Mark Buckley 8/15/21 Mark Buckley 8/15/21

Judgment

If you want to grab a Bible and turn to Matthew Chapter six. That's what we're going to be today. Jesus has been talking to us for a little while. We've been on the Sermon in the Mount for the last four months. Basically, it's been all red letters. Everything that we've been studying and reading — our culture today is trying to tell us what is righteousness, what is justice — and we want to be about …

Series: The Sermon on the Mount
August 15, 2021 - Mark Buckley

Well, good morning, Living Streams. It’s a blessing and a privilege for me to be with you today. David and the guys are at the men's retreat. And if you sent somebody to the men's retreat, make sure you ask them, “What did the Lord do in your life?” Because some significant things are happening up there with the guys.

Speaking of significant, Friday night I was trying to go to sleep and there was like rumbles and rumbles and rumbles. And I went out and opened our front door and there was lightning flashes one after another after the other. And I'm like, “I've never seen this before.” I mean, it went on for over an hour. That's not like Phoenix, Arizona. And it reminded me that the Lord can still surprise us. He can still do things that we never experienced before. I actually had a couple of those things this week. If I get to one of the other ones as well.

But this message is going to be about judgment, passing judgment. And a significant number of reasons. Because if we get our relationships right, if we know how to love one another, if we know how to relate in a healthy way, then we have the potential to have a rich and full life, a flourishing church, and to demonstrate to people that Jesus is alive. If we don't get them right, then all kinds of dysfunction happens in our church, in our family, in our personal life.

So this message is not out of context. It is in the context of the whole Sermon on the Mount, which is one of my favorite passages. We named our first son Matthew because I loved the Sermon on the Mount. It shows me that Matthew the Apostle was really close to Jesus, and there's something precious about it. The context of the Sermon on the Mount is about, it starts with “Blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the meek.They will inherit the earth, the pure in heart will see God. It goes on to talking about responding to persecution and being blessed by God, being salt and light in the world, not being angry at your brother and incurring judgment on yourself, being able to give, being able to forgive, being able to pray in secret and fast In secret, and seek first the kingdom of God.

And then when we get to Matthew 7:1, he says, “Do not judge or you too will be judged.” And in the context, it’s "Don't try and categorize everybody else and how they're doing with the Lord,” okay? “Do not go there because you're going to get it wrong. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Let's pray:

Father, God help me to get this right and to speak in a way that your Holy Spirit can illuminate to the church what you want us to know. Let the truth set us free. In Jesus’ name.

So, you know, we're in a time in our American history that has been very divided. We got Democrats and Republicans judging each other, sometimes people within their own parties judging each other. We've got people judging the CDC and the medical community and vaccers and anti-vaccers. And everybody knows what they believe. And you know that you're right in the middle. There's the extremes on all sides. But you're right in the middle, right? You know the truth. If only they would listen to people like you and me, we could solve everything.

I was preparing this message a few weeks ago, after David asked me to give it, and I was doing a video presentation for another church. I spotted a guy on it and I said, “Hey, can we take your picture?” And some of you are going to recognize this picture. I asked him a question. And first of all, the man in the picture, you can see certain things about this guy just from this picture. If you could see his dreds, you'd know they'd go below his waist.

And when guys are like that, you know they've got a history, right? And I said, “Well, how many times have you smoked weed? How many times have you used psychedelic drugs? What have you done with with taking care of your brain or whatever? How many times?”

And he gave me an answer. And it might surprise you. There's a zero there. Because, usually guys that are dressed like Bob Marley have got a certain lifestyle, a certain approach to drugs, to women.

And I knew this guy had traveled around the country, traveled around the world, been in many different nations. And I said, “Well, if it isn't drugs, maybe it's women. How many different women have you been intimately involved with throughout the course of your entire life?”

And he gave me a number. And the number is one — his wife, Colleen, who's on our worship team. Because this guy is a man of God. He doesn't dress like a typical man of God. He doesn't act like a typical pastor. But in some ways, he's more brilliant than most pastors you’re ever going to meet ,or more people you're ever going to meet. Because he's lived a dedicated life to Jesus Christ almost his entire life. And the pure in heart see God and to know God and communicate his grace in very special ways.

But he told me a story that I wanted to relate to you. Alec Seekins did. He was on a youth group trip and he was an overseer and they were in Guatemala about to fly back to the United States. And so he had gathered the youth as best he could. And then he spotted somebody across the terminal that looked sort of nefarious, looked sort of dangerous, and he wanted to to really guard the kids.

So as soon as he got the kids settled down, he walks through the terminal, gets to the far side and spots the guy. And actually, he was looking in a full length mirror. He had seen his own image across the terminal and he knew the guy was dangerous.

I thought that was such a great story.

When I was pastoring in California, we had a young church. Most of the people were getting saved in the church. We had young families, not a lot of money, but the people were having a lot of babies. We decided to start a Christian school. And in those days, most of our people, their lives revolved around the church. They went to Sunday morning, many of them Sunday night. We had Bible studies. During the week, we had prayer meetings. We had evangelistic outreaches.

This guy made an appointment to see me. And he wasn't the kind of guy that would show up at all the meetings. He came on Sunday. He had a wife and kids. He managed a bike store, and I didn't know what he wanted to talk about. So I said, “Jeff, what's up, man? What do you want to talk about?”

And he goes, “I want to talk about the Christian school that we're going to start.” And he said, “I know you're having trouble funding it.”

I said, “Well, that's going to be a challenge.”

And he said, “Well, I've got an idea. How about if we have everybody double their tithe?”

I looked at him and I was sort of shocked, because I didn't think he was that committed, because I was judging our people on the basis of how many meetings are you showing up at. And this guy, who was taking care of his family, managing the bike store, barely making it financially, already giving 10 percent of his income to the church, was proposing that his family and everybody else start giving 20 percent.

And for just a moment, I was tempted. Then I said, “Nope, we're not doing that, Jeff, but I really appreciate your commitment. I really appreciate your heart.”

It was one of many illustrations that I've had over the years that I cannot judge people's, you know, their spirituality, their commitment, their love for Jesus on the basis of what meetings they attend, on the basis of what their haircut looks like, on the basis of whether or not they've got whatever hanging from their body or etched into themselves. And neither can you, most likely. So Jesus said don't do it. Don't go there.

Verse 3,

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Now, one of the things I love about Jesus is that he rewards us by giving us insight, by giving us wisdom, by giving us understanding so that we can help people, so that we can make a difference. And sometimes our temptation is to be hunting for the problems in people's lives to our own detriment. It's easy to spot a problem sometimes. It's really hard to find the solution for that problem.

One of the premises I want to live by is to look for the treasure and not for the flaw. I wrote a little newsletter this week that some of you received, Reflections. And I told a story:

It was our forty-eighth wedding anniversary, so this is a story about my dear wife. We were up in the mountains and I had grabbed my fishing pole before we left on the trip, or I actually grabbed Kristina's fishing rod, fly fishing rod, because I was in a hurry. And we we went up for a couple of days. I caught some beautiful trout on her fly rod.

We’re driving home and I'm just sort of reminiscing. I said, “This has been the greatest trip. I've really enjoyed this time. I hadn't caught any fish like that in a couple of years. And I'm really thankful for the the rod that Jim got for both me and you.”

And she goes, “Well that rod came from Steve.

And I said, “No, no, that was from Jim. About 20 years ago, he gave us both fly rods. And I know it was from Jim because it even has “To Kristina, God bless you,” stenciled in it.

And she goes, “Yeah, that was from Steve when I used to work with him at Blue Mule Outfitters.”

And I I'm getting a little frustrated, you know what I mean? That she doesn't believe me. So I know I'll fix it. I'll call Jim. I get Jim, call him up on the phone, put it on speakerphone. She's driving and and she can listen to the conversation.

I said, “Jim, I've been thinking about you this weekend. I just got some beautiful trout on the fly rod that you gave us and wanted to thank you.” And we're chatting back and forth and talk about life a little bit. And then I hang up, smiled at my wife.

She looks at me. “That was from Steve.”

Now I'm sort of losing my joy on this trip, you know what I mean? I had been feeling really good. So I know I got an idea how to get it back. I said, “I'll bet you. I'll bet you a hundred dollars that that Rod came from Jim.”

And she said, “Okay,”

So now I'm at peace because I got something to look forward to when I get home. I start reading the newspaper. We get home. I'm unpacking all our stuff. She disappears while I'm in the kitchen putting stuff in the refrigerator.

She shows back up with two fly rods. From Jim. The one from Steve — that I'd been fishing with — was on the table. And I realize she's right. I'm wrong.

So I go into the the office, I get an envelope, I write out a note. “Dear Kristina, You were right, I was wrong. Please forgive me. I'm sorry. I love you.”

And then I know where she stashes her money, so I went and got two fifty dollar bills out of her stash spot, put it in the envelope and give it to her. And a little while later, she comes up to me and she has a big smile and she says, “You can keep the money. I love you. It's all about winning to me.”

And it just reminded me why I have this philosophy: Focus on the treasure, not on the flaw.

Because sometimes if people focus on my flaws, I'm sunk. You know what I mean? Because I've got them. And sometimes I'm absolutely 100 percent convinced I'm right. I will bet in the old days and actually I'm done. I'm done. Don't ever do that. It's evil if you do that.

Now, in verse six, Jesus says this:

“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”

Jesus had just been talking about not judging and now he's calling some people dogs and others pigs. What's up with that? Spiritually speaking, dogs are narcissistic, immoral, spiritual beings. He’s not a cat lover, but it's a description. Other people are like pigs. Their behavior is totally self-centered. Their behavior does not take into consideration anybody else's feelings.

We're not to be going around judging people casually and making decisions about their whole life on the basis of one event. But on the basis of multiple experiences with people, on the basis of obvious behavior, there are times when this verse applies.

So Jesus is not telling us in this whole Sermon on the Mount that we're to be ignorant, naive people that get trampled on by everybody. He's telling us to protect ourselves in a way and ina little bit we'll get in a few verses on false prophets. False prophets are people who distort the image of God, distort what relationships are supposed to be all about, distort love. God is love, but love is not just making people feel good right, now all the time, no matter what.

Now, how do we figure these things out? In verse seven Jesus says:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Spiritually speaking, we want discernment. In First Corinthians 12, discernment is one of the gifts that the Lord releases through the Holy Spirit when we want to help people. Sometimes we're not sure if their problem is a natural problem, or a consequence of physiological imbalance in their life, or if it's a spiritually rooted problem that is a consequence of dark and demonic forces that are operating in their life, or if it's some kind of a chemical imbalance. We need the gift of discernment.

So Jesus says, “Ask, seek, knock,” because sometimes, just like God buries gold in the earth and you've got to dig for it, he buries wisdom and understanding in ways that when you dig, when you ask, when you seek a new knock, it opens up.

Some friends and I fasted one time for three days. We were pastors, we were working in northern California where a lot of the people had come out of drug backgrounds, some of them had been involved in occult backgrounds, they came from dysfunctional families. And when they came to us for ministry, we wanted to get it right.

One of the the guys that I remember having to make a decision about was in jail. And I had gone to northern California for a visit, and there's this guy, his friends came up to me and said, “We think he's innocent. He's in jail for child molesting and we think he's innocent. And we want you to go talk to him and pray for him and help him get out.” And I’m, like — that’s really not what I would consider a fun thing to do, if you know what I mean. That's not something that I'm looking forward to do, but because I love the people that were asking me, I went ahead and accepted the offer.

