How God Wins

This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Father, we recognize this morning that we have a soul and a spiritual, eternal part of our being, and our soul was intended to sing.

It doesn't just sit dormant in the corner of our lives and we get it out on Sundays.

No, our soul was created by God to sing.

So when we say, Then sings my soul, we just say, tune our hearts, Lord, to sing your praise.

We're not just here with our mouth and with our vocal cords and with our tongue.

We're here with our soul to make much of you.

To say, yea, God.

To say yes to everything that the Bible says yes to, and no to everything the Bible says no to.

Not to be moralistic, filching, uh uh uh uh religious, zealot people that believe the Bible and are mad about it.

No, no, no.

That's not what we're about.

To be the kind of winsome, free, juicy, joyful, glad, obedient people that God created us to be.

That's what we're about, God.

Increase our capacity to do that today, we ask in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat if you have a Bible.

I invite you to take it open up to John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

John chapter 12, but I want to talk to you this morning about how God wins.

John 12 · chapter mention

How God wins, and not in a way that you you may expect to hear at some places, because we're not that kind of a church, about we're not a formula church.

We're we we're like we're preaching through the gospel of John and we're back a few chapters.

I jumped forward because I want to just today is Palm Sunday.

It's acknowledging when Jesus rides into Jerusalem to begin the last week of his life, which is referred to as Passion Week.

And because passion is the amount of pain and suffering someone is willing to endure in pursuit of a goal.

So while you're finding John chapter 12, let me just give you a little background and context because everything in the Bible happens in a specific context.

John 12 · chapter mention

And the context of what we're reading is here way back in the Old Testament.

Um, you may have seen this.

If you saw the movie The Ten Commandments, you saw this reenacted on your television.

Uh, there's a guy named Pharaoh that held God's people, the Israelites, in captivity and bondage as slaves.

And God said, Hey, let my people go so they can worship me, and they can people be a people unto me, and I could be their God and take care of them.

And Pharaoh said, I do not know the Lord, and I will not let his people go.

And God said, Let me introduce myself.

And so God begins this series of plagues, and there's ten of them, and they just get more severe.

And the last one is called the plague of the firstborn, where God said, And by the way, look at me.

God is not a bully, God does not just go down and go, I just want to kill some people today.

No, no, no.

God gives the guy nine chances to do the right thing, and he hardens his heart every time.

And so God sends the death angel and says, I'm gonna kill the firstborn of every beast of the field, bird of the air, also of all the people.

And but he tells his people, Israel, hey, here's a sign and a symbol that you trust me and not yourselves and not your political rulers.

Uh he said, if you'll sacrifice a lamb and you'll take the blood of that lamb and you'll put it on the doorpost of your house, when the death angel comes, he will pass over your house, and no harm will come to you.

And the people had faith in God, that's what they did.

That became a feast, uh a festival in the life of God's people called Passover.

That's what it's referring to.

And a lot of times you say, well, it's a Jewish holiday.

It's not a Jewish holiday, it's a biblical reality that God passed over.

So for thousands of years, people, the people of God, Israelites, Jewish people have been celebrating Passover.

And now, why do I tell you that?

Because on this day that Jesus rides into Jerusalem, it is no coincidence that here's the way the ritual of Passover, the feast of Passover, was celebrated.

Your family would select a lamb and they would take that lamb and it they would keep it for five days and they would inspect it because they had to make sure that it did not have a spot, wrinkle, or blemish, that it was perfect so it could be sacrificed.

You couldn't get a good lamb and keep it for yourself and sacrifice this old crippled thing that you got on half price on eBay or something.

And so they would get this lamb, take it to their home, and they would inspect it every day for five days.

And when they realized that this is a lamb without blemish, then it could be sacrificed because to commemorate when God passed over his people all those years ago.

Now, why do I tell you all of that?

It's like I said, everything in the Bible happens in a context.

The day in which we're reading about this morning, where Jesus rides the donkey into Jerusalem, is the first day of the Passover celebration.

People are selecting their lambs, and they're gonna take them home for five days.

Now, Holy Week is five days of Jesus being passed from one government official to another, to another, to another, to another.

And finally he gets before Pilate, and Pilate says this, I find no fault in him.

And he washes his hands.

He says, I find no fault in him.

And really, he's saying more than he realizes.

What he's saying to the people and to us and to the world is you now have a faultless lamb that can be sacrificed for your sins.

See, God always works on a bigger level than you can see or comprehend.

He's always doing more than you can ask or even imagine.

