CONTROL FREAK | Week 3 | Sermon

So let's start in the first, like, 11 verses here. It says some pharisees and teachers of the religious law. They're the ones that knew the old testament. They led people, the people of Israel. They now arrive from Jerusalem to see Jesus. So they traveled all the way to get to Jesus.

And they asked him. So they went all the way to give him this question. Why do your disciples disobey our age old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.

They travel all the way to track down Jesus who's been healing people and doing miracles and everyone's saying this is Messiah, the one we've been waiting for. And their question is, why y'all not wash your hands before you eat? Seriously? That's a dumb question, isn't it? And they say there's no dumb questions.

That's a dumb question. And you know what else is wrong with it? Is that's the Jeopardy version of a question. That was a statement in the form of a question. It actually was a controlling judgmental statement

in the form of a question. Because that's what outside in faith will do. It'll it'll create this desire to I am trying to control my faith because it's what I do out here is what changes in here. It's called legalism in the New Testament. This idea that I do and then God reacts. I'm the one in control.

And the problem with that is in the Old Testament, they realized, okay. The actual 10 Commandments was what Jesus is about to say. We can't honor that. They started making their tradition. It's their form of how to worship. It's our form of showing our external act makes us have internal purity.

And so they're controlling. So they come to him with a dumb question. You guys, I get this. I've been a pastor for thirty whatever odd years. I know I only look like I'm 30. That used to not get laughs. Probably twenty years ago when I was in my thirties. But

I still get people that ask questions that are a kind of a judgment in the form of a question that is really coming and he said it right there, traditions. See, they couldn't do the 10 commandments, so they started making up these rules that they could control. We need a controllable system

to show it's about self righteousness. And so that usually causes you to lash out of people that don't do it and look down on them. And I get it all the time. We get some of the craziest questions that are actually judgmental statements in the form of a question. For example, our teaching pastor Daniel,

every time he preaches with jeans that are torn, like you can see his knees, someone basically says, why does he do that? And they're saying it. And some of them they give you they answer their own question. And they're like, that's so disrespectful. Well, like, they go on like like,

because his knees show. They're basically saying, if your knees show, the spirit won't go. They're saying that's wrong way to worship. They basically are saying because you can see his knees, God hates them.

Guys, that's a tradition. That's an idea of what we expect to dress like. Of course, you don't wanna dress sexually inappropriate. Don't wear a speedo up here when you're when you're of course, that. But the reality is this. That's kinda one of those questions of like, that you think Daniel is disrespecting

God, so now God hates him because he does that. And you know what? That is not the reason why God hates Daniel.

There's like 50 other things way ahead of that.

But we do. When he's saying these traditions is Just think, dude. I think we do it. I know I do it. I know we get what's comfortable. We get what's controllable. So we start to view our faith and being right before God is our little system.

There's a problem with that is when we start to see it through our system, we actually stop listening to what God actually asked us to do, which is what Jesus says back to him. And he goes, alright. I'll ask you a question. Jesus replied, and why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God?

In doing your way of thinking you're being spiritual, you're not actually listening what I've actually asked you to do.

And then he gives an example, one of the 10 commandments. For instance, God says, honor your father and mother and anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father and mother must be put to death. Hey kids, you think we should bring that back? Actually, if we brought that back, there would be no more children. But

you say it's alright for people to say to their parents, sorry, I can't help you for I vowed to give to God what I would have given to you. It's called a Corbin. I'm gonna I'm gonna eventually give this to God. So it's a resource. Your parents are you need to help them with time or maybe finance or whatever. I go, I don't have time for you. I'm gonna go do this. So you're acting all spiritual. I'm gonna serve God. I'm gonna do this. But then you have a direct command. Take care of your mother and father. Because back in the day, kids were Social Security.

And and and and so the the he's saying, you you say it's alright for people to say, sorry. Can't help you. I vowed to give to God. And then he says, in this way, you say they don't need to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition.

See, when we get our ideas ahead of God's word, it cancels out God's word in our life.

And he says, you hypocrites. Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you for he wrote, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Your words mean nothing. Their worship is a farce. Worship means nothing. For they teach man made ideas as commands from God. The wisdom is nothing.

