The Character Credibility Test | Applause of Heaven 3

Hey, what up?

It's Mark Carter.

I'm the pastor of Fierce Church.

Welcome to our podcast.

I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today.

I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you.

Enjoy the message.

Hey, do y'all know who Mickey thank you, mickey Cohen is?

He was a gangster in the last century mid-century.

He was a Los Angeles gangster and word got around that he might have some openness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so Billy Graham, who was a famous evangelist of last century, ended up meeting with him, had dinner with him, and there was a lot of talk about maybe this Mickey guy's a gangster, he's going to start following Christ.

But after a little while it seemed like nothing changed.

His character didn't change much and a lot of the Christian leaders at the time were like, hey, man, what's up with Mickey?

Why isn't he arranging his life in order to follow Christ?

And Mickey is quoted as saying this.

He said hey, there's Christian football players, christian cowboys, christian politicians why not a Christian gangster?

And everyone's like, wow, I think there's something you're not getting here.

These are two different worlds and they don't mix well.

If you're going to do one, it's going to pull away from the other.

I'm not even sure I don't think he ended up following Christ.

At least there's nothing I found online that made me think that.

But it demonstrates.

There's a version of following Christ where I know you're saying that, but I don't see anything coming out.

I don't see any difference.

I don't see any change.

We're in this, the applause of heaven series.

We've been in it a few weeks now and right now we're on the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Sermon on the Mount, this kind of Jesus' vision statement to his people said hey, if you're going to be mine, this is what I'm going to be doing on the inside of you.

If you're going to be my disciple, just know this is where we're going.

This is the painted picture at the end.

You're not there yet.

I'm still painting you.

I'm still working stuff around on your insides.

But this is where you're going.

This we said last week this is what you're going to look like when the braces are off.

Right now, the braces are on.

I'm bringing you through some moral and ethical training.

But when you get through my program when you get through my school.

As you walk out through life, this is what I'm trying to do in you.

This is how Jesus always acts and this is what he's trying to produce in us.

And we call this whole process the development of character.

Right, character?

That's who we are.

When nobody's looking, that is, if no one was ever going to find out, I'd still do this or this or this.

That is an estimation of our character and that is what the Sermon on the Mount is really trying to draw out of us.

It's trying to change our insides more than our outsides.

There's a lot of exteriors to following Christ sometimes, but we can get off kilter if we're focused on the exteriors.

Jesus wants us to focus on the heart, and so he's taken us through his training program.

When I was a kid, they used to say stuff like you are what you eat.

And what they meant was if you eat a lot of junk food, you're going to feel like junk, and if you eat a lot of health food, you're going to feel healthy.

And it kind of works the same way in the kingdom.

If you give yourselves to the ways of Jesus, you're going to find a lot of Jesus in you, living out of you.

If you don't, if you keep your gangster lifestyle, you're going to find a lot of gangster coming out of you still.

So that's what Jesus wants to do.

Now here is the rub.

The rub is, if you're going to be a Christ follower, you've got three enemies.

They're going to be with you the whole time, for the rest of your sojourn and pilgrimage on planet earth.

There's three enemies that the Bible describes.

It's the world, the flesh and the devil.

The world, the flesh and the devil.

The world is the world system that opposes a lot like Mickey Cohen's world.

It's the world system that says I'm going to try to do life in different ways than God says I'm going to try to get things my own way.

I'm trying to force my way to the top.

I'm going to try to pull it off in my own strength.

I'm going to go after what I think is the wise thing to go after.

That's the system of the world.

It's all around us.

It highlights different things.

It says this is what you should do.

Then there's also the flesh.

That just means our own selves.

We have our own temptations that draw us away from following Jesus Christ.

And then there's spiritual foes, darkness, the devil and his demons.

They're actively trying to get us to not do the Sermon on the Mount.

They're trying to get us to not develop character.

They see Jesus' plan.

Oh, jesus is trying to develop character in them.

I'm going to get in the way.

I'm going to do everything I can.

I'm going to, you know, tap their temptation.

I'm going to put worldly goals in front of them.

I'm going to do whatever I can to shut down the Jesus character producing process.

Why?