So I go there to the Marin County jail in San Rafael. And I'm talking with the guy, and he is not convincing me that he's innocent, but I'm not sure. I don't know what really happened. And then he decides to do something. He says, “I don't have any money to pay you to help me, but I'm going to help you out. I'm going to give you a map to the Lost Dutchman's gold mine.”

And I'm in my heart saying, Thank you very much for showing me that I can't trust you for an inch, man. Because that is the typical fraud thing to give somebody is a map to the Lost Dutchman gold mine. There's been thousands of them sold and secretively handed off. And nobody's ever found that gold yet. It's probably out there, but it's not going to be from a map that somebody in jail gives you as a payoff for getting them out.

When Jesus talks about these same verses in Luke 11, here's what he says. Well, first, Matthew 7:11:

“If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Jesus explained that the good gift is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us the grace to discern between right and wrong, between truth and error. The Holy Spirit can give us the key to unlock the needs in people's hearts. That's what he wants to equip us with.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

How do we navigate these challenging relationships in life? We navigate them by treating the people in front of us just like we want to be treated. Exactly.

I had one of the pastors come up to me after our first service this morning, and he said, “Do you want some help with your message?”

And I said, (gulp), “Yes.”

He gave me an idea or two about leaving out a story that confused some people. And I said, “Thank you very much,” because I want people to tell me the truth. I want real feedback from my life. I know that I don't always see it like I should.

And so that's how I treat people. And it takes courage to tell somebody what you really think. It takes love to love some of them enough so that you will overcome the fear of being rejected. But a wise person will thank you. A scoffer will hate you if you bring him correction. A wise person appreciates it. And we want to reap what we sew. We want to reap wisdom and encouragement and understanding.

Also because I need forgiveness for my sins, I also try and give forgiveness no matter how painful it is. I was talking to a friend recently who left the church and we didn't want to get into a lot of depth about the reasons why he left the church. I just wanted to make sure that he knew that I loved him. And he said to me, “Sometimes relationships are too painful.”

And I responded to him and said this, “Jesus hasn’t asked me and you to go to Africa to live. He hasn't asked us to give our testimonies in Iran or Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, even though there are believers in those places that are suffering, especially right now in Afghanistan. It's a very dangerous place for them to be. He hasn't asked us to suffer that way. But he might ask us to pick up our cross and suffer in our relationships right here, right in this fellowship, even, because every church, just like every family, has some painful and difficult relationships to navigate and to get it right. To learn how to love one another, to process through the pain of life and come out the other side brings a great reward.”

Here's how Jesus describes it.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

He's not talking here about going to heaven when you die. He's talking about navigating the relationships of life in such a way that they will lead to life — a narrow road, a small gate that gets us to a place where it opens up into the kingdom of God.

Sometimes people focus on the road. They focus on the gate. I had a friend. His name is Ben Burt, and he invited me to Skywalker Ranch. That's where his magnificent ranch that George Lucas, spent hundreds of millions of dollars building for his animation and for his production studios in San Rafael, California. To get the Skywalker Ranch, you go down Lucas Valley Road — which was not named after him — it's one lane in each direction from Highway 101 heading west towards the coast. And you wind around for 10 or 12 miles and go up past Big Rock and down the other side. And about, I think a mile and a half or so past Big Rock, there's a little road and you take that second right under that road and it leads to a guard gate. And that's how you get there. You can't get there any other way. You can come east or you can come west. But it's a two lane road and it's a narrow guard gate for everybody.

And when you get to the guard gate, you’ve got to know somebody and they've got to be expecting you in order to get through. But once you get through, then it opens up into vineyards and a lake and Olympic swimming pool and horseback riding and organic gardens and gymnasiums and and châteaux built to look like a Tuscan winery, and it's the most phenomenal place.

Inside they have artifacts like Luke Skywalker’s original light saber and Darth Vader's mask and all of the original stuff. It's really a geek's paradise. And even as a non-geek, I appreciated being there and seeing it.

But the real magnificence is not the road and it's not the gate. The road and the gate are essential. But it's what opens up in this vast valley that, even though I had spent the first thirty-four years of my life hiking those hills and living nearby, I'd never been in that valley before.

And the kingdom of God is a vast kingdom, it's a mighty spectacular, magnificent place. Don't get too hung up on the road. You’ve got to get there on the road. You’ve got to go through the gate. And Jesus is the gatekeeper. But don't get too hung up on the road and the gate, because that's just the beginning of what it means to experience the kingdom of God.

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”

They're there to take advantage of you. And again, if we were to never judge anybody or anything, we could never call anybody a false prophet. But a false prophet is somebody who distorts the image of God, distorts what love is all about for their own gain and to their own demise.

By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

Now I have a ministry to pastors and leaders. I was talking to a pastor the other day and he said to me, “I feel like a failure.”

I listened to his heart and it made me sad. Then I said this to him, I said, "It's too late for you to be a failure. I've known you for over 30 years. You've been a blessing to me all those years. You've been faithful to your wife. You've raised beautiful kids. You've been faithful in your congregations. Yeah, I get it that your ministry hasn't been as big as you wanted it to be. I get it. Neither of us are famous and we're not going to be famous. I get all of that. But you are not a failure if you abide in Christ.”

As a matter of fact. If you abide in Christ, you can't fail, because “Every branch,” Jesus said, “that abides in me will bear much fruit.” It may be down line. It may be your kids or your grandkids, naturally or spiritually. It may be people you don't even know who you've made an impact on. But if you abide in Christ and you keep his word like he tells you to, it's going to open up the kingdom of God to you and to those who follow in your footsteps.

Now, in closing, I want to talk a little bit about judgment from 1 Corinthians 2:14-15.

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

In Matthew 7, Jesus says there's a good gift the father wants to give you. That good gift is the Spirit. Without the spirit none of this really makes sense.

The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,

We judge all things. We judge is there value or is there harm? It doesn't matter if we're watching a Netflix, or we're choosing to read a book, or we're reading an article about a certain theory or a form of government, or whatever. We make value judgments because we've got the Spirit of God and we have the mind of Christ and the Spirit of God. The mind of Christ, which comes to us through the word of God, gives us the ability to discern the value or lack thereof in all kinds of things.

1 Corinthians 5 says this:

But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

Now, over the years at Living Streams, we've had to remove a couple of swindlers because they were financially taking advantage of people through lies and deception. We've had to remove a couple of immoral people, not because they made a slip or made a mistake or did something they were sorry for, but because they were preying on somebody or somebodies in our congregation in an ongoing way that is contrary to the word of God.

And at such times, the Church, not as an individual pastor, leader or any, but the Church collectively in the leadership will make a judgment that, if somebody is practicing ongoing immorality, swindling or whatever these things Jesus is mentioning through 1 Corinthians 5, then we make a judgment that that person needs to be removed until such time as they're willing to follow Jesus the way we're all supposed to follow Jesus, which is in honesty and truth and humility.

Our final scripture, 2 Corinthians 5:10, says this:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

In just a moment, we're going to take communion, so if you're at home and watching this, you can grab some bread and and some a cup of wine or juice or whatever you want.

We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. It specifically says in 1 Corinthians 11 that when we receive communion, that we're to judge ourselves. And when I judge myself, I know I fall short. So I'm always asking for forgiveness. I specifically ask forgiveness when I am beginning to evaluate myself in terms of other people and exalting myself and putting them down, because everybody in Christ has a treasure. Everybody in Christ has a value. He has children. And his children are all really, really important to him, every single one of us. So we're going to be held accountable someday for how we've lived our life, what we've done.

And I want to ask you if you want your reward in this world or in the world to come.

In this world, we may have suffering. In this world, we may have pain. In this world we have challenges, each and every one of us.

In the world to come, by his grace, there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more suffering.

In this world we can overcome those things by the grace that he gives us, by the power of his Holy Spirit. We can navigate our relationships, because he gives us wisdom, because he delights in us. He said, “I've overcome the world and so will you.”

And this bread and this cup helps us in that regard. Jesus said, “this is my body. Which is broken for you.”

Lord, thank you that you were willing to let your body be broken so that we could be made whole, so we could be part of your family, so we could have a place in your kingdom. Thank you, Jesus.

He said, “Take and eat. This is my body which is broken for you. As often as you do so do so in remembrance of me.”

Jesus said, "This cop is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you.”

Jesus, we need your blood. We need your forgiveness. We ask you to heal our hearts. We ask you to heal our church. We ask you to heal our nation. You've got the power to do it. Help us, Lord, receive this forgiveness and renew this covenant with you.

Take and drink. This is the new covenant in his blood. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus.

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David Stockton 8/8/21 David Stockton 8/8/21

Worry, Anxiety and Over-Concern

Series: The Sermon on the Mount
August 8, 2021 - David Stockton

So we've been really focusing on that all year of vision for the righteousness of God. We want to look to the Bible to teach us that, because the Bible has been there, done that through many generations, through many cultures, through many ideologies. The Bible has proven itself time and time again to be trustworthy and true and a good guide for the human soul, even the hard things.

And so that's that's what we've been doing. And it is we're in Matthew Chapter six. We're in our 15th teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. We've only got a few more. But if you want to read with me in Matthew, chapter six, verse twenty five, the words of Jesus:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…

Everybody good there?

what you will eat or drink or about your body. What you will wear is not life more than food and the body more than clothes.…

And as my favorite song writer, John Forman says, when he was younger and what married lives more than girls.

…Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? …

Weak faith. Blurry faith.

…So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well…

What things? The food and drink and the clothes.

…Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

So this is the word of the Lord. And more specifically, this is the words of Jesus when he was incarnate as God in the flesh, walking around this planet in a place called Israel.

And it's interesting because Jesus is doing this thing that we call the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew gives it to us in Matthew chapters five, six and seven. Also this this is similar sermon. It's called the Sermon on the Plain when when Luke writes it. It's basically all the same material. Matthew has more than Luke does, but a lot of the same material in these two different gospel accounts, which makes us think that this is probably Jesus’ “stump speech” in some ways. This is what Jesus, when he would go from town to town to town around Galilee and then kind of made broader concentric circles as he was doing his ministry, he would go around preaching about the kingdom of heaven. And this is basically what he would say almost every time to the people that he would gather as he would heal them, and he would meet their needs and that type of stuff.

And so, Matthew records it a little differently than Luke. And we haven't really got much into that. But you can check that out if you want. Luke was a doctor, and so he's recording some of those things. He actually talks a little bit more about the healings that Jesus did in those times. Interestingly enough, he was a doctor, whereas Matthew was not a doctor.

What was Matthew? He was a tax collector. He's the money man. And what he does is he talks a lot about what Jesus taught on money in his sermons. So, interestingly enough, that's kind of what was brought out in all of this. And so when Matthew was writing this — and this was just kind of really important as we were going to jump in and Jesus is talking about not worrying about some of these practical needs — Matthew was someone that was intricately aware of what was going on in the socio economic climate of that day. As a tax collector, he was he was Jewish, but he worked for the Romans, and the Romans were the oppressors.

And what his job was to do was to go and get the taxes from the people, the Jewish people, and give it to the Romans. And in the process, what was very common in that day was the Romans would have a set tax, but then they would always ask for a little bit more. They'd kind of extort the people and get a little extra. But then they gave the Jewish employee of theirs the right to extort whatever he wanted or whatever he could get, as well.