So what he basically told him right there in those last two verses is this idea that outside in faith, what I'm talking about, that idea that it's what you do out here helps you be pure in here is really a religion, meaning man made rules. It's a religion of worthless words, worthless worship, and worthless wisdom.

That's what he just told him. Your words are worthless because you're not actually listening to my words. It says in in scripture in James 22 be doers of the words not just hearers of the words. Meaning you honor me with your lips. You say this,

you say God's great and all this, but then you ignore what I've asked you to do. And that's what what a lot of us will do sometimes. And then James, it says you deceive yourself. It says you're actually trying to trick yourself. You're thinking because I say this, but I do it this way. I'm good.

And you basically disconnect from the idea that I don't have to listen to what Jesus actually asked me to do as a disciple. What it really means to be a part of a church. What I'm supposed to center my life around. I keep it centered around me, but as long as I do my traditions, I'm okay.

And you know, we do this a lot in in our lives. We try to trick ourselves all the time. How many y'all are chronically late and you've set all of your clocks to being ten minutes later than what time it actually is. Because you have to trick yourself into being on time. That doesn't work very long, does it?

Because if you're a chronically procrastinator late person, you eventually go, I'm okay. I know I technically have ten more minutes. And then you start doing something that takes twenty minutes before you leave. It doesn't work.

The words become worthless. And then that leads into he says, your worship is a farce because of that. Because when your words are worthless, because you actually say things that you honor God, but then do your way, your righteous acts, the things that you're doing out here to try to prove that you're pure,

that doesn't really work because it's you're a control freak. You're trying to do something that you can control and not trust Jesus because you can't actually always do everything he wants. And so what happens is it turns your worship into a farce because it makes you the center of the worship.

It becomes about you and your opinion like that. You complain about stuff. I don't think worship should be this way when you're really saying, I don't like it this way.

And you don't think of worship about truly honoring God and what it is. It's worth ship. When we come to work, like what I'm doing right now. This is an act of worship, hearing God's word. When when when

we go out there and we live our lives, that's worship. But also there's a part of worship that God commands is singing. We are commanded because God knows there's something powerful when the body gathers

and sings the praises to God, repeats back who he is. It ingrains into our hearts through music the idea of who God is. It allows us to disconnect from our own worries and say, you know what? I got a mess going on here, but I'm gonna I know who Jesus is. I know who God is. It's it's he's the object of the worship. But when you have outside in,

you become you're the one in control. It's your opinion. So then you get attitudes about worship. Like, people will come and say, well, I get it. It's supposed to be about God, but but you guys make it a concert. And I go, yeah. Because worship is a concert.

Whenever I say that someone's like, what what? They thought they had me. You made it like a concert. Good. Was it a good concert? Well, yeah. The music was awesome. They they sang well, but that's my problem. Why was it a high quality concert?

Because it is supposed to be a high quality concert. Your problem is you don't understand who the audience is. It's not about you. We have the band. We're the backup singers and choir. He's the audience. He's the audience. So why wouldn't we use the most gifted people to lead us to do it the best way possible? That's

the point. Usually, that question is a guarded question of, I don't like the songs. I don't like the way you do it. I like it the way I like it. Well, that's fine. But it's not about us. Here's the deal. So sometimes people will come in. You purposely come in late. I'm not gonna do that part.

Or you stand there with your hands in your pocket and just stare.

Try doing that at your mom's birthday party.

Like, oh, man. They're gonna I know when they're gonna sing happy birthday. Think I'm gonna come late because I hate that song, and I don't like to sing. Oh, darn it. I got here too soon. They haven't sung it yet. And then you stand there right in front of mom, the one who birthed you through eighteen hours of labor,

that loved you when you were unlovable, that sacrificed to get you through life, and stand in front of her like this as they're singing happy birthday.

Maybe even look at your phone a little. What's mom gonna say? It's the same thing, guys. When our heart isn't really transformed first, when we do things that we think are spiritual and they're outside in, it doesn't change anything. And then we do it because we now are in control and we pick and choose.

That's the problem with what these guys were doing. And that made their worship worthless. First, it made their words worthless. And then finally, he said, what you're trying to teach, show other people to do is you have worthless wisdom because you're twisting truth to fit your ways.

