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Just a moment at the conclusion of this service, we're going to have a special time of prayer over all of our summer camps for children in the foster system. We're going to be commissioning hundreds of volunteers. Not all of them have these shirts on, but the ones that do are a part of that volunteer team, and we're going to commission them and we're going to pray over the hundreds of children that we will serve this year. Every year, our church basically tithes our calendar by giving a part of the all of the month of June and part of the month of July to the orphan. There are 52 weeks in the year, and we give more than 5.2 weeks of our summer serving abused, neglected, and exploited kids. And I'll be honest, if you look at this from a completely budgetary or logical perspective, it doesn't make sense. Why would we invest so much of our staff time, volunteer energy, and financial resources for such a significant part of the summer to a population that will never be able to pay us back? I'll tell you why. It's the nature of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of the reverse. All through the New Testament, especially in the Gospels, Jesus and others keep talking about the kingdom of God. And it's always depicted as a kingdom that stands in stark contrast to the kingdoms of this world in every way. In that famous passage, the Sermon on the Mount, that's Jesus' most famous sermon. It's in Matthew 6. He is teaching us how to pray. And he specifically tells us to pray that his kingdom would come to earth as it is in heaven. But it's not just our responsibility to pray for God's dominion and rule, that's his kingdom, to come to earth. But as citizens of that kingdom, it is our responsibility to live out the principles of that kingdom and be his ambassadors that represent the kingdom everywhere we go. But Jesus' depiction of the kingdom of God is usually very different than what the typical American Christian thinks about when they think about the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is paradoxical, subversive, upside down, and opposite when compared to the kingdoms of this world. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of the reverse when compared to the dominant culture around us. So it would make sense if the kingdom of God is a complete reversal of everything in the dominant culture, that if you're a citizen of his kingdom, if Jesus is your king, that your life would be out of step with the world around you. You're not going to be a devoted follower of Jesus, a committed citizen of his kingdom, and feel at home in this world. There is something about the new you that should start feeling out of place where the old you felt comfortable when you become a citizen of his kingdom. The apostle Peter makes this clear when he writes to the church scattered across the Roman Empire in Asia Minor. He says this in 1 Peter 2 for you are a chosen people, you are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you, listen to this, out of darkness into his wonderful light, out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. He's contrasting the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world. And he's saying, if you're a follower of Jesus, you have transferred your citizenship. And then he says in verse 10, once you had no identity as a people, now you are God's people. Once you received no mercy, now you have received God's mercy. Listen to this. Dear friends, I warn you. Notice how he describes us as temporary residents and foreigners in this world to keep away from the worldly desires that wage war against your soul. Peter says, We are in this world, but we are not of it. We are to be a stranger in it, a foreigner to it. And then he says in verse 12, be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. I hope you see Peter's understanding of what it means to be a citizen in the kingdom. We are set apart, different. We have been chosen by God to be his people, transferred our citizenship from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light so that we can show his goodness to the people around us. We are temporary residents and foreigners here in this world because we have submitted our lives to the rule and the way of a new king. We've transferred our citizenship. Again, we live our lives and invest our lives in the way we do that should be riddick radically out of sync with the world around us. Because the king and his kingdom that we serve are radically different than all others. And to help us better understand this, I want us to look at some biblical concepts that describe the kingdom of God. First, look at the subversive nature of the kingdom. Today, you and I, people that were baptized today, we declare Jesus is Lord with no fear of retribution. All the while, a lot of people that do that probably don't understand what it really means to make that declaration. That specific phrase, Jesus is Lord, was commonly declared among the early church throughout the Roman Empire. And to say that was considered treasonous and it was very costly. For the earliest Christians to make that declaration in ancient Rome could have meant a death sentence. The phrase was considered religious rebellion against the pagan theology of their day, and it was seen as the language of political revolt by the people of power in the Roman Empire. The phrase, Jesus is Lord, was both religiously and politically subversive to the culture of the Roman Empire. And yet it was the common declaration of faith among the earliest Christians. It was a simple yet profound testimony affirming their belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ and their pledge allegiance to him as their one true king. But to grasp the revolutionary, subversive nature of the phrase, you got