We're wrapping up Matthew 11 today,
and there is a lot in these few verses
that we're going to go over.
And I'm going to tell you right now.
This is a
tough
section of scripture,
verses 20 through 30 of Matthew 11
is not a section of Scripture.
Pastors preach on on Sunday morning,
especially leading up to Easter.
But one of the things that we value here
at this church is God's infallible word
that we believe it is breathed out by God,
that is inspired, that's profitable
for teaching and correcting, rebuking and training and righteousness.
Every bit of it.
And so we value it, we honor it and we teach it and we study it
every bit of it.
And one of the reasons
why many of you are here, because you know that we don't bypass the tough stuff.
I realize that we like some parts of Scripture on it's
easy to preach to those who grab on those like John 1010,
I came that you might have life and life in all its fullness.
Like, yeah, I love that Jesus.
And there's other passages of Scripture you think,
I don't know that I want to read this
and let alone preach on it,
but we value it.
And so we go right through Scripture and we're in this section of, of Matthew 11.
It's going to be tough
in verses one through 19 of this chapter.
We looked at the doubting disciple,
people who believed, people who had been faithful,
but they got to a place in their life like John the Baptist was in prison,
where you just start thinking, okay, your time out.
Like everything that I thought
I was going to get from God, none of it's panned out.
I don't know if I got this thing wrong
right?
Like, I was hoping I would receive something different from God and
and apparently my agenda, his agenda are two different things.
Did I get it wrong?
That's the first 19 verses.
And now we come to these verses 20 through 30.
And it's not about the doubting disciple.
It's about the person of indifference.
That I've.
I've heard the word, I've heard about Jesus.
I've even seen God act in.
I'm just indifferent at this point.
Tell you right now
that today is not going to be easy, but it's going to be good.
Here's a big idea.
Indifference is not neutrality.
Indifference is subtle.
Opposition and opposition is deadly.
See, the fact that someone might just feel
indifferent towards Christ haven't made up my mind. It.
I'm not sure.
That's not a neutral stance.
According to Scripture.
It's opposition.
It might feel subtle in its opposition.
Like I'm not outright cursing God.
I'm not outright rejecting Jesus.
I'm just.
I just I'm undecided.
The Bible talks about that.
That is opposition.
And please understand Matthew 11.
We're going to talk about it today.
That opposition is deadly.
Matthew 11 frames understand
this frames opposition as inaction.
When I receive from God.
And I remain inactive towards God.
Jesus frames out of Matthew 11
as opposition to God.
Let me just read this whole.
Let me read the whole. Let me read the whole section.
It'll be good just to get a broad view of
of where we're going.
Start in verse 20.
Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty
works had been done, because they did not repent.
Woe to you, cause in woe to you, Bethsaida!
For if the mighty works done, and you had been in tire and Sidon,
they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
But I tell you, it will be more bearable
on the day of judgment for Tire and Sidon than for you.
And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven?
No. You'll be brought down to Hades,
for the mighty works done in you have been done in Sodom.
It would have remained until this day. Wow!
But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the Day of judgment
for the land of Sodom than for you.
At that
time Jesus declared, I thank you, father, Lord of heaven and earth,
that you have hidden
these things from the wise understanding and revealed them to little children.
Yes, father, for such was your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my father.
And no one knows the son except the father.
And no one knows the father except the son.
And anyone to whom the soon son chooses to reveal him.
Come to me.
All who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle
and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Jesus.
In this passage, Jesus moves into this
pronouncement of judgment and condemnation
on some city, specifically carousing and Bethsaida.
And he says, it's better for you if you never existed,
because you saw the mighty works
that I did there, and you didn't repent.
Now we don't know what the mighty works were
that Jesus did in causing it to say that we don't have record of it.
It's not in the Bible, so we don't know.
But apparently there were a lot.
The the Gospel of John records at the end of that gospel.
Jesus did many more works which are not recorded in this book.
If they had been recorded, the world wouldn't have enough room
to fill to hold all the all of those books.
So apparently there were a lot.
And Jesus says, woe to you,
because if the what was done in you was done entire inside,
and they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes, and you never repented.
