Read-along
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Hey. Welcome Rock Point. Yeah.
So so far this weekend, a lot of people have have experienced what I experienced in my childhood. And is that is when your mom drags you clothes shopping, not not necessarily for you, just shopping and that always involves clothes. That's the most boring thing I would ever do in my life. Probably helped me become a
better human by learning how to be bored, I suppose. But I one of the things I would do is climb inside the racks. Anybody else? Are we throwing pipe around over here? What's going on? You know, you climb inside the racks, then it could become a fort. If it's a round one, I pretend like it was a tank turret.
And and I'd just be in there, and then she'd be looking around. I could look up and see her. And then, you know, if we'd load, come on. We gotta go. Or go to another section, I'd climb in the rack again. One time I'm dinner playing, I got so off into PlayWorld that then I finally looked up and I didn't see her.
And I'm like, uh-oh. So I was looking out, you know, and and all a sudden I saw this woman, I saw her walking, and she had, like, you know, the bell bottoms jeans, like my mom is the early seventies. And and and a flowery blouse with a gigantic
collar, you know, because people dressed weird back then. She looks like it's coming back. But and so I saw her, she's just walking away. I'm like, what is my mom doing? She's ditching me? She said, what? Is she trying to Joe dirt me at the Grand Canyon here? What is happening?
So I'm like, I start running at her, and as I'm running, I'm yelling, mom. Mom. Mom. And every woman in the store looks when I yell mom except my mom.
And so now I'm getting frustrated, and she walks right through this door, which I proceed to blow right into also. And I run-in there, and I walk in, I go, I'm in the ladies room.
And I'm like, but I go, mom, like, what what are you doing? And she turns around, I stare at her, she stares at me, and at the same time, I'm like, you're not my mom. And she goes, I'm not your mom. And I realized I followed a different person. And I freaked out. Now I'm in a laser here, toilet's like
I'm like, I gotta get out of here. I run back out, and there's my mom with all the other moms yelling, Billy Bush, Billy Bush, Billy Bush. She like gathered a search party in like twenty seconds. And then I run over to her and I realized, you know what? I made a mistake.
And some of it is because I realized now I know guys are just inherently this way in their DNA. My mom did have bell bottoms and a flowered shirt, but they were different colors than this woman's. I I I paid so little attention. All I saw was flower shirt and bell bottoms and assumed it was my mom.
And so I went after it. And that's really what we're gonna see the lesson is today is I chased after someone I thought was my mom and I ended up in a very different place. And today in Matthew 16, the end of this part of Matthew, this series we're calling control freak. We're gonna see that same
thing played out when Jesus is trying to get his disciples to truly embrace and understand who he is. So then they're empowered to know where they need to go. So the big idea today is simply this, Jesus's identity determines my itinerary. An itinerary,
if you don't know what that is, is it's it's it's a list of a plan of here's where I'm gonna go and here's what I'm gonna do. And so who Jesus is determines those things. And if we don't understand who Jesus really is and don't put faith in who Jesus really is, we're gonna we're
gonna end up in a ladies room standing in front of someone that's not our mom. It's not our Jesus.
And so and and there's a reason why Jesus just feels it's super important because Matthew 16 starts off like the rest of this section. This section, this control freak's been pretty throat crunchy for us because it's a time where Jesus is now heading towards Jerusalem. He's turning inward more to his disciples to prepare them. So we get a lot of lessons on what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus. And
what's happening is the same old same old. Disciples, the the the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, the the religious leaders in Israel that have that outside in faith. It's very they're control freaks about what faith is. They go after Jesus because they don't believe in who he is.
And then Jesus pulls away with the disciples, tries to make a lesson out of it. He tells them, but they're struggling just like the Pharisees. They get stuck on a human point of view, a human perspective, which we tend to do as well. And so he says, beware of the yeast of the Pharisees.
And he meant, you know, yeast is what makes the bread rise. It's how you make a loaf of bread. And he goes, be careful of what they put in because their loaves of bread are not good. And they start arguing about who forgot the bread. And then he's like, oh my I'm not talking about bread.
So he's gotten the same issue where we get stuck. And I think we get stuck in the same things. We keep worrying about things that Jesus, I'm trying to get you to focus on this. And so he goes, that's it. We're going on a field trip.
And he takes them to a place called Caesarea Philippi where he's gonna reveal and really get them to understand asking by asking him a quest two questions on who he is. So we're gonna see what's Jesus' identity first.