Well, on one level, just because he hates God, but also because it's a threat to his kingdom.

He knows that Jesus filled, empowered people tend to take ground away from the enemy, so he doesn't like it.

Now here's some great news.

I don't know if you think about heaven very much, but if you're a Christ follower, I just want to recommend that you should.

You should think about where you're going, because it's awesome.

It is next, it is coming soon to a life near you.

It's your life.

If you trust in Christ, you're going there.

And one of the great things about heaven is you're out of reach of all three of those enemies.

All those conflicts are gone.

There's no more world, there's no more flesh and there's no more devil.

You're going to finally be free, and that right there is worth focusing on, just celebrating.

You know I'm in a conflict and there is stuff that opposes Jesus' character in me, but it is not forever.

By the grace of God, I am not stuck in this body.

It is God's will that we die and it's God's will that we die having trusted Christ and are in his presence forever.

That's what he wants to happen.

That's the end goal.

So it's not just that you get great character, it's that you enjoy him face to face forever and ever.

I think it's good news.

I like to think about it.

I think you should too.

I think we should stop trying to not think about death, because it's a sure thing, and the more we're focused on heaven CS Lewis said this he said the reason the apostles were so effective was because they were living for the next life and not this one, and I think that's true of all of us.

If we just get our minds more on heaven, we'll be more good on earth and more good to others.

So we're going right back into the Sermon on the Mount, matthew 5, verse 6.

Matthew 5:6

We're going to say practice developing the character of number one those who hunger.

Those who hunger, blessed are.

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Now, for us, hunger is not even often a very big deal, is it?

You can just go to Jewel or Meijer or wherever you go.

You can go down and get a Big Mac.

Whatever Food is not far from you right now.

Go, you can go down and get a Big Mac.

Whatever Food is not far from you right now, like you could find it relatively easily.

But in ancient Near East it's an agrarian society.

They don't have refrigeration of anything, they don't have plentiful much, and so the idea of being hungry and being like, oh, I don't know how long I'm going to be hungry, that was a much less foreign idea to them than it is to us.

And you know what it's like when you're hungry, man, when you're hungry, it doesn't just go away, right?

I mean most of the time, yeah, you can fast into a point where it kind of clicks off for a little while.

But even then, if you're hungry right now, if you just ignore you're hungry, you'll be hungry again by noon and your tummy will keep saying you're hungry, you're hungry, you're hungry, hey, hey, hey, don't forget me down here.

You're hungry, get something soon.

Next available opportunity, get some food.

Hey, be on the lookout here, look around.

Is there food around you?

Find some soon and I'll be happy.

And Jesus says I want you to think about God's righteous ways and kingdom that way.

I want you to think about hey, what can I do to increase the kingdom of Jesus' righteousness inside of me?

What can I do to partner with God in such a way that there's more justice coming in my life?

There's more of his right ways, his right standards, his better ways.

There's just more of it happening and breaking forth into my life.

How do I get it there?

Another way we could say this verse is blessed.

Are you, when you're the kind of person who cultivates a hunger for God's righteous reign?

It's not that you just want to be a goody two-shoes, it's not just that you're a real legalist.

You just know there's life in God's ways Like the more you partner with God, the more like things get great.

The more blessing is on your life, the more things are easier, the more mistakes and pains you avoid.

Now one thing we should know about this idea of righteousness, right here as in the rest of the Bible.

Humans can't actually do righteousness without God.

That's 100% true.

Think about Adam.

Okay, adam only does one sin.

He only does one, and yet he cannot fix the world.

That's 100% true.

Think about Adam.

Okay, adam only does one sin.

He only does one, and yet he cannot fix the world.

I'm sure he sinned again, but I sinned way more in one day than Adam probably did in his whole life.

He was unable, even with only one, to fix the world.

Why?

Because humans can't do it.

And so when we think about God's righteous reign, god wants us to know.

I do want you to aim at my righteous ways in your life, but just understand, I've also got to be doing it in and through you for God's real kingdom to come.

You can't just go like be a philanthropist and say here's some good things I produced on earth.

You might even do a little bit of that, but that's not the same thing as trying to get God's kingdom ushered in through your family, through your place of work, through your own life, through your interpersonal relationships.