Now the fact that he compares them
to tire and Sidon doesn't mean much to us, because we don't know
much about tire and Sidon.
And I want to explain to you a little bit
about Tire and Sidon, because this will put it into perspective.
Tire and Sidon were non Hebrew cities.
There were non-Jewish cities.
They were gentile.
They weren't ordinary gentile cities, though.
They were symbols of the arrogance
behind wealth and idolatry, full of moral corruption.
There were seaport cities on the Mediterranean.
And and by the time Jesus gets to this reference of Tire
and Sidon, that was a kind of shorthand
lingo for extreme pagan wickedness.
That's what every once you said tire and Sidon, you knew
we were talking about extreme pagan wickedness.
And as a seaport city,
it comes with all of the degradation
by traveling merchants and seaport cities.
It was
they had massive maritime trade routes that would pour into these ports and tire.
And Sidon.
They experienced extreme wealth and extreme luxury.
And you know what happens when people have too much money and too much time?
They were the places of worship and ashtaroth worship.
And again,
unless you understand what that means, you, that doesn't make much sense to you.
But let me tell you what it means.
It means temple prostitution
of both men and women.
Prostitutes.
It meant sex
trafficking and sex slavery in the name of religion.
They participated in what we would
nicely call fertility rituals religiously.
It involved ritual drunkenness.
And some of you were like, I knew I'd been religious my whole life.
Now it's a different.
It meant child
sacrifice linked to the Phoenician religions.
And I'll tell you more about that in a minute.
And Sidon was the Old Testament home of Jezebel.
If you know anything about Old Testament scripture.
Jezebel was the worst of the worst.
Ezekiel 27
notes of these places that they were
symbols of luxury driven arrogance, that they believed that
all of their wealth and money made them above the law and above morality.
Joel three condemns them for slave trading
like what we think of slave
trading was way back then.
The historical practices
that are described by both Greek and Roman historians, not biblical writers,
but extra biblical historical historians,
Greek and Roman both tell us
of the temple prostitution, forced
sex, slavery, men and women, and of child sacrifice.
The ancient writers
School, US and Plutarch both describe
this faux nation tire inside and child sacrifices
to the gods of Bill and Molech, and archeological discoveries.
We know this from archeology,
have discovered burial sites
full of cadaver containers of cremated
infants and babies
that they were burned for these gods.
Molek.
And then there remains
stored in these cadaver containers.
It's pretty bad.
But understand Jesus's message.
He's saying Tire and Sidon were wicked.
But rejecting Christ is worse.
We would.
We in our economy would say, you know,
there's a special place in hell for people like that, right?
Right.
There's a special place in hell.
And Jesus would
say, well, you're right, there is.
But it's not for them.
It's for people who remain indifferent towards me.
Who have seen what I've done,
who know the truth
and reject me and remain indifferent.
That's.
The special place in hell.
This is astonishing,
isn't it?
He says, if what you've seen
causing a peseta, if that machine
and this these evil places, they would have repented.
And you experienced it.
And you remain unrepentant and indifferent.
And he says, Capernaum,
if the mighty works that were done in you were done in Sodom,
Sodom would still be around.
This is significant because Capernaum would
Jesus's hometown.
And all of this, all the miracles.
And in the Gospels, 70% of them were done in Capernaum.
And the surrounding area, 70%.
Everything that we've seen in Matthew eight and nine,
for all done in Capernaum.
Jesus healed a leper.
Never been done before. Like this.
The faith this centurion raised, you know, healed the healed a servant.
And then there's this section.
He just healed a lot of people.
Like everybody came from the whole town to be healed.
They all got something from it.
Who healed Peter's mom?
It calms a storm.
He heals two men who were possessed by a demon.
Heals a paralyzed guy restored to life.
A someone who was dead, healed a woman healed, two blind men
healed, someone who was unable to speak like he did all of this,
and they all saw it.
And they received from him, and they remained indifferent towards him.
And Jesus says, if what was done, if if Sodom had seen all that
they had or repented, and it'd still be around.
You're worse off than Sodom.
Not because you're evil,
but because you're indifferent.
And indifference is opposition.
I don't know who chooses to preach
on Matthew 11 leading up to Easter.