You're adding or subtracting things to arrive at what you think is the workable way to be spiritual, to be pure. It doesn't work because ultimately outside in faith is a religion of pride.

It's I need to be in control. And the problem is when you have that view, you look down on people that don't have do what you do, and you get very controlling of others. Hence, the Olympic opening ceremony and how many Christians responded,

how I wanted to respond. So I'm saying I'm just as bad. I wanna do this. We I'm what I'm trying to say we naturally lean towards this. We make the Pharisees the villains. Oh, they're horrible. They're terrible. You realize we are them without Jesus. We do that. We try to control others.

We try to get them to do what we want. And guess what? This is great for marriage too. When you get two people and you forget what the whole goal of marriage is, you get really upset and then you try to control the other person as if that's gonna help.

You you you try to force, you try to control, then you'd come to someone like me as a counselor, which don't I don't do it anymore. And you probably didn't wanna come to me when I did do it because don't get me wrong. If you do what I say, your marriage would get fixed.

Your problem is you might not wanna do it, I say, because you don't like me anymore after I talk to you.

Because I don't have patience. And what I learned was I was getting drained early on when I was the only guy around here. So I was trying to meet with all the families and I would meet with them three, four times and I just really try to help. But I realized I was wasting my time because they both came in with the wrong idea of what we're supposed to have happened here. They came with the idea that you're supposed to be the referee that calls foul and then tells the other person, you gotta do this. You gotta do this. But they both felt they were there so I would be that third party, unbiased person that would finally tell the other person to do what they wanted them to do.

I am just telling you right now, I finally learned a lesson that if you're thinking that way, you want somebody to sprinkle magic Jesus fairy dust that fixes your marriage by forcing the other person.

And all I'm doing is wasting my time and wasting yours. Matter of fact, I'll look at you and say, listen, this is how this is gonna be. It's we're not here for you to get that have me help you get that person to do what you want. We're here that both of you are saying, I wanna know what I'm doing wrong

so I can work on me. And if you both don't agree to that, save yourself the time. And if you go to a counselor and that's what you're playing, save the money because you're gonna need it for the divorce. I'm just telling you. But every time two people came in and caught on to that and said, okay,

the marriage got fixed every time. You see, you you you can't attack and attract someone at the same time. You can't control someone into the way you want. And that's what these Pharisees were doing. And that's what we do as Christians when we forget

that it's an inside out thing. So we look at the world, we get offended, we get mad, and then we want to control it. We yell at them. And you know what we end up doing in that moment? We don't help the scenario. We don't help it at all.

Actually, it makes it worse. We forget. We do the same things they did. We're more about our feelings and our thoughts and our rights than we are about our mission that Jesus said. It's like we feel this righteous indignation. I'm sick of this. The world's going to hell.

But didn't Jesus already tell us this would happen? We're like mad that the Titanic's sinking and we're yelling at the Titanic for sinking. That's not our job. We we can't unsink the Titanic. But you know what we can do? Make sure our lifeboat is full. That's what we're supposed to do.

But we get pulled in. I did. So I'm speaking it myself here in the same term. That's what I wanted to do. But why? Because of this attitude. We forget. And I think the reason why even though I believe I have an inside out faith, what draws us back into it is fear.

We see what's happening in the world and then we get afraid. What does that mean for us? It seems like Christianity is the only one that's mocked and attacked. Heard people say, no one would dare do that about Allah. You know why? Because they'd be like a jihad against you, and then you'd get attacked.

So then our answer is, okay. So when the world acts like the world, our answer is to act like the world. What if you thought about this way? Why is it most often just Christianity getting attacked? Because the enemy knows who his enemy is.

That should encourage you. If it's always Christianity, that means we're on the right track because the enemy wants to stop us. But when we fall for that and we and we go down that road, what we end up doing isn't helpful. Instead of pointing people to Jesus by loving them, we point Jesus at people.

And we think that we gotta ride off on our white horse in this chivalrous night that I need to go defend the honor of Jesus.