When God wants to come into someplace, he says you're going to need me to do it.

Let me give you an example, an illustration.

Let's pretend that this kind of a rag is you or me.

Now, I say kind of a rag, because this is one of those lame rags that you purchase and it doesn't absorb anything because they sprayed it with Scotchgard or something and so orange juice spills and you just like wipe it off the table because the towel didn't do its doggone job.

Okay, so let's pretend, you know, you and I are this and we can get a little bit done.

Okay, there's a little spill and we're trying to, we're trying to clean it up.

Yeah, and maybe even like we pray and we get a little bit of water on there, I'm going to really try to get this thing, get this going, but there's only so much I can do with this little rag, with this little drop on it.

That is itself resisting the water, and that's how humans are.

Even when we ask for God's help, there's pieces of us that are resisting God in different ways.

But there's another tool.

We have this.

You guys know this.

This is a sponge, and the difference between a sponge and that rag is a sponge is thirsty.

A sponge wants more in it.

So when you put the sponge and you let you become that sponge.

It's soaking up God's righteousness, you're soaking up God's presence.

You're soaking up God's word and you're paying attention to what he wants, and you're around it more and more and more, and you just begin to absorb it more and more and more.

Now, baby, why don't you get this in your world?

Why don't you try cleaning some stuff off with this?

You got bunch and bunch and bunch of God coming through you in every area of your life.

Why?

Because you were so thirsty.

You said I can't stay away from them.

I need more of them and more of them, and more of them and more of them.

Now I can put this in my marriage.

I can put this at my place of work.

I put this at my church.

I can put this in the problems in the community.

Now there's God in it instead of just me.

That's the righteousness of God that he wants to bring.

God wanted partners from the very beginning.

He didn't want little robots, he wanted partners.

One of the difficult pieces, though, of soaking up, staying thirsty, getting God in our bones like that, is it's hard for many of us to stay in the Bible consistently.

The Bible is a primary way.

You do that.

You can also do that once you've been in the Bible a little bit.

You can sit in his presence and prayer kind of brings it along as well.

But the Bible is the primary way I learn about who God is, I learn what he wants, I see what he says would be righteous and I'm empowered to bring that righteousness into this world.

But for many of us, getting the Bible is hard.

It's hard to do a couple things.

It's hard to be consistent, because some of you have tried this.

You've gotten on a Bible reading plan and you did it for a little, and, and you did it for a little.

And then you got to Leviticus and you said, what am I doing?

And then you got to Ezekiel and you heard about these weird flying turning wheels in the air and you're like I'm on drugs right now.

What am I reading?

And it's easy to give up in those moments.

What can we do about that?

Well, one thing we can do about that is accountability.

What I want to promote or invite you into is, over the next three months we're going to take a 90-day journey through the New Testament, starting October 1st, in a Bible reading plan together called the Bible Recap.

Anyone who wants to join can join.

If you don't want to join, that's totally cool, bro, but what this is going to produce is, first, it's going to produce consistency, for many of us, just doing it with others will help the idea that I could talk to anybody at church and I kind of know we've been in the same regions of the Bible.

We can talk about that.

Now, if we're going to do that, though, some things go wrong whenever you do something like this, and that the first thing is legalism.

People get legalistic, and if you miss a day, then you're like, oh, I feel bad now because I missed a day, and then I missed four days.

That's like, oh, my gosh, now I got to catch up, and that's a really long investment to put that back in, and so, for our version, we're just going to say if you miss a day, don't worry about it.

Just skip that day and go to this day.

Just go to the next open day where you have time available.

For some people like me, I'm not even gonna wanna do it all the time.

I got a lot of cool stuff that I do in my Bible study in my time with God.

There's so many cool things that I figured out how to do over the years.

I want you to think about this plan that we're gonna do as a church.

Think about it like the lazy river of a water park.

It's kind of around the perimeter of the park, and you can just sit back on the lazy river.

You're on the journey with everybody in this little reading track, but you can also get out and go on a ride, which means go do your own stuff.

The thing that man, I feel like spirit is just leading me over here today.

I'm just going to read this yeah, do that.