And to set up the stage where we took him, Caesarea Philippi is a 150 miles north of Jerusalem. It's in the land that was Palestine, you know, Israel. But,
you know, Rome ruled at that time, and they didn't like staying in the Jewish cities. They didn't like Jerusalem. They like their own, so they build these cities. This area was one of the most Romanesque Greek. It was the most worldly
like, was almost like a forbidden city to the Jews. They didn't wanna go there. They're outnumbered. They looked down. It was really pagan. It was full of wealth and political power and debauchery
and worships of all kinds of gods. It was multi cult like everybody had their own truth and had this cafeteria plan of their faith. They were religious, but it's all about I like that. I like that. I'm gonna do that or that. And the number one god there, the the the most often worship god was Pan, a fertility god, which means they worship sex.
And so how you worship there is you would how you went to church is you went to the temple and you paid and you slept with a prostitute. Wow. I bet it had a lot of men in their congregation. But the reality is they're worshiping sex. I go, I'm glad we don't do that in our culture anymore. We don't worship sex.
Actually, we do. You know what the difference between us and them? They were at least honest about it. And they just said, yeah, we're worshiping this. It's a thing. And so that's the context he took his disciples, which they would have been fish out of water and freaking out. And to make it even more complicated,
the way that that it was beautiful, but I wanna show you some pictures because I've been there multiple times where it was at. And here's the first one. It's along this mountain hill and and there's that cave right there. And they're standing in in this cave, which is right along where the city is.
The water would pour down. There's convergence of two rivers. And depending on the time of year, it's loud. You have this rushing water and back then even more so. And it would create this eerie mist.
And in that cave, if you walk up close, there was a chasm, a hole that goes down and you can't even it looks like it goes on forever. And that was called the Gates Of Hades, or as we would say, the Gates Of Hell.
And so Jesus brought them there, sat down, we're probably where they're hanging out. If Jesus was talking to him, this is probably behind him. And then there's one other picture I threw in there that that's just can they have all these shrines to different gods?
That they're all over the place. So it's like pick your adventure, choose your truth, you know, kind of a deal. And that's where he decides to take them to settle this identity issue of who he is because he knows that what his identity is is what's gonna determine our itinerary. So we'll pick up there. Verse 13.
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the son of man is? In this world, who are people saying I am?
And they said, well, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. So in other words, they're saying how here's the world is answering on Jesus. He's a prophet. He's a teacher. He's a good man. He's this. He's that. There's a lot of things that aren't necessarily bad. They're just not what he is.
They have a different idea of who Jesus is. They're describing him differently. And that's a problem. Because if you don't see Jesus for who he is, it's gonna alter where you go, what you do, and everything else. And so that's why he's wanting him to get this question settled. Because after he asks that,
he gets more personal. Well, and then he says in verse 15, then he asked them, but who do you say I am? He's like, this is what you've heard.
But who do you say I am? By the end of this sermon, if you get nothing else of this, you have to answer that question.
Who do you really say that he is? And does the itinerary of your life match who he is in your life? So he asks. And Peter decides he wants a gold star. Ask me. Ask me. Verse 16, Simon Peter answered, you're the Messiah, the son of the living God.
That's a powerful answer. Because Jesus already said he's son of man. And he says you're the Messiah, the son of living God. Those are all old testament terms. That means Peter is declaring, I think of you as God himself who has taken on the form and you've become a man. You're the God man.
And you are the only one that can save us, the Messiah. In other words, you are the way, you're the truth, you're the life. You're the one that was and is and ever will be. You are the creator of life, the author of life, the savior of life.
And that's who you are. And so Jesus is like, good answer. That's the right answer, basically. So look what he does. Jesus answered, you are blessed Simon, son of John, because my father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now I say to you. So
he declares who he is. He says good answer. So who do you say Jesus is? Is he the Lord of all? Is he the creator of all? Is he the savior? Is he God? Because if he really is and you really believe it, then he needs to be Lord of all of your life too. Because there's a phrase, if Jesus isn't lord of all, he's not lord at all.
Because if it's I dole out jobs to Jesus and give him certain things, guess who's in charge in that scenario? Who's in control? I am. So it now switches to where Jesus goes, good job. That's my identity. So now here's your itinerary.
He's saying, here's what's this is the purpose of your life. This is what's gonna happen. This is this is what it means to know me and know me at that as that and have faith in me. He says this,
now I say to you, verse 18, that you are Peter, which means rock. And upon this rock, I will build my church, and the powers of hell will not conquer it.