So it was basically, “Here's the tax plus what I'm stealing from you, plus what Rome’s stealing from you.” And ultimately, it all feels like stealing because Rome is a foreign empire that's ruling us.

But as they would come to him, Matthew would be intricately involved with people's stories. “Matthew, I can't pay taxes because I've got no food for my family.” “Matthew, I can't pay taxes because I can't even get clothes for my family.” “Matthew…” so Matthew was aware of all of the challenge for all of the poor people and their taxes. He was aware of all of the rich people and maybe how they were getting out of taxes, I don't know.

But had a very specific, intricate look into all of that challenge that people were going through. And so when Jesus said, “Don't worry about those things,” for Matthew, that stuck out as something extremely significant and maybe even something that was very, very hard to grasp. And maybe even he felt wasn't safe. “Jesus, you don't know. You don't know what I know. Jesus, how can you say this? Because there are some people out there that I mean, they need to worry."

And yet he records this for us, not just when Jesus said it first time. Remember Jesus said it over and over and over again as they walked with him. But he records this for us years after Jesus has died on a cross, risen from the dead. When this actually began to really get circulated was probably about 60 or 70 A.D. So Jesus was gone around 33-ish, you know, so we've got about a 30 years before this really is kind of a preserved teaching. But Matthew made sure that this was part that really made it in there. Because what happened in Matthew's life, as he heard Jesus teach this — and it was very hard to receive — but as he watched Jesus live, he saw the father provide. Not just for Jesus and them, but but the people that Jesus was working with, as well. He saw what Jesus was saying was true. “You don't need to worry because God will add what you need when you need it.”

And he not only saw all of that, but he also saw it in his own life after Jesus left. He began to not worry and see God show up in his life. And so he teaches us, he preserves this part of this teaching of Jesus for us to know. Because he saw it realized and he knew it was the truth, not just a shocking, hard teaching.

And so we're going to unpack this a little bit as we go into this. It's all kind of connected in the sermon. It's not just a random thought, but it actually is connected to what's before here. I want to talk a little bit about what worry is. I mean, obviously, most of us are probably pretty clear on what worry is. We have this word today that is used a lot: anxiety. Anxiety. We’re a very anxious society. Some of you, when I say the word anxiety, you get anxiety. Or some of you, when I say the word anxiety, you’re, like, already there.

And so we are trying to understand a little bit of what worry is. To start out and we’ve got to, you know, always look at the translations here. And so in the original language, Timothy Lane brings this out. But do not worry — the Greek word is merimnaó. I said that exactly the way it's supposed to be said, just so you know. No, I don't know how to say it, but merimnaó. It literally means a distracted mind or a double mind.

Track with me here for just a second and we'll visit this again. But every once in a while, I go with one of my daughters, to go see Dr. Michael Johnson. Dr. Michael Johnson's a friend of mine, a super cool guy, but he's also an eye doctor. And so we go to his office and we go in there and and he, you know, puts my daughter in this thing and was like flipping through things. And he’s like, “Does it look good, does that look good?” And he's telling us all kinds of cool stories while he's doing it, too. And the last time I went, he was like, “Hey, do you want to see what your daughter sees without glasses?”

And I was like, “Yeah, that sounds cool.” And so he put the thing on me and he totally jacked up my vision — which was not a great doctor thing, but he was just showing you what she sees. And I was like, “Wow, like, there it is. This is what she sees without glasses.” And it was blurry. Everything is just blurry.

But she goes without her glasses all the time because it's good enough for her. She's like, “I can see what’s happening." We’re watching shows and I'm just like, “I know what you see now and it's not that great.” But she she's just like, “Whatever.” She gets it, you know, and she's more about the words and the story and the character. I don't know. Something,

But it was just kind of fascinating to see that. And and and I think this is a little bit of the connotation of what this word is getting at. Because when things get blurry, you get more disconcerted. Right? Let's say, not just in your vision, but let's say in your life things get blurry. Something happens and now you can't really see why or how. It could be something small like, you know, needs and practical needs. How is this going to work out? I don't know how this is going to work out. Everything seems blurry and confused. Or it could be something massive, like a loved one who dies in a freak accident. There's lots of different things that can all of a sudden cause us and our worlds to become blurry. And it's in those situations that we can become disconcerted.

And that's exactly what this word is connotating. It's like, hey, do not worry when things get blurry in some ways. Sorry. I t rhymes. I don't want it to. It sounds horrible when you say it that way. But that's a little bit of what this word is connotating. The blurring, the disconcertion that comes from things all of a sudden not looking right.

I think of some of those movies where it's like these people are in a vulnerable situation and they got good guys and they got bad guys — and think Star Wars or something — and yet way off in the horizon, there's something like coming towards them and they're not sure, “Is this going to be somebody who's for us or somebody who's the enemy?”

And it just gets clearer and clearer as it comes what the situation is. And that's that sense of anxiety. That's that sense of worry that that can happen. And in a Psychology Today article, they were talking about trying to understand worry against anxiety. Worry, they said, tends to be experienced more in our heads. And anxiety is a little bit more like everywhere else. It's more of a feeling. It's more of a gut, like you can have worry in your thoughts, but then at some point, it just kind of settles in and you just feel worried or anxious.

Worry tends to be a temporary state, but anxiety is more persistent and lingering. Again, some of you I'm describing you right now in a big way, and I understand that. Worry tends to be more specific while anxiety is more general. To differentiate, worry would be like, “I'm worried we're going to be late for my flight.” Anxiety would be more like, “I'm worried about travel.” Like, “I am worried that I'm going to miss my flight. But there's about forty seven thousand things leading up to that and then a hundred thousand things after that that I'm worried about.” That's that sense of anxiety. It's more general in that regard.

Johnny Cash. This is what he says about worry. The songwriter. He's not a theologian. He says:

The place I go to draw my pay,
close the door on me today,
told me just to stay away
and then don't come back again.
I told my mama,
‘Baby, you don't cry.
I'll get a job before the day go by.’
I don't know where.
And that is why
I'm a worried man.
Worried man, worried man.
I'm a very worried man.
Hungry babies don't understand.
Papa is a worried man.

I sing that to my kids all the time, that chorus. They don't understand at all. And I don't know if I do either, but it makes me feel better.
All right. How about Olivia, Roderigo? I was on a road trip with my family. Everybody gets a turn. But I think she does understand worry or anxieties. She says:

I see everyone getting all the things I want
and I'm happy for them. But then again, I'm not
Just cool vintage clothes and vacation photos.
I can't stand it. Oh, I sound crazy.
Their win is not my loss.
I know it's true, but I can't help get caught up in it all.
Comparison is killing me slowly.
I think I think too much about kids who don't know me.
I'm so sick of myself.
I'd rather be rather be anyone, anyone else.

Jealousy. Another source of anxiety these days is basically online. Well, what we're projecting ourselves online and we're having to manage whether or not our projection online is acceptable or not. It's hard enough to manage this, let alone trying to project something that I have to manage. It's a challenging world. And some of you older people are like, “Oh, yeah, those stupid kids over there.” That's fine, you know, except for some of you I know are trying to be cool and hip. And I see you on there sometimes. But but for everybody, let's say 30 and under, I mean, this is true. This is a reality. This is a source of anxiety. And I like what she says that, “I think I think too much about people who don't even know me.”And that's really a true source of anxiety and worry.

Rich Mullins, who's somebody I would recommend a lot more than these other two. I think it says a lot. This is basically like if I was going to do a movie on the Sermon on the Mount, which I'm not, by the way. Oh and I know like the Chosen did it all over that, so. But this would be like a good soundtrack, because I feel like he just captures so many different nuggets of the Sermon on the Mount in this poetic song that he writes. He says:

There’s more that dances on the prairie
than the wind,
more that pulses in the ocean
than the tide.
There's a love that is fiercer
than the love between friends.
More gentle than a mother’s
when her baby's at her side.
And there's a loyalty that's deeper
than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs
that I can sing,
the stuff of Earth competes
for the allegiance
I owe only to the Giver
of all good things.
So if I stand, let me stand on the promise
that you will pull me through.
And if I can't, let me fall on the grace
that first brought me to you,
and if I sing, let me sing for the joy
that has borne in me these songs
And if I weep, let it be as a man
who's longing for his home.

Sermon on the Mount. Right there. Heaven over earth. Right there. Do not worry. There is more than what you can see right now. It's blurry for you, but it's not for Jesus. And you can stand on the promises that he gives here in this passage.

A couple of other things about worry real quick. This guy, Colin Hanson, who's actually Vice President of the Gospel Coalition, which is basically an online resource for people who want to know more about what the Bible says about anything. I highly recommend it. It's not perfect. It's helpful. It can be helpful.

But he says:

We have to understand that the goal of Twitter is to worry us to death.

So much of life is solved in that statement.

We spend a lot of time worrying about things we can't control, like a tanker stuck in the Suez Canal and spreading that anxiety through means guaranteed to make no difference. During this past year, I'm convinced that we flipped our primary orientation from physical to digital.

That might not be true of you, but that is true of society.

Now we are first. What we project ourselves to be online and pixels, and only second who we are in flesh and blood. We constantly are worried about how we're portrayed and regarded online.

Here's the biggest challenge, all of that. God did not does not care about, Jesus did not die for the online version of you. He will not meet you there. He will only meet with you and who he knows you to be. He loves to meet you there. Don't lose yourself.

Not only that, but he said:

Today, worrying seems to be the universal sign that we care about the world.

Let that sink in for a second, the more worried you are about things, the more woke you are — is kind of the way things are. The more worried you are about things, the more you care about justice.

Now I'm not saying there aren't things that we need to wake up to, there aren't things that we should get involved in, and we should be caring about in all of those things. But I am trying to teach you what Jesus said to his followers who are living in very challenging times as well. “Do not worry about yourself and your life.”

And then, lastly, just to throw this in there, because I'm on a little bit of a rant here. A few years ago, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said of Netflix that their greatest competition is sleep. Are you scared? The greatest competition is sleep. And the lack of sleep can definitely cause us to be more anxious. So whatever there.

All right, so now let's jump into what the Bible says about worry and what Jesus is trying to teach his disciples. I think this is a cohesive argument that Jesus is laying out. And what we're going to do is basically look at this word therefore. Twenty-five starts with the word therefore. In biblical studies, it's real good whenever you see the word therefore, you've got to look and see what it's there for, you know.

So what led up to that moment? Because it's almost like, “Now I'm making my closing argument. All of this evidence presenting, all of these arguments that I've said is all leading up to this closing statement argument,” whatever it is. So I want to look at what Jesus teaches us, where anxiety comes from, because ultimately then we know we can do the opposite.

So first, before the therefore, anxiety happens when we don't understand the blessing of the low and cross like life. If you don't know what I'm talking, we're harkening back to our first teaching on this sermon where Jesus is unpacking the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Come again? “Blessed are those who are persecuted.” Huh?

There is a blurriness to our understanding of those things. But if we will be the ones who continue to walk with Jesus, even into those spaces, we will eventually find that there is a blessing in the low and Christlike life that Jesus himself walked and calls us to follow in his footsteps. If we can't understand that, we will be anxious. No doubt about it.

Anxiety happens when we try to create external forms of righteousness with our hearts, far from God. Sum this up: hypocrisy, hypocrisy. If you are being hypocritical, if you are living two different lives, you are going to be anxious — not because God's mad at you. Because you're creating that, and this is so true. This is so true. You think you might be fooling people. You're not fooling anybody. Definitely not fooling God.