And whenever you're bored with that, just get back in the river, because many of us will be in there just cruising around, cruising around.

What that's going to do is it's going to create some folks.

They develop the pattern for the very first time.

They're like oh, I can do this now.

What else it's going to do, though, is it's going to bring clarity.

As we do this, there's a little five, 10 minute devotion at the end, where a gal comes on and she tells you this is what you're reading.

This is what this means.

Oh, you're an Ezekiel.

Let me tell you how those crazy wheels in the sky connect to the person of Jesus Christ and what that means you ought to do in your life.

Super easy, it's barely an inconvenience and it's available to anybody who wants to do it.

All you got to do is go to fiercechurch, slash BibleRecap and sign up.

Or even if you don't sign up, you can just jump in.

You can think about it.

If you're a late adopter, that's all good.

It's just an opportunity for our church to say I need to soak a little more, because my life needs a little more of God's ways and God's power and God's truth happening in it.

If you have questions about that, that's okay.

We got a lot of time to talk about it.

We've got several weeks, but or we've got several months.

We can talk about the whole time.

But next October 1st which I think is like two Mondays or Tuesdays we're going to start, and if you start late, that's okay too.

The point is not to like get it right, the point is to get in.

Everybody get that.

Not to get it right, it's to get it in.

So that's what we're going to do, and once we start to do that, we're going to see pockets and places where you can you say, oh my gosh, there could be more good happening here.

There could be more of God's ways happening in this particular place in my life when we'll start learning, you know, the Bible seems much less focused on success and much more focused on God's ways and obedience and the flourishing that comes through that.

Think about Jesus.

Most folks would not look at Jesus' life and say, well, that was a success.

He only had three years of ministry and then he was murdered.

Think about other folks like Jeremiah His whole ministry was a flop and yet he was still faithful to God and God considered it a success.

The point is, some of our objectives are going to shift and success isn't going to be quite as important and there's going to be some exteriors that become less important.

See, it's real easy right now for many of us in this day and age to focus on getting people to like what we try to pretend to look like.

We put a bunch of stuff online that's designed to be like.

I hope people like this, hope I get a lot of hearts, a lot of likes, a lot of props, a lot of congratulations, and the Bible is going to reroute us.

It's going to reprogram us and say that stuff really doesn't matter that much.

If God uses it.

That's great, but what I want you working on is more righteousness here.

I don't care what you can pretend to do out there.

God says I want to know about the real man, the real woman.

Who are you actually becoming in here?

In other words, god wants integrity, not just a bunch of applause.

He wants the inner man or woman of the heart and he wants his ways and will in our families.

If you're part of a family, you live with folks.

There's decisions that go on all the time and God says I want to ratchet up the amount of those decisions that are really more and more in line with my will.

I want God's will in more of your decisions.

Now, if you're a married couple, that's going to take more conversations and sometimes that's going to take more sweetness for some of those conversations to take place.

But God's word and God's righteousness is going to empower us to do that, to get behind God's priorities.

I want to encourage some of you.

Maybe you're in a different stage of life and your kids are out of the house and there's not really a whole lot lot of family conversations to have and you're thinking about legacy and one of the things maybe you think sometimes is I really want to.

You know.

Let everybody know.

Hey, follow this path, because this is what led to success.

This is what was really good, and can I encourage you?

That's an okay goal.

Fine, that's good.

What about?

Here's a better one?

Hey, follow this legacy of wisdom.

That's better.

Here's an even better one.

Follow this legacy of hunger Hunger for the ways of God, hunger for the kingdom of God, hunger for I'm never giving up, I'm never backing down.

I want more of Jesus, and Jesus reign in my life.

That's the secret to blessedness, that's the secret to happiness and favor and flourishing.

That is the way and that's what God's word will get us focused on.

For some of you who are a little bit younger, you're Gen Zers, you're Millennials One of the things I love about these generations.

I'm a Gen Xer, so I'm not quite.

I don't value it in quite the same way, and I recognize that it's a good value.

You love seeing social change.

You love social justice, you love activism.

I think that's awesome, but I just want to challenge everybody within earshot of my voice Don't give over to activism without integrity, because that's real loud today.

