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Good morning.
Oh, that was good.
I normally have to ask twice.
You guys just jumped right in and did it.
Thank you.
If you have your Bibles with you, will you open them with me to Matthew chapter 12?
If you're here this morning and you do not own a Bible or just own a copy of God's Word,
we'd love to give you one as a gift.
And so there in the back of the auditorium, there's a table that's got a big sign that
says Connect behind it.
We've got free copies of God's Word.
Those are there literally as a gift to you if you need one.
So please go grab one.
All right.
So if you're new here, this is your first time.
I am not Pastor Bo.
If you're not new here and you're just wondering where Pastor Bo is, he is up in North Carolina.
He and his wife Erin are in Black Mountain preparing for the arrival of this massive mission team
that you guys just prayed over in front of the stage.
They're actually in charge of meals and cooking this week.
And so if I had to guess, they are probably either at a grocery store filling up like five shopping carts worth of groceries
or they are taking a nap and enjoying the calm before the storm, right?
So I will say this, man, if you have never been to Black Mountain or if you've never had a chance
to go alongside our youth group on a mission trip, it is a sight to witness, right?
Many students, they work tirelessly all day long in long pants, long sleeves.
They're in the woods.
They're painting.
They're doing all these projects.
And then honestly, somehow, after all of that work, they still spend half the night playing games, laughing, and hanging out together.
It's kind of crazy.
It's impressive how hard they work during the day, right?
It's impressive how hard they play at night as well.
But the most impressive thing of all is how much food they eat, right?
Like those in charge of cooking and spending their time on meals, man, they spend hours shopping.
They spend hours preparing for the entire group.
And then something incredible happens.
The students enter the dining hall.
And then within seconds, like the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes, our youth group comes through the line
and every bit of that food disappears, right?
It's crazy.
So just in case you were wondering, that's where Pastor Bo is this morning.
So you guys get me.
And so, yeah.
But if you haven't noticed, man, we are, as a church, we are in mission trip season, right?
Back in May, we sent a women's group.
And they went and did a women's conference in New York a few weeks ago.
Our youth group went.
Like our high schoolers went and did like a service project type trip in New York at a couple of area churches.
And then just last week, our young adult group, plus myself, my wife, Kim, and Brent Hawkins.
Everybody knows Brent.
We spent the week in Queens, New York, right?
And so we served alongside Pastor Walter and his church doing vacation Bible school there.
And so last week, our, you know, we had an incredible week.
We got a lot done.
We're exhausted.
But we're back.
We're here.
But before I go much further, I need you to understand something about me.
If you don't know me very well, this will maybe explain some things to you, you know, that happen.
I'm a little bit of a control freak.
Kind of like a lot of bit of a control freak.
Like, is anybody else in here?
Anybody else in here a control freak?
Okay, cool.
Two of you.
Awesome.
The rest of you are lying.
But before we left, man, I had every detail of this trip planned out.
I'm not kidding.
Like, we had vacation Bible school planned out down to the minute.
I had a schedule.
This is going to happen here.
This is going to happen there.
We knew who was going to lead our large group lessons, and we knew what they were going to
talk about.
We knew who was going to lead our small group time, and we knew what questions they were
going to ask.
We had an organized plan for crafts, games, food, the most important part, food.
And then we had a plan for music and worship, right?
Every person on our team had a specific role to play.
And that's not all.
We even had matching t-shirts.
I had even picked out, like, what specific day we were going to wear those t-shirts.
I told y'all, I'm at control free.
We created devotional journals.
We planned our free time.
And we went into the city.
We knew where we were going to eat.
We knew what we wanted to see.
And we knew what shops we wanted to spend our money at, right?
We had a plan.
And it was perfect, if I do say so myself.
But if you've ever been on a mission trip, then you know plans have a frustrating way of
changing.
Now listen, y'all.
I struggle with being a little bit of a control freak.