Most of the time, the people who have a little too much of Jesus in them to enjoy the world are miserable and miserable to be with. And then you have the people who have too much world in them to really enjoy Jesus — miserable, miserable to be with. So you're miserable. Everyone knows you're miserable. It's not fun to be around you. It's miserable. So please stop. It's not it's not working.

So that's what causes anxiety. When you're trying to live out external forms of righteousness, when your heart is far from God.

Anxiety happens when we diminish the fact that God is our heavenly Father. And we talked about this last week. Transcendent Abba, the one who holds all of the cosmos together and yet wants you to call him Daddy when you talk to him. That's what Jesus taught. And whenever we get that focus, whenever we start to forget that Jesus wants us to call God ‘Daddy,’ we're going to get more anxious. Did anybody call Jesus Daddy when they prayed last week? That was our assignment, America. Like America's Funniest Home Videos. One person? I'm not raising my hand either, by the way. I forgot to do it too, thought about it one time, but yeah, that's what we're supposed to do.

Anxiety happens when we store up treasures in this life. This is just super hard teaching. Because Jesus said, if you store up treasures in this life, then you got to worry about them because moths and thieves can take them and destroy them. And rust. And so basically, I mean, you think about your bank account right now and if you've got a lot of stored up treasure, however it is or whatever it is, you have to have a conversation with God about this.

I'm not necessarily saying it's wrong to have those things, but Jesus said don't store up treasure in this life. And so you just got to kind of walk that out with him. And maybe you are using it in the right way, maybe or not. I do know that when Jesus met a rich young ruler who was saying, “OK, what should I do?” Jesus told him, “I want you to go sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and come follow me.”

And I think there are those times in our life where Jesus wants us to sell out and know what it feels like to have only him as our security. And if you have never done that, have a conversation with Jesus. And if you need to get rid of all of your massive wealth and possessions, we can take it here, you know? Well, we'll use it in a good way, you know. But if says give it to the poor, then you can just do that too. Just do what he says.

Anxiety will happen when we seek more than one thing. This is the part where Jesus talks about if you have a healthy eye, you'll be full of light. If you have an unhealthy eye, you'll be full of darkness.

The healthy eye is so confusing, but I finally feel like I'm getting it. The word healthy there is singular. You have to have a singular eye. And I think this whole blurry vision thing is really what Jesus is getting at. If you are seeing the kingdom of of of Earth overlaid and prioritized over the kingdom of heaven, everything is going to be blurry and you will be filled with darkness and not know what to do. But if you can get to a place where the kingdom of heaven becomes the priority and overlays the kingdom of this earth, you will have light — a healthy eye. You will have singular vision. You won't be double-minded, like James says, and unstable in all your ways.

Kierkegaard said it this way:

Purity of heart is to will one thing.

And to finally always come back to that place where the whole reason that you have a beat in your heart and breath in your lungs, is so that you could know God and glorify him. If anything else becomes more important to you, here comes the anxiety train. Choo Choo. It doesn't sound like that. It’s like CHOO CHOO! You know, it's much more intense than that or some sort of like grading and chalkboard noise or something.

Anxiety happens when we try and serve something other than God. This is what Jesus said. You cannot serve God and mammon. Again, mammon is money. You know this. And again, Matthew is using all of these illustrations because it's important to him. But mamman is anything you treasure in this life, basically. And the way that that is saying is “You will hate the one and you'll love the other.” So if you think you're pulling it off, you're wrong. If there is anything else that you are seeking above God, you are despising and hating God. You can only serve one master. And if you try and serve anything other than God, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. So that's all what happens before the “therefore.”

Now, after the “therefore,” closing arguments. Jesus says anxiety happens when we care about temporal things more than eternal things. This is where he talks about what you eat, what you drink, what you wear. Those are things that that God knows we have need of, like a father knows you have need of that. But he also knows that some of the things you want aren't in your best interest. And he has the wisdom to withhold those things. It's very frustrating sometimes.

Anxiety also happens when we forget to see how much God cares for us and knows our needs. This is what Jesus says. Look at the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. And he's basically saying, “Look, God cares for them and God doesn't care about them nearly as much as he cares about you.” There is a truth to that. We are the Imago Dei. Made in the image of God. God put his breath in our lungs, not in any other aspect of creation. And he cares deeply for our needs.

He knows exactly what you need today and tomorrow. And he taught us to pray, “Give us today our daily bread.” Don't worry about tomorrow. He knows and he cares

Anxiety happens when we forget that if we take care of God's business, he will take care of ours. And this is the great summation of this whole passage. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things will be added unto you.”

Actually, there's one more. Anxiety happens when we start to worry about tomorrow and not stay present in today.

But that whole summation to “seek first God's righteousness and and his kingdom and all these things will be added to you," — that right there, I mean, it’s everything. And there's a phrase that came out of that that continues to like just stick with me through all my years of walking with Jesus, that if you take care of his business, he'll take care of your business. Who do you want taking care of your business, right? You want the God of the universe taking care of your business. And it's true. This is a promise that Jesus has given: if you will, take care of his business, he will take care of your business.

And basically, the way that came to me as a 17-year-old young man, when I was first deciding what to do with my life, I felt like the Spirit of God visited me and said, “Hey, you want to do life your way? Or do you want to see what I have in store?”

And what was interesting is, I remember in that moment, it wasn't like God was saying like, orthe preacher saying, “If you if you go your way, you will kill everyone and be a murderer or something.” It was basically like, “If you go your way and do things your way, it'll be fine. But do you want to see what I have in store?”

And at that point that's really why I decided I was going to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. I was going to do my best to see what he had in store. And let him take care of everything else. And I can tell you, no doubt about it, in my life, 17 years old, basically like I was aiming at the North Pole, and where I am today, sitting in front of you as a preacher is South Pole. Like I am as far away from where I wanted to b,e thought I should be.

I remember in my senior class having to give a five-minute presentation in front of 12 people. And I, I literally thought I was going to die. And I gave them everything I had and it was like three minutes long. And I thought it was seven hours. Nothing like this, this sounded horrible. Still today. It was funny. I was saying this in first service. I don't know when I first started really being excited about being a pastor because I don't think it's ever happened. I still, when people call me pastor, I'm like, “eww.” Something just like in the back of my neck just squishes. But I can tell you that this is the direction that God was leading me and has led me.

I've literally worked at a church ever since I was 17 years old and never wanted to. I think I can honestly say that. But this is the direction. But when I think of what has been added to me because of the direction that the Lord has led me, I wouldn't trade anything for the world. The places that the Lord has allowed me to go, the people I've met, the seasons. I hate that the good ones end, but they give way to other good ones.

And I'm so thankful to my my daddy in heaven who has allowed me to pretend I'm really taking care of his business. And all the while, he's been taking care of my business. And it doesn't mean everything's been rosy. There's been times where it's been real blurry and I've been mad at my daddy. But if I keep going, eventually clarity comes. And I say, “Oh. I like that. I'm glad you gave me what you wanted, not what I wanted.”

And with all of that together, Jesus comes to us and says, “Hey, little children. Hey, friends, don't worry. Don't be anxious when that stuff comes. Remember all these other things? Remember how close your daddy is? How badly he knows everything you want? How badly he wants to give it to you?”

The way that Romans 8:32, Paul says it:

If he is willing to sacrifice his only son for you, how much more would he will he not freely give you all good things?

That's the kind of love we're dealing with. That he was willing to sacrifice his own son to give you what you needed, that you didn't even know you needed. How will he not give you every good thing? In time, in the right way, in the right form. But he'll give you every good thing.

I'm being haunted by this other phrase by William Carey, who was a missionary who did some crazy things. And he says:

Expect great things from God and attempt great things for God.

And I am one of the people who, I've had enough pain in my life that it is really scary for me to have expectations. Like I'm scared of hope these days. But I love that William Carey was saying, “No, we need to expect great things from God.” And this is not some prosperity gospel: you’re going to get whatever you want. But you can, based on what Jesus taught us here, you can expect great things from God. You might have to hang on for a long time, but you can absolutely, without a doubt, have full assurance of common good if you're following Christ. I dare you to hope.

And lastly, just practically, if you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling worried, this is what Philippians 4:6-7 says:

Don't be anxious about anything…

Echoing Jesus's words.

…but in every situation…

where you feel the worry or the anxiety coming

…through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

That's our part. Through prayer, petition. Remember, prayer is a lot of listening, not just talking. But petition. Tell him what you're going through. But also thanksgiving for all that he's done. If you go through that process, then what the promise is is that the peace of God, which transcends understanding, will come and it will guard your hearts and minds in Christ.

I love that promise — that if we will walk in these steps, if we’ll cast our cares on him, if we’ll through thanksgiving and through petition and through listening, will present this anxiety and worry to the Lord, then what he's going to do is he's going to send his peace to transcend. It's not even going to stop here. It's just going to go straight past our understanding and set up a defense for our hearts and for our minds, so that the anxious world around us can't get in, and we can become like Jesus, these non-anxious presences.

Every single where we go in our own homes, in our workplaces, and it will be such a bizarre, foreign thing to the people around you when you're able to pass on to them something besides worry and anxiety as a believer in Christ, who holds to his promises.

Let's pray. And just so you know, you don't have to wait for me to say anything after I say, “Let's pray.” That's full freedom for you to begin to listen to your Father in heaven — your daddy — to call him Daddy, to present your petitions. But also remember to thank him.

And Lord, as we present our petitions and needs and couple it with thanksgiving, I do pray that, supernaturally, your Spirit right now would impart peace — your perfect peace, your powerful peace to come right now and chase away any anxiousness or any worry and to set up a beautiful defense over our hearts and minds. I pray for those who've been anxious every day of their life, that right now, Lord, your Spirit would do a work, that they would wake up tomorrow and they would live their first day anxiety-free.

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Guest User 11/3/20 Guest User 11/3/20

Abiding = Lasting a Long Time

November 1, 2020 - David Stockton

Good morning. Welcome everybody online. I feel like I want to extent more welcomes. Welcome to all the Democrats. Welcome to all the Republicans. Welcome to everybody who’s not claiming either. Welcome to the rich. Welcome to the poor. Welcome to the black, the white, the brown, whatever it might be. Welcome to all those who identify male or female. Welcome to all those who are confused about that. Welcome to all those with different sexual preferences. Welcome to everyone. We’re going to sit here and we’re going to listen to the words of Jesus and everyone is invited to the table.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you identify as at all. If you have anything in you that ever want you to come and sit at the feet of Jesus, you are welcome. Please hear what Jesus would say. “Anyone can come. All who come. Anyone who calls out to his name can be saved.” And the rest of us here, we’re with you. It’s not like we’ve crossed over to the other side. We’re still just sinners in need of a Savior. We’re still just doing our best to continue to hear the words of Jesus and let them do its work in our hearts, so that we can walk maybe a little bit different each day. A little bit better each day. A little bit more like Jesus each day. That’s the whole thing that we’re doing.

So all are welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you for tuning in online. That’s what we’re going to do.

As we were praying downstairs before we came up, I don’t know why, I like watching college football on Saturday. But my family got in the way big time yesterday. And maybe the football gets in the way of my family sometimes, so, it’s funny to hear me say that out loud at church while I’m about to preach. Anyway, my family got in the way of all of my plans to watch college football yesterday. But still, as we were downstairs praying, and Ryan was leading us, and we were kind of waiting to see what the Lord might be speaking to our hearts, or us as a group, I just had this picture of a wide receiver going down the sidelines and just running as fast as he can, and just putting his hands up like this. I saw this last week because I didn’t get to watch it this week. I can’t even remember who it was, but the quarterback put the ball so perfectly, as the guy was running, he put his hands like this, and his head like this, and he didn’t even really see the ball, and the ball just went right in his hands, and then he fell in the end zone. And it was a touchdown. And everyone was cheering for him. And what did he do? He kept running and he kept his hands up. He kept running and he kept his hands up.