It's just activism for activism's sake, and I think it's going to do some good, and I don't care what corners I have to cut or who I have to be harsh with or who I have to slap around in order for this thing to happen.

I just got to tell you, precious, that ain't the kingdom.

What kingdom do you think that is?

That's more like Mickey Cohen's kingdom than it is like the kingdom of Jesus.

So Jesus wants his things done, but he wants them done his way.

That's what he wants.

So let's get some integrity.

What about those of you who are maybe you're a leader of a team, or you're just the leader of a family, or you're the leader of you know your entire organization, a way that you can bring God's righteous ways and righteous kingdom into your place of influence.

More, tell people when you were morally wrong, because they're going to do whatever you.

If you're really the leader, they're going to do what you do.

You're creating the culture.

I don't know if you know that and if you demonstrate it's wrong to disobey God's ways.

I'm convicted about this To the degree you can I know that there's environments that doesn't entirely translate a way that doesn't get you in a little bit of trouble, but the degree that you can and you have that much authority in that place.

You want to teach folks.

I recognize what I just did was the wrong thing.

Would you guys just forgive me?

Let's go a different way than this, because I don't want to ever teach you that it's okay to just play willy-nilly with God or his ways.

You can say amen anytime you want, but I'm going to keep preaching and they will be satisfied.

They'll be satisfied.

How do you get?

How do you be satisfied and stay hungry at the same time?

I'll tell you how, because if you come to the Carter house and you bring chocolate chip cookies, I'll tell you how, because if you come to the Carter house and you bring chocolate chip cookies, I'm not hungry for chocolate chip cookies, but if you give me one, I'm going to be so satisfied.

They're my favorite thing, guys.

They're trouble for me.

I'll say it that.

That's how dangerous they are.

Like I can't stop.

Kenzie knows I will.

Just, it doesn't matter, I'll get up in the middle of the night when no one's awake.

I would just find them and eat them all.

That's how I roll.

I was satisfied, but it didn't take long before I was hungry again, and that's how God wants us to be about his righteous ways.

Hey, I want to give you the benefits of what happens when you start to obey me, but I want to do it in such a way that as soon as you get some, you're like, hmm, let's have some more of that.

I want to chase that some more, and that's what he wants to reward.

He says I'll satisfy those folks and I'll satisfy them even more in heaven.

Have you ever looked around this planet and be like when, god, when this is hell, this is horrible.

I can't believe the garbage that happens on this planet.

And he says blessed are you that you hunger and thirst for righter ways than this, because someday I'm going to satisfy that entirely.

The world, the flesh and the devil, they're all going to be gone and the perfect reign of Jesus Christ.

Right now, it's absolutely sight where those are already in heaven, but you're going to be there too and you're like, wow, faith has become sight and this is awesome.

We practice developing character of those who hunger and those who show mercy.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the merciful.

What's the character traits that God wants to form inside of us?

One of them is mercy.

Mercy is, I tell you, man, it feels like it's in short supply today.

Mercy is I'm going to go easy on everybody, even the people that make me mad.

Mercy is I know that they're a moron, but I'm going to let them off the hook.

Why?

Not because they deserve it, but because I didn't deserve mercy but I got a lot it, but because I didn't deserve mercy but I got a lot, and so I'm going to give them a lot.

It's a generous attitude, but it's not just a transactional thing.

So there's times when I forgive people again, like for the 20th time, like the Lord will bring up an old offense or the enemy will bring up an old offense.

In my heart I'm like I already forgave that, but I got to forgive it again because it was bad enough that it's like ah, just that coming up is a snare to me if I meditate on that too much.

So I got to just transactionally, just I forgave that, I forgive that.

Moving on, there is a transaction version of mercy.

But the best version of mercy is one where you allow yourself to feel bad for that person, reallow yourself to have a version of like godly pity for that person.

And a great example of this is the Good Samaritan.

You remember him.

He's a fictitious person that Jesus was describing.

There was a man who was on his way down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he got mugged and left for dead.

And the two guys that should have been the most helpful a priest and a Levite they passed right by on the other side of the road and then this guy was supposed to be kind of an enemy.