So there's some key terms in there. And then what he says next, this is an often misunderstood passage. He's not declaring, Peter, you were the first one to have the right answer. You're now the first pope. That's not what this means. It means the act exact opposite of it. What
he's saying is, you are Peter, which means rock is he's right. In Greek, which is this originally written in, when he says, you are Peter, he used the term Petros. That means little rock, pebble,
a chip off the old block, you would say. It's a little piece of a rock. It's not a full rock. But he says, but upon this rock referring to himself in the form of the statement Peter made. The rock that you said, who I really am, the Messiah, the son of God, the son of man, God himself, the only savior.
I mean, it's you may are the little rock, but I'm the actual rock. And upon this, I will build my church. And then that's referring back to Peter and all of the disciples, and any one of us in this room that knows Jesus. This is the first time this term church is used. And the church means.
It's a Greek word that means the called out ones. And it doesn't mean called out like you go away and you circle your wagon. As a term that you're not just called out, you're being called out because you're being called to. See, idea of, like, if you got drafted into the military, you got called out. You're going. You're not just to be away from everybody things you know. You're going towards a mission.
And that's what that word means. So he's saying, I will build my church. That's you, Peter. That's all of y'all. That's what you're gonna do. And the gates of hell will not prevail.
Wow. Imagine him saying that
with what they think to be the gates of hell right behind him in an eerie mist and thundering rushing waters in a city that everyone looks down on. They're outnumbered by paganism. No one believes what they believe. They probably hate them. They have that. They're the few, the far, and he says, yeah. And you know what? You're gonna be I'm gonna do this. You have a mission now. And guess what? Because of my power, if you trust my mission,
you're gonna win. Those gates of hell will not prevail. Well, here's how most of us take it when we say called out, be the church. We wanna step out away from the world, hide behind the gates of our little church world, live in our little gate guarded community, fight with each other,
and talk about how everybody outside the gates is going to hell. Jesus said the exact opposite.
Last I checked, gates are a defensive thing, not an offensive weapon. Right? It says, hell is got gates. The gates of hell. I mean, I have never watched a war movie where some guys the sergeant's looking out there. Sir, we got a problem. What? They're sending in their gates. Oh, no. We can't stop them.
Then the radar guys like it's even worse, sir. But I I I detect that we got ballistic gates coming our way. Oh, no. Well, it could be worse. Hopefully, they don't drop an atomic gate on us. William Wallace threw a sword when he yelled, you know, the the movie for freedom. It wasn't a gate.
I've never seen an army running in with their their gates. Nobody wants to enact stricter gate laws. The Bible doesn't say, and to lift up the one offensive weapon they've given us in the armor of God and take the gate of the spirit.
Guys, what Jesus just said our itinerary is is we're on the offense. We don't hide out. And our offense isn't to be offensive.
It isn't to literally draw blood. It's to bring the love of Jesus. We have an offense of love, and we are supposed to go into this world that we think is so bad. And instead of judging it, we're supposed to point them to Jesus by loving them like Jesus. And
it says Jesus is gonna do it, but he's gonna do it through us. Matter of fact, Peter figured this out. When he wrote letter first Peter, it's like twenty five years later or more. He's writing it and he understood when he's talking about this writing to one of the churches, and he's saying this is what we need to be as a church. He goes, don't you understand
that God has made us living stones, Petrus? He's repeating the same thing. And he goes, and he's placing us together to build his church. Basically, we are supposed to be active parts of this and to be little Jesuses, basically. We're the little rocks.
And he's saying, hey, you're the little rocks, but do you smell what the rock is cooking? That's what he say. You guys don't know who Dwayne Johnson is? He was a wrestler before he just kept making the same movie over and over again. In
other words, our itinerary is to be gatecrashers not gatekeepers.
Would you describe the way you trust Jesus and who you believe him to be? Is your life centered around being a gatecrasher or are you a gatekeeper? Hell wants to hold on to his territory. How about you? You wanna just hold on to yours? Are you willing to risk it and have faith and take on the itinerary Jesus has called us to?
Because what we're gonna see next, he just promised you're gonna go be the church, you're gonna do what I asked you to say, and then you're gonna win. There's victory, but it's on the other side of hard. It's on the other side of scary. It's really on the other side of sacrifice. You see this victory he talks about
is found in a place called sacrifice. Because that's what he says next because if you're gonna get my itinerary, if my identity is now determining your itinerary, if you believe me to be that, this is what it means.
So it says in verse 21, from then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, the teachers of the religious law. He would be killed. Well, it doesn't sound fun.
But then he just adds, but on the third day, he would be raised from the dead.
