Modern Worship

34:35 Well, the World Cup is coming to Kansas City, which means for the next month or so, from June to July, we're going to have a chance to watch the game of soccer played at the highest level. And here in Kansas City, it's really exciting because we get to play host to four different nations, four different teams that are competing in the World Cup. And we also get to watch a lot of matches here in Kansas City, too, including one of those quarterfinal matchups. And so it's going to be an awesome time. It's an amazing experience. And to be candid, I'm kind of an expert in this because I'm one of the lucky ones that actually can remember back to 1994 when the United States hosted its very first World Cup. I was living in Detroit at the time. I was a little kid. And I had the privilege of being able to go and watch some of the games in that Pontiac Silverdome, which is where we watch the games in Detroit. These were the days of like Eric Rinalda, Tony Mayola, Marcelo Balboa, Kobe Jones, all these different kinds of players, these heroes. and I realized you probably don't even know who any of them are.

35:31 So here's a picture of the US team from 1994 at the Pontiac Silverdome when they played Switzerland. I was there at that game. And in case you were curious what I looked like back in 1994, here's a picture of me walking into the Pontiac Silverdome with my younger sister holding up the American flag. And then this was before selfies were a thing. So somebody took a picture of us sitting in our seats as we were preparing to watch the US take on Switzerland. You can see me, I'm the one in the far right. And this was an amazing experience. I can still remember it like it was yesterday because the World Cup's a big deal. Soccer teams, they compete for more than four years simply to have a chance to qualify, to play in the World Cup. But that isn't really indicative of the totality of its importance because for every individual player on each one of those teams that prepares for four years in order to qualify for the World Cup, they've spent their entire lifetime practicing and preparing and sacrificing just so they might have a chance to play in the World Cup. And that's what's so beautiful about the World Cup to me.

36:37 You know, most people are going to watch these games, are going to be so focused on the winners or on the losers, they're not going to see the lifetime of sacrifice that is collected together on the field during each one of these World Cup matches. And I think that's beautiful to see that kind of sacrifice visible in such a remarkable, clear way during the World Cup. A lot of people don't know what goes into becoming a professional soccer player or top-class, world-class athlete. So this past week, I had a chance to actually connect with a professional soccer player. His name is John Kempen. John Kempen is a child of this congregation, Resurrection. He attended Blue Valley North, and at the age of 17, he was the youngest player ever homegrown player ever selected to play for the Kansas City Wizards at the time. Now it's sporting Kansas City, but John played professional soccer for 13 years. He played with Kansas City, played with LA, Columbus. He also played with the DC United. And so he is a legend in terms of like professional soccer status, locally anyway. But he is this great guy. And I wanted to talk with him about what does it take to get to that place where you can, you know, win five championships in a 13-year professional career. What does it take to end up in professional soccer? And I wanted to hear his story of practice, preparation, and sacrifice. And this is what he had to say about how it was that he made it to professional soccer.

38:06 Obviously, growing up when I was 14, 15 years old, I moved away from home. I went down to Bradenton, Florida, a place called IMG Academies. And I was basically a boarding school and I was with the U.S. Soccer Residency Program, which was U-17 team there, and we were preparing for the World Cup as well, the U-17 World Cup. And, you know, at that age, I was away from my family. I was away from my friends. I missed school dances. I missed all my graduations. You know, just a lot of the normal parts of growing up and being a kid. It's definitely not something I regret. I think, you know, everyone always asks me if I regret that, but it was a part of chasing my dream. We won two U.S. Open Cups here in Kansas City. We won an MLS Cup. I was loaned one year to Orlando, and we won the AAA Cup, if you will, when I was there. And then, yeah, won with Columbus. So five championships in 13 years. So it was a great career and a lot of championships and trophies. But I think the other thing that's interesting is I was a young goalkeeper and only one goalie plays and you don't sub that goalie out.

39:11 And it's usually the same goalie throughout the entire season. And the number one thing that a young goalkeeper needs is minutes. That's the only way he can really get better. It's not like, you know, you can come on or play, you know, in training and get better or as much experience as you can without playing games. So I would get loaned out almost every year, whether that was for a couple games or for the whole season. So not only did I live down in Florida when I was 14, 15, I basically lived on my own in a different city from, you know, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 for an extended period of time. So all my friends were at college, they were having fun, they were going to parties, they were figuring out what job they were going to have after I was kind of traveling around, living in all these places, and a little bit of uncertainty in my career because I wasn't a starter. I was just this young kid hoping to make it.