I've read the whole Bible many times. It never says in there that we are to defend the honor of Jesus. Matter of fact, he yelled at Peter when he tried to do that in the Garden Of Gethsemane before he died. He lopped the guy's ear off. He drew blood and he says stop. What are you doing? That's the mission.

So I think it's the fear that drives us to this and then we hop on our white horse thinking, you know, I'm gonna go defend it. We are not called to defend the honor of Jesus. We are called to describe the heart of Jesus by the way we live.

We speak the truth and show the love. Speak the truth in love, Not in fear, not in frustration, not in anger, not putting Jesus like a bullet in your favorite bible verses and I'm gonna know, it's it's the bible even says they'll know we are Christians by our sub tweets and our dank memes.

No. I don't even know what I just said memes.

But I know that's not what the bible says. It says they will know we're Christians by our love. So that fear and that frustration and that sadness drives us. The feelings are okay. God gets angry with with sin. God's sad over sin. But here's how you know when we go down this road with it. What we need to ask ourselves

is do you get that upset and that sad over the sin in your life where you are mocking God?

Or is it easier to get distracted trying to control someone? Because usually when we try to control it ourselves, you can't. And when we get out of control, we try to control everyone else.

And then our response makes it worse. We miss the mission.

George Washington, our first president, he died. He had like an infection, probably a bronchitis, maybe a pneumonia he caught. But that's not what killed him. His doctor killed him.

If you go back, he couldn't breathe. His temperature was high. And then in that day, the doctor, they had this idea that having too much blood was part of the problem. So they would draw blood. They would bleed you. Cut a vein open. Let a certain fill up a bowl of blood and then wait. They bled him multiple times.

And even the doctor journals didn't work. He seems to be worse. Because if you have a problem breathing, not enough oxygen, you're dehydrated, you have a high fever. What does taking blood make worse? All of the above. It actually constricts your airways even more when you do that.

And so all they did was draw blood, got worse, draw blood, got worse, draw blood, he died. And I go, when we react to things in the world, when in our marriage, in our relationships. This is just a good example.

When we see someone do something that's not the way we think it should be done or we're offended, do you lose it or do you choose love first? But we get all up in arms and we wanna draw blood. And and and and here's the problem. What that makes happen when we go to wanna draw blood,

what exactly what I thought would happen happened. The next thing is now Christians started arguing about it was only about this. You're dumb. You're this. You're that. And now the world is watching Christians argue as we point Jesus at people and then we yell at each other. They don't see love. They don't even see us loving each other. They see us arguing And that's really what happens in marriage too. You stop arguing about the real problem, and you start arguing about the argument.

Same thing. Now we're arguing about what this argument is about. Well, it wasn't about that. It was about the Greek gods. Like like I said, don't both mock god. Don't like like, okay. So they're celebrating debauchery. How is that any better? But why are we arguing? Because there's an enemy that just checkmated you.

Because what he wants is he knows who the real enemy is. Offend us. We act wrong. We get offended. We attack. And then Christians start arguing with Christians. He sits back with the popcorn and says, you're doing my job for me now.

And then we look stupid in the world. In other words, why do we need to draw blood when Jesus already spilt his?

One person was like

last night, I said that and there was one person that did a and then stopped. And I said, oh, you probably that person did that and said, I thought we were all doing this.

But why? We don't need to draw blood. Jesus already spilled his.

It's that pride. And pride isn't just I'm so great. Pride is I'm doing it my way. I'm in control. And when that's getting and when it gets out of control and you see Jesus be mocked, we get offended and we also get fearful because we're afraid of what does that mean for us.

When if you read the words of God, he said, expect persecution. Expect it to be hard. And if you're surprised by that, what did you think Christianity was about?

So what's the answer to all this? Go to verse 21 because what happens in between is he says what he says. The disciples pull him aside and says, explain

this parable, which wasn't really a parable, which shows you how confused they were. And he basically this is the paraphrase, but this is exactly what he says is, you don't get it yet? Which means he's been trying to show them this the whole time. He's like, you don't get it. You know, food,

it goes in one end and comes out the other. That's basically what he told them. And it's the same thing. If you think what you do out here is gonna automatically go in and and change everything, you're wrong. It's what's already in your heart. The adultery, this, the attacks, the anger. All this stuff that we do came from within here. So you can't fix it out there. What you need to do is fix here and then out there changes itself.