Why would.
And most people,
if they teach on Matthew 11, they go right to verse 28, so come to me,
all who are rude and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Like that's the happy part.
This stuff.
Is inspired by God.
It's the very words of Christ himself.
The point is this
the more I experience Jesus's work in my life, the more I know,
the more I've seen, the more I've experienced,
the more responsible I am to live a life of repentance
and allegiance to Christ and His kingdom.
With greater revelation comes greater responsibility
and more severe judgment.
Do you understand?
This is one reason,
like when you asked me to pray for you.
And I do
by name every morning.
Not just because it's my job.
I mean, it is my job.
I take very seriously the example of the apostles in the First Testament church.
They said, look, it's not right for me to neglect, to neglect
what God's called us to do, to take care of the business of the church.
Our job is the study of the doctrine of God and prayer.
So that's that's my job description right there.
So I pray over you, especially if you asked me
to pray for you every literally every morning.
But I
want you to understand what my prayer is.
And you ask me to pray
for God's move, for God's answer, for God's healing.
I do, but I pray it according to Scripture.
Father, move, touch, heal
so that they'll repent
and live a life of allegiance to you.
My prayer is that God
will move, show that you will repent
and give your allegiance to Christ, because for you to be healed
or for God to move in life without repentance is deadly.
So I don't pray for you
apart from your repentance.
Because I don't want you to suffer severe.
Do you understand?
So Jesus condemns them because they saw the power of God.
They saw him and yet remained unrepentant.
They were indifferent to the revelations that they had received about Christ.
And that indifference is opposition.
Opposition is deadly.
So here's here's how.
Here's how I say it.
Go to the next slide.
Wanting good from God's hand
without repentance and allegiance is the attitude
that brings condemnation.
You understand?
No. Let me just, like,
blow your mind for a little bit.
Jesus followed that up with verse 24.
I tell you that it would be more tolerable
on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.
So just stick with me.
I'm gonna explain this, but just stick with me.
Apparently, there are degrees of anguish
in hell,
and some of those are worse
for some than others.
There's degrees and levels of anguish
and hell.
Let me again just help you understand.
Hell. There's this.
This isn't like most people don't preach on this stuff,
but this
part of the biblical record is part of.
It's part of the reality.
Jesus talks about it. We're going to talk about it.
Hell,
the Old Testament word for hell
in general terms is the Hebrew word Sheol.
Everybody say Sheol.
It just means the place of the dead.
The Greek word is Hades.
Ever say Hades?
And there are times in the New Testament written in Greek
that Hades refers to the place of the dead.
But there are other times where Hades refers
to the holding place of the wicked until the final judgment
that we read about in revelation chapter 20,
which is when God takes death and Hades
and throws it into the lake of fire.
The lake of fire.
That judgment, the great right field of judgment.
When when God takes death
and Hades, the holding place of the wicked and throws it into Lake of fire.
Revelation 20.
That's also called the second death.
Every person will experience the first death, the death of the body,
but the second death.
For those who have lived and died and rejection of Christ
and are thrown into the lake of fire.
The lake of fire.
Another word for that is called Gahanna.
Everybody say Gahanna, and Gahanna is the moniker
that is used to describe to name
the place that you and I think of as hell.
The, you know, devil in a fire and all that stuff.
That's the moniker that we used
to that's used to describe that place.
And the word Gahanna comes from the valley of Hinnom.
Gahanna, the valley of Hinnom and the valley of Hinnom
was a geographical place as dried outside what is the city of Jerusalem.
And in Old Testament times, that was the place where King Ahaz
worshiped the god Molek.
In Child sacrifice,
and burned two of his own sons to the god Molech in the valley of Hinnom.
God pronounces
judgment over that area, condemned it,
and through a series of historical events, that place was completely destroyed
and existed in Jesus's time outside the city.
As a 24 hour a day burn heap.
It's where all the refuse and trash of the city and the surrounding
communities through their trash, and it just burn 24 hours a day.
And that was the understanding.
That's hell.
It was full of flames and disease
and and and and and it's it wreaked.
And so that's that is the valley of Hinnom.