The past week in New York, I learned that the most meaningful moments, though, they're often the ones that are outside of your control.
They're the ones that you don't find in your schedule or on your itinerary.
You know, the most meaningful moments are often found when you're waiting on a delayed subway train.
And I'm over here looking at my watch like, we got somewhere to be.
But in that delay, a team member meets an immigrant from the Congo.
A gentleman named Yusuf, who happens to be a Muslim.
And then that team member gets the opportunity to say, hey, man, we're 13 people from South Carolina doing vacation Bible school at a church in Queens.
And then we get the opportunity to pray over the fact that he's going to school for finance.
And we just pray that God will help him find a job.
You know, the most meaningful moments are often found when some kids show up two hours early on the first night of EBS, right?
Like you're sitting there, you're like, oh, man, maybe we'll kick back.
We'll rest a little bit.
We're tired.
Nope.
The kids showed up.
We're frantically running around.
We're trying to get everything ready.
And I'm thinking, what are these kids doing here, right?
But in those two hours, you see a group of young adults begin to play and build relationships with those kids.
It wasn't on the schedule.
You know, the most meaningful moments are often found when you stop worrying about what time it is and you let God use you even when it interferes with your perfect plan.
You know, this past week, I came across a John Stott quote that kind of challenged me.
He said, we must allow the word of God to confront us before we attempt to expound on it to others.
You see, it made me feel better, not because it perfected something in me.
You know, it didn't just take away my desire to be in control.
It made me feel better because God's word confronted me.
And so this morning, and I'm grateful to share my struggle with you.
And I hope that God's word would seek to root out and confront any part in you and me that seeks to replace God's grace in our walk.
Let's read Matthew chapter 12, verses 6 through 8 together.
I tell you something greater than the temple is here.
And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.
You would not have condemned the guiltless.
For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
Would you pray with me?
Father God, I thank you for this morning, Lord.
I thank you for these people.
I thank you for those that are here for the first time.
I thank you for those that are here for like the thousandth time.
God, I pray that you would work through this morning.
I pray if there's anything that's going to come out of my mouth that's not of you, I pray that you would just stop it.
God, let me get out of the way of what you have for us.
Lord, I thank you for a church that prioritizes missions.
I thank you for a church that takes a sixth grade child and sends them on mission.
And I thank you for a church that takes a senior adult in our church and sends them on mission.
God, I pray that you would work in our hearts and our lives, Lord, and work through this morning.
In your name I pray, amen.
So this morning, we're continuing on in our study of the book of Matthew.
And so last week in chapter 11, Pastor Bo shared with you that Jesus declared that all authority had been given to him by the Father, right?
And then Jesus extended an invitation to respond, an invitation to respond by depending on him, by believing in him.
And by turning away from our sins and turning to him.
Ultimately, having faith in his saving work on the cross and as a result, surrendering to Jesus, he offers those who have faith in him rest.
You see, the end of Matthew chapter 11, it serves as both an invitation to the weary sinner who needs salvation.
But we're also going to see in our passage today that it serves as a reminder to the believer who can't seem to find rest.
In our passage today, it starts off with the words, at that time.
And guys, this is important because, I mean, there's some passages, right, like a chapter ends and then the next chapter stops, starts.
And we're not sure if it's been four minutes or if it's been four months or if it's been four years.
Well, in our passage today, it says, at that time, which points us back to what had just taken place.
So when Matthew writes that at that time, it lets us know that what is about to take place happens directly after Jesus encouraged non-believers to come to him and find rest.
Starting back in chapter 11, it says,
At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath.
His disciples were hungry and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.
But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.
So in our passage today, we see an immediate conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees, right?
Which if you've read the Gospels, that's not an uncommon thing.
But to understand the conflict, we must understand who the Pharisees were, right?
You see, the word Pharisee, it actually means separated one.
It speaks to them being men who were set apart.
You see, they considered themselves to be defenders of God's law.