40:06 It was just resiliency and having my goal and ultimately getting there. John sacrificed a lot in order to play professionally. You heard he moved away at a young age from his family, everything that he knew, just to try to excel, to press on toward the goal. Even when he started playing professionally, he was moved around a 17, 18, 19, 20-year-old from city to city to city to make sense of things on his own. And yet nothing stopped him. He kept pressing on toward the goal, as the Apostle Paul talks about. He kept persevering and practicing so that he can carry forward, live fully into the idea and picture of this beautiful game. When I think about what it takes to succeed in soccer, I think there's so many parallels to our life of faith. You know, the Apostle Paul, he begins to talk to the earliest church and urge them to press on in the same way, to persevere in the same way, to commit your life to a life of practice, of devotion, of discipline. He says, press on toward the goal, but then he continues. And he's not talking about soccer. He's talking about the church following Jesus. He says in his letter to the church at Rome, he says this, how not only that, not only should we press on toward the goal of the heavenly prize, but not only that, but we should also boast in our afflictions. Knowing that our affliction produces endurance and endurance, it produces character. Character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame. Meaning the Christian life, just like the game of soccer, it requires that we practice daily. And sometimes that practice, sometimes that preparation, that discipline, that devotion, it feels like suffering.

41:36 like affliction, but we still have to carry forward because affliction will lead us to endurance and endurance is gonna lead us to character and character is gonna provoke hope and hope is something we can build our life on. Hope is something that we will never be disappointed in. Hope is something that we can stand on as though it's a firm foundation so that no matter what is happening, we can always come back to hope, which is rooted in our practice, our ongoing discipline, our devotion, our perseverance. In the earliest Christian communities, they understood this. They understood the importance of practice, of discipline, of devotion. In fact, they were defined by it. It was so visible to the community around them that they began to be defined by their practices. People were drawn to it, their visibility. This is what we hear a description of the earliest Christian communities in the second chapter of Acts.

42:31 Luke writes,

42:58 people were drawn to their practices to their visibility to their willingness to live out their life of faith to practice it they would watch them as they would go to the temple together they would watch them as they would collect all their goods and possessions together they would watch as they would sell them and then distribute the proceeds of the sale to the people that were in need they would watch as they would eat together with glad and generous hearts they would watch all of these rhythms all of these practices and because of what they were seeing they were drawn to them. Day by day, the Lord added to their number, which means people were drawn to their discipline, their practice, the way that they excelled and grew in the faith because it was beautiful. And I think this is the church at its best. The church at its best is a collection of individuals that gathered together that are adhering to the same kind of discipline with the same kind of passion or devotion. They have the same kind of adherence to practices, to spiritual practices in such a way that it is visible to the world around them, so much so that people are drawn to it.

44:02 Just like the World Cup. The World Cup is a place for us to gather together, to watch all of these individuals who come together on one field. And they are so bound together by their devotion to the game, their lifetime of sacrifice, the way that they practice visibly to reach that goal, that highest level. and we can't help but watch with awe and wonder, which is why they call it the beautiful game. They call it the beautiful game because of what happens on that field is nothing more than a collection of people who are passionate, who are filled with purpose and who are steeped in practice. And whenever they gather together, the creativity, the playmaking, the beauty, the artistry, it captivates our imagination and it's beautiful, becomes the beautiful game. And yet with everything else, there's always some individuals that kind of rise above the rest. It's not just a gathering of a team, but sometimes there's individual players that have the ability or capability to change everything. That happens in life, that happens in faith, that happens in the sport of soccer too.

45:05 And this is also going to be a season where we're focusing in on some of the greats. Some people that you can think about are Messi or Ronaldo or Maradona or some of these, Zidane, some of these other players. But my favorite player, my favorite great person that I loved to watch growing up was a player by the name of Pele. He was a Brazilian soccer legend. I never got to watch him play in person because he retired before I was born, but he was somebody that I admired. I wanted to be like Pele, and he was one of those living legends. In fact, Pele wrote an autobiography, My Life and the Beautiful Game, and it was because of Pele that this idea of the beautiful game was cemented. Pele didn't call soccer beautiful because of winning or losing. He called soccer beautiful because of what it represented and what it made possible. And for Pele, what soccer made possible was redemption and freedom and equality and peace. As a kid, Pele grew up in a really poor rural village in Brazil.