So he just said, it's gonna be sacrificial. That's where I'm going. I'm telling you the plan, what's gonna happen to me. But Peter I mean, there was this two sentences, maybe twenty
seconds later. He just got the gold star for being the first to declare who Jesus really is in faith. And he says, but Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. Heaven forbid, Lord, he said, this will never happen to you. He's like, Jesus, come on, man. That's really harshing the vibes,
man. Heaven forbid that you would die.
It's like, wait. You just declared you understood me to be God, the creator of all, the savior of all, the one who knows all, that can love you more than you can love yourself, that knows everything, and knows what's gonna happen. I just told you what's gonna happen, and you're gonna tell me no? Why would he do that?
Because it scared him. It scared him. Why did it scare him? Well, look what Jesus says to him next. Jesus turned to Peter and said, get away from me, Satan. Wow. Twenty seconds ago, he was the star student. Now he's Satan. Some of you that describes what it's like having conversations with your spouse sometimes.
Go from star student to state in about two sentences. You're a dangerous trap to me. But here he says, you are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God. You're trying to dismantle my plan and actively fight against it because
you're only seeing from a human point of view, not God. What's the human point of view? What's driving him to say don't do it? He is afraid because all he heard was Jesus. Well, mistreatment, death. And he's like, if they're gonna do that to him, we're with him.
And what are they gonna do to us? This is gonna be hard. It might involve death might be involved. He didn't wanna do it. And since he only saw from man's point of view is why he paid no attention to the last thing Jesus said. Because he didn't understand it. Because it seems impossible.
But God is the God of impossible, but only if you trust him with your possible. You have to trust him with what he's asked you to trust him with.
And Peter's like, I don't want you can't do it. May it never be. Matter of fact, he still does it. He's Peter. That's why I love how he messed up here and messed up here. That's the grace we know. We're never gonna be perfect in this, but we need to look at this. We need to go back and remember who Jesus is multiple times. Multiple times. Otherwise, we're gonna get like him. He got afraid. He's like, I'm more afraid of what I'm gonna lose than what I'm gonna gain. He didn't hear him say, Jesus goes, yeah. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna die. All this stuff. Oh, that sounds horrible. But then he's like, I'll be back.
That went right past him. Because he's like, I don't understand how that works. All I understand is I know what pain and death looks and feels like. I don't wanna go there. But he'll be back, which means you'll be back too.
How about you? What God's called us to be is the church. Do all you see is the hard or the scary or the painful in your life? Is that all you're stuck on? You're never gonna get to the victory then. You're never going to get to the other side. And on the other side of sacrifice and hard is something
you could never have unless you go there. And here's where I know there's an enemy that's fighting against us. And this is where we need to start crashing some gates in our own hearts. You believe with all of your heart, mind, soul that in everything else in your life, you know that sacrifice leads to victory.
And you like movies about it. You wanna be that. You're an athlete. You know that to be a great athlete, it's painful, it's hard, and it's a lot of sacrifice till you get the victory. We love we celebrate movies about that. In in in in in parenting, it is an incredible sacrifice.
It's hard and there's minimal victory at the other side of it. No. When you see your kids grow up and you start having kids, if you just sacrifice and do well and you do your best job and and they do have free will, your own kids, so they can choose not to. But when you see the fruit of that,
you're like, okay. I understand why I did that.
At work, you understand it. Many of you are businessmen. Some of you make some good money, and you understand I had to sacrifice to reinvest. So I don't make as much because I know I'm hoping in the end this is gonna work, and I'm gonna end up better off at the other end. And guess what? You are the ones that usually trust God with your money as far as investing in the church the least.
So that tells me you either think this is a bad investment, or you haven't connected the dots that in our hearts, we understand this to be true. But there is something blinding us to understand that it's most true because that's what God built us like and that's what he's called us to.
Why do in everything else all sacrifice and hurt? But when it comes to the greatest calling, God of the universe who loved us and died for us so we can be the living stones and be a part of crashing the gates of hell.
All of a sudden that's like, I I don't wanna do that. How could you expect me to do that? Why would you ask me to do that? And you know the truth is there's a couple of you guys in here right now that are mad at me for saying this again. And guess what? I'm glad. I need to rattle your cage so you realize you're in one.
You're in a cage of your own making. You're living in a lie. You're believing lies. And you're gonna be in danger of missing out on what Jesus says next. Because look what he just says. He goes he tells to the side, he says, you're not looking at it from
God's point of view, just your own. And he said to his disciples, if any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. We'll talk about that. Because here's what he's trying to get to us. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.
But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? Is anything worth more than what God's built us and called us and died for us to be?