So often we feel like we’re the quarterback of our life. And we’ve got to make the call, make the play, make the pass and it’s got to be perfect if anything’s going to move forward at all. But I just felt the Lord’s message for us today is “keep running and keep your hands up.” Keep running and keep your hands up and you’re going to see what the Lord has for you, fall into place at the right time if you can do that.

Before we jump into John 15,—it was Halloween last night. Anybody have fun? Anybody got a toothache, maybe? It’s election week this week. Yeah. At the beginning of the year—I wrote about this in my weekly email—at the beginning of the year, I really thought it was so funny to be in a crowd of people, like, we’re getting ready to play a basketball game and everybody’s got their team set up and I’d be like, “What’s up election year?” And I’d just say that and everybody would laugh and kind of roll their eyes. It was just kind of a funny thing to say. But it’s not funny anymore. You say election year and people are like, they want to fight you. So anyway. That’s happening on Tuesday, in case you didn’t know.

On Wednesday night we’ve been doing Fam Nights. Even though COVID is still a real thing, we’ve been taking real calculated steps forward, feeling like it’s the church’s job to lead people back to each other. So we’ve been taking real calculated, small, super-respectful steps going forward as a church. We’ve been meeting in person for four months. That’s not something we did with a lot of excitement and courage and faith. We just said, “Okay, well, we feel like at this point maybe we can get some people together for prayer.” So we did that for two months. And we’ve just continued to march on.

One of the next steps we’ve taken is we’ve done these Fam Nights. So on Wednesday nights, we’ve done two of them now. We meet together outside int eh Courtyard and we have a meal together. It’s been really wonderful to get to know a lot of new people that are coming to that. And then we come in here and we’ve been focusing on evangelism. Which again, is not a very popular topic anywhere ever. But it’s been really neat because we’ve had hundreds of people joining us in person and online to join us for these times as we’re just saying, “Okay, God, we want to say yes to whatever you want to do. And right now we’re feeling you want to equip us, encourage us, inspire us in order to share who you are with the people around us, especially as they’re getting shaken.”

So we’re going through that process. We’re getting some methodology. We’re getting some stories and testimonies, and you guys, I mean, I’m getting emails from people, I’m talking with people all the time who are sharing Christ with people and they are giving their lives to Christ. Literally, I’d probably say twenty in the last week I’ve heard of, of people in our church who are sharing, and people who are responding. It’s just been beautiful to see already and we’ve got three more of these Wednesday nights to go.

In fact, this Wednesday night’s going to be a little different. This Wednesday night we’re going to focus on intercession and worship. We felt like in light of whatever happens Tuesday and whatever we know by Wednesday night, or don’t know, we just want to come in here and rejoice that Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords and his purposes and intentions cannot fail and will not fail and never have for even one second.

So we’re just going to worship Jesus as the King and we’re going to really intercede on behalf of our nation and the people we know who don’t know Jesus in that place. So feel free to come get some food. You can register online. If the number starts getting too high then we might have to cut off the registration. So don’t delay. Don’t get cut off. The only reason we would do that is to honor COVID social distancing and all that.

(Skipping another announcement here.)

John chapter 15. We’re going to get three really important concepts, Kingdom of heaven concepts. Jesus, again, is in the last week of his life. He’s in the last kind of group time with his disciples. He’s trying to impart something very, very important to them. In John 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, which is kind of this last hurrah, this last message of Jesus before he goes to the cross and he gets crucified and he goes away for a couple days, then he resurrects and he kind of just pops in and pops out and his disciples are just totally freaked out and confused about what’s happening their lives. So this is Jesus’ kind of final messages there. It’s very important. He’s giving them in this chapter some really important principles to help understand who he is and what his kingdom is all about.

If you wanted to know what the Stockton kingdom is all about. Me and my brothers, there are three of us. We’re all Stocktons and for some reason we only produced girls. So the Stockton name is in jeopardy for sure. If you want to know about Stocktons there are three things you’ll find out real quick. Everyone who knows my family, not just me, would laugh when they hear these things. There are three things to help you understand what Stocktons are all about: Rules are made to be outsmarted. Some people would say rules don’t apply to them. That’s what they think. No. It’s actually the rule is a challenge to us to see how we can get around it by actually fulfilling it but doing what we want at the same time.

The second one is: Being on time is not as important as getting a lot of things done on the way. So some people think we just don’t care about being on time. We do. We really want to be on time. But we also care about getting seventeen things done on the way there. So it makes it tough.

And then, the last thing is: Sadness requires a lot of food. That’s a big time Stockton trait. When a Stockton goes down to the hospital, whatever it might be, you can be sure there will be way too much and it will not be good for you.

Anyway, that’s the Stockton kingdom. You should not care about that at all. Because it will do you no good in any way. But Jesus’ kingdom is a whole ‘nother story.

John 15. Jesus says:

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

In this section right here, we have two really important kingdom principles. If you don’t know God, if you don’t believe in God, if you don’t know Jesus or follow Jesus, no problem. You’re welcome to listen and to be in this place. But a lot of times, as Christians, we’ll say things that don’t make a lot of sense to people. In the Christian community, you’ll be like, “Are you bearing fruit? Are you bearing good fruit?” And people will be like, “What are you talking about? That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard someone say.”

But it’s such an important kingdom principle. This idea of bearing fruit. You’ll hear it all the time in Christianity. And this other thing is remaining. So this word abiding or persevering or enduring, this is where Jesus is saying, “You must remain in me and I in you. My words must remain in you.” There’s this remaining.

These are two principles that Jesus is imparting to his disciples on this last time with them. “You’ve got to remember. Your life is supposed to bear good fruit. And the way that you’re gong to bear good fruit is if you remain in me and my words remain in you.”

So I want to talk to us about this bearing fruit, because Jesus is making a claim that your life, your breath, your heartbeat, your body, your brain, your skills, whatever it is that you have, has been given to you by God so that you will bear fruit. If you are not bearing fruit, you will be cut off and thrown away into the fire.

We’re just reading black and white words that have seemingly been dead for a long time. But this is Jesus—God in the flesh—full of the love that created everything, but also full of a wrath against sin that created hell. In God we have the fullness of love and every single drop of love that we have ever felt or given as humanity pales in comparison. It’s just a shadow of the reality of the fullness of God’s perfect, powerful love.

Yet, at the same time, God is also a God of wrath, according to the Bible. God hates. God is angry. God punishes. What does he do? He punishes sin. He hates sin. He hates what it does to a family, to a person, to children. He hates what it does between nation and nation. He hates the way it warps a mind and destroys people. He hates it with a passion, with a fervency. And here we have this, in just these simple words, Jesus is basically saying, “Look. If you will remain in me, you’ll experience my love. And if you don’t bear fruit, disciples, please hear me, I’m going away. You need to understand something. If your life does not bear fruit, you will be cut off. You will lose whatever you have experienced between you and me right now if you do not remain in me. If your life does not bear fruit, you will be cut off.”

And Judas is in the room. Judas is sitting there, hearing the words of Jesus enter into his ear. And these are not new words. Judas has heard these long before. But Jesus is pleading with his disciples to bear fruit, to remind in him so their lives can bear fruit. And this is not a new thing. In fact, what we’re experiencing in John 15 is Jesus, most likely, is in the garden of Gethsemane. In chapter 14, remember, it says, “Come, let us leave.” That’s the way chapter 14 ends. And they were probably having their last supper there where Jesus washed their feet and imparted to them, “This is my body, this is my blood.” But after chapter 14, when he talks about he Holy Spirit, he says, “Come, let us leave.” And where they went was the garden of Gethsemane.

In that garden, Jesus is basically making these appeals to them. In John 16, he again talked about the Spirit. In John 17 he prays. Basically, what we have is we have Jesus kind of bringing in this garden concept as he’s in this olive garden, where they would take the olives and they would press them and make oil. In some ways, you have Jesus speaking to them about this need for them to bear fruit in this garden of pressing. And it makes someone who’s Jewish, someone who’s a biblical reader, harken back to that other garden, the way it all began—the garden of Eden. The word Eden means paradise. The word Gethsemane means pressing.

In the beginning, when God made humanity, God made humanity to be fruitful. That was his command to them: “Adam and Eve, I’m giving you this paradise. I’m giving you everything you could ever need. And I want you to be fruitful and multiply. I want you to take this garden-like experience that we have together, where my presence rules and reigns, and I want you to go and garden the rest of the earth.”

This is the claim that God had on creation from the very beginning, that they were to bear fruit. I want to read this to you:

God has made a claim on your life. He really feels like he can tell you whatever he wants you to do, and you should do it. He has a claim on your life. And here’s why. His claim first on you is because you are his creation. He created you and I to know him and enjoy his present forever. He created us to take the Garden of Eden and spread it over the whole earth, spreading everything with his image and his presence. But instead of responding well to this claim, we humans, Adam and Eve, and us too, we decided that we wanted to be equal to the Creator and to be in control of our own destiny. We wanted the other aspects of creation to serve us. So we ate forbidden fruit and we continue to do so today. Because of this, we experience, just like Adam and Eve, separation from God and the garden now has thorns. We are now slaves to sin, death and the devil, who ruled over mankind.

Basically God claimed us for his own. He made us. He said, “You’re mine. You belong to me. And I’m going to care for you. I’m going to give you my presence. I’m going to give you purpose and intention. And I want you to do this. I want you to go and take this relationship, I want you to take this dominion that I’ve given you, this presence, this image, you’re made in my image and I want you to go and spread it over the whole earth, so all of the earth can be a garden.”

And right at the beginning, Adam and Eve decided, “Well, we actually want that to be for us.”And basically that’s been humanity’s problem ever since. Instead of using all that we have to worship the Creator, we now have tried to make creation serve us as if we were the creator. And in doing so, the wage of sin is death. The wage of sin is slavery. And humanity has fallen under a curse, the curse of sin and death, and the dominion has been passed over to the devil. That’s why, when the devil came to Jesus and said, “I’ll give you all the kingdoms of this world if you bow to me,” Jesus didn’t say, “Hey, you can’t do that.” Jesus knows that humanity passed that on. We had been given dominion and we handed that over. So now we live under this bondage, under this slavery. Yet, God’s claim doesn’t stop there.

God’s second claim on you and me came at the appointed time when God sent his Son on a rescue mission. Jesus became human and carried out God’s plan perfectly. He spread God’s garden everywhere he went. He carried God’s image and presence into the world like we were supposed to. And then, in order to purchase us back for God, he took on sin, death, and the devil on the cross. And the whole of creation held its breath until that third day when he rose again, triumphant, proving his sacrifice was enough.

He ransomed creation back to God. He gained dominion back from the devil. In Acts 3 says, and now he’s seated at the right hand of the Father until the next appointed time, where he comes and he claims all of creation for his own and he restores everything. God has made claim on your life. In the beginning he created you, so he had claim on you. This is the way John says it in a later book.