46:06 His parents, they couldn't afford a soccer ball. They couldn't afford shoes. They couldn't afford much of anything. A lot of Pele's upbringing was in poverty and at times without a home. And yet growing up in that kind of environment, Pele was drawn to the sport of soccer. So much so that he would play barefoot in the back alleyways of his poor rural village. And he would do so not with a soccer ball. He would wad up newspaper and he would wrap it in cloth or he'd wrap hard fruits in string or twine. And he'd kick this little makeshift ball all throughout his village in the back alleys with his friends through his neighbors, you know, spaces. And as he would do this, nothing would stop him. And people were drawn to his practice. He'd play for hours upon hours and people were drawn to join him because of what they were seeing in him. And so he developed a relationship with all these kids in the village and they formed a team.

47:00 And then they began to play kids from other villages. And in those kids in other villages, they had parents who could afford, you know, shoes and socks and real soccer balls. And as they would play with each other, Pele was up against a significant disadvantage. And yet, nevertheless, he would continue to persevere barefoot, continuing to play and to practice this game that he was drawn to, this game that he loved. And there's this great movie that describes his story, The Birth of a Legend. And in this movie, there's this great scene, kind of a turning point in Pele's life. And he's playing with his neighborhood kids, his friends. He's playing in a game against some kids from another town. Their team is called the Kings. And the Kings were better than most every other team. And they let everybody know about it. They were kind of bullies. And they wouldn't play against Pele's team unless he found cleats to wear, shoes to wear, and a jersey to put on. And so what happens is Pele, he scrounges up, you know, cleats that are like five sizes too big. And they get, you know, jerseys that are way too small, that are made in-house. And they show up, and they're playing this match against the Kings. And they call Pele's team the shoeless ones.

48:05 and it doesn't take long before Pele's team is down six goals to zero and he's just distraught and he's angry you know he's down and out he doesn't know what to do and this is what happens next Hey, hey, Goma! It's not worth it! Goma, Goma, Goma!

48:43 Goma, what are you doing? I hate these boots. Thank you. Hey, Diego!

49:22 I'm sorry. Go! Go! Go! Go! Ladies and gentlemen, the shoeless world!

50:22 Freedom! Freedom! Okay. Come on, come on, no time to wait. Let's go, let's go. Come on, let's go. I just love that scene because Pele, he's like, as a boy, he's stuck. He's angry. He's frustrated. He's down. He's out. And in that moment, he just pauses. You know, he sees his dad and he takes a breath. He rips off his shoes and his socks and he begins to remember. He goes back in his mind to all those spaces, all those places where he was growing up, where he practiced, he played, and he was remembering who he was, but also what he was capable of.

51:16 You know, then he opens his eyes and it's like all of a sudden he starts playing differently. He plays beautifully the way that he knows how to play, that only he can play. And he's fearless as he continues forward. And you saw what happens. He goes, he scores. And then the moment he does, that changes everything for the rest of his team. They start ripping off their shoes and their socks and their jerseys. And all of a sudden they're set free too. And this is what happens when we steep our life in practice and we remember who we are. It allows us to be free, to play differently, to become better. to be fearless and to make the world around us better in the same kind of way. And I think this is what's so beautiful about the game, but it requires that we're steeped in practice so that we can remember who we are, so that we have something that we can always fall back on that will carry us forward no matter what's going on in the world around us. And so I want to invite you just to think for a moment, like what are your practices?

52:14 What helps you to remember who you are or whose you are? What do you fall back upon? What foundation do you fall back upon in order to set you free, to live fearlessly, to press on toward the goal, to live and become better in this beautiful game or in this beautiful life? You know, I think about our practices and remembering and what we can do to build our life. So much of our life and so much of our faith, it's rooted in our ability to remember. You know, Jesus, he was always inviting us to remember and to not forget. This is a communion weekend. And so I can't help but think about the last supper. The night before Jesus gave himself up for us, he gathered his friends together to be in the upper room, to have the Passover feast. And when he's there, he takes bread, he takes wine. He says, I want you to take this and eat this and drink this. And I want you to remember me, my love for you that will never let you go, not even in death.

53:08 I will be with you always to the end of the age. Take and eat and drink and remember. Don't forget, Jesus wants us to remember that meal, to engage in that practice. so that we can remember who we are always, no matter what the circumstances around us. And we can remember that God loves us. It should strengthen us. It should encourage us. It should change us. It should allow us to stand firmly on that foundation so that we can carry forward fearlessly into the future that God has for us. Jesus wants us to remember this always, to practice this always so that we might not forget. Whenever I take communion, which is a spiritual practice, just like worship, it's an opportunity for us to remember God's love for us. Lately, as I've been participating in communion, what I've been thinking about and reminded of are the words from the prophet Isaiah.