You're missing out. So, yeah, I'm gonna rattle your cage because I love you because I am gate crashing right now, and I love to do it. Sometimes I just like to do it just to be obnoxious, but this is genuine.
I want us to win.
I want us to experience the victory. Because you know what? If you don't, what he's saying is you're still gonna have sacrifice in your life. You're still gonna suffer. You're still gonna have pain. But it's not sacrifice towards a victorious cause. It's just gonna be the pain of living with the decisions you made in the end, realize this didn't add up too much. I didn't find what I was looking for.
How about you? Because right here he says, okay. I want that. I want the victory. And it's found in this place called sacrifice. Well, what's the road map to this place? What's the road map to this sacrifice? What is he saying? What does that look like? What does it mean? What's the itinerary?
He said it right there with those three things. Turn from your own way. Take up your cross. Follow me. If you really believe Jesus is the Messiah and he's God and ruler of all, and you wanna follow him, he says, that is what you will do. That's what you'll do. So if you refuse to do that,
you either don't really believe who Jesus is or you're stuck in a lie or a sin or some other distraction and you need to deal with.
In other words, turn from your own way. That's the idea of repentance. That's the idea is like, that's the control freak. I'm coming to church, but I'm trying to control this. Alright. I'll do this for Lord. I'll do that, but I'm not gonna do that. You can't expect that from me. I'm not gonna do what the Bible asked me to do.
I'm gonna do it my way. He goes, you're never gonna get there if you keep doing that. I don't care how many songs you sing, how many times you pray Jesus, how many time you say sorry Jesus, love me. You ask forgiveness, he'll give it to you. But what he wants you to do is turn around.
And then when he wants you after you turn around, he wants you to take something up, your cross. You need to pick up your cross and then you need to follow him.
So pick taking up your cross and following him is go be what he's asked you to be. Go where he's asked you to go. And he already admitted it's taking up a cross. What is taking up a cross? Some of us undersell that in our culture day. You think any irritating thing in your life is, well, I guess that's just my cross to bear.
Jesus already bared the cross that saves us from that. When we say that's my cross to bear, the cross he's talking about is Jesus took up the cross on purpose for others. It's self sacrifices what he's talking about. He's not talking about anything that's hard. He's talking about, will you sacrifice
of yourself for the sake of me, for Jesus? And what does he ask us to do? To go point people to Jesus by loving like Jesus. Sacrifice for the sake of the church in order to reach its mission.
It's clearly laid out through scripture. It's played out in Matthew 28 when he finally says, go make disciples. It's laid out when he says, what does that look like? It means you're gonna get to know me. You'll worship me. You come here. You make a sacrifice to make sure you're committed to being here together so we can celebrate together. We could do this together. We there's something about worshiping together. You have sacrificed by taking the time to get into community with others because we need other people to speak in our lives and help us sometimes, and we need it. It's not just a bible study. It's not a checklist. I better go do this or I'm in trouble. It's like you're not gonna make it if you don't.
And then sacrifice to go live intentionally. That's what he's talking about here to Peter and him. You guys are gonna go. Like, you look back up there when he said
back up in the beginning after he says, you will the gates of hell will not conquer it. He then says to to them about what they're gonna go do is he says to Peter, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven. And whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in What does that mean?
First of all, keys. It doesn't mean he's the pope that's put in charge of everything. The keys isn't in in the bible means you've been given a stewardship, not ownership.
Kinda like when your parents or if you have a kid old enough that you handed them the keys to your car the first time they're gonna go drive by themselves. Did you give them the is is it now that can they go do whatever they want in the car?
Can they drive wherever they want? Can they go to dangerous places? Or is it you have these keys. This is for this purpose and this use only. I don't want you to go here. Want you here. And you know what? Since you have the I'm giving you the stewardship and the opportunity to drive the car. If mom says she needs you go to the store, you're going to the store.
That's what he's saying. I'm giving you stewardship over the itinerary. I'm handing you the keys, but it's my car. And I'm the one that puts gas in it. But you need to drive it where I've asked you to drive and don't go to the places I told you not to.
And then that permit and lose, that's all about it sounds like it's saying he's telling heaven what to do. It's more of a restatement of your have it God's will, the Lord's prayer, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So he sank. And where you're supposed to drive is the mission I've given you.
To know, to grow, and to go. And to go means I'm gonna live intentionally. I'm gonna steward. Your money is not yours. It's God's. You're a manager of it. He's gonna say, what did you do with it? Did you invest it in the kingdom of pointing people to Jesus?