He took pity on the man that was mugged and he threw him over his shoulder, threw him on his donkey, took him home bound up, or took him home bound up, or didn't take him home, took him to the end, took him to the end, paid the innkeeper.

Take care of this guy and when I get back I'll pay everything else.

Why?

Because he had real mercy, he had affected mercy.

I want to be a merciful, not just a transactional mercy, but a mercy that allows, have a mercy that allows myself to be touched, allows myself to be touched in my heart about that negative situation.

And that's, I think, hard today, because of all the garbage we see, we're so exposed to so much pain in the world, on social media, on the news, everything is like in your face.

This is horrible too, and so is this, by the way?

This is horrible and there can just be a callousness that comes upon us like I just can't pay attention to this.

But blessed are we.

We say God, make me merciful, make me be affected, not in a way that I break down, but I'm feeling the feelings of Jesus in a little mini way, so that I actually care about people and don't just become hard.

Some of us will ask we'll stare at the heavens, we'll stare at the ceiling and say, god, I wish I knew what you want me to do.

He's shown you, immortal, what is good and what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy, to love it, to love it.

So that means, if you're a student and you're with a group of people and they tend to hold grudges, don't you jump in and hold a grudge with them, especially because when you're young, the sooner you develop that pattern of, the harder it is to kick of being a person that holds grudges.

But because you want to demonstrate the kingdom of Jesus and you want to practice not just that you showed mercy once, but that you want to demonstrate the kingdom of Jesus and you want to practice not just that you showed mercy once, but that you're the kind of person who mercy flows out of when you got stressful people at work and they're on your last nerve again and again and you're tempted to just start talking about them, back off for a minute and remember the words of Jesus Blessed are the merciful, for they'll be shown mercy.

Or if you are witnessing the venom and the anger that takes place online and you're seeing stuff like people getting canceled and cancel culture.

Don't give into a spirit that is always operating in fear and is always judging people back and saying, well, they said that about my person, so I'm going to say this about their person, and it's clawing back and forth.

Do you know what cancel culture?

You guys know what that is right.

That's where there's kind of a communal or global punishment that says, well, you can't participate now or you need to shut up now because you did something wrong once upon a time and we don't like it, and so just sit down and be quiet.

Don't ever talk again.

That's cancel culture.

To talk again, that's cancel culture.

That's super the opposite of the kingdom.

But check this out.

I know that it frustrates some of us.

Cancel culture.

But, bro, what did you expect?

This is the world.

The world does not know the path of peace.

Did you expect them to be gracious?

The world can get gracious sometimes, but Jesus is waiting on the people of the kingdom to always be gracious.

Gracious is our way, mercy is how we roll, so don't expect the world to be like I can't believe they're canceling people.

Well, what did you think, man?

What do you think they're going to do?

They don't know the merciful one.

They don't have it, dude.

They don't have any of it to give, but you do.

So don't participate in that dumb, jacked up stuff.

Be different.

That means give people second chances.

That means in your marriage I know it's hard, precious.

That means do everything you can to not keep a tally.

Don't keep a tally what they did wrong.

You don't want a tally kept of you, so don not keep a tally.

Don't keep a tally what they did wrong.

You don't want a tally kept of you, so don't keep a tally of what they do.

That means even as a parent, when you have to bring some kind of a version of discipline to your child.

That's part of being a parent, that's something that has to happen.

But even that should happen within a context of mercy.

The whole home is merciful, it's a merciful atmosphere, mercy is in the air, affection, and it's okay.

And it's okay to make mistakes.

One thing you want to impart to your kids as fast as possible is this ethic it is okay to make mistakes because everyone's going to do it, and if you don't impart that value, something else is going to be there, which is why don't you get your act together?

Why don't you quit being so weak?

Why don't you quit being so dumb?

Why don't you do better than this?

Guys, that also is not the kingdom.

The kingdom is everybody makes mistakes, man.

Blessed are the merciful.

Blessed are the merciful.

Don't teach your kid that it's possible to do perfect.

Teach your kid.

Blessed are the merciful.

God loves the merciful.

See the Pharisees.

They had a paradigm.

Blessed are the righteous.

Blessed are the ones who do everything right.

They are the ones who God will bless and be merciful to.