54:01 He's speaking to this group of Israelites, the children of Israel. And as he does, he's offering them a word about God's love for them. And every time I've been receiving communion as of late, I've been hearing it as though God is saying this to me. I want you to hear what Isaiah says in the 43rd chapter. He says to us, fear not, for I have redeemed you. I've summoned you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Jesus, when he gives us communion, this last supper, his body, his blood, the bread, and the wine, He says, remember that always. Remember me and my love for you, my power and my presence every time you break bread. This is a spiritual practice, just like worship. Every time we engage in that practice, as often as we can, we should remember who we are. It should change us.

55:01 It should shape us. It should set us free to experience the beautiful life, knowing that God is with us. John Wesley is the founder of the Methodist movement. He says, this is something that we should attend to as often as possible. It's something we should practice every time we have the chance to do so. He wrote this great sermon called The Duty of Constant Communion, which says we should be engaging in this spiritual practice as often as possible so that we can remember and never forget who we are should change us to be Christ's representatives for the world in every circumstance to experience the beautiful life. This is just one spiritual practice. At Resurrection, we talk about five spiritual practices, five essential practices of the Christian life. And we narrate that largely through the lens of this book that our senior pastor wrote called The Walk. And it describes these five essential practices that we should engage in as often as possible.

55:56 The duty of following Christ is engaging in these practices as often as possible so that we might become the best versions of the people God created us to be, to become the beautiful life, to become the living body of Christ. And so those five practices outlined in that book that we talk about here quite a bit are worship, really worship and prayer. And then there's study, the daily study of scripture. And then we talk about serve and what it means to put your hands to work, serving others, blessing others, individually, collectively. We also talk about the practice of giving, of generosity. And then the last one, the fifth one is share. What does it mean to share your faith, to invite others to join you? But sometimes when we think about engaging five different practices, essential practices, we end up not doing anything. And so lately, what I've been focusing on is my practice and habit of reading scripture daily. That's been something that's been pronounced since Easter. I've been reading through a lot of the letters from the Apostle Paul. I've also been immersed in the Psalms. But this is something that I've been attentive to and I've been thinking about because when you read scripture daily, it begins to equip you and to prepare you for whatever the world has for you. When you read scripture daily, it begins to frame your day. It begins to serve as a lens through which you see everything. And if you're reading the word of God, then what that means is you're looking at the world through the word of God as your lens, which means you can't help but see God everywhere it is that you go. You can't help but see opportunities to bless others, to serve others, to be open to interruptions. Because if you're seeing everything through the lens of scripture, through the lens of God with us, then what you're going to do is you're going to see the world differently and you're going to become a living representative of Christ. It'd be visible and opportunities around will become visible for you as well. So I want to challenge you. What would it mean for you to engage in the daily reading of scripture as the World Cup is taking place? For this period of time from June to July, to take on this spiritual practice, to be devoted to it, disciplined, press on toward the goal, and to see what might happen, how your life might be different through that practice. You can sign up for the GPS, the Grow, Pray, Study Guide, at core.org slash next.

58:01 If you haven't yet done that, that is a great resource for you. You can go and you can receive through the GPS daily scripture passages that relate to the weekend in worship along with a devotion that can begin to frame your day every day at the beginning of your day. I want to challenge you to read scripture or maybe you want to read through Paul's letters or you can read through one of the gospels or maybe just take on the GPS, but start somewhere. Take on that practice because it has the power to change your life. You know, we were just coming out of a sermon series focused in on the Sermon on the Mount. And so Pastor Adam led us through five weeks of the Gospel of Matthew, focusing in on that scripture, portion of scripture in the gospel. And I was reminded of one of the first scriptures that I began to read regularly or daily in my life. And it came from the Sermon on the Mount. And it ties into soccer because I only would have ever learned of this passage of scripture because I was a soccer player growing up.

59:00 and I played soccer as one of two sports I excelled in and was competitive in, and so I loved soccer. But the other thing about me playing soccer is that I was really small. Growing up, I was so small. I didn't hit five feet in height until I was a senior in high school, 100 pounds until I was a senior in high school. And in growing up, being a small soccer player, it filled me with worry and preoccupation. Sometimes it would debilitate me. it would stop me because I was afraid of my size and getting hurt and being made fun of, all those kinds of things. Here's a picture from my soccer playing days. You can probably guess which one I was. I think I was maybe 13 or 14 in this picture. And I was literally like heads and shoulders shorter than everybody else on my team.