Your time, did you invest it? I gave you gifts. He actually gives us spiritual gifts. If you're a Christian, you have at least one super naturally empowered by the Holy Spirit gift to use to serve others in the body of Christ. Do you even know that?
And that's what it means to take up your cross. And why he says cross is you might have to sacrifice to do it. And he's okay with it. And I think we have too many churches and too many people living in a culture that says, to really know Jesus and his love means he makes it easier. He doesn't. He makes it better
when you trust him. You get real life when you trust him. But it's gonna be hard, and it means sometimes you're gonna have to sacrifice something. And you know what usually we have to sacrifice? Is we can't pick up across and turn the other way without putting some stuff down.
And that's where I think a lot of us are stuck. You hear me saying, okay. This is getting repetitive. Be the church. Be the church. Be the church. And you're fighting it, and I get it. I'm with you. You're like, I can't.
I am so underwater financially, time wise, physically, while all these things going on my life. I'm hurting. There's so many things going on. I can't do it. I saw I heard a statement when somebody made a song out of it. It's an old statement. It's like, don't mind the mule, just load the wagon.
John Madden used to say it when he's talking about football players, like, because you can't control everything on the field, you can only control how you play your position. And he said it, don't mind the horse, just load the wagon. In other words, just do what you can control, do your job. You can't worry about what's pulling the other things out of your control. That's kinda true.
But the problem is with our lives, the problem isn't with the mule. It's usually with the way we load the wagon.
And so you do have to mind the mule because you really need to mind how you loaded the wagon. Because I know when I say we all need to know, grow, go. I am challenging. We had to build another building. We had 7,600 people here last week, and there's more this week.
I go, guys, we just baptized a couple 100. We have several 100 more people come to Christ. People are coming. Look at this service is full as life. We had 1,500 people in last service. There's only 1,403 seats in here. That's why we added all the others.
We need to knock these walls out. We need to do that. Well, it looks like, you know and since we built that building, this next phase we need to do, stinking everything out expensive is gonna be twice as much. We're gonna need at least 5 or 6 more million dollars here. I'm gonna be asking for you in a few weeks. I'm just pre asking right now.
In case one of you great businessmen with investment opportunity finally realize I wanna invest, write us a big check to get us most of the way there. That would be nice.
I forgot my point now because I started joking around. No. You gotta put something down. The problem is if you're gonna just load the wagon, you gotta load it right. And so I get it. I know why this is scary and upsetting to some of you. It's because your wagon and your mule look like this picture. I
get it. I don't want you to hear what I'm not saying. See, most of us you think whenever you hear a
sermon where I'm like, hey, we gotta give, we gotta serve, we gotta get involved, we gotta do this. You think, oh, they're just short on money or that. No. We're not short on money. We're heavy on everybody coming to Jesus. I am trying to make it scary,
and people keep coming. You know why? Because Jesus said he'll build his church. I'm just saying what he told me to say. But I get it.
All of us at some point feel like this. Many of us probably feel like this all the time. And so when I say this, you think what I'm saying is keep doing everything you're doing and now add these things to it. Throw this in the wagon too. That will never work.
What Jesus is saying by turn from your own way is I gotta stop doing some things. And to tick up my cross, I need to put some other stuff down too.
Now I'm ready to follow him. And it is gonna be hard. It does involve sacrifice. But he said, once you do that, he says, my yoke is easy. My burden is light. Meaning, I will make it work. But you gotta do this work. You gotta do what I've asked you to do.
So a lot of people, I tried giving, I tried serving, but you didn't you didn't turn from your way, and you didn't put some stuff down. So you weren't able to truly pick up the you pick up the cross, but you're carrying too much stuff.
Our cross is the sacrifice to go do what God's asked us to do to be a follower of Jesus. But what are we carrying that we shouldn't? Some of it is yeah. Some of the reason we won't is you're trying to I'll pick up the cross, but you're stuck in some kind of sin.
When those are sins, maybe you just can't give because you've been so bad with your finances. You so mismanage it because you're you're materialistic. Because you believe the lie that
that I have to have this stuff to be somebody or my kids need to go through all of these things and be in all this stuff and and and and and and that's a good parent.
So you there's seasons where you're always at sports, you're never committed to the church, you don't have the time, you're spending thousands of dollars. Some of you are spending thousand dollars a month on a kid's sport because you think that's good parenting.
You got them in one thing after the next after the next, and this is gonna be good for him. This is gonna be bad. You realize they've studies have proven that that and I'm glad my parents raised me the way I was. My dad used to say this, and now it's proven to be true. He would look at me, I go, but I'm bored. He goes, you know what? It's good for you to be bored sometimes.