That is what was referred to like in people's mind.
Okay.
That's hell, that's Gahanna.
And so those who die in rejection of Jesus.
Hades and eventually death and Hades
will be thrown into the lake of fire or Gahanna.
The Bible
constantly teaches two things at the same time.
Hell is real
and terrible for everyone who rejects God and death rejects God.
Everyone.
But the second thing is that the judgment
in hell is not identical for everyone.
Their degrees and severity of that judgment,
based on knowledge and the rejection of that knowledge.
And that second point is oftentimes overlooked,
but it's repeated all throughout Jesus's teaching.
All who reject Christ are judged.
But the severity of that judgment corresponds
directly to the light they've rejected and the evil they've practiced.
It's all hell.
But there are
special places.
Luke 12 verses 47 through 48.
You might want to read this sometime.
That servant who knew his master's will
and did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating.
But the
one who did know Will, who did not know, will receive a light.
Beat them, both of them going to get beat.
There's judgment for both,
but one of them is going to be more severe than the other because they had more
light, more revelation, more experience, and still rejected.
The principle as this with greater
knowledge comes greater responsibility
and more severe consequences.
Hell is not.
Please understand.
Hell is not random punishment.
It's perfectly calibrated.
Justice.
To understand.
This is the one unforgivable sin.
It's a blasphemy against the spirit
to know the truth of the gospel, the truth of Jesus,
and live in rejection of it.
In Matthew 11 that what we just read, everybody was judged.
Some receive worse judgment than others,
and rejecting greater
revelation increases guilt
for sure.
Sodom was wicked, no doubt,
but Capernaum saw Jesus himself,
and that rejection is more wicked.
Hebrews 1029.
How much worse punishment will be deserved
by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God,
to know who Christ is?
His claims the truth of Scripture, and to live in rejection
or opposition or simple indifference is trampling
underfoot the Son of God.
Any discussion of hell reveals two things.
Please understand any discussion or of hell reveals two things one.
God's judgment is perfectly fair.
But secondly,
his mercy in Christ is unbelievably
generous.
Though hell may be what we all deserve.
It's not what we all receive,
and we don't receive it because we've been good.
He doesn't ask us to perform for him so that we can avoid hell.
He has taken all of the judgment and condemnation
that we deserve in hell, and placed it on His Son on the cross,
that by his mercy and grace we can believe by faith
that Jesus is the final penalty for all that
I deserve in hell and of hell, and he's taken that all.
So in my faith in Christ, not in my behavior,
not in my religiosity, but my faith in Christ.
Now there's no condemnation.
Do you understand?
Having heard that,
in rejecting that, in indifference
is worse than the most vile evil.
That's what Jesus is saying.
That's pretty tough, Yes.
All Scripture inspired by God.
Profitable for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and righteousness.
I wonder,
I wonder what other parts of the world Christians are.
I wonder what they would do with all that we've been given.
It's so easy for us to become indifferent
and apathetic to all that God has allowed us to see
and experience and enjoy the freedoms we have,
the wealth that we have.
The way
we kind of treat it with just indifference and blasé.
I wonder what other parts of the world how they would respond.
And actually, I want to share with you
I got this from
my friend only on who runs our ministry in Cuba, our church planning in Cuba.
Over 120 churches we planted there through him.
This is what he sent me on March 8th.
Hello my beloved brothers and sisters.
We thank God we are well seeing his hand each day, sustaining us, watching over us
and blessing us in the midst of this great crisis we're experiencing.
The price of food continues to rise daily.
Rice used to cost for 2 pounds, $12.60.
Now for 2 pounds.
Rice cost us $26.90
for 2 pounds of rice,
and all the other food items have gone up to gasoline
used to cost us between 26 and $30 a gallon.
And on the black market,
it cost $112 a gallon.
The average monthly income for a man
in Cuba is $20.
Between Wednesday
and Thursday, this was March 4th and fifth.
There was a 31 hour power outage here where we live in places.
That was worse.
You can imagine how blessed my family and I are because with your health help.
The flip side, we have a photovoltaic system of solar panels
and we don't lack electricity.