And they considered themselves to be above all others when it came to obeying God's law.
From early childhood, they would have been immersed in God's word.
They would have been immersed in God's word in a way where they would have known what it looked like to walk in obedience to God's word.
But you see, the Pharisees believed that their obedience to the law would earn them favor and righteousness before God.
A common term that we would use to describe this practice is legalism.
If you're anything like me, I don't know if I could really define what legalism actually was before this.
So I'm going to tell you.
Webster's defines it as a strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code.
David Platt would say it this way.
Legalism involves working in our own power, sometimes according to God's law, and other times according to our own rules in order to earn God's favor.
You know, this morning we're going to talk about three dangers of legalism in the life of a believer.
We're going to talk about three things that we can learn from the Pharisees.
But before we go down that road, I think it's important for us to not just simply dismiss the Pharisees as bad guys.
Like, I think it's important for us to not just distance ourselves from them.
Because if we do, we'll miss the point of the message.
Instead, this text invites us to examine our hearts because the truth is that every single one of us is born with a legalistic heart.
Left to ourselves, we naturally drift towards believing that our standing before God is based on what we do rather than what he's done.
Matthew 12, verses 1 and 2 says,
At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath.
His Pharisees were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.
But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him,
Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.
Guys, we see right off the bat, the Pharisees called Jesus and his disciples out for working on the Sabbath.
Here's the problem.
What they were accusing them of did not break God's command to observe the Sabbath.
It broke the legalistic additions that the Pharisees themselves had added to God's command.
Guys, can we just ask ourselves for a second, like, what were the Pharisees even doing in the grain field on the Sabbath?
The kinds of additions that they would have added would have kept people from bathing on the Sabbath
out of fear of water spilling on the floor and it being considered washing the floor.
The additions would have kept someone from looking into the mirror
because you might see a gray hair and be tempted to pull it out.
Additions like if you toss something in the air with your right hand and caught it with your left,
that would be a violation.
But if you tossed it with your right hand and then caught it with your right hand,
well, that's okay, it's the same hand.
What we see in Scripture is that the Pharisees added over 1,000 specifications to God's law
under the thought process of if you obeyed an extra set of self-imposed rules,
you wouldn't even come close to violating God's commands.
They also used these additions to separate themselves from everyday people,
to elevate their status.
They used these man-made rules in a way that God did not intend.
And some of the rules just created, quite frankly, convenient loopholes for themselves.
That's what we see in them.
Point number one this morning, legalism in our lives,
it adds to God's word in a way that God never intended.
You know, the reality is what we see in the hearts of the Pharisees
is the same thing that we must fight against in our lives today.
You know, Paul talks about it in his writing of the letter to the church of Galatia.
In Galatians chapter 1, verse 6, he says,
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ
and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all.
Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion
and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.
John Piper describes legalism this way.
He says, legalism is used rightly, I think, biblically,
if we say it is an attitude, a spirit, a disposition of all kinds of behaviors and feelings
that are rooted in a failure to be amazed that I am saved by grace.
A failure to be amazed that I am accepted by God freely.
To be melted, to be broken, to be humbled and filled with joy
because of what God has done in my life.
Guys, when we lose our sense of wonder at God's grace,
we place burdens on ourselves.
That's not all.
We begin placing burdens on those around us.
Instead of pointing people to the finished work of Christ,
we subtly communicate to them that his work was not enough.
A legalistic heart looks at God's grace and says,
man, what Jesus did was really, really great,
but it's just not quite enough.
I've got to do more.
I've got to earn his acceptance.
I have to prove myself.
Well, what are some legalistic additions that we see in the church today?
Do we create a standard for what quiet time looks like each morning?
Like, oh, I wake up at 4 a.m.
And I spend 45 minutes doing this, that, or the other.
But then we quietly judge others who don't measure up to our version of faithfulness.
Do we do it with church attendance?
Or even with the way that someone worships?