It's good for you to be bored. Because a lot of life gets boring and it gets hard. Why do you nobody wants to keep a job. Nobody wants young people, you have a hard time because you're so used to every twenty seconds stimulation.
You get into the real world and you wanna do a job to get a decent pace, you're gonna be bored.
So we're we're we're holding on to this going this way and you're thinking, how can I pick that up and keep doing this? Exactly. You can't keep doing that. It needs to come off the wagon.
Could be a sin with what you're doing with your time. It could be a hobby that's great. But man, you are putting all your time and effort and money into that. So you do have the ability to do what God ask. You're just doing something else with it. You need to sacrifice.
Because Jesus said, not because he's mad at you, because he says, that's how you get to the victory. And that's where life is really at. But we get stuck with the human point of view that that just sounds scary. That sounds sad. That sounds boring. That sounds confining.
When the reality is that's where freedom is really found.
Some of what needs to come off the wagon is not just, you know, is you've actually put someone else's cross on your wagon.
You're trying to carry two crosses. Or you're such a control freak, you're trying to save everybody. You're trying to carry Jesus's cross. We need to show people Jesus. They need to see Jesus on us. You can't be Jesus for someone.
I mean, that happens around here too when it comes to carry the cross of what's what's what's your acts of service, your giving. You know, it is true and most and we do better than this. We're like fifty fifty almost. But most churches, it is is it's the eighty twenty rule. 20% of the people do 80% of the work.
20% of the people give 80% of the giving. Every time we do a building campaign, this last one's coming in about $6,000,000. We got over four and a half or five of it from from about 10% of the people in this church. If everybody sacrificed a little, we would not owe any money for buildings. We would have them all paid for.
Because 20% of the people do 80% of the work. 20% of the people eat 80% of the food at a potluck.
So that is a joke because I'm not trying to beat us over the head. I'm just trying to show us reality and say I love you guys. And I love this church and I love this community.
And I want when time comes to an end that you couldn't write about this area, Rock Point, in this area of Queen Creek and Chandler and even Arizona. They couldn't talk about the history of this place without talking about Rock Point if they're gonna be honest. Not because of Rock, because it's the rock, Jesus.
I would like to know that this area has a lower divorce rate, a higher rate of success. I want to know that God worked in this area through us, and there's more people going to heaven. There's less people struggling. And it's all because we just all picked up our crosses. Because to be honest,
there's a lot some of you what you need to take off is the cross to someone else. And I can't believe you're saying, whenever I talk about serving, you know who jumps in and serves again?
Those of you that are already carrying three other people's crosses. And they're the ones that always come, how do expect this? I'm already serving here and here. I'm not talking to you. You might actually have to give something up too, which scares me because I don't want you to stop doing it because who's gonna do it? I'm hoping someone else here knows that that's their cross and picks it up.
Daniel's gonna leave. He's got six, seven hundred people in his core group right now. And guess who I encourage to go? People that already serve and give. So just to stay where we're at, I need 700 more people to start giving and serving.
And by the time he leaves, there's some of y'all aren't gonna commit. You won't commit to where you're signing until he starts.
Because people are gonna keep coming.
Because I'm gonna do what Jesus asked me to do and he says we win and the gates of hell will be crashed. I just want us all to get there. But you know what some of us the real tough one is what you need to take off your wagon. It's not even something you're not doing or something the wrong way that you are.
It's that huge heavy load of what's been done to you.
Hurt people hurt people in this world. And you've had people, you've had abuse, you've had betrayal. Matter of fact, some of you that's why you come to church, but you don't really wanna trust the words I'm saying because you've even had churches chew you up and spit you out. I get it.
That is some of the heaviest boxes you will put on the wagon of your life is to carry those and carry that hurt, carry that anger.
And as long as you carry it, your mule does not ground it, and your wagon goes nowhere.
So what are we supposed to do with these things? We need to take those things and set them at the feet of Jesus' cross. Give them to him. Give all your sin to him. Take it to him. Let him have it. What does that mean if you've been hurt? Music. You know what? Some
give forgiveness to someone who's hurt you. I'm not saying you have to reconcile. They're out of your life
and you still you're like, I can't let them off the hook. You're not. You're letting yourself off the hook. Because if you carry around that pain and you just keep saying, you're just getting worked up and angry over something you can't do anything about.
Pray pray for them. Go to God, you do what you need to do with them, but I'm gonna let go of this. And if you need more help than that, go talk to a counselor. Maybe you need someone to pray with you. Go be in our prayer room afterwards. But best thing is get to community.