So, in that that context, that backdrop, Jesus knows what's happening.

This nothing happens this week surprises him.

He rides into Jerusalem and John writes about it like this: John chapter 12, verse 12.

John 12:12

The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.

So they took branches of palm trees and they went out to meet him, crying out, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of even the king of Israel.

Who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel.

And Jesus found a young donkey and he sat on it, just as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.

His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and that he had done and been done to him.

The crowd that had been with him when he called called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness.

The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they had heard he had done this sign.

So the Pharisees said to one another, You see that you are gaining nothing.

Look, the world has gone after him.

See, for the Pharisees, who were like the religious police of the day, this was just a popularity contest.

They just wanted people to listen to them and like them.

And so they always talked, they they thought about Jesus in terms of people are liking him more than they're liking us.

This is not a good thing.

But God is at work on a deeper level.

And so why do I call this sermon how God wins?

Because remember, if you're here last week, we were back in John chapter 6, and Jesus feeds 5,000 people, and the people were so jazzed they wanted to come and make him king by force.

John 6 · chapter mention

And Jesus said, You can't do that.

And he walks away and he goes off to a mountain by himself because he's not going to become king by for by force.

This is how he's going to become king.

Or is that like to say, this is how God wins?

There's three things in the text.

Number one, by keeping his word.

By keeping his word.

It's verses 12 to 16 where he talks about this prophecy.

And he says in verse 14, and Jesus found a young donkey and he sat on it, just as it is written.

Now, anytime you read those words, just as it is written, uh, it's a reference to something that was written in the Old Testament.

It's a promise that God made a long time ago.

The Bible calls them prophecies, but they're promises that God made a long time ago.

So he says, just as it is written, and then he quotes from the book of Zechariah.

Zechariah is one of those books at the end of the Old Testament.

It has the names like Zechariah, Malachi.

It's where homeschoolers go to name their children.

And so, no, no?

Zephaniah's in there.

You have any friends named Zephaniah?

Y'all all want to get like a name nobody else has?

Name your kid Zephaniah.

Nobody's got that.

It's like a diamond laying right there in the dirt, like Zephaniah.

If we'd had a son, I'd have named that cat Zephaniah and called him Zeph.

That's trendy in Fort Bend County-ish right there.

What's your name?

Zeph.

And I'm a surfer.

No.

So way back in Zechariah, you say, What do you mean by keeping his word?

How does God win by keeping his word?

Way back in Zechariah.

Now you said, what do you mean, Zechariah?

Zechariah, the book of Zechariah was written in 518 B.C.

BC means before Christ.

Jesus, best we can tell, is 33 years old.

So add 518 to 33, and what do you come up with?

Engineers, engineers?

Get your phone out, somebody.

What is it?

540?

541.

540 years earlier.

God said, so when I say that, hey, how's God?

What am I keeping his word?

You would think keeping your word is no big of a deal.

You start thinking about how many times you said one thing and done another.

And by the way, that never happens with God.

And here's why I'm saying, because some of you have been disillusioned and let down by people, and so another authority figure letting you down, you just can't take it.

So you keep God in the gospel at arm's length.

And I want you to say, you shouldn't keep him at arm's length.

You should stretch your arms open wide and welcome a God that is this consistent, this unchanging, and this unfaltering.

He keeps his word.

541 years ago, he wrote in the book of Zechariah, Fear not, daughter of Zion.

It's a reference to the people of Jerusalem.

Jesus is now riding into Jerusalem.

Behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's coat.

How does God win?

He wins by keeping his word.

If you want to get better at keeping your word, there's two things you have to understand.

You have to understand desire and responsibility.

Desire and responsibility.

You say, what do you mean?

Most people are ruled by their desire.

I want to do this, I want to do that, I don't want to do that.

And here's the danger in that.

Your desire changes on an hourly basis.

You may want to do this today, and later on this afternoon, you go, you know what?

I changed my mind.

But responsibility, it kind of brings this consistency to your life that you long for, and hear me, that you'll never get just living out of your desires.

Let me use myself as an example.

I sat down one time and I just made a list of what I understood my responsibilities to be.

And there's really only five of them.

I am a Christian, I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a pastor, and I'm a friend.

In that order, by the way.

That's not just friends.

In that order, I'm a Christian first and foremost.

Secondly, I'm a father.

My kids, when they were little, they go, Do you who do you love more?

Us or mommy?

Mommy, because mommy will be here after y'all are gone.

I'm a Christian.

I'm a husband.

I'm a father.

That's right.