59:53 And that consumed me. And it was noticeable, I think at least to some of my teammates at first. I was noticeable to one of my teammates' mothers in particular. And I remember one of those moments where I was preoccupied by my worry related to my size, that after one of our games, she came up to me and she handed me a little note. And on that note, there was a scripture passage written down. And I had a Bible, but I had never really read the Bible. It wasn't like a practice or a habit that I had had. I had the Bible, but no connection to it until she gave me that scripture passage. And so I went home after that game, after receiving that passage of scripture from my friend's mom and I went to my room, I grabbed my Bible and for the first time I looked at it and I went right to that scripture citation and it came from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6. And as this short, small, worried soccer player, I began to read these words.

1:01:27 I would read and reread this passage of scripture as a kid. And over time, it started to shape me. to strengthen me. And whenever I remembered it, I remembered that I was a person of value and that somehow God was with me and that I wasn't alone. And that gave me courage to live differently, to run free, to play, to practice, to live into my potential, my capability. It changed everything for me. It helped me to remember who I was and whose I was.

1:02:21 And it set me free. this is what rests at the heart of a beautiful life it also rests at the heart of the beautiful game and it's all rooted in our practice what are your spiritual practices what firm foundations are you building your life upon that you can remember, that you can recall, that you can draw strength from that will allow you to live differently, freely, beautifully into the future that God has for you. Look, our goal is not to win the World Cup. Our goal is to become more like the living Christ. Our goal is to strive to practice our faith, to live our faith, to be visible, to be seen, to be defined by how it is that we seek to live and to love others the same way that God lives and loves toward us.

1:03:16 And so I'm going to encourage us as we prepare to go to take that step, to engage our faith, to start practicing so that we can become and live and be seen as beautiful. Would you pray with me? Gracious God, we pause and we thank you for today.

1:03:41 We thank you for drawing us together in worship where we can remember who you are and how you love us and how that love shapes us and makes us into the people that you created us to be so that we can't help but love others and see the world as you see it. to empower us to engage our faith, to become visible, to be salt, to be light, to make this world better. to experience as one the beautiful life. In Jesus' name, amen.

1:04:28 Well, as we continue now in worship, we have a chance to experience together the sacrament of Holy Communion. We have a chance to remember God's love for us through this meal. And as we prepare for it, I'm gonna invite you, if you have handy, and now would be a great time to go and grab some bread or some juice, some crackers, some water, so that you can have elements ready to receive communion with us. But as we gather for communion, what we remember is the night in which Jesus gave himself up for us. And what we remember about that evening, knowing everything that was coming his way, Jesus, he didn't run away or hide, but instead he faced the future without fear and he gathered his disciples together so they could share in this one last supper. And what we remember as they were all gathered together is that Jesus, he took bread. And as he took this bread, he blessed it. He thanked God for it. And upon doing that, he broke it. And after breaking the bread, he turned to his disciples and he said to them, I want you to take this and I want you to eat this. This is my body and I'm giving it for you so that you would take it and eat it. And every time you do, you'd remember me and all that I'm giving for you. So the disciples, they took and they ate.

1:05:36 and after they had finished supper, we remember then how Jesus took this cup. We remember how he blessed it. He thanked God for it. And then he gave that to his friends as well. And he said to them, I want you to take this now and drink of it, all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant. It's poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Would you take this? And every time you drink of it, remember me and my love that will not let you go. And so the disciples, they took and they drank. And as we prepare to do the very same thing, I'm gonna invite you to join me as we go to God once more in prayer. Let's pray. Gracious God, we pause and we thank you for the gift of this time together. We pray now that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit wherever we might be and that you'd pour out that same spirit over these, your gifts of bread and wine. We pray that you would make them be for us, the body and blood of Jesus Christ so that we would be transformed for this world into Christ's living body, redeemed by his blood.

1:06:36 God, we pray that you'd make this a moment of ministry for us, that you would ground us in this promise of a forever unfailing love. And we pray that you would change us because of it, to make us one with you, but one with each other, one in ministry to the whole world. Use us, we pray, to live fearlessly into the future in anticipation of that heavenly banquet where we're all gathered together in the company of your saints and angels. Guide us to that end. Remind us that we are yours and remind us that nothing will ever be able to separate us from your love so that we might be emboldened in the faith. Fearless, beautiful. Do all of that we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. At this time, I'm gonna invite you wherever you are to take the bread and to know that this bread as a representation of Christ's body, broken for you.

1:07:35 And here at Resurrection, we take that bread, we dip it into the cup, which is a representation of God's love for us, blood of the new covenant, to remind us that God loves us and will never leave us.