These are the types of things you can take to real community.
In other words, that's what I think communion is all about. You know, before Jesus died on the cross, the night before his one last shot that Jesus wanted these disciples to understand what was about to happen, is he took bread and he broke it. And he said, this is my body broken for you.
He he then took this the cup, the wine. He said, this is my blood spilt for you. Take and drink. And then what he said next is the most critical. He says, do this in remembrance of me. He asked us as the church body
to occasionally to come back to this moment over and over because I think we need it. Just like Peter. Got it right, got it wrong, ended up getting it wrong again, getting it right. You know, it's like, he's not perfect and neither are we.
It's like I'm him. He keeps it, I'm her. He's her. He's him. I don't understand how these phrases go anymore.
But he wanted us to take this moment and we said, remember, remember what? Remember him on the cross. You know why? That's where he shows us who he truly is. The savior, the messiah, the God who has every right to judge us and instead loved us. And he knows all. So you take the things that don't need to be on your wagon
and you give them to him at the cross. And now you can put yours on the wagon and get moving. Get moving. So here's what we're gonna do. If you know the Lord, you are you know Jesus as your savior, take a moment to reaffirm him as Lord. That's what this moment is.
Give him what you need. Confess the sin. Hand over the unforgiveness. Whatever you need to hand to him. And then reassert, I will pick up the cross and I will go sacrifice for what you've asked me to do. But some of you have never even met Jesus at his cross yet. You've
never put your faith in him as your Lord and as your savior. You've never had you might have come to church where you've you've been a control freak.
Faith has been about what you wanted. I like this. I like a little bit of that. I'll listen to that. I'll apply that. But you've never just surrendered your life to his love. What I wanna do is pray with you guys because then this will be for real.
And then you can go out and have a two for one day. You can do communion and baptism in the same day. It's awesome. So why don't we just all close our eyes and if you already know the Lord, talking to him. Reflect and really answer your quest this question again, who is Jesus to me? And what am I gonna do about that?
But for those of you that are ready that you say, wanna say yes to Jesus. You wanna pray with me right now? I'm gonna ask you to do something. It's the first step of scary. It's not that scary. I'm the only one looking around. Oh, I see a few of you looking back at me. Rule breakers.
If you wanna say yes to Jesus right now with me, just hold your hand in the air and do it symbolically. Like, hold it up and just imagine Jesus is taking your hand. There you go. I see that hand. I see those other hands. I see him. Just keep him up. I see him all over the room.
Just hold him up while we pray and just pray, but make it this prayer your own words. Simply pray, thank you, Jesus. Thank you that that that even though I went my own way, which is sin, you went the way you did, which is you came here, lived a life for me, you died for me, and you came back to life for me.
So right now in the clearest best way I know how, I wanna confess that I am a sinner. But I also wanna profess that you are the savior. And I put my faith in you and I hand you my sin at your cross. And I say thank you for doing that. Now help me go from here and learn more and more what this means,
how I can move toward the itinerary you have for me in my life, and learn to live it from your love, not for your love. Thank you. Pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Well, took the bread, he broke it. So this is my body broken for you. Take and eat.
He then took the cup and said, this is my blood spilled for you for the forgiveness of sins. Take and drink.
For those of you that just rose your hand raised raised, rose, and risen. You you risen your hand because you're risen again. And any of you in this room that has known the Lord, but for some reason keeps putting off getting baptized.
If you keep putting up baptized, you got the wrong idea. You're in control. You think you need to be all perfect for you. You're never gonna be.
It's a first step. It's one of those hard steps of declaration phase. So I'm gonna challenge you that when I pray here in a sec, you'll get up, you'll go out there, they have the all the stuff for you, and you'll just get baptized right now. Tons of people have done it in between every service. Just go do it.
You'll you'll be glad you did. And for those of you that just did some business with God, you said, gonna pick up my cross. I challenge you, just go for it and watch what God does in your life. Because you know what's happened just to this weekend? How many people got baptized? How many hands have gone up in the services?
We just did some gate crashing this weekend, folks. All of you that serve, all that you give, all that you are a part of this, all of you, all those hands going up is the big rock used you and me, the little rocks, to do that.
We got to do that. And that's why it challenges to keep growing, to get more seats, to get more of this, start more churches. Because there's a heck of a lot people out there in the world that still need Jesus. And we get to do that. Amen? Well, I love you guys. Have a great day.
Hey. Thanks for joining us for service online this weekend. Be sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the Rock Point Church app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.