So trying to control someone else from the outside in that's why every time I say, guys, we miss the actual words of God just like these these Pharisees. I think whenever we get frustrated this way and try to control,

we stop discipling people. We stop knowing, growing, and going. We stop. We do our little tradition of church, and we will not do what God told us to do. And you're saying, aren't you saying the same thing? No. What I'm saying is what I always go back to is that's why we need to talk about our hearts.

Because if you fix the heart, you should automatically know grow and go. You should engage. You will. If you really understand how much God loves you and you've engaged and let him transform your heart, you will come here and you will worship full.

You you will get involved. You will serve. You will give. That is an automatic byproduct of embracing an inside out faith that knows that Jesus died for you because he loves you. And now you don't need to live for him to manipulate him. Just live from his love.

So we gotta deal with the heart. So Jesus then turns around in Matthew fifteen twenty one twenty. He takes him where he knew he was gonna go and you run into a certain woman that has this inside out faith.

And it says in verse 21, then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Gentile woman who lived there came to him pleading, have mercy on me, o Lord, Oh son of David.

So her first thing is to cry out. Son of David, which is a little bit of hint for you because son of David the Pharisees would not call Jesus son of David because that is a direct reference to you are the God and you are the savior. So even though she's a Gentile, she already has faith in who Jesus is.

She from the way she acts here, she seems to have a better understanding of Jesus is at this moment than even the disciples do. For my daughter is possessed by a demon that torments her severely. She's in pain. She's hurting, but she still comes to him and says, have mercy on me and called him the savior and Lord.

But Jesus gave her no reply. Not even a word, which is weird unless you understand he's drawing her faith out, which is good for her. But he's also trying to put a mirror up to his disciples. He's growing them too.

And sometimes that's what Jesus do. You cry out to him. He's like, I don't feel like he's answering. There's probably a purpose in that.

And here's what that purpose did in the disciples. He paused. He said he didn't say anything. So his disciples took the took it and ran with it. They said then his disciples urged him to send her away. Tell her to go away, they said. She's bothering us with all her begging. He's been showing them. He's been healing

Gentiles. He's been teaching them. He's been feeding them. He's been doing all these things

and showing them that the gospels for the whole world. He's setting them up and they go right back to the same Pharisee approach of things like, we're better than you because you're a Gentile and I'm on the inside because I'm better. And so they're when you think you're better, other people are bothers to you.

So then Jesus said to the woman, I was sent only to help God's lost sheep, the people of Israel. Like his at his first mission was go to Israel. They were gonna reject him. He's gonna go. So he's testing to see what she does. And the disciples like, yeah, he's sending her away.

But she came and worshiped him, pleading again, Lord, help me. So she heard an answer she didn't like, but she still bowed down and worshiped him because she knew who he was. Jesus responded. It isn't right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs. Now he basically called her a dog.

You think she'd respond, oh, you're gonna go there? Yo, dog. Don't call me a dog. But no. Why does she he say that? Because that's what the Pharisees that's what most Jews thought non Jews were dogs. And so he uses the same term just to see what she does, allow her to express her real faith and show his disciples something.

He's just using the term. Like, knows she's called a doc. She knows that by him. And she also knows the word enough. She somehow knows the old testament knows him enough to know he's the son of David. He's the promised Messiah.

And and and he says this to her. The disciples are like, yeah, probably thinking that. And then all of sudden she replied, that's true, Lord. But even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall beneath their master's table.

Verse 28, dear woman. In the Greek, dear woman does not capture what he that means an actually intimate, loving, grace filled look. Probably had a really big smile. Like, well done. He goes, your faith is great. Your request is granted.

And her daughter was instantly healed, which Jesus didn't even need to be there. So it shows how powerful he is. What was her faith? It was her faith great because it was that didn't mean she was so great. It says your faith was great. And you know what makes your faith great? Has nothing to do with you faithing harder.

What it has to do with is what do you choose to put it in fully? And what he's saying is you wouldn't stop coming. Bowed down, you worship, yet called you the dog and you actually had a wise answer. So in other words, if you read this, she did three things that he talks about that happens here.