Do we use that to measure someone's spiritual maturity?
Do we do it in a way, even in how we parent our kids?
Well, I can't believe they let their kids do that.
Do we elevate our preferences to the level of biblical commands?
Or consider how we dress for church.
You guys ever had a preference for what people should wear
and found yourself looking down on someone who didn't meet your standard?
Or the flip side of that, maybe you felt judged because of what you wear.
What about worship?
Have we ever become so attached to a preferred style of music or order of service
that it affected our ability to worship God?
You see, guys, the issue isn't whether we have preferences.
We all do.
The issue is when our preferences become standards
by which we measure someone else's spirituality.
And that's when we've begun to add to what God has said.
Legalism leads us as believers to living our lives like the gospel says.
He will only love us if we change first.
But in actuality, what God's word tells us is he loved us first
and the gospel is what's changing us.
Legalism in our lives, it adds to God's law.
And when we add to God's law, we miss rest and we add burden.
We continue on in verse 3.
He said to them,
Have you not read what David did when he was hungry?
And those who were with him.
How he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence,
which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him,
but only for the priest.
Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath,
the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?
I tell you something greater than the temple is here.
And if you had known what this means,
I desire mercy and not sacrifice.
You would not have condemned the guiltless.
All right, I got to be honest with you guys for a second.
We just got back from New York.
Full transparency, I hate flying.
I don't like it.
It's not my favorite thing.
Joanne, I see you nod your head.
I know you hate flying too.
She really hates it.
I don't hate it that much.
Like, listen, I'm a big guy.
It's a tight place.
Like, I don't consider myself claustrophobic, but listen, I just don't like it.
Well, you know, we just got back.
We just flew to New York and back from New York.
And you read all the TSA stuff, right?
Like, Delta sends you this, it's like 26 pages that nobody actually reads.
But in there, I'm sure there's some stuff about what you should or shouldn't bring, right?
And I'm always stressed out about, like, what they're going to find in my bag.
I know it doesn't make sense, but, like, what are they going to find in my bag, right?
But see, you pack and then, and you go through this careful process of making sure you pack
everything you need, but not packing anything that's going to get you, like, pulled aside,
hopefully.
Like, like, how many ounces of conditioner can I put in my carry-on, you know?
Okay.
I'm just, just kidding.
I've never actually used conditioner a day in my life.
All right.
You know, I thought you guys would respond that way, but the fact that you actually did
hurts a little bit.
I'm going to lie.
So, but seriously, like, you get up to the airport security checkpoint.
Right.
And you're, you're like, all right, I'm ready.
I think I've, I think I'm good.
And then they've got all these rules.
Like, like you start, they start giving you instructions and asking you questions.
It's like, hey, take off your shoes.
No, empty your pockets.
Oh, do you have any metal in your body?
I don't think so.
Like, I don't know.
Put your carry-on in this little bin right here.
Now put all your other belongings in this container.
Take your belt off.
No, leave it on, sir.
Like, it's confusing.
But imagine you're, you're walking through security.
And as you're about to pass through the scanner, the guy behind you just like passes out, hits
the floor.
Right.
And you're just standing there and you're like, I don't know, should I walk through?
Like, I don't know.
Should I keep going?
Now I'm not a hundred percent sure, but chances are that security agent is not going to grab
the wand and then start like, you know, patting you down.
Like, they're going to go check on the guy on the floor.
Right?
I think.
They're not going to just say like, all right, man, let's keep the line moving.
I got a job to do here.
No, they would, they would stop.
They would check on him.
They would assist him.
Right?
Why?
Well, because the procedures and the rules, they exist to serve a greater purpose.
You know, in Matthew 12, it seems like that's exactly what the Pharisees' expectations are.
They seem to place more value on their rules than the greater purpose.
Right?
Like, God's on the floor, but hey, let's keep the line moving.