All three of those are before being your pastor.

I'm a pastor.

I'm also a friend.

A lot of decisions in my life, get life, get made for me when I just look at my responsibilities.

It doesn't matter what my desires are, I understand what my responsibilities are.

That's why you can see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying to God and saying, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Desire.

But nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.

Responsibility.

It happened just yesterday.

A friend of mine, or this weekend, a friend of mine invited me to his wedding.

He's getting married, got married yesterday.

He said, Hey, we're gonna, Friday we're gonna have like uh beef fajitas at lupe, we're having fajitas and margaritas, because I have friends that are sinners.

We're having fajitas and margaritas at lupe tortillas, and you guys are welcome to come and have all you want.

And I'm like, oh, I would love to do that.

But I Marcy and I have been getting to know a couple that's checking out our church, and they invited us to their house to eat Indian food.

And I said, you know what?

I just here's how I made the decision.

Not out of desire, because some of y'all heard Lupe Tortillas and you've nudged your wife and said, We're going there for lunch.

And then some of you heard fajitas and margaritas and you said, And we're going there for supper too.

How do you pass that up?

Don't you enjoy having good food with good friends?

Absolutely.

But I I want to keep my word.

And so I had to say to my friend who I care deeply about, hey, I can't come to your fajita margaritas celebration, and I can't come to your wedding because there's on Saturday, because there's a young man in my church that's leaving to go to the Navy, and I want to go see him off and say goodbye to him before he leaves this week.

And some of my friends are like, oh, hey, by the way, we got to our friend's house that are from India, and they said, Do you mind if we eat Indian style?

And I said, What is that?

And they said, With your hands.

Shut up.

And so I just scoop food up and you flip it in with your thumb.

I was just, don't, don't, don't.

My wife said, I think you got that down.

I'm like, you say to a man, you don't have to use utensils, shut up.

I was like, can I come again next week?

It was incredible.

I woke up the next day, I took a shower.

The next morning, my hands still smelled like curry.

I was walking around all day going, ooh, that's gonna be with me for a while right there.

Hey, one of the reasons your wife is your wife, your life kind of flattens out and gets less interesting is because you're ruled by your desire, not by your responsibility.

Here's the danger of desire.

The Bible talks about this type of person in James chapter 1, and it says he's a double-minded man.

James 1 · chapter mention

It says that, hey, let not a double-minded, I mean, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.

He's tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.

I don't know what I'm gonna do.

What do you think I should do?

Well, uh, uh then the Bible speaks this sad reality over this person.

It says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.

And then it says this let not this person expect that they'll receive anything from the Lord.

You need to outgrow your desires and grow into your responsibility and just embrace that.

It's not sexy, it's not cool.

There's a lot of times my kids have school programs, or a lot of times I've just been out a couple nights a week and I need to say no to whatever comes next just so I can be home, because I got a 14-year-old.

And part of me, this is sick.

Part of me thinks I did such a good job raising my 20-year-old, this other one can just look and see what we did, and she's on autopilot.

No, she's not.

No, she's not.

And so sometimes I will say no to you in order to say yes to them.

That being the women at my house.

See, how how does God win?

By keeping his word.

Secondly, by being obedient.

By being obedient, Jesus rides into Jerusalem, knowing fully well what awaits him there.

Now, let me just give you two things about obedience.

First is this if you can know the outcome, consequence, a result of every act of obedience, then it's no longer obedience but manipulation.

Let me say that again.

If you can know the outcome, the consequence or the result of every act of obedience, then it's no longer obedience, but it's manipulation.

And we live, let me just be candid, we live in the religious subculture in America.

There's a lot of things that are written, books that are written, things that are marketed to kind of convince you to try to manipulate God, to get God to do what you want.

That's why everything's a formula.

Everything at the bookstore is a formula.

Someone said to me, there was a family Christian bookstore up here by the Target, and they said, Oh, that thing closed.

Isn't that sad?

I said, No, no, that's not sad.

That's probably an answer to prayer.

And they were like, Well, what do you mean?

I said, that wasn't really about the family.

It really wasn't that Christian.

It was just kind of, they sold a bunch of cheesy Jesus junk that people shouldn't buy.

Like I was in there one time and they had a rolling pin, a green ceramic rolling pin that had the Proverbs 31 woman on it.

So I bought it and gave it to a friend of mine.

And I just said, Who goes to this church?

My wife and friends with them, we said, Here, I thought you'd be like this, and she's like, I'm gonna beat you to death with that thing.