The brothers and sisters and our neighbors from all over
the community were at our house to charge their cell phones
and their light rechargeable lamps and all kinds of devices to plug in and charge.
That fills us with gratitude,
joy for being able to serve others.
I wonder what they would do with our freedom
and wealth.
He says,
our local churches continue to expand and grow.
Our daughter churches are going to hold another baptism of their new converts,
our bread of Life ministry continues to help the most vulnerable
in our community to the best of our ability and resources.
Something that fills me with joy is my mother's work three months ago.
She spent many days in bed due to the virus that affected all of Cuba,
and after several weeks, she was almost unable to walk because of severe pain.
And two weeks ago, she started a breakfast program
at her home, providing breakfast to 12 children in need.
This was a dream of hers and she's fulfilling it.
We eagerly are awaiting the arrival of our granddaughter, Aurora.
We're excited,
but we're nervous
because of the poor conditions and lack of resources in the hospitals.
But watch this when he says we trust in our good God.
In the midst of all that,
please continue to pray for us and for Cuba.
Thank you for your unconditional support.
I wonder what they would do.
With all the blessings we received last Sunday of sitting
right down there on that last year, and I got this email from O'Neill.
Said thank you for your email for all your support, especially your prayers.
We can feel your support.
Thank God we are well, but the situation remains very difficult and tense.
Two nights ago in my room.
Some of you saw this on the news.
They stormed the Communist Party building and made a bonfire in front,
with propaganda posters
and several pieces of furniture and tables that they threw out of the windows.
It's expected that very soon there will be a complete shutdown.
Meaning no electricity, no water, no transportation, no services.
Please continue to pray for us and for Cuba.
Our government.
It was pitched to us as if their grid went down and everything was shut off.
It wasn't their grid. It was their government.
Please continue praying for us
while we continue to proclaim Christ as the solution for Cuba and the world.
Watch this.
Today we didn't have room to accommodate any more people in our church.
When we go out to distribute food, many people accept the gospel
and give their lives to Christ.
And then he says this.
If you would like to send us some funds, we would accept them.
I love that.
So yeah, we'll take the money.
Some of you need to do that.
We'll help you do that.
I know you've been more than generous with us, but food has become very expensive.
And I would like to fix up the kitchen
where the brothers and sisters and the Bread of Life
ministry prepare the food they're cooking with over charcoal.
Fire in the sun. They don't have a roof. Summer's coming.
It's very high temperatures.
They are my heroes.
And today we talked about creating a minimum conditions for their work.
Thank you so much for everything, my friend and mentor.
God bless you.
And then he followed up with this.
If you did want to support.
They feed 15 children right now,
and to feed 15 children for a month
would cost them $16 a kid.
And they do it
dinner for 50 dinners three times a week.
And to pay for all those dinners and to pay
for the children's breakfast.
It would cost us $1,140 a month
to feed all those people.
I wonder what they would do with our freedom
and ability and dollars.
Do you get it?
God's been so good.
And please understand, his goodness is meant to lead us to repentance.
Also, Romans two four says,
God's loving kindness.
Goodness is meant to lead us not to comfort,
but to repentance.
I want us to be motivated
to steward God's blessings well.
I don't want us to feel guilty for God's blessings.
I want us to steward it well, but we will be guilty if we don't steward it well.
To understand. Yes.
We moved to verse 25.
At that time Jesus declared, I thank you, father, Lord of heaven and earth,
that you have hidden these things from the wise
and understanding and revealed them to little children.
Yes, father, for such was your gracious will.
All these,
all things have been handed over to me
by my father, and no one knows the son except the father.
And no one knows the father except the son.
And anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.
He says, I'm glad this God's given this to little children.
What he means by that is this one.
When we accept Christ, we're just babes in the faith.
We're just learning.
We learn to walk by faith, not by sight.
And you seen a little kid learn to walk.
That's who we are.
When we first come to faith, we're just babes.
But he's also saying you're children in the fact.
God didn't reveal this to all the intellectual,
high and mighty people who think they know all the answers already.
He revealed this to people who understand
the faith is young, and I'm just like, I believe it
because God said it like a child and that's who can receive this.
But he says this to he said, did you notice
who is the father revealed to
those to whom the son reveals the father to him?