1 John 4:4 he says, “You belong to God, my dear children.”

He says in Revelation 5:9, “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll,’” [which is that dominion, that titled deed to the earth], “and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood, you ransomed people for God from every tribe, every language, every people, every nation…” every Republican, every Democrat. He ransomed everybody. He put a claim on their life that they belong to him. And he did it with his blood.

Paul picks up the same theme and says in 1 Corinthians 7:23, “You were bought with a price. Do not become slaves to men.”

And then in 1 Corinthians 6, he says, “You are not alone. You were bought at a price; therefore honor God with your bodies.”

You guys, we have been purchased. We have been created, if that wasn’t enough of a claim, Jesus didn’t want us to see us under bondage. So he came and purchased us back with his blood and he says to us once again, “I want you to be fruitful. I want you to bear fruit. I want you to go into this world and bear fruit. I want you to once again pick up the job that I had given Adam.”

Tim Keller, when he’s writing about this claim that God has and this concept of bearing fruit, and what God’s job for Adam and Eve and all of creation is, he says this:

God wants us to be rearranging the raw material of his creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people in particular, thrive and flourish.

It’s so interesting because this is ultimately what God has done. He wants us to be gardeners. He wants us to take the creation that we have dominion over and use it not to serve ourselves, not to build our own kingdoms, not to fill our bank accounts, not to increase our status in this world; but he wants us to do it so that we can create human flourishing. That really is the role of government. That is the role of politics. That’s what politicians, I would like to think, really got into the business for. To create the most amount of human flourishing for the most amount of humans. But because we’re broken people, because we’re sinners yet to be completely renewed, somehow it gets twisted in there. And we fall into the same old traps and end up wanting all of creation to serve what we really want, our political party, our interests, America vs. others. Whatever it might be.

But God’s claim upon our life is that we would take everything there is in creation, everything that is at our disposal, and we would use it to the best, use it to produce the most amount of human flourishing in the world.

When you look at Jesus’ life, what he did is he did his best to take care of the ones that God had given him. And it wasn’t everybody in the world. It was the twelve. It was the hundred and twenty. It was the Samaritan woman. It was the person who couldn’t walk. He gave them a taste of who God was. He did his best to care for them.

And God has given people to you. In your family, maybe, in your workplace, friends, whatever. He’s given you resources and you’re supposed to use those to make as much human flourishing as you can. And watch out for using it all to try to improve your situation alone.

John Mark Comer writes a book called Garden City. And he says it this way:

Our job is to make the invisible God visible—to mirror and mimic what he is like to the world. We can glorify God by doing our work in such a way that we make the invisible God visible by what we do and how we do it. You were made to do good—to mirror and mimic what God is like to the world. To stand at the interface between the Creator and his creation, implementing God’s creative, generous blessing over all the earth and giving voice to the creation’s worship.

I love that. This is what bearing fruit looks like. It’s a claim that God put upon creation, put upon humanity in the garden when it was paradise, and it’s the claim that Jesus Christ is not reinstating to his disciples in the garden that is named “pressing”—that we are to bear fruit. We are not just to receive what God has and be like, “Yeah. That’s awesome.” We’re supposed to receive in order to give. Our lives are to bear fruit.

Not only are we supposed to bear fruit, but God does care what kind of fruit. It’s supposed to be good fruit. It’s supposed to be fruit that remains. You can look at Galatians 5, where the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, meekness, gentleness and self-control. Self-control? How did that sneak in there? The rest of them sound great but that one’s “what?” But that’s a fruit of the Spirit—self-control.

So that’s the first principle. The second principle is remaining. How do we remain? We want to bear good fruit. Jesus said, “If you remain in me, you’ll bear good fruit.” So what is remaining like? Psalm 1 describes what remaining looks like for the life of a believer:

Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.

This is what it looks like to remain. It has two things. One, it is to point yourself to direct your attention and affection, to direct your time and energy into your relationship with God, into your relationship with Jesus. But it also means to steer clear of other things. Sometimes we’re so confused why God doesn’t bless us, or we don’t feel good about it, because we’ve got so much of Jesus we can’t enjoy the world, and we’ve got so much of the world we can’t enjoy Jesus. And then we blame God and get mad at him, because we’re not seeing the fruit that we want to see.

I really believe the Church is being called to some sort of serious consecration right now. I don’t fully understand it, but we’re going to spend the whole month of January fasting and praying to try to get a deeper understanding of it as a church. But to remain in Jesus is to cease to remain in other things. We’ve got to understand that.

Romans 12 (MSG) kind of says the same thing:

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

One of the fruits that we’re supposed to have is maturity. We’re not tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine that comes. There’s a steadiness to our walk. Unlike Peter that, one day was saying, “Jesus, you’re the Christ,” and the very next moment Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan.”

But Peter, after he was filled with the Spirit and was walking in the presence in the book of Acts, there’s just a steadiness to his walk. God’s trying to produce that in us. How he does that is by us not becoming so ingrained with the culture that we live in, but fixing our attention on God.

Another fruit that we can look for is that we’re actually able to know the will of God, and we have a desire to do the will of God. The way that happens is by coming out of the culture that we live in. To be in the world, yes, but not of the world. And figuring out what that consecration looks like for you.

Hebrews 12:1-2 (NASB):

Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking only at Jesus, the originator and perfecter of the faith,

He’s the author and perfecter of our business. He’s the author and perfecter of our bank account. He’s the author and perfecter of our politics. He’s the author and perfecter of that car we’re trying to restore. He’s the author and perfecter of our relationships. He’s the author and perfecter of my physical body. Whatever it might be. I don’t know. We want God to author and perfect a lot of things. But what he’s really interested in is your faith. That’s what his business is. He’s trying to create in you this beautiful thing called faith, which actually results in the salvation of your soul forevermore. That’s what he’s trying to create. And, actually, all of your life, everything you have and don’t have is ultimately God trying to grow that thing into something beautiful and precious—something that can endure and last.

And again, how we do this, how that fruit is produced in us, the kind of faith that we want to have, is by laying aside all the weight and the sin. When I first heard this verse, I remember just thinking, “Whoa.” Because it’s hard enough just trying to get the sin out of my life. But he said the weight and the sin. There’s a bunch of stuff in this world that is just baggage. It’s not necessarily sin. But if you continue to play around with it, if you continue to allow it in your life, it’s going to weigh you down.

And, yes, you can justify it. It’s not sin. But it’s stupid for you to keep carrying that around and allowing that into your life. And his name might be George. Or I don’t know. I’m sorry if that hit home or whatever. I’m not thinking… there’s no…yeah. But sometimes we allow things into our life that are just there and those things have got to go if you’re really going to get serious about Jesus.

So this is remaining. I want you to understand that remaining isn’t just focusing on the good things. It’s also eliminating the weight and the sin.

I love this. Jon Foreman writes a song and he says this, talking about the challenge of remaining. I love the way he puts it.

All attempts have failed
All my heads are tails
She’s got teary eyes
I’ve got reasons why
I’m losing ground and gaining speed
I’ve lost myself or most of me
I’m ready for the final precipice
But [Jesus] you haven’t lost me yet
No, you haven’t lost me yet
I’ll sing until my heart caves in
No, you haven’t lost me

He’s feeling the pressing of this garden of Gethsemane. He’s feeling the reality of the thorns and the bondage. But he’s hanging on by faith that he belongs to Jesus. And that’s where he wants to remain.

These days pass me by
I dream with open eyes
Nightmares haunt my days
Visions blur my nights
I’m so confused what’s true or false
What’s fact or fiction after all
I feel like I’m an apparition’s pet
But you haven’t lost me yet

Then, to get us into this next principle, he says:

If it doesn’t break your heart
It isn’t love
If it doesn’t break your heart
It’s not enough
It’s when you’re breaking down
With your insides coming out
It’s when you find out
What you heart is made up of

And ultimately, what he’s describing there is love. And that’s the third thing that we see here. Let’s keep reading in John 15:9:

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

Jesus now wraps this whole thing in love.

Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

Here at the end Jesus is saying, “You have not chosen me. I have chosen you. I have laid claim on your life that you might go and bear fruit.” And what is the fruit, ultimately, that Jesus and his Father are looking for to come out of our lives? Love. It’s love. That word in the English language can go a billion different ways these days. The Hallmark Channel is one version. Valentine’s Day is another version. The hip hop songs another version. The country songs, I guess, another version. There are all kinds of versions out there.

The love that Jesus is talking about, he defines real quickly after he says this. He says, “My command is this. Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The love of God is sacrificial love. It’s the kind of love that Jon Foreman said in his little bridge there. “If it doesn’t break your heart it isn’t love. If doesn’t break your heart it’s not enough. It’s when you’re breaking down with your insides coming out. That’s when you find out what your heart is made of” —what your love is made of.

That’s the kind of love that God is calling us to. That’s the fruit that he’s trying to produce in our lives. Love that is sacrificial. It is outward. It is without strings attached. It is without the need of reciprocation. It won’t improve our status in this world. If you read the next little section, but we don’t have time to, Jesus again reiterates to his disciples, “If you get everything right, if you love me really well, if you love the world really well, if you love them just the way I did, they’re going to hate you and they’re going to want to kill you. Because that’s what they did with me.”

But he says, “But there will be some that will receive it. There will be some that will receive it and they will get to know my love.”

This is the kind of love that Jesus is calling us to, and also in there he’s saying, “You have not chosen me. I have chosen you.” He’s saying that this isn’t the kind of love that you love people, you love one another, you love them so that you can get the love back. He’s saying that you need to cut that kind of love completely out of your mind. The reason I’m asking you to love is because I have loved you. That is the motivation for our love.

Therefore, it doesn’t matter what the other person does that God is calling us to love. It doesn’t matter if that person hates us or is an enemy, right? We love them because of the supply of love that we get from God. So, ultimately, what happens here is both bearing fruit—the fruit that God wants us to bear is loving one another. But then how do we remain? He says, “If you remain in me, keep my command.” What’s his command? To love one another.

So if you want more of the love-one-another fruit in your life, you’re supposed to love one another. And if you want to know how to get more of the fruit of loving one another, you’ve got to remain in him, which is really just to love one another. And that’s why he says all the prophets are fulfilled in these two things, you love God and you love people.

What we need work on, is we need work on our love, so our love can be the kind of fruit that God produces. Not the kind of love that our own strength, our own culture produces. Because it’s a very ugly fruit that doesn’t remain and doesn’t really satisfy anyone.

NOTE: We apologize that technical issues caused this sermon to end abruptly.

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Guest User 10/25/20 Guest User 10/25/20

Anxiety and Jesus

John 14 is where we’re going to be. Last week we got to hear from Marty on John 13, which was good stuff. Secret agents of service. And here we go. John 14:1. Jesus is speaking to his disciples. It’s the last week of his life. This is his last training session with them. It’s very intimate. He just washed their feet. And then he says to them:

October 25 - David Stockton - John 14

1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
5 Thomas [who had been with Jesus for three years now] said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus [after probably a real long sigh, fighting off too much discouragement and disappointment] answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

As Jesus has, again, been with his disciples, he knows his time is just about coming to an end, where he’s going to leave them. Basically the training he has done in this way is going to stop. And they’ve seen him do so many things, they’ve committed their lives to him, no doubt. He’s taught them time and time again about who he was. And you and I have been going through the book of John. John is writing this whole book, this whole story, this whole testimony (in some ways), to help people know who Jesus really is; so that they will put their belief in him, they will put their trust in him. They will no longer put their confidence in the Greco-Roman world in Roman citizenship. They won’t put their confidence in Roman government. They won’t put their confidence in whatever resource they have. They won’t put their confidence in their own strength, or their own wisdom. But they’ll learn to put their trust in this small town Jewish Messiah named Jesus.