If it for no other reason than this, they sold testaments, not like New Testament, Old Testament, but mints with Bible verses on them.

And you wonder why Muslims hate us.

It's just cheesy.

And so you say, What's the big deal about a bookstore?

Hey, bookstore ought to sell books, not coffee mugs.

And t-shirts and posters and every little thing known to man, and I'm losing some of y'all.

I can feel this kind of like, oh don't somebody said to me, Hey, would you like a gift card from Starbucks or the Christian bookstore?

Starbucks.

I will I will use that more.

And here's the thing I'm not against all bookstores.

I think some, there's few out there that are actually good.

They sell really thought-provoking books, but look at me.

Not everything is a formula.

Obedience is not a formula whereby you get God to do what you want God to do.

Like, for example, years ago, and some of you people that are as old as I am remember this, there's a book that came out, really the first one that kind of launched it and was wildly popular.

And people, other people were like, I can write a book like that, was a book called The Prayer of Jabez.

And the prayer of Jabez was basically a little formula that said, you pray this prayer for 30 days and your life gets better.

And it was like this.

Oh, and that prayer began with, Oh Lord, that you would bless me and expand my territory, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Someone stopped me after the last service and said, You ought to be glad so-and-so in here.

He'd write you a letter.

And I was just like, I okay, whatever.

And because when the book came out, people come up to me, oh, hey, what do you think about this?

I really I don't.

I I here's the crazy thing.

The Bible has already provided the mechanism whereby which we're blessed.

If you read Psalm chapter 1, it says, How blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the path of the other scornful, or set in the city of the sinner.

Psalms 1 · chapter mention

But in his but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night.

And it goes on to describe it and says, That person is like a tree planted by rivers of living water, and it yields its fruit in due season, and its leaf does not wither.

Now, here's the reality: living in the subculture, Christian subculture in America, we prefer the formula of, oh Lord, that you would bless me, than the biblical responsibility of saying, you know what, I need to pick my friends wisely.

I need to not hang out with some people.

And so some of your kids need to end friendships with people that influence them in negative ways just by saying, you know what?

It's not that I don't like you.

It's that I don't like me when I'm around you, so we can't be friends anymore.

That's what the Bible, that's how the Bible says you get blessed.

Blessed is the person who does these things.

But let's just face it, who wants to do that?

Who wants to look at your 16-year-old friend and kind of go, you know what?

I don't like the way you influence me, so I'm not gonna hang out with you anymore.

When you can just pray some formula and make God make you happy.

That's not biblical obedience, beloved.

It's just not.

And so again, if you can know the outcome, the consequence, or the result of every act of obedience, then it's no longer obedience, it's manipulation.

Here's the second happy, shiny thought about obedience.

Obedience requires something we don't talk about much in the church, and it's abandonment.

Obedience requires abandonment.

It means not my will, but your will be done.

I love what Dallas Willard.

Dallas Willard taught philosophy at the University of Southern California.

And he would just wax these kids who would pop off to him in class, and he never raised his voice.

He was a gracious, gentle soul, and he was brilliant.

Dallas Willard said this.

He said, abandonment to God is the fruitful way to experience good under God.

It means relinquishing our way, it means not being angry or resentful when things do not go our way.

It means that in God's hands we are content for him to take charge of outcomes.

And in that posture, we make way for him to occupy our lives with us and achieve what is best for us and for others far beyond anything we can even imagine.

Jesus abandons himself to the will of God.

That's why he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey and not a white stallion like a conquering general.

He rides in in fulfillment of the promise God made 541 years ago is just to say, I'm coming to establish peace.

I'm coming to win in a way that looks like losing.

And it was so uh it was so not obvious to people that John tells us in verse 16 that his disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.

How would you like to spend a little over three years with people who never understood what you were all about?

And by the way, some of you already do that.

It's called parenting.

You're gonna spend a lot of years with people who do not really understand what you're all about.

And that's what Jesus does with these people.

And it's how does he just by being obedient.

He knew it didn't surprise him.

That's why he says back in Mark chapter 8, about verse 31, it's kind of the middle of Mark's gospel.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

He's talking to his disciples one day, and he wants them to understand because they're kind of like, hey, we're kind of heading to Jerusalem.

What's the big deal?

Jesus says this, and he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders or the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again.

And he said this plainly.

In other words, it wasn't parabolic, it wasn't parables, it wasn't a riddle, it wasn't a mystery.

He just laid it out there.

He said it plainly.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan, for you're not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.