And Jesus responds with what I can't help but feel like is sarcasm, which, guys, I love
sarcasm.
Like, it's kind of just how I talk.
It's like a dialect for me.
Like, it just comes out.
I can't control it.
But he looks at these religious leaders who have studied God's law their entire life.
And he says, have you not read?
And then he points to two things that they would have understood really well.
He points to David.
And man, like, listen, David would have been, would have had like hero status with them.
Right?
Like, David's the guy.
And he says, what about David's violation when he went and ate that bread?
But then he hits him with it again.
He's like, hey, have you not read?
And then he points to the actions and the work of the priest on the Sabbath.
And he says, what about them?
Hmm?
What about their violation?
You know, point number two this morning is legalism in our lives.
It hinders mercy.
It's been a challenging week.
I just came back from a mission trip.
You guys intimidate me.
I'm just going to say that like you guys are scary.
I felt behind in preparation for this message all week long.
I fell behind on some things at home.
I cut my grass yesterday.
It was like two feet tall.
There might have been some snakes.
I don't know.
I was scared.
And again, I've already shared with you guys, like, man, I really, really like being in control.
I like having a plan.
And it seems like things just kept coming that would deviate from my plan for the week, right?
Like they would just interfere with my schedule.
You know, like when you're busy and the phone rings and somebody just needs to talk to you.
Or when you're busy, but somebody stops and knocks on your door at your office.
Or like when the staff meeting runs long.
And guys, listen, like this week it ran really long.
I can say that because Bo's not here.
The staff meeting ran a little long this week.
But guys, sometimes you get so wrapped up in doing a good thing, like preparing a message on a Sunday.
Or like preparing for a mission trip.
Or even leading a ministry that God has called you to lead.
But you get so wrapped up in the agenda and the things it takes to make it all happen.
That you forget your greatest calling is the people that he puts in your path.
Now listen, I can absolutely love people in my doing of all of those things well, right?
None of those things are bad.
But here's the irony.
It's entirely possible for me to spend hours studying about the compassion of Jesus and then have zero compassion for those I come into contact with.
It's possible for me to prepare a message about grace and completely fail at showing others grace.
You know, it's possible to preach about mercy while treating interruptions like inconveniences.
Like they're not really people and their problems don't matter.
In those moments, it exposes something in my heart.
You know, more often than not, the Lord gently reminds me that the people who interrupt my plans are often the very people that he has placed in my path.
What I saw as an interruption God intended is an opportunity.
And I think that's part of what Jesus is confronting in Matthew 12.
You see, the Pharisees, man, they were so committed to protecting their interpretation of the Sabbath.
They were so committed to protecting their interpretation of the law that they missed the whole point of it.
So I've got three kids.
Haley and Sam are my two oldest ones.
Vio, she's not in here, so I don't have to include her.
Just kidding.
Don't tell her I said that.
But see, when Haley and Sam were younger, you know, we used to watch this movie called Robots together.
I don't know if you've ever seen it.
It's an animated movie.
It's pretty good.
It's all right.
I actually don't remember anything about it except for this quote.
So if you ask me later, I'm going to have to tell you I don't know.
But this one line stuck with me for years, and it's like just permanently engraved in my brain.
One of the characters, Big Weld, he's an inventor, right?
Like he's a company owner, but when we meet him, he's kind of fallen on hard times, right?
But he had this quote, and he would just keep saying it.
He'd say, man, if you see a need, you fill a need.
You know, that simple phrase, man, it captures a powerful principle.
You see, the Pharisees, they weren't see a need, fill a need kind of guys.
And guys, oftentimes, when we get too wrapped up in the rules and the regulations and the things that we're supposed to do,
we miss seeing the needs of others.
Rather than showing compassion, we add additional burden.
And Jesus was the opposite.
Everywhere he went, he saw people in need, and he met them with grace and mercy and compassion.
And as his followers, that's the pattern that we are called to imitate.