to put yourself in their setting. Zeus, Jupiter, those big dogs in the pantheon of gods, they were referred to as Lord. And all the emperors, in one way or another, claimed to have descended from the gods. And because of that, several of the emperors and Caesars demanded to be referred to as Lord or God. So Caesar was not just seen as the legal political ruler of the empire, he was seen as a god that was supposed to be worshipped. And it was common. The phrase on the lips of the people in the empire was Caesar is Lord. So when the early Christians boldly proclaimed, Jesus is Lord, they were prepitting Jesus against the political lealers and the mythological gods of the empire. It was both political revolt and religious blasphemy. It was radically subversive declaration of faith that upset the established social and religious order of Rome. Because Christians in the early church were not just putting Jesus up there with the other human leaders or the other pantheon of gods. They were saying that Jesus was above them all, and he replaced them all, which is why Paul writes to the Christians in the Roman Empire, specifically in Philippi, and he says, Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him a name that is above all other names. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare what? That Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God our Father. For Paul and the early church, there was no hesitancy, there was no confusion. Jesus and his kingdom are above them all. Jesus is Lord. And here's what's even more remarkable. Jesus being called Lord and King changed what it meant to be Lord in the ancient world. As we talk about this being a kingdom of the reverse, this is what I really want you to see. Jesus embodies a kind of lordship that is radically different from the Caesars or the gods of Olympus or those in power in our day. His kingship is marked by humility, service, self-sacrificing love rather than flamboyance or fickle instability. The lords of the Roman Empire kept their status using strength and riches and ancestry. But the declaration Jesus is Lord means that kingship was not to be established by birth or brute force. Rather than being power used for self-protection and promotion, the lordship of Jesus shows the world the most legitimate use of power is when it elevates the powerless. I mean, you have to stop and consider just how subversive that little phrase was. Jesus is Lord. And while that phrase may not raise as many eyebrows in our day as it did in the Roman Empire, the kingdom of God is no less subversive today than it was then. Which is why I want to take this a step further and show you the kingdom is not just subversive, it's also paradoxical. You have to see the paradoxical nature of the kingdom. In the late 1800s, Henry Trumbull wrote an entire book about this. He called it practical paradoxes, truth in contradictions. And this is just one of the statements from his book. It is made up of seeming contradictions. All its teachings are contrary to the common opinions of men. According to this law, giving is getting, scattering is gaining, holding is losing, having nothing is possessing all things, dying is living. It is he who is weak who is strong. Happiness is found when it is no longer sought, and the clearest sight is of the invisible. This truly is a kingdom of the reverse. When you make Jesus your king, you're choosing a kingdom that is paradoxical by nature. The great British theologian in the 20th century, G.K. Chesterton, defined a paradox as truth standing on its head to gain attention. It looks upside down, but when you change your perspective, when your life gets turned upside down, you can finally see the truth. That's why the kingdom of God is confusing to those who are not in it. It is unnatural, it is counterintuitive, it is upside down. The kingdoms of this world celebrate riches, power, comfort, security, recognition, acclaim. These are the goals and the gods of our culture. And many of us and most of our peers have sold our souls chasing these idols. But Jesus comes along and says something radically different. He declares that the kingdom he is establishing is diametrically opposed to those metrics. The things that are despised in our culture's kingdom are the things celebrated in God's kingdom. He blesses the poor, he advances the meek, he exalts the weak. What king in his right mind is going to establish a kingdom that sees val that sees value in suffering and grief, that celebrates dying to yourself, that says you are stronger in him when you are the weakest in you. None of this makes sense to the people living by the principles of the culture's kingdom because it's opposite, it's unnatural, a total reversal. While we envy the rich, he honors the poor in spirit. While we grovel at the demands of the powerful, he elevates the weak. While we applaud those with celebrity and fame, he says the meek will inherit the earth. This is an upside-down, inside out kingdom. It truly is a kingdom of the reverse, where a widow is more powerful than a king, and her two mites have more influence with God than the wealth of entire nations. It's a kingdom where we conquer by yielding. We find rest under his yoke. We reign by serving. We are made great by becoming smaller. We are exalted when we are humble. A kingdom where we become wise by being fools for Christ's sake. We are made free by becoming bondservants. We triumph through defeat. We are blessed in our grief. We find victory by glorifying in our infirmities, and we find God in our suffering. We live by dying to ourselves, and a bloody cross becomes our victory. This is a kingdom where the way up is down, where there's more power in kneeling than there is in standing. It is a subversive, paradoxical, upside-down kingdom. But let me expand this even more by leaning even more into this idea of reversal. Look at the reverse nature of the kingdom. I want you to listen in on a conversation Jesus is having about this. He seizes an opportunity to talk about the nature of his kingdom. He's watching a dinner party about to unfold. And he sees the guests coming in, and they're jockeying for the best seats at the party, and he's watching the host of the party carefully check the list to make sure the people of the most important are seated in the most important places. And then Jesus turns the thing on its head. He says to the host, in Luke 14, when you put on a luncheon or a banquet, don't invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors, for they will invite you back, and that will be your only reward. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then, at the resurrection of the righteous, you will be rewarded for inviting those who could not repay you. I want you to catch the kingdom economics that Jesus is teaching here. In the world's economy, you invite people that can return the favor. You invest where you expect a return. You network and build relationships with people that have something to offer you back. That's how the systems of this world work. But Jesus says, in my kingdom, the investment is intentionally made toward the people who cannot repay you. And here's the stunning reversal: the very fact that they cannot repay you transfers the debt to God Himself. When you serve one, someone, anybody that has nothing to offer you back, the widow, the orphan, the prisoner, the poor, the powerless, you don't lose your investment. You just change who holds the account. God becomes the account holder and the rewarder, and he says he's gonna pick up the tab. That's the logic of this upside down kingdom. That's why a volunteer who will give their week starting tomorrow morning to some camper that is a broken-hearted child is doing something with an eternal weight that the most sophisticated financial system in the world cannot touch. You cannot outgive God when it comes to serving and loving forgotten people. We have some organizational language here at North Place that tries to capture the kingdom of the reverse and the way we live it out here. Around here, we say we pursue forgotten people in forgotten places. We invite the uninvited. From throwing parties and proms for special need kids to prison campuses, to summer camps and year-round ministry for orphans, to homes for survivors of sexual slavery. We're doing what Jesus told us to do. His kingdom pursues the poor and the crippled and the lame and the blind and the least and the last and the outcast. It is a kingdom of the reverse. But you can't miss the promises the king makes to those who live by the principles of his kingdom. They're not obscure, feel good sayings. He makes some covenant commitments to people who pursue the broken and the forgotten. I want you to hear them. I want you to receive them. But I don't want them to be your motivation to earn God's favor. But the overflow, hear the overflow of a father's heart who cannot help but bless the people that reflect his heart for the broken. First, God promises to repay the debt of the less fortunate. It's what Jesus said earlier, but it's in the Proverbs, Proverbs 19. If you help the poor, you are lending to the Lord, he will repay you. Whether it's serving a foster child at summer camp or some other less fortunate population, when you give your time, your attention, your energy to those who have absolutely nothing to offer you back, the scripture says you're lending to God Himself, and God always repays the debt. Always. Matthew 25 may be one of the most stunning passages in the Bible on this subject. Jesus is describing the final judgment, and he says, On that day, the king is gonna look for those who fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger, served the prisoner, clothed the naked, and cared for the sick. And this is what the king is gonna say. I tell you the truth. When you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me. Now think about what Jesus is saying in light of the camps we launch in the morning for these kids. When you look in the face of a broken-hearted child at camp, a child that's been hurt, neglected, and made to feel invisible, Jesus says, I'm in that face. And what you do for that child, you're doing for me. You're not just volunteering at a church program, you're serving the king of kings, and the king never forgets what's done for him. He always repays their debt. Second, God promises to guard, guide, and provide. Isaiah 58 is one of the most important chapters in the Bible when in understanding what it means to God for his people to pursue the forgotten and the broken. In Isaiah 58, God is confronting a people who are practicing an empty religion. They're going through all the rituals but not living righteous lives. They're fasting, but they have no compassion. And then he tells them what the life he's calling them to actually looks like. Isaiah 58, verse 10. And if you spend yourself in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always, and he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Spend yourself, he said. That's an extraordinary phrase. Not give a little, not sacrifice occasionally, spend yourself, pour yourself out for the broken. And what is God promised to do in return? He's going to let your light rise. Your night is going to be turned to bright as noonday. You will be guided, your needs will be satisfied. It is a promise of intimate, responsive presence from the God of the universe to the people who give themselves away on the behalf of the forgotten. Third, God promises protection and preservation. Psalm 41 opens up this way: Blessed are those who have regard for the weak, and the Lord delivers them in