse.”  Like Paul never lost sight of what the Gospel had done for him.  He remembered who he was but then who he became.  He knew he had been saved, healed and made whole.  He had an encounter with Jesus and it changed everything. 

So looking at Paul’s life, I was kind of looking at my own and saying, “I kind of say that about me living unashamed about Jesus.”  Can you say that about you?  Like do you remember what it was like before Jesus?  Do you remember the kind of life that you used to live?  Do you remember the things you used to preserve?  Do you remember what Jesus has done for you?  It’s like I don’t think we talked about the things that we’re ashamed.  Like we don’t talk about our mistakes, and our failures and our secrets.  Like we talk about the things that we’re proud about.  But in this last season, I think one of the things that we have lost sight of the most -- over this past year is mission.  In all the isolation and seclusion, like we’ve just lost sight of mission, talking about Jesus, who he is and what he’s done.  And if we’re honest, like over this last year, we just really got self-focused.  We got caught up in self-preservation mode and self-protection.  And what are my needs?  What are my problems?  How to take care of me?  And we lost sight of why we are actually here. 

My mission.  Because mission is what Jesus is all about.  In Luke 19:10 Jesus says, “For the son of man came to seek and save the lost.”  He says, “I came to seek and save the lost.”  You and me and them.  That’s why he came.  He came on mission.  That’s what the Gospel is.  The Gospel, the good news about Jesus is that Jesus came on mission for us, to completely change who we are, give us a new identity as God’s children.  To restore our relationship with God as our father.  And He gave us a whole new purpose in life, mission.  To go on mission now to share the same hope that we’ve received with other people.  And that’s exactly what happened to Paul.  And Paul has been touched by the mission of Jesus and then he became part of the mission of Jesus. 

Paul became part of a family on mission.  And family on mission is something that you will hear a lot around Valley Creek because it’s who we are.  It’s the culture of our family.  Like we’re a family that’s on mission.  The vision of our church at Valley Creek is that we’re a movement of hope for the city and beyond.  The primary way that that happens is through a family on mission.  It’s like, you can’t be a movement by yourself.  One person isn’t a movement.  We had to be together to be a movement.  You got to be a family but you got to be a family that actually has purpose, has mission.  Go on and sharing the hope of Jesus.  That’s a family on mission, that’s what a movement of hope looks like.  And I think this family, the Valley Creek family, I think it’s pretty fantastic.  I think this is a great family.  And I think a lot of you, you probably have a high value for this family.  Like you value who we are and you value the services and then the experiences.  And you value what we have for kids, and students and you found friends here and you found belonging here and it’s been great you value it. 

And some of you, you value mission.  And you lead, and you serve, and you invite and you include and you take the hope that you’ve received here and you carry out other areas of life.  But let me see if I can elevate the value of family on mission for all of us just a bit.  So think about it like this, the mission existed before the family.  Like I realize that the mission came first.  From the very beginning, God’s been on mission to build a family.  It’s what the whole -- the whole bible is a story about God building a family.  And then when that family got broken, the sole reason Jesus went on mission was to restore the family again.  I mean, in John 1:12, it says, “But to all who believed Him, Jesus, and accepted Him, he gave the right to become children of God.”  It’s what Jesus mission was, to make a way for people to become part of God’s family.  The mission was for the family.  You see Jesus didn’t -- He didn’t start this family.  He didn’t start the church.  And then like, I got to have some for them to do.  I got this great church, I got this great family, I’m very bored.  I got to come up with something for them to do.  Mission.  That’s what they can do. 

That’s not what happened.  But we kind of think that.  We think like, we came up with mission or it was just kind of an add-on for Jesus to his church and that’s not it at all.  The mission doesn’t exists for the church.  The church exists for the mission.  I guess we’re saying it again.  The mission doesn’t exists for the church, the church exists for the mission.  That’s the sole reason Jesus established his church, his family was for the mission.  He said, “I will build a church to accomplish my mission.  I will build a family to build the family.  To be on mission to share the Gospel, the good news about me.”  Because of salvation, it can heal and save and make whole anyone who believes.  Jesus made a way for all of humanity to become part of the family but didn’t He entrusted that mission to the family. 

He said, “Hey, I’m going, but I’m going to leave my mission with you.”  Think about it like this, he empowered us to watch the kids.  My wife and Iris, we have four kids and easily they’re the most valuable thing in our life.  I didn’t have to think about that.  Our kids are the most valuable thing in our life. And our oldest is our 16 year old, Thatcher.  And sometimes, we will trust and empower Thatcher with the kids like watching them, taking care of them.  And he recently got his driver’s license.  And so, like that first morning when, you know, he loaded up the three girls in his car and he took everybody to school.  And it was tough.  You know, that’s kind of like our whole little world all on this one little car, but, you know, we were trusting and empowering him with what matters the most.  That’s exactly how God use you.  He has trusted and empowered you with what matters the most, people, His kids.  “I am giving you the keys to my kingdom.  I am entrusting you with the whole world.  Go.” 

Like Thatcher’s my beloved son, that’s why I empower him.  You are God’s beloved sons and daughters and He has empowered you to go bring His lost sons and daughters home.  That’s what it’s all about.  And then He gave us everything we would need to do that.  In Acts 1:08 Jesus says, “Hey, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.  And you will be my witnesses.  You will be a family on mission, telling people about me everywhere.  In Jerusalem, throughout Judah, and in Samaria, into the ends of the earth.”  Jesus says, “Hey, family.  Hey, church.  I’m giving you my mission.  I’m giving you my very spirit.  Now go turn the world upside down.”