And what Jesus is kind of uh letting us see is that obedience involves setting your mind on the things of God and not on the things of man.

Because if you think obedience is setting, if if your approach to obedience, you set your mind on the things of man, you're going to try to manipulate God to get God to do what you want him to do.

But the way God wins is he just obeys.

Thirdly and finally, he's just by how does he win?

By seeing the big picture.

By seeing the big picture.

So much of our lives can be explained by the simple fact that we're not seeing the big picture that's being projected on the canvas of the world all around us.

When you read the Bible, you have to know that Jesus is talking to people and he's looking at them.

But the the reality he's interacting with, it's like he's looking over the head and he's seeing a picture being broadcast on that back wall that no one can see.

The best example is on the cross.

He's on the cross and he says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they're doing.

He cries out on the cross, and the soldiers are like, he's calling Elijah to come get him down and save him.

Because he sees the reality that they can't even comprehend.

Or said differently, he's living in a bigger picture that they even know exist.

Now, when I talk about the big picture, I just want to say this over and over, Jesus is guided by the big picture instead of being ruled by the moment.

Over and over, he's guided by the big picture instead of being ruled by the moment.

You should ask yourself before you go to bed tonight, or ask your spouse, or ask if you're not married, ask a good friend of yours Hey, do you you do you think that I'm guided by the big picture or I'm ruled by the moment?

Because Jesus is guided by the big picture.

That's why his responses are always kind of like, whew, okay.

I got to think about that.

Because he was surrounded by people that were ruled by the moment.

But to see the big picture means two things, beloved.

It means number one, calibration.

It means calibration.

You see this all through the New Testament.

People would come to kill Jesus.

He would say things that would make people so mad, they would pick up rocks and want to stone him to death.

And he would walk through the crowd and they wouldn't do anything.

And Jesus would say, My time has not yet come.

My time has not yet come.

And they couldn't do a thing.

Why?

Because he was synced up.

He was calibrated with what God was doing.

And he had this sense of certainty about it.

And he wasn't cocky or arrogant or dismissive.

He was just free.

He was just like, My time has not yet come.

See, to be calibrated means that you're in this and you're looking at that and you bring that to bear on this in a way that people want to look around and see what you're seeing.

I don't know what you mean.

Here's what I mean.

Here's how you know that you're getting calibrated.

You stop coming to God in the Bible just for forgiveness and you start coming for direction.

You don't just come for forgiveness.

You don't think, oh man, I hadn't been to church in forever.

I just want to slip in.

Hope the building doesn't fall down.

But instead you get up and you open it up and you lay it down before you and you're just kind of like, what now?

What now?

The Bible talks about this calibration in the New Testament, in a book called Galatians.

It's over towards the right from John.

Let me just read to you what the Bible says.

This is Galatians chapter 5, starting in verse 16.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

He says, But I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

For the desires of the flesh, by the way, there's two commands this entire section I'm going to read, and that's one of them.

He says, By the way, but I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Look at me, parents.

If you're tired of the decisions your kids make sometimes, if you're tired, I told somebody this morning, I went to the mall this past week, and it was, I had to go to the Apple store, and it was depressing.

Here's what depressing is because there's a generation of kids that put all their confidence in the flesh.

And this lady said, Hey, I didn't get your article you wrote, and I said, I hadn't I hadn't finished it.

I'm working on this article and tired raising kids with putting no confidence in the flesh.

Because as I walked around the mall, I just was like, Really?

Who let you out of the house like that?

And I wasn't mad at those kids.

I wasn't like, oh, you kids, you bunch of strinks.

I just thought, this is the best idea you have.

This is putting confidence in your flesh.

And there will come a day where that will get you no further than you've already gotten, and then depression will set in, and our kids will have to self-medicate because they cannot live with the deep, deep sadness of soul that is on them like the morning dew.

And we need to look around and sober up.

And by the way, most of what's sold at the mall is to tell your kids, hey, put confidence in the flesh.

I was, I came home and told my 14-year-old, you're no longer allowed to shop at the mall.

She's like, why not?

I went, they don't sell clothes.

I don't know what that is, dental floss or something.

But he says this.

And here's the Bible's response.

The Bible doesn't go pick at the mall and go, hey, where's the turtleneck long-sleeve dresses?

No, here's what the Bible says: walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

The rest is description.

For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh.

For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing these things you want to do.

But if you're led by the spirit, you're not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of rage, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

That's a 17-part sermon series right there.

What's your pastor preaching on?

Oh, he talked about sexual immorality last week, and this week it's enmity and strife.