That just like an outside faith is a religion of its ultimately worthless words worthless worship worthless wisdom, but it really is outside faith is a religion of pride. Well, is inside out faith is now a relationship of what

She does three things. Humble worship, humble wisdom, and tenacious trust. That's inside out. She knew who he was. She already believed. She already understood. When she said son of David, she already understood that he was the savior of the world and he was God. She basically calling him that says, I am not in control.

You are.

And then when she saw he was silent, she still worshiped him and said, I know who you are. I'm gonna worship you and called for mercy and grace because she knew she'd already see him show mercy and grace. She knew his word and she'd seen his work. She knew he was, so she just kept praising and worshiping what who she knew he was. I know he'll do the right thing. I know I will he will take care of me no matter if it's not the way I think. It's not whatever. I won't quit. I will worship

and she worshiped humbly.

She admitted, I am a dog. Here's the problem. It wasn't that the Jews thought of the Gentiles as dogs because they are far from God. They were. What they refused to realize is they were dogs as well.

We are all outside of God's will. We are all fallen sinners. The difference is when you know Jesus, you can have a transformed life. You can be saved. The second you start making about you and think you're better, you will start attacking and trying to control those that you think are doing it wrong.

She didn't even lash out at the disciples. She said, you know what? That may be true. It's right. But I know you. And I know you want even the dogs to eat because you are the God of love and grace and truth. And I know that.

So that gave her humble wisdom. What she said was true to God's word. What she prayed about was true to God's word. What she knew was true in alignment with God's word. And that's when he says, your faith is great. Go home. She's fine. All because what her faith had was a tenacious trust.

But it wasn't a tenacious, I'm gonna pull myself up by the bootstraps and do harder. It was I'm gonna trust more. I will not stop talking to God. I will not stop worshiping him. I will not stop going to him. I will not stop trusting him. I will have a tenacity in that.

Do you have a tenacity in your trust of Jesus? Or the first time the world acts like the world, we freak out and want to act like the world because we're afraid or angry. So we run right away from the mission. And we take our time, our talents, our treasure, our testimony with us.

Do we rely on our tenacious trust in our traditions of what's spiritual, or do we literally listen to the words of God?

Deciding if I should say this or not.

Okay. You asked for it.

Do I understand that I'm a Christian that just happens to be an American? Or have I blended Americanism and political activism into what biblical Christianity and what the church is supposed to be about. Now don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong. I love this country. My dad fought three wars for this country.

I would fight a war for this country because as far as countries go, this is my favorite country that's ever existed.

And I think we've had some moments in our history that God has actually blessed our country because of some of the things in our traditions of the way we do stuff. But sometimes what we start throwing bible verses out and saying is biblical is just traditional. And traditional is not equal biblical.

And sometimes we throw it out and what we do is we take government, which God created. And I think the way we do government is is one of the best way that's ever existed. It seems to be having a tough go of it right now. But God created government for a purpose to keep us from killing ourselves before he comes back.

Government does not replace God. But the way we argue about politics as Christians sometimes and we blend stuff in and we basically deify politicians as they're the Savior. It's like, guys,

they aren't. They never will. Government will not bring us ultimate peace. It doesn't matter who's the president. It doesn't matter in that. Now I say we're supposed to be good citizens.

I have political opinions. I have ways I think the process works the best and I believe in them. But quit blending that with Christianity. Because when I do that, when you do that, what do we say to the world? We're turning Jesus into a politician. And when you mix

relationship with God, religion and politics, you know, we end up with politics. We tried this once before. It was called the crusades. When Western Christianum said, we are gonna by force take the world for the kingdom of God. It didn't turn out well. It's what Islam does today.

They are trying to by force take over governments and do that. It doesn't work. It might force people to do some laws, but there's no heart change. Nobody actually comes to know Jesus, and that's our mission. We can lead people to Jesus and worship God. And no matter what, if this country fell apart and we had no freedom, guess what we would still have? Freedom in Christ.

It doesn't matter in the end. I'm not saying you shouldn't care about that, but quit blending the two because it confuses the world and it makes the church look like something it's not. And it turns Jesus into something different, and they're rejecting that. We need to describe the heart of God through the way we live.