We are called to see a need and fill a need.
Legalism in our lives, it hinders mercy.
It makes it harder for us to see the needs of others.
Verse 8, for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
You know, in the final few verses of our passage this morning,
Jesus directly speaks to the Pharisees' understanding of the Sabbath.
Like, he speaks to their understanding of the law.
And in his words, he makes clear that rest is not found in the abundance of your works.
Rest is not found in your additions to the law.
Rest is not even found in your tireless pursuit of obedience to the law.
Jesus looks at these men who were known for their ability to interpret God's word.
And he says, you missed it.
He says, you missed that the law was given as a gift.
So you turned it into something it wasn't intended to be.
You missed the call to show mercy because you were too busy following the rules to see the needs of others.
And you're missing what matters most.
And that's Jesus himself.
Point number three this morning is legalism in our lives misses what matters most.
Verse 6 says, I tell you something greater than the temple is here.
So guys, let's talk about the temple for a minute.
I don't know how much you guys know about it.
I didn't know a ton, so I read about it.
So I'm going to tell you about it.
But to understand what Jesus means here, we first have to understand what the temple meant to the Jewish people.
Right?
You see, the temple, it wasn't just another building in Jerusalem.
It was the center of Jewish life in worship.
It was the place where people came to meet with God.
It was where their sacrifices were offered for their sins.
It was where priests served as mediators between God and his people.
For the Jewish people, the temple represented God's presence among them, his dwelling place.
It was the most sacred place in all the nation.
And man, they cherished it.
They protected it.
They revered it.
They built their lives around it.
Jesus says something greater than the temple is here.
As believers today, our temptation isn't to put our hope into a temple.
Right?
It's just not something we struggle with.
Our greatest temptation is to put our hope in ourselves.
Our greatest temptation is to put our hopes in our works.
Temptation to put our hopes in something other than Jesus' saving work on the cross.
And if we aren't careful, we take good things and we easily center our lives around them in a very bad, dangerous way.
Things like church attendance.
Things like tithing.
Things like our Bible reading plan.
Our ministry involvement.
Our service.
Church, the temple was never meant to replace God.
It was meant to point people to God.
In the same way, every spiritual discipline and every act of obedience is meant to lead us closer to Christ.
And it's meant to lead the world around us to him as well.
The question isn't simply, am I doing the right religious things?
The deeper question is, is Jesus himself the center of my life?
I want to invite our worship team and our prayer encouragers to come up.
So the church that we had the opportunity to serve at last week in Queens is actually next door to a bar.
The place is actually called the Jar Bar.
I'm not sure if they just like to rhyme or if there's actually a jar there, but I kind of thought it was a cool name.
But when I say next door, I mean like, man, the two buildings, they share a wall.
And it's not a very thick wall.
Can't be.
I'm not sure if it's like just the loudness of the music or the loudness of the conversations.
Or maybe they've got their TVs turned all the way up.
I'm not sure.
But man, you can hear everything through that wall.
Which means they can also hear everything from our side, which is cool.
Because we were like praising and worshiping and stuff.
But out back, both the bar and the church, man, they have a patio area.
And that area is like separated by a fence, like a wooden fence.
And honestly, man, that fence is rotting.
It's kind of falling apart.
And it's actually what led to this interaction I'm going to tell you about.
Well, on Friday afternoon, about 30 minutes before our VBS was about to start, you know, Brent does what really only Brent can do in my life.
And that stressed me out.
He says, hey, man.
I'm sorry.
That's how Brent talks.
He's like, hey, man, let's go next door.
And honestly, I'm thinking about all the stuff we still got.
I'm thinking about the schedule, right?
I'm thinking about the agenda.
I'm thinking, Brent, we ain't got time for this.
But he started walking, and so I noticed he was going, and so I was like, I relented.
I followed him, right?
We walk over, and we're into the bar, and we asked if the bar owner was around.