You should come.

No one wants to come to that.

Here's what the Bible says.

He says, uh and things like these, I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, uh, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness and self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

Here's what the church has done, okay?

Follow me.

What the church, we don't talk about all those other lists of bad things.

We talk about this list of good things, and we try to teach behavior modification.

We have like a nine-part sermon series or a three-part.

We're talking about love, joy, and peace and gentleness and kindness, and you're teaching people how to do what the spirit is supposed to do in them, and then you have the audacity to wonder why they don't know how to walk in the spirit.

You've made the spirit unnecessary with your behavior modification, B.F.

Skinner.

Go away.

Teach your kids to walk in the spirit.

And look at me, they won't want to fulfill the desires of their flesh anymore.

They just won't.

It won't happen.

Well, how do you know?

Because the Bible says, verse 16, by the way, when you strip out all the descriptions, because the Bible knows that we're so unfamiliar with walking in the spirit and keeping in step with the spirit, because that's what he says there towards the end, verse 25.

If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit.

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.

There's two commands.

One is in verse 16, but I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

The other one's in verse 25.

If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit.

This is calibration.

Keep it in step with the spirit.

It's not behavior, the gospel, Christianity.

If you've never been to church in your life, hear this.

It will change your life.

Christianity is not about trying to learn to be more loving and kind and patient and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

No, no, no.

Christianity is walking in the Spirit and keeping in step with the Spirit, staying calibrated with what God is doing, and all this other stuff takes care of itself.

Be careful that you don't communicate to your kids a gospel of behavior management or behavior modification.

Oh, you better be careful, not do this bad stuff and do this good stuff because hey, your kids are no more Christian if they're immoral or if they're a Pharisee.

Both of them are equally lost.

That's what calibration is.

That's what it means to see the big picture.

Your life is kind of calibrated to that.

And the second one is just character.

It's character.

Your life has to have the character.

My life has to have the character of the big picture that we see.

And by the way, here's where it gets hard for me.

Because here's two ways to tell that you're living in the big picture.

The first one is simply this.

Oh, excuse me.

Two ways to tell you're not living in the big picture.

The first one is this everybody knows every injustice you experience.

Everybody knows every injustice.

Oh, you wouldn't believe I went to Starbucks and they got my order wrong.

Can you believe this?

I mean, you post about it on Facebook.

People don't even know you.

Oh, here's John Smith.

Oh, he ordered a vanilla latte and they gave him a frappuccino.

Oh my gosh, I mean, the world's gonna end.

Now, by the way, look at me.

If you were here last week, I hate injustice.

I'm the guy that somebody grazed my car and I fantasize about shooting him.

So I'm not, I'm not, not that I would, but I'd like to shoot off his rear view mirror.

That'd be fun.

I'm not making fun of you.

I'm just saying, look at me.

If everybody knows every injustice that we encounter, how can we profess to represent a God who was led like a sheep before its shears and he opened not his mouth?

We just didn't.

We got home from church and my wife went in our house.

I'm not making this up.

And got a Mr.

Clean magic eraser, spongy thing, and went out there and she came back in and she goes, Hey, that big smudge came right off.

I was robbed of my injustice.

And I said, I said, because if I'm not being violated, then how do I explain?

And I said, Well, the wheel's broken.

And she just said, It's always gonna be something wrong, right?

Shut up, woman.

And I'm at that wheel.

I got online, started pricing those wheels.

Some wheels are$600.

Wheel is just the metal part, not the tire.

Cut my tire too.

That tire's$210.

How in the world?

Who puts that on a vehicle?

Ah.

So I called my friend Jack, who works at the four dealership.

I said, Jack, can you just tell me how much this is gonna be?

And he calls this tire and wheel guy out there.

The guy comes down.

There's a man whose job is just tires and wheels.

I was so jealous, I was like, that sounds fascinating.

He looked at that and he goes, Ah, we can fix that.

125 bucks.

Once again, I was robbed of my injustice.

I drove off and I just felt sheepish.

I was just like, uh Lord, see, uh what is he?

See, Pokey Ray Ray got me all amped up and see that theft.

I turned off the radio because I could just, and when you turn off the radio and you hear God just kind of going, ah.

And so I wrote this to myself.

I'm not demonstrating the character of the big picture when everybody knows every injustice that I experience.

Here's another way to tell, you're not living in the big picture.

Every time something goes wrong, it is the biggest thing in your life and in the world, and it's the biggest thing in the life of everybody who really loves you.