This is what John is writing all of these stories to do. And he started by basically saying “I want to tell you the story of how I came to put my confidence in him.” And he tells us a story in John 2 about how Jesus had called him and some other guys and they all went to this wedding. At the wedding they ran out of wine and Jesus, who was this teacher Messiah, turned a whole bunch of water into wine and it tasted really good. It was like really good wine. And John was like, “That was the beginning. That was the first sign.”

John gives us seven signs. Basically “There were seven things that Jesus did when I was with him that made me so convinced that this guy was more than just a guy. This guy was more than just a teacher or a prophet.” More than just his understanding of Messiah before meeting Jesus. He really put his faith in Jesus, that he was the one who made the universe and had all the power and authority—who was God himself. The guy that he hung out with. It’s fascinating.

That was the first sign. Then we know there was another sign in John chapter 8 when Jesus fed the five thousand. After that, all these five thousand men came and grabbed Jesus and they tried to make him king by force. And Jesus went away from them. He disappointed them. He said he wasn’t going to build a kingdom that they wanted, a kingdom of this world. And then you just see after that, John 9, 10, 11, 12, there’s all this debate about Jesus. There are people on one spectrum saying, “We should kill this guy. He’s a cancer.” To people on the other side saying, “He might just be God himself walking around with us.” And everywhere in between.

Now he’s sitting in John 14. He’s just washed his disciples’ feet. He knows the time is coming when he’s going to die. And he’s saying to them, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Don’t put your confidence in the strength of the trouble. Don’t put your confidence in the power of the storm. Put your confidence in me. Put your confidence in what I can do to stop a storm or make things better, even through the devastation of the storm. You’ve got to learn to put your confidence in me.”

He’s telling them this because he knows what they’re about to go through. Then he says, “I’m going to prepare a place for you. And when I go, I’ll come back and I’ll take you to be where I am.”

And then Thomas is like, “Where are you going? What’s happening?”

It’s like he just woke up. It’s like he hasn’t been paying attention at all. Jesus is like, “I am the way. You know the way. I am the way. You follow me. You connect with me. You stick with me. You believe in me and you’re going to get to see the full revelation of all that God has for you. The Father has such good plans for you. If you stick with me, if you follow my ways, you will get to see all of them.”

And Philip says, “Oh, you’re going to show us the Father.”

Jesus is like, “Philip! I’ve been with you all this time. How many times do I have to use the word Yahweh when talking about myself? How many times do I have to say I am Him.”

That’s what John said. Seven times also there are these I Am statements where Jesus is claiming to be God in a very blasphemous, difficult, challenging way. The people wanted to kill him because he kept making these blames. It’s not blasphemy because it was true. He said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. If you get me, you get it all.”

And he goes on to explain that some more. That’s one of the reasons he’s saying, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” And if you skip down to verse 15, Jesus goes on and says:

15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

So then he goes on to say, basically, “This is not working out so well. You guys are not quite getting it. But don’t worry. If you love me, just keep following my commandments and the Father is going to send one to you that, after I leave, he’s going to send another.” And the word in the NIV is Advocate. But in the King James it’s Comforter. There’s kind of a wide definition of this. In John 16, we’ll get into a more full explanation of who this Holy Spirit is and what he does. But for now, basically Jesus is saying, “I’m not going to stress out right now. I’m not going to let my heart be troubled at your ineptitude and your challenge to understanding this. Because I know that it’s not just that you have to get it right now. God is going to give you a guide that the Spirit of God is going to come and reside with you. He’s been with you, but he’s going to be in you to help you navigate, to lead you into all truth.”

He goes on in verse 25:

25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid is probably the number one command in the Bible, because fear and faith can’t coexist. God is trying to create a people of faith and so he constantly has to tell us, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid.” When fear starts to rise in your life, you need to understand that faith is going down. You can’t be full of faith and full of fear at the same time.

If you’ve sensed in your soul, when things get quiet and you’re face to face with your own thoughts, with your own soul, and you feel like fear is rising and winning the day, you need to know that faith is being regressed. And it’s time to take that seriously. It doesn’t mean you won’t be afraid. But don’t stay there. Do something about it. Make a change.

And Jesus is saying, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Do not be afraid.” And then he goes on:

28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, 31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

“Come now; let us leave.

The last thing he says here, he goes on to say, “The Advocate is coming. The Comforter is coming. He’s goin gto guide you. He’s going to lead you.” And then he says, “I’m going away. I’ve told you that before. I’m going to the Father. I told you before it happens so that when you get to see all these things happen you will believe. You need to understand the prince of the world is coming and he has no hold over me. But what he’s going to do is going to help you understand that I love the Father and the Father loves me.”

Obviously he’s talking about what’s gong to happen in just a couple more chapters, where the devil is going to enter into Judas Iscariot and he’s going to go behind the scenes and create this plot to have Jesus arrested. Jesus is going to be there in the Garden of Gethsemane, doing battle with the devil, the tempter, and then somehow the power of the devil is going to basically insight the Jewish leaders as well as the Roman leaders, and they are actually going to bring about the crucifixion of Jesus. Where the very people that he created, that he came to die for, that he loved, that he healed, are going to spit on him and mock him and pin him to a tree and laugh as he takes his final breaths.

They’re going to see the full power of the prince of the world deal devastating blows of death. The full power of sin and death, like we’ve been talking about, will be on display for the whole world to see. The sun is going to go dark at the noon hour and everyone is going to think, “See how powerful sin and death is? Jesus claimed to be the way, the truth and the life. He claimed to be able to take us there. And now, look. Sin and death has got him too.”

And Jesus is saying, “You need to see that the prince of this world is coming, but you also need to see that he has no hold on me.”

And, sure enough, Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, Sunday morning. You guys know the story. The disciples got to see that the prince of the world, the power of sin and death had no hold on him. And he was excited about that, even though he knew what he was going to have to go through. He knew what it was going to mean to them.

So, in this chapter, we have Jesus making it very clear that he doesn’t want our hearts to be troubled. The world troubled there is probably better distressed. The word anxiety is in there, for sure. He doesn’t want us to be fearful. He doesn’t want us to be anxious. How are you doing at that? Everybody doing good? No anxiety? Not worried at all? Actually, the election sounds awesome to you. You’re so pumped about it. Yeah? COVID? “That’s been great. I love it. It’s so awesome.” Racial unrest? “Oh, yeah. Got that perfect too. No problem. I know exactly how to make everything better all the time. “

No! It’s not good. I mean, it’s a tough time. It’s a very tough time and I get to hear all the stories. And I get to see all the things that are happening in our church. I will say that I am so impressed with Living Streams. I have heard story after story of the resilience that you guys possess. I have heard story after story of how you have been able to not let your hearts be troubled through these times, but actually bring about some good—not just for you, but for other people. I’m so impressed. I’m so thrilled.

There’s a study from eh Barna Group that we’ll pop up here. They said they interviewed all these people. 90% of people in America say that they’re Christian. It’s like. That’s amazing. That’s awesome. It’s not true. So what they did is they took that word Christian and they asked enough questions to figure out how to differentiate between different types of Christians. These are the four different types of Christians that they’ve discovered.

Out of that 90%, 22% of them basically were saying that they’re Christian because they were at some point and now they’re not. But that wasn’t the way they answered the question. They basically said, “Yeah, I have some sort of Christian in my background, so I’m Christian.” But obviously they’re not doing anything Christian at this point.

30% they called nomads. These are people that have had a church experience. They’re not against Christianity. They went there on Easter or Christmas, and they’re like, “Yeah, I’m cool with Christmas. So I’m a Christian. They’re not locked in. They’re nomads.

They’ve got the habitual churchgoers. Uh-oh. Starting to meddle a little bit. These are the people that do all the Christian things, like church, trying to be a nice person, but there’s no real relationship with God. And if you take away something like meeting together on Sunday mornings and the church habit that they’re used to, they come unglued. The wheels come off. All kinds of stuff goes on.

And then you’ve got the 10% that they define as resilient. These are the ones that it doesn’t matter what you do to them. Their relationship with Jesus is real. It is their source for life, peace, joy, and guidance. And I’ve seen a lot of resilient Christians in our church.

There’s a police officer in our church. I remember talking to him a couple of months ago when things were really intense. I said, “How are things down at the precinct?”

He said, “It’s not good. It’s not good at all. I’ve never seen such a group of people in such despair. They all used to have this kind of a little bit of ‘I feel good that we’re doing this. We’re helping people.’ And now they’re just so ashamed of what they do and they’re so nervous.”

So I said, “How’s it been for you?”

And he said, “Honestly. It’s been a really great environment for me. I just go there and I’m full of peace and people are asking me all the time where it’s coming from. ‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you so relaxed?’”

And he gets to tell them about Jesus.

I was talking with people who have lost jobs or lost health. I’m so impressed with the way that they kind of keep their head up. You can see that they’re hurting. But they’re not keeping their head up because of pride. They’re keeping their head up because they believe. They’re saying, “I have confidence that this is a really hard thing. But I have a greater confidence that somehow I’m going to see God come through. And he’s going to come through in a way that makes me want to keep walking and keep my head up.”

I’ve seen some of them actually land new jobs that are better than what they had before. And I’ve seen some of them come out of the health thing and they have a new trajectory for their life, and they actually feel like God met them in the midst of that illness. I’ve seen all kinds of things. I’ve seen hundreds of people show up for evangelism teaching. What? I’m sure we could have thrown some other topics out there and had a whole bunch of other people. But we’re not actually trying to draw a big crowd, so it is a little bit strategic. But still, we had a bunch of you show up to learn about evangelism. It’s just beautiful.

I hear about all these prayer meetings meeting in parks. And moms getting together to pray for their kids. That’s resilience. That’s showing up in the midst of the challenge. It’s been beautiful. It’s awesome to watch. I’m so proud of you guys.

In this passage, we have Jesus giving us three reasons why we should not let our hearts be troubled. He doesn’t just say “Do it.” But he says, “Here’s why.” As we go through, we’ll see three of them.

The first one, he says, “Don’t let your heart be troubled because I’m going to prepare a place for you. Then I’m going to come back and take you there.” This is a big deal. The reality of heaven. You can’t forget about this. As Christians, we get so focused on this life that we forget that one of the greatest promises, one of the only things in our Apostles Creed that has not come to pass yet, is that Jesus is coming back. And we’re almost a little embarrassed to say it or we’re like, “Yeah, Jesus is coming back…” but we don’t want to say it out loud. Because it’s not going to help anybody right now. But that’s not true. The hope of heaven is what makes this life doable.

What I mean by that—I was twenty years old once. I was working at this summer camp and a bunch of us love to play basketball. We were all going to this guy’s house to play basketball on the weekend, because we had weekends off. We were so excited about it. We woke up and it was like 100 degrees outside. When you’re living in Oregon a hundred degrees is like death. For you and me, it’s like, that was yesterday.

We couldn’t get motivated. We couldn’t do it. A couple of guys would go out there and shoot a little bit. It was just so hot. They’d come back in and they were like, “No, I can’t do it. It’s too hot.” But then the mom of my friend came in and said, “Hey, you guys know we have a community swimming pool. You can go jump in there and it should be fun.”