Not defend him, not point Jesus at people, but live in a way that we point people to Jesus. Are you still mad at me that I said that? I wasn't sure if I should or not. Okay. Good. And that is why

I don't talk about the hot topic of the day. Because you know what the world likes to do, the news cycle likes to do? What are we all offended about today? If I did that, why would you all come to church? Just stay home and watch news and watch whichever brand that you like to be offended.

We're here to glorify the God who loves us and learn to live from that love. And it's gonna take tenacious trust, not in government, not in the things I do on the outside. It's a tenacious trust in who Jesus Christ is because he will transform our hearts. And

that's what we need. Do you have that tenacious trust? Or are we kind of like Andrew Jackson, not the guy running for office around here with the signs, our seventh president?

Some of his friends got together. Was either he was dead or close to death. And they were reflecting on their friend Andy, they called him. And they were all shocked that he had such success. Like he became a president. They didn't he was a war hero as a general. He did not fit the bill for any of that. They're saying that it was shocked him that he was able to go to the success because first, the president go, he wasn't a great student.

They all knew he wasn't even the smartest one of their group. And then they talked about his physical stature. How did he become a a president? He doesn't even have physical. He was six one, but he's the second lightest president we've ever had. Six one and weighed one hundred and fifty pounds. That's skinny.

I'm six one. And I got him by Well, I'm not gonna tell you how much I got him by. It's a lot.

And as they talked about it, yeah, it wasn't that bright. I mean, he was not dumb, but he just wasn't And he didn't seem like a leader. Then when they mentioned the strength thing, yeah, he didn't even seem like he had physical strength. And one of his friends goes, yeah, remember Johnny? You guys would wrestle

and you would throw him three out of four times. That's what they say when you're ready. You throw him. Beat him, pinned him. You got throwed is what they'd say. And then one of the other friends goes, but wait, three out of four. What happened the fourth time? And his friend thought about it he goes, Well,

I guess he just decided I won't stay throwed. And they all agreed that that was the secret. Things are gonna throw us. Things in this world following Jesus is hard. We're in a world that is going a direction that's not pleasant and scary. But he said expect it. The Apostle Paul faced this.

Go read in the letters to the Corinthians in chapter six of I think it's first. It might be second Corinthians. He actually tells the Corinthians, would you look to Jesus? Today is the day for your salvation.

And then he goes on this little paragraph of because here is what me and my partners did to bring the gospel to you. And he talks about how we spent sleepless nights, hunger days. We were beaten, literally beaten. We were imprisoned, tortured. We we we had nothing, he said. No food, nobody we had nothing.

But we possessed all things. And he finishes it with we were poor, but made many rich. He said it was worth it to have that tenacious trust in Jesus to go after the mission.

He didn't get mad. He didn't get angry. He didn't complain. He didn't firebrand. He didn't preach to the choir. He didn't say this sucks to do this. And we should be mad at everybody because the very people that were doing those things to him was the people he was trying to point to Jesus.

And that's what we're called. Do you have that tenacious trust in Jesus that transforms your heart? Because it's him that replaces your heart. And if you check your heart and let him check your heart and let him be in your heart and you surrender to his love and you embrace what he really, really, really means to you and how much he loves you, you can let go of the fears and the frustrations,

and the hands will take care of themselves.

And you learn that you don't have to draw blood because Jesus already spilt his for you as well as them. So let's take a moment and may the words of this song give you a chance to surrender. Let God give you a clean heart. And then through that clarity, go, what do my hands need to do next? Because he loves me.

Church, let's stand up. Make this our closing prayer as we sing. We're singing straight to the be

in midst the world.

We're not

We're Give us clean hands and give us pure hearts. Let us not lift our souls to another. So give us clean

We bow our hearts, we bend our knees.

Gonna

the

We're not We're

We're

Let us not lift our souls to another. Amen. I'd love to hear a prayer church. Yeah. Praise God.

Hey, as we leave this place, just remember that a transforming faith is a faith from the inside out, not from the outside in. And if you need some prayer, we have a prayer room to my right, your left, full of leaders that would love to pray with you if you need it. With that, enjoy the rest of your Sunday. We love you, and we'll see you next time.