times of trouble. The Lord protects and preserves them. They are counted among the blessed in the land. He does not give them over to the desire of their foes. The Lord sustains them on their sick bed and restores them from their bed of illness. Please understand, I'm not sharing all these promises with you to try to get you as a church motivated to care for the weak and the downtrodden. You already do. I am sharing these promises with you so that you can see how much these people matter to God. And when you spin yourself for them, he will protect you, he will preserve you. He makes it a covenant promise because you're pursuing what he pursues and loving what. He loves and he said, I'm going to take care of you for a minute. I just want to speak to the hundreds of you that will be serving these kids over the next few weeks. You may not feel qualified. But let me tell you something. The Bible tells us over and again that God rarely used people in history that were qualified. He used a shepherd boy to defeat a giant. He used a stuttering exile to confront Pharaoh. And he used fishermen to change the world. He has always, always chosen the people that the culture overlooks to expose the hollow pretensions of the people that the culture celebrates. You're not going to these camps because you got everything together. You're going because you said yes. And your yes to God offered on the behalf of a child with a wounded heart is one of the most powerful things you can do. I want you to think about a specific child you might meet in the coming weeks. You won't know their names if yet, but if you're coming to camp one, which starts tomorrow, you're gonna find out about them and their story tonight. But somewhere out there is a child who's been told all their life by circumstance, by trauma, by abandonment, by abuse, that they do not matter. And you could be one of the first human beings in their story that tells them something different. Not with your speech, not through a program, but with your presence, with your time. That's what the incarnation looks like in a t-shirt with a name tag. When God wanted to tell the world that it was loved, he didn't send an email, he came himself, he showed up in the mess, he touched the untouchable, he sat with the forgotten, he called the overlooked by name, and that's what we're gonna do in the next few weeks. And I promise you this on the authority of the word of God, you will not come back the same. There is something that happens in the soul of a person who goes after the forgotten. Your light rises in the darkness, God draws close, the things you were anxious about have a way of getting smaller, and the important things that were really small in your life have a way of getting larger. You will give a week, but God will give you something in return that you cannot manufacture. A few days ago, I read something from author and theologian Leonard Sweet. It was powerful. He said this Jesus issued no VIP passes. He issued a towel and a basin, then knelt on the floor. The gospel does not credential greatness, it crucifies it. Leadership is not an identity, but a function, not a costume for display, but a summons to the floor, to dirty feet, to the last seat, to the work, no one photographs. The hierarchy in the kingdom is real and it is steep, but it always descends. And over the next few weeks, we're gonna be stooping and kneeling and descending into the hearts of children that others have thrown away. Almost 36 years ago, when I first surrendered to the call to preach, my granddad set me in a chair across from him on his front porch and said a lot of things, but I never forgot this. Know this, son. If you give your life to broken people, you'll never have to look for a job. There will always be broken people. A few years later, I heard one of the great ones, Pastor Tommy Barnett, say, if you'll go after the ones nobody wants, God will give you the ones everybody wants. My granddad was right. Not because it was a career strategy, but because it was a kingdom strategy. When you align your life with the heart of God, when you pursue the people he pursues, when you love what he loves and advance what he advances, when you show up for the people he shows up for, you don't have to figure out every next step because you're already walking in the footsteps of the one who knows every step. Pastor Tommy was right too. Not because it's a church growth strategy, but because it's divine economy. Listen to me. When you give away what the world covets to the people the world ignores, you make room for what the world cannot produce. That's what we're about to do this summer. And it's not small, it's not peripheral. This is not a side ministry running alongside the real work of the church. This, caring for the orphan, is the real work of the church. This is the fast that Isaiah said God has chosen, spending yourself on behalf of the hungry, the oppressed, and forgotten. This is the banquet Jesus described, throwing a party for the ones who could not repay, and watching God pick up the check. This is the father to the fatherless being made visible through our hands, our voices, and our presence. So I'm gonna do something with me. I'm gonna ask you to hang with me. I want to pray a commissioning prayer over all of our volunteers. I wasn't gonna have you all stand, but it's gonna be easier for everybody if we do that. Can we all stand, please? And um I'm gonna give it, it's gonna give our camp volunteers the way to get to the front of the room if they can and get here. I don't care if you're working registration or you're on the rec crew, it didn't matter if you're working with horses, whatever you're doing at camp in some capacity over the next few weeks. Would you come? As they come, let me use this time to say this. They're gonna put a QR code on