Because if they really love you, they'll take up offense for you.

That's what you think.

And so when you say to your husband, like my wife is just kind of like, okay, the world's not against you.

My wife even said to me one time, you are so comfortable when it's kneel against the world.

You don't know what to do when people love you and accept you and want to bless you.

You're like, and I just looked at her like, I'm not talking to you the rest of the day.

I've lived with her so long, I didn't even say that.

She looked at me and she said, And if you think you're gonna punish me by not talking to me, that ain't punishment.

I don't like you.

And she just smiled.

She says, Not everybody's out to get you.

Not everybody wants something.

And I'm just looking at her.

I am just like, what can I say?

Nothing.

She's right.

I'm just like, because here's the reality.

I experienced a lot of injustice as a kid, and this is not right or valid or fair, but it's true.

You go into adulthood thinking this is the way everyone's gonna treat you.

And my wife's like, you're more sometimes more ready for a fight than a blessing.

No, don't honor that, shut up.

And I'm just shrugging, and I'm like, okay, alright.

Because for my wife to be right, it's like I'm conceding a nation or something.

Okay, you can have Czechoslovakia, but I'm keeping polling.

And she wants me to acknowledge.

I'm just looking at her kind of like, and she's like, You got some words for that?

No, no, I'm praying in my spirit.

It's just evidence.

I'm not living in the big picture.

Every time something goes wrong, it's the biggest thing in your life.

And by the way, if you love me, you the way you demonstrate that you love me is that you join me in the offense, and nothing can be further from the truth.

You say, What do you mean?

We'll just end with this.

Because I know none of you do this.

You're just all gonna walk out and go, pray for Pastor Neil.

He has problems.

Shut up.

I got back from the tire guy going, oh, 125 bucks, drop it off Monday, I'll get it back to you on Tuesday.

Okay.

Well, did I tell you the tires cut too?

He said, Yeah, it's not bubbling, so it doesn't look that bad.

I just keep driving on it.

Well, I'm all out of injustice now.

Hmm.

So I went back to my office and I got my Bible and I said, God, I just want to see the way you dealt with injustice.

And I started reading the last week of Jesus.

And I wrote down some of the injustices that he endured.

Against the backdrop of years of injustice, he now enters Jerusalem to spend the last week of his life here on earth being insulted, spat upon, and ratted on.

And he doesn't open his mouth.

Here's some of the things he endured.

He washes the feet of Judas.

Judas was a disciple who betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver, and he knew that, and he washed that little weasel's feet.

He was denied by Peter, his most passionate follower, three times.

He was questioned by people who knew less than him.

He had power and he chooses not to use it.

He could have called down legions of angels and wiped these people off the face of the earth, and he didn't.

People chose him to be crucified instead of a known criminal.

And not only did Jesus know that Barabbas was a thief, was a sorry two-count, two-bit thief, everybody else did.

And they said, release Barabbas and crucify Jesus.

And they made him carry his own cross.

As he's dying, he watches, he gets to watch soldiers gamble for his clothes.

Here's the one that just slaved me.

His mom watches him die.

And he watches his mom watching him die.

And he says, Woman, behold your son.

This is Mary, who was the vehicle God used to bring our sinless Savior into the world, who raised him up, watched him grow up, who every once in a while looked over and just kind of thought, hey, that's God eating my soup.

This is not awkward.

What are you going to ask him?

Hey, is it good?

You don't want the answer.

And then I thought, is she conflicted?

Is it a part of her thinking, come on, son, get off the cross and make all this right?

But because our God is a God who's willing to endure injustice, he stays on the cross in order to make it right.

That's how God wins.

And how do I know?

Because we're not selling lambs today.

When you drove in, we didn't have a corral out there and say, hey, come get your lamb, take it home for the next five days.

And for the next five days of Holy Week.

You just remember that Jesus is being passed around to a bunch of religious morons who stand in judgment of him, who ask him stupid, pointless questions.

He's smarter than every one of them, and he could smoke these fools like a pack of Paul Malls, and he chooses not to.

Somebody remembers Paul Malls.

And he doesn't.

And that's how he wins.

And by the way, this is all you're getting out of me in reference to you.

What if that's the way you win too?

Let's pray together.

Let's just take a moment.

If you're visiting today, just relax.

No one's gonna jam you up.

We just like to teach the Bible and then say, hey, take a moment and think about what we just heard.

So let's take that moment now.

Ask yourself, hey God, what stirred my head and what stirred my heart?

It's just that simple.

What stirred my head and what stirred my heart?