You see, Brent, he wanted to have a conversation with the guy so we could say, hey, man, we got this fence over here that's busted up, and we need to fix it, but it's going to impact you.
Do you mind if we fix the fence?
That was the conversation.
So the guy comes out, and we learn his name is Jason.
It's not significant other than the fact that I just want you to know his name.
And at first, Jason, man, he seemed hesitant to kind of talk to a couple of guys that kind of sounded like this who were from next door at the church.
But he invited us in, and then eventually he invited us back to the patio where we could look at the fence together.
A few minutes into that conversation, it became pretty clear to me and Brent that, man, God didn't have us back there to talk about a fence.
You see, Jason had, like, the most authentic Irish accent I think I've ever heard in my life.
Like, it was really cool.
I've seen it on TV, but never in person.
He began to share about his upbringing in Ireland, right?
Began to talk about his time in New York.
And that's not all.
He began to share about his Catholic upbringing, but how he's kind of not really a Catholic anymore.
He kind of just doesn't know what he is anymore.
It was that kind of conversation.
Then Jason made the statement.
He said, you know, I think God is just God.
You know, the God that the Muslims worship and the Catholics and the Christians, like, we're all just trying to please the same God.
That was Jason's statement.
And then Jason said, man, if we would just love each other and just be kind to each other, I think we would just be good with God.
That kind of got me thinking.
And how many lost people around us believe that same thing?
How many lost people in my life see a reflection of that in the way that I walk in my faith?
And if I could just love others enough, it could be enough.
If I could just work a little bit harder and be kinder to people, it could be enough.
Just wear the right clothes on Sunday, it could be enough.
If I just worship enough, and maybe, maybe if I raise my hands this time, it could be enough.
But what is enough?
You see, in every religion, it's this picture of, of God or like a supreme being or what, you know, whatever they believe in.
It's this picture of, of God at the top of the mountain, right?
And the followers trying to climb their way to him.
And you see, what Jason was implying was that God is God and our paths might be different,
but they can all lead to the same God if we could just do enough.
That's not the message of the cross.
But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
But God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
For God.
So loved the world that he gave his only son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
And that picture, it doesn't show God waiting for us to climb up to him.
It's a picture of him coming to us before we've ever started climbing.
Before we've ever thought about climbing.
Later that night, we're, we're in the sanctuary of this church.
It's quieted down.
The kids are gone.
You kind of look around, you see that glazed over look in everybody's eyes
like they should have been asleep two hours ago.
And man, me and Brent are sitting there talking and there's an extra Bible laying around.
We just took that Bible and we highlighted verses.
Man, verses that spoke to God's design for the world.
We highlighted verses that talked about like just brokenness and sin
and how it entered into the world.
And we highlighted how there was just absolutely nothing we could do
about this sin problem ourselves.
And then we highlighted how God wanted relationship with us.
And so he sent Jesus.
And because of that, God sees us as righteous.
Each person on our team then had the opportunity to write a prayer in that Bible
and they signed it.
On our last day, I think Brent ran him down in a convenience store.
I'm not sure how it happened.
But Brent found Jason.
He took him this Bible and he had the opportunity to tell him,
man, you, you asked a really good question yesterday.
Like, what is the difference between what we believe and what other,
what other religions stay?
And this is just the best way for us to show you.
So we want you to have this.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Would you pray with me?
God, I thank you for this morning.
I thank you for your word.
I thank you just, I thank you for confronting me this week.
God, the areas in our life that we seek to control and control and control
and that get in the way of us resting in you.
I pray that you would extinguish them.
God, I pray that your word would penetrate our hearts in a way
where we wouldn't walk out of this place the same way as we were when we got here.
Thank you, Father.
Your name I pray.
Amen.
That's it for this week's message.
Be sure to check back next week for a new episode.
And in the meantime, you can visit us online at willowridgechurch.org
or by searching for Willow Ridge Church on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Thanks again for listening.