Here's what we have to understand.
We can't know the father without knowing the son.
We can't get close to the father
without first drawing near to Christ.
The only way to the father is through the son.
Jesus said it himself, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
Nobody comes to the father but through me.
I hear people tell me all the time, I believe in God and I tell him
I don't care.
Like even the Bible says,
even the demons believe in God and they're scared to death.
Tell me what you believe about Christ, about Jesus.
Because you can't know the father without
Jesus. To understand.
And the more you learn about
Jesus, the more responsible you are to repent
and give allegiance to.
In verse 28 through 30.
He says, come to me, all you who, all who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
He says he's.
He's addressing people who are religiously exhausted.
He's addressing people like, I know who
who can do this?
Like, you're telling me that
even if I'm a good person, like I,
I might not make it.
Like, how do I know if I.
All of religion tells me to be a good person.
And you're saying that that's not enough?
I can't even live up to my own standards, let alone your standards.
God. Right. Like.
And I hear all these rules you're supposed to obey
and all this stuff you're supposed to do,
and not all the stuff you're supposed to not do.
And the stuff I'm not supposed to do is I really want to do.
Because that's the fun stuff.
And I can't even, you know.
It's exhausting.
And so Jesus says, come to me,
all you who labor and are heavy laden.
When he says, come to me, all you who labor.
He's talking about the religious responsibility and duties
that we put on ourself that God has been asked of us.
It's all the religious baggage that we bring to the table
of what it means to follow Jesus.
It's all the expectations that we think we're supposed to live up to.
Jesus hasn't asked it of us, but we bring some stuff to the table.
Think, okay, now that I'm a Jesus follower,
I gotta do this, this, this, this and this.
God hasn't asked any of that.
And he said, some of you are laboring
and it's your own fault because I haven't asked enough of you.
You're making it more difficult than what it is.
And when he says those of who who are heavy laden, that he's
talking about religious rules and duties that are put on us by other people,
all the rules and regulations and stipulations
that all of everybody else is religious says, you got to do this.
Somebody says, okay, now you're something you use.
Okay, now you got to do this. You gotta do this.
You got to this, got to this, got to this.
And Jesus is saying, there's going to be religious people who are going to put
who are going to heavy laden me with this stuff that I've never asked of you.
And some of you are experiencing both of these,
and you're worn out and exhausted and you just don't want to try anymore.
And Jesus says, come to me.
Learn from me.
I'm gentle.
I'm lowly of heart, and you'll find rest.
He says, take my yoke, because my yoke is easy.
And when, when Jesus talks
about a yoke, there are two ways that they understand the yoke,
and one of them is the farming way you need to plow a field to get to oxen.
You yoke them together by the big one thing
and and typically what they would do if they took
a young ox and an old ox,
and the old ox knew how to plow, where to plow,
and would carry the load and do most of the work,
the young ox would just be yoked to that ox and would learn how do I walk?
How do I plow?
And I'm going to build my strength so I can start carrying some load.
And Jesus saying I'm the old ox.
I know how to do this and I'll carry the load.
Just link yourself to me.
That's what he's saying.
And that's light.
But the other yoke is this.
Every rabbi
had their interpretation of God's law, and their interpretation of how to apply.
God's law was called the rabbi's yoke.
And so the rabbis had a yoke,
and the rabbis developed the yoke of the Ten Commandments
to 613 additional laws,
248 of them were positive laws
and commands, and 365 of them were negative.
Can you imagine trying to obey all 613
every day of your life?
That's a heavy yoke.
And Jesus says, come to me.
You're tired of that. Ridiculous.
I got a light one for you.
God started with a yoke of ten.
The Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.
By the time we get to Micah, it's down to three.
Micah six eight.
What's the law required of you? Oh, man.
To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.
By the time Jesus he says, I got to
Matthew 2237 through 40,
love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind,
and love your neighbor as yourself.
That's my yoke.
It's so light,
not because it's inconsequential,
but because it's perfect.
Reviving the soul. Do you understand?
It fits perfectly.