the screen. Every year this happens. People start hearing about our camps, they want to be involved. There's so much training so that we're legally prepared and we can serve these kids well, um, that we start way early in the year. So when people ask about it when we get close, it's too late to get them trained. That QR code is an interest form for next year's camp, 2027, so that when we start sending emails at the end of the year, 1st of 2027, you will be included on all of that in case you have a heart to maybe serve and be in this group uh being people commissioned next year. Use use that QR code. I'm gonna pray over you. This is as much a declaration, a prayer as it is a request. And so um it's gonna be on the screens. And um I'm gonna ask you as a church, I've got we're gonna pray together and I have one request for you before we go, okay? Um, I've talked to this group already, so let us as a as a church just pray over them. Um would you just kind of stretch your hand towards this group of servant leaders? They don't represent everybody, this is just a delegation. They're at different campuses up front at their campuses. Lord, we come before you with hearts full of gratitude. You are the God who does not forget. You are the father to the fatherless, the defender of the widow, the one who sets the lonely in families and leads prisoners out with singing. You have never looked at a broken, overlooked, forgotten human being and walked away. You always walk toward them. Thank you for forming that kind of heart in this church. Thank you for the men and women standing in this room who said yes when they could have said no, who chose service when they could have chosen comfort, who heard the cry of forgotten children and refused to pretend that they didn't. God, we commission these volunteers today in the loving name of Jesus. Send them into these camps with eyes that see what you see. Not problems, but possibilities, not damage, but destiny. Not throw away children, but children you formed in secret, whose days you wrote before even one of them came to be. Give them supernatural energy when they're exhausted. Give them supernatural words when they don't know what to say. Give them supernatural love for children who may be hard to love. Give them patience when they are frustrated, joy when joy is hard to find, and peace that passes understanding when the weight of what they're carrying feels heavy. Lord, let every volunteer be a living word to every child they encounter this week. A word that says, You are seen, you are known, you are not forgotten. There is a God who's been looking for you and he loves you. Let that word land in tender soil. Let it take root, let it grow into something that bears fruit for decades, the fruit of healing, the fruit of faith, and the fruit of a generation that's being told their lives have value and they believe it. We ask you to protect these volunteers, mind, body, spirit. We ask you to protect the children. We ask you to show up in ways that no human effort can explain. Because you are the God who answers when we cry for help and says, Here I am to the people who spend themselves for others. And God, we make a declaration over this church today. We are not done. There are more forgotten places, more forgotten people, more marginalized and wounded people waiting for an invitation to a table that has their name on it. We commit ourselves again today to being the church that goes after the ones nobody else wants. Because that is who you are, and that is who you called us to be. Fulfill in us the promise of Isaiah 58. Let our light rise in the darkness, fulfilling us the promise of Psalm 41. Protect and preserve us as we regard the weak. Fulfilling us the promise of Matthew 25. Let us find you in the face of every forgotten person we meet. And let it be said of North Place Church, not by us, but by the people who are impacted, that the lives, the lives that will be changed, the eternity will be changed. Let those people say that we are a people who pursued forgotten people in forgotten places, that we invited the uninvited, that we loved like you love. In the name of the ones who came to preach good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness those who are prisoners. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Come on, can we give God praise today? Thank you, Lord. Can I ask you to do me a favor before I send you out of here? It happens every year. When you step into this territory, these kids have been sexually abused. The things that have happened to them and their case files is unimaginable. When we start going after them, and I don't say this slang, this is not culture. Literally, all hell breaks loose. We fight a side of warfare that is unleashed every year in our families and the church. If we don't have your backing and intercession in prayer for the next five weeks, we're gonna be like the seven sons of Skeva. We're gonna be stripped and sent on the run. This is gonna be one in prayer. And so I'm gonna ask you, I mean this seriously, if we can count on you that every day for the next five weeks, you'll put it on your fridge, you'll set a reminder, you'll wake up in the morning, and you will pray over our camps, the kids, and the counselors, and that you will fight the enemy in prayer on our behalf. If you would do that, would you raise your hand? Would you like make that commitment? Thank you. We we can't do this without you. Thank you for that commitment. We're gonna count on it and live in those prayers. Father, will you bless them and keep them? Will you make your face shine down on them? We'll be gracious to them, Lord. This church is trying to do what you ask us to do. Will you turn your countenance their direction? And will you give them your peace in Jesus' name? Amen and amen. God bless you.