Let's think about that.

Father, when we think about the triumphal entry in Palm Sunday, we're drawn.

Keep drawing.

Keep speaking, keep saying.

Lord, that's our desire.

We long.

We want your will to be realized in our life.

We want to be calibrated to the big picture.

And we want to live with the character of the big picture.

And so, Lord, don't let us weasel off the hook.

Because man will try.

And so, Lord, we pray all this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

If you're a guest, let me say thanks for being part of our service.

Hopefully, you notice on the back of the row in front of you there's a couple pockets that has cards in them.

Those are guest cards.

If you haven't already, would you pull one of those and fill it out?

And on your way out, just drop it one of these wooden boxes by the doors on your way out.

We'd love to have a record of your visit.

Let me just tell you a couple things by way of announcement for this week of Holy Week.

This is the first service of Holy Week.

Our next service that we have is Monday Thursday, Thursday night at 7 o'clock, right here in our sanctuary.

We have Monday Thursday.

Monday is a word Latin from the Latin that means mandate.

And our services is built in based on the two mandates Jesus gives his disciples in John 13, where he says, I want you to love one another and serve one another.

And so what will happen is on the back wall of our sanctuary, there'll be foot washing stations set up.

Relax.

It's totally optional.

But basically, we serve one another by washing one another's feet.

My kids are like, Dad, do not wash.

I washed my kids' feet the first time we did it, and they were like, never again.

Now my wife every year says to me, Come, I want to love you and serve you and wash your feet.

And I'm like, uh.

And while she washes my feet, she prays over me and tells me I'm a good and honorable man.

And I'm like, okay, let's go.

And here's my point.

It's not hard washing somebody's feet.

It's hard to get your feet washed.

Another component of our service is we're going to express love to each other.

The Bible says, look at me.

The Bible says that Jesus, having loved his disciples, now comes to show the full extent of his love for them.

So at one point during the service, I'm going to make everybody stand up and I'm going to say, look around.

And if there's somebody that you know, don't fake it.

If there's somebody you don't know, just say, hey, I don't know you.

But but I want us to express love to each other because I don't think we're very good at that.

And I don't mean us as a church, I mean us as people.

We just kind of like, what's up, man?

Ask yourself, man, when's the last time a man looked you in the eye and said, you know what?

I love you, and here's one of the reasons I love you.

And so, yeah, I'm telling you right now so you can just kind of go, Oh, I think I pulled a hamstring.

I can't go to that.

And then we'll end the night by receiving communion.

And so that's Thursday night, seven.

The whole service lasts about an hour.

Friday night is our Good Friday service.

It's built and based around the cross.

We will be sober and celebrative, all of that, uh, on our Good Friday service.

And that service lasts about an hour as well.

And then on Easter Sunday, we have four services.

Seven o'clock.

We add a seven o'clock service, and we have our 8:30, the 10, and the 11:30.

Love for you to be a part as much of that or as little of that as you want to be.

And don't forget, our children's ministry has an event going on Thursday as well.

Theirs starts at 6:30, because if you have little people, you can get done and get them in bed in a timely fashion.

Okay.

Uh, our services ran a little long this morning because I'm a piece of work and I need help.

Okay, that's why.

Uh, but do you have one more minute in you?

Yes.

Uh is Rick Branickin here.

Where's Rick Brannick?

Is he here?

There's Rick.

Rick, would you come up here, please?

So Rick has been leading our fit team, our first impressions team, which is our greeters in the lobby and all of our building.

And today is Rick's last day in that role.

He is stepping down because with his job, he's gonna start traveling more.

He'll still be a part of the church, but he just can't lead that team.

And so I wanted to show our appreciation to Rick, and I have a small token of appreciation for you.

And I just want to say thanks for doing a great job.

Thank you.

I think we get back to Paul Malls.

We appreciate you, man.

Thank you so much.

Uh Rick has served in different capacities.

He's been a part of the staff here.

He's now a volunteer, and the guy just always shows up and he's always gets the job done.

He's always going the extra mile.

He's the guy that makes sure makes sure you have plenty of coffee in the lobby.

He's making sure it's refilled and everything's refreshed.

And look at me, it's people like that that make the church go.

It's the people behind the scenes.

And so I don't want I don't want to sin by taking a man like that for granted.

All right?

Stand to your feet.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

God left his spirit here on earth to give you a calibrating reality to enjoy, to rest in, and to trust.

So you don't have to live at the mercy of your flesh any longer.

Depart now and live in that calibrating reality in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.