And so, in wrapping this up,
Matthew 11,
where you and I go from here is this repent
the goodness of God that you know that you've heard,
that you've seen, that you've experienced, is intended to lead you to repentance,
not to your comfort, not to your but to repentance.
And pledging your allegiance
to Christ and Christ alone because of how good he's been.
Repent.
Some of you have been so indifferent toward Christ in the gospel.
You need to realize that that indifference is opposition, a hostility towards him,
and there's a judgment to incur.
Unless you repent.
And secondly,
take up the easy yoke of Jesus.
Quit trying to good your way into heaven.
It's not going to work.
His yoke is easy. His burden is light.
Lord, help me to love you with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And help me love other people to.
And then just follow.
Today.
I want all of us saved from hell.
And saved from weary religious duty.
Admit your sin.
And that you've lived according to your way.
And your rules and indifference
and opposition to Christ.
Believe that Jesus died
for your sin and rose again.
And in that belief, accept the forgiveness he's offered.
Commit to turning from your sin
and dedicate your life and your allegiance to Christ.
It's a beautiful way to live.
I want you to pray with me.
First, my friends,
the way to the fathers through the son.
And I want to invite you in this morning.
If you've never done this to admit your sin, father, I admit it.
I'm a sinner. I've gone my own way.
I've lived according to my rules and rejection of you.
I've been indifferent to your commands.
I'm sorry.
Jesus.
I believe that you died for my sin and rose again.
And I accept your forgiveness.
I commit to turning from my sin.
And I dedicate my life
and my allegiance to you and you alone.
Help me love you with my whole heart
and soul and mind and strength, without delay and without hesitation.
Today I'm yours.
And I pledge myself to you.
Friends,
I want you to just stay in this moment for
I want to encourage you to take a step
of commitment.
Not something weird.
Just simply.
If that was your prayer.
I want to pray over you specifically, and I want to give you some next steps.
Would you just slip your hand up right now?
Just slip your hand up. Good.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Good. Thank you, thank you.
Good for you.
I see those all those in the back.
Good. Thank you.
Good good good good. There you go.
There you go. Good
good good good.
Yeah. Praise God.
Praise God.
Let me pray over you, father.
Thank you for these, especially these who are
who are saying again right now with me for the first time, God.
I confess my sin.
I've lived in
in opposition and difference.
I don't want to do that anymore. I'm yours.
I accept what Jesus did on the cross.
I thank you, I thank you for their hearts.
I thank you for the decisions to follow you.
I thank you for their commitment to live.
To live for your kingdom sake.
They give their allegiance to you.
I pray in the name of Jesus that you come upon them,
that you grant them your spirit within them,
that you walk before them.
Father, for you protect them from the evil one
and the salt that will happen upon their lives,
especially when they leave this place
that will try to make them doubt and and back away and back off.
I pray they don't do that.
I pray that their eyes stay fixed on you.
Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,
that you would encourage them and strengthen them to follow you
with their whole life, that you would allow them to love you
with their whole heart and soul and mind and strength, and love other people too.
I pray your protection over them. God,
your mighty hand with them.
I pray that as they live in repentance,
that you would allow them all that your grace is capable of.
That's so good.
Thank you Lord.
In your name I pray, Amen.
If you made some decision, or you were one of those
that raise your hands, or you just want some more information
about what it means to follow Jesus, what we believe,
and how to grow in your relationship with him.
I wrote two foundation books there in the in the Welcome Center.
Feel free to pick those up.
They're just free for you.
I want to help you grow.
Pick them up.
If you know someone you want to give them
to pick them up for a friend, pass them to people.
Friends, I love you.
You did a great job.
Matthew 11 stuff,
Yeah, you did a great job.
The next two weeks we're going through Matthew 12 and get ready for Easter.
So make sure you pick up those in because they're out in the little entryway there.
They're package attend their little square cards,
pick them up and start inviting people to Easter.
There's a QR code they can follow to take them to give them all
the info they need.
Pick up these yard signs you only got a few left.
Listen, in this community, we all know who's running for supervisor.
I don't think everybody know who's or where Easter is, so just make sure
that we're at least at that level of our supervisor.
You got it?
Yeah, I love you. I'm proud of you.
Let's sing one more song.