It was interesting. All of a sudden something happened with us. We thought, “Oh.” The idea of having a swimming pool to jump in made us want to go play basketball. So we actually went and played basketball for about three hours. It was a lot of fun. We never stopped because we knew at any minute there was this relief that was coming. There was something afterwards that we could look forward to. So it gave us this rejuvenation to go at it. We even fought each other and everything. We were fired up. And then we went and got the relief.

That is a true reality. That is not shallow. That’s not cheap. That is a reality. For Christians, this is as bad as it gets, this life. We have a hope in heaven and it’s hard for us to really understand heaven because it doesn’t seem real to us. But the truth of the scriptures is that heaven is more real than this life. You’ve got seventy or eighty years. Some of you jokers might get to a hundred. But that’s it. It’s gone. It’a vapor, the Bible says. But that’s everlasting. That’s more real than this life. And it is not foolish to put your hope in that. Actually, that’s something that’s going to make you a lot more effective and a lot more alive in this live.

Not only that, but check this out. That was in the morning. We’re driving back to the camp later that day. I’m in my little Nissan pickup truck. Sorry for those at my table talk. I told this story at our evangelism night so they have to hear it again. But it’s a cool story, so you’ll be okay.

We’re driving back and there’s this guy hitchhiking. We’re way out in the sticks because that’s where the camp was. As we’re driving up I just feel like the Lord’s saying, “You should pick this guy up.” And I was like, “I don’t want to pick this guy up.” I had two guys with me and we were going to be on time for the first time ever in my life. They always made fun of me. But I feel like the Lord was telling me. So I stopped and said, “Hey, man, you want to jump in and we’ll take you to where we’re going?” He’s like, “Yeah, that’d be great.”

So we take him down and the whole time we’re just driving, I feel like God’s saying, “This is time to share. This is one of those moments I’m setting up for you. You’ve been praying that you’d have chances to share me with people and I’m giving you one right now.”

It’s not like it’s in my heart. It’s like down here somewhere. I don’t even know what part this is. Maybe my heart is so cold it was not able to get in my heart or something. There was like this wrestling match going on. I don’t know if some of you have ever experienced that before. I just knew I was supposed to share with this guy.

So we got to the part of the camp where we were supposed to turn. I said, “Hey is this far enough or do you have to go further?” He’s like, “Well, my truck’s at the end of the road.”

“End of the road? Great.” So I keep driving and again, just battling this whole thing. We get to the end of the road. There’s his truck. I turned around, getting ready to go back. His truck’s on one side, we’re on this side. I rolled down my window and he’s getting out and I said, “Hey, do you know Jesus?” I mean literally, I was just that flippant. I didn’t even roll my window down the whole way. And I was like, “Hey, do you know Jesus?”

And he was like, “Well, you know.” And I was like, “Here comes the awkward. I knew this was going to happen.”

And he was like, “I just kind of think life is, you’ve got to make the most of it. That’s really all you can do. I’m not really into all of that.”

And I was like, “Really? You think that you just make the most of it and die and that’s it?”

“Yeah.”

I go, “Doesn’t that sound depressing? Isn’t that kind of a bummer? You really think all of this is just a mistake.”

“I don’t know.”

And I said, “Let me tell you a story.” And I told him the basketball story about how the hope of the going swimming made us so much more alive. And he was like, “Okay.” I was like, “You want that hope?” Again, I’m trying to get this overwith so we can go, because I know nothing’s going to happen.

And he didn’t answer. So I looked over at him and he’s standing a little bit away from me. He’s standing there and he just has this look on his face and I go, “You want that hope?” And he goes, “Yeah. I could use some hope.” I was like, I don’t know what to do right now. This has never happened before. So I was like, “Come over here.” I should have gotten out of the car. I didn’t get out of the car. I rolled the window down the rest of the way, so that’s pretty good.

So he came over and I talked to him a little bit more about Jesus and what he did for us, that’s why we can have this hope. I was like, “If you really want that, let’s pray and God can fill you with hope.” So I prayed and he repeated after me and then it was like, “That was cool.”

And then he was walking back to his truck and there was a little spring in his step. And my friends and I were like, “What is happening?” And he walks back. There were two yellow lines in the middle of the street. And as he’s walking back he kind of stops and he looks down and he reaches down and he grabs something and he pulls it up. It looks like it’s stringy like gum or something. And I was like, “Oh, he’s a crazy guy. That’s why this worked. He’s crazy.”

But then he picks it up and starts walking back toward us. His eyes are huge at this point. And he’s like, “Look! Look!” And I was like, “What’s happening?” And he gets next to me and I can see the think is shiny. It’s a gold chain and it has a golden cross with a diamond right in the middle of it. And he was like, “Look! Look!” And I was like, “Oh!” And I told him, “Look man. I don’t know how this has happened. But I think you can know that Jesus is with you. God heard your prayer. And he’s been watching you and he set this moment up. This has nothing to do with me, man. This is all you and God.

And he was like, “Take it.” And I said, “I’m not taking that man. You take that and you keep it.”

And he goes, “Are you guys angels?”

And I was like, “No. Definitely not.”

But that hope is real. And it’s powerful. And we live among a people that just have it. And they can. So that’s the first thing. Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Jesus is coming back to take us to forever. Forever.

The second thing he does here: Don’t let your hearts be troubled because he’s going to give us the Advocate, he’s going to give us the Comforter, He’s going to give us the Spirit of Truth. That Spirit of Truth is not only going to be with us, it’s actually going to be in us and it’s going to teach us everything and lead us into all truth and give us then peace of God. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled because I’m going to give you something. You have access to something that can change everything.”

All right. Second service. We’re going to do a little work right now, okay? I don’t know if you had a hard week. But just shake it off. We’re going to do a little brain work now. I’ve been reading this book, Reappearing Church by Mark Sayers. It’s cool. He says some stuff in here that is pretty amazing. He’s talking about a society that I think really describes ours well. A society of emotionally regressed people. We’re emotionally regressed because we’re so filled with anxiety. The anxiety in our society, the fear in our society has caused us to actually emotionally regress. We’re all acting like two-year-olds throwing temper tantrums right now is kind of what he’s saying. And this is Friedman. He’s not writing right now. He’s writing about twenty or thirty years ago. But the way he describes society and where we’re heading. It’s like, oh yeah.

I’m going to read some of these things. He talks about this cycle, these five things that describe this emotionally regressed society.

The first thing is Reactivity:

The vicious cycle created when individuals and culture continually react intensely to external situations with negative, anxious, angry and fearful emotions. They no longer rely on inner values, common sense or dialogue to help them find truth.

They’re just in this vicious cycle of reactivity. The second thing that he noticed about these societies is that they go to this ting called Herding:

As culture becomes reactive, we begin to act in herdlike ways. The mob mentality takes over. Society lowers itself to pleasing and not offending its most emotionally immature and unhealthy members who end up dictating the health of the culture.

That’s just number two. All right? That’s just number two. Another thing that he described this type of thing happening is Blame Displacement:

Instead of searching out the underlying causes of toxicity, we focus on symptoms. We retreat into a perpetual victim status blaming others and external forces instead of examining ourselves. When blame and fear of offending take over, it creates a gridlock which prevents renewal.

And then we go to this Quick Fix Mentality.

Our culture of Hedonism [which is basically pleasure at all cost—no pain at all cost] has created in us a low pain threshold which prevents us from persevering through the pain that is part of the process of renewal. We look to technology, more commentary, and more information as the cure for our ills.

Oh, by the way, Friedman is a rabbi and he is a family system theorist. Anybody a family system theorist in here? I don’t even know what that is, but it sounds awesome.

And then the last thing that he notices is that there is a Lack of Well Differentiated Leaders:

The anxious environment works against the leadership needed to lead a toxic emotional system to renewal. The inevitable backlash from trying to break free of the emotional reactivity, herding, blame displacement, and quick fix mentalities keep the kind of leaders and leadership needed to bring about renewal.

So you might say, “Okay. I see this in America these days.” And then you might actually say, “Well, if I’m really honest, I see this inside my own soul. I see this in my family. I see this in my friend group or what used to be a friend group but now it’s gotten real thin. Our relationships have gotten thin because we start to see each other as maybe dangerous, or as part of the problem.” And it becomes real serious and it’s easy for our hearts to become troubled or distressed. What Friedman goes on to say is the answer to this, the only way to get out of this vicious cycle is for there to be a non anxious presence introduced into this system. You need a differentiated leader, a kind of leader that is not in the system, a kind of leader that is outside the system, a kind of leader that still relies on those inner values to be able to be inserted into the system. In doing that, it can actually create a pathway to renewal.

And when Jesus says to us, “I’m going to go and you are going to find yourself in a deep, endless cycle of emotional regression and anxiety. I don’t want you to let your heart be troubled because I’m going to give you a non anxious presence that is a differentiated guide. It’s not of this world. It doesn’t depend on things in this world to guide you. That’s the Spirit of God. That’s the Holy Spirit that you and I have access to in Christ Jesus. And you and I do not have access to outside of Christ Jesus.

Jesus said it’s not just going to be one that’s with you, it’s going to be in you. If you and I will receive the Holy Spirit, we will be filled with a non anxious presence, a differentiated kind of guide that can lead us in our own souls, and lead our families, and lead our institutions that we’re a part of. We can be that non anxious presence as we go forward. That’s the mystery and the beauty of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes I get so overwhelmed when I think about politics, when I think about all the systemic problems that we have in America. They’re everywhere. Greed, pride, deceit, stealing and cheating. Those are the main ones. Our country is riddled with those things. We’re actually celebrating those things, rewarding those things at this point.

I get so overwhelmed, but then I remember that what God is asking me to do is just “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. As for me and my own soul, I will serve the Lord. As for me and the institution I’m a part of called Living Streams Church, we will serve the Lord. We will try and, every chance we get, get rid of any corruption, get rid of any compromise so that this can be a place where people can taste what a non anxious presence is like, where people can begin to feel and know that renewal is possible.” If there’s enough little renewal, it will actually show up on the big scene.

America is always talking about top down. But that’s not what we need if we’re going to change this place. We need grass roots. We need bottom up. We need one on one discipleship. We need life groups. We need caring for one another. We need to stand up and defend our own souls, our own homes, our own relationships. That’s what at the church is called to. That’s why God sent his Spirit.

The last thing that Jesus says that we should not let our hearts be troubled is because the prince of this world has no hold on him. And if it has no hold on him, then it has no hold on us. That’s the big debate. That’s the big challenge. Mankind has faced sin and death. Mankind has been cursed with the stain of sin and death. Mankind has never really been able to get free. But then Jesus came and he took on humanity. He took on the curse. He took on sin and death. And just like everybody thought, sin and death once again claimed another victim, until that third day, when Jesus rose from the dead and began to be this first fruits of a new kingdom, of a new creation. And he says, “If you will follow me, if you will keep my commands, if you will allow my non anxious presence to fill your life and to guide you into all truth, then ultimately sin and death will have no hold on you either.”

That is my prayer for all of us, especially those of us in this room who have never really experienced the presence of God, the non-anxious presence of God. You’ve never invited Jesus into your life. You’ve never said, “God, I am stuck and I need you to come set me free.” You can not only receive what Jesus has for you now, but you can receive life forevermore. That’s the promise of the gospel. That’s the only thing that’s going to keep our hearts from becoming troubled not matter what happens with the election, no matter what happens with COVID, no matter what happens with your own relationships and brokenness. If you give your life to Jesus and you receive his Spirit into your life, you’ll find his peace is more powerful than the pain.

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