And Jesus says you guys got it wrong, man, no one does everything right.

And so blessed are the ones who are focused on showing mercy, despite the fact that people don't always treat them perfectly.

Here's a sober up verse.

I call it a sober up verse because it sobers me up Matthew 6, 14, 15.

We'll talk about this later in the series.

But if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.

That like sobers me up.

It makes me evaluate Am I holding grudges against anybody?

Is there anybody that I'm just like annoyed with and not specifically saying to Jesus, by the way, I don't even always feel forgiving toward them, but in Jesus' name I do forgive them.

It sobers me up because it's not that I'm worried.

Jesus isn't changing the deal.

In case you're worried, he's not changing the deal.

He's not saying like, well, you're actually kind of justified by your works.

He's not saying that at all.

He's saying my people, though they can't help but understand, they have an obligation to forgive.

They've had enough mercy that they know it's not right for me to not forgive.

It's kind of like an apple tree, jesus says if you're really an apple tree, you produce apples.

If you resist producing apples, though, you might want to check that you're really an apple tree.

If you're really a Christian, then you'll give mercy, and if you can't, you might want to check that you're actually mine, because that's what they do.

That's the culture of the kingdom.

They give mercy.

And so it's a sober up verse.

It's saying all right, I know I'm not justified by my works, but nevertheless, jesus, I just want to keep it real between us.

I know I'm not doing this perfectly, but you have required me to forgive.

I'm going to do it imperfectly, I didn't have a perfect score to begin with, but I'm going to specifically forgive.

And then there's number three Practice developing the character of those who seek purity.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they'll see God.

Pure in heart will see God.

Now, this pure some of us might immediately jump to like lust and that kind of thing.

And it's not that that's not involved, but really what this purity means is undiluted.

It is a sense of.

It's not mixed with anything.

There is a devotion to Jesus Christ, there's a devotion to his will with all of our heart, with all of our mind, will, emotions, the seat of our being.

We're saying, with everything that I am, I want to, exclusively zealously Jesus is the only thing, he's the primary thing, he is the source, he's what I'm after, he's where I'm headed.

I'm not mixing it with anything, I'm keeping it pure.

If something gets in the way of it, I'm getting it out of the way.

I'm doing everything I can to keep a pure heart towards seeking him Doesn't mean you do everything right, but it means as soon as you realize you're doing something wrong, you're like, oh, I'm not going to hang on to this, I'm going to chuck this overboard.

Dude, if a squid jumps in my boat, that's fine, because, okay, occasionally a squid jumps in the boat, I'm not going to give it a nice tee, I'm going to whip it back into the sea.

When sin jumps into my boat and says, here I am, I'm not going to say, hey, sit down, I'll make some provision for the flesh right here.

No, again and again, seven times a day, I run back to the cross and say Jesus, forgive me.

Here goes that squid again, and that's just guys.

That's how we protect our heart.

That's how we stay pure in heart.

That's how we are going to see God.

That means we're the same around our maybe our religious friends as we are around our other friends.

That means I'm the same online as I am offline.

That means if I've got some influences in me that are honestly man, they're like a vampire and they're sucking the Jesus right out of me and they're leaving me drier than I was then.

I'm not going to be afraid to reduce proximity or time spent with them so that I can suck up more Jesus and have more of his spirit and power flowing through me and they will see God.

And they'll see God now and they'll see him later.

And what these folks are figuring out is, the more that I remove that which keeps me from Jesus, the more clearly I see him in my life.

Right now, some people really.

I want to suggest to you that it's possible.

When you're really wrestling with feeling close to God or feeling like you're seeing him move in your life, it's possible.

One of the reasons is because you're harboring something that he doesn't want you to harbor and he's told you look, man, draw near to me and I'll draw near to you.

But you can't just keep a bunch of squids on here.

You can't pet them.

They can get in, you can throw them out, but you can't just have them and see me.

Clearly, that's his way, that's how he rolls.

There's a woman named Anna Mae Penica.

She was born blind and in 1981, she had surgery and at age 62, 1981, she began to see for the very first time.

Now she was a sweet gal.

She had already been married, she loved life, she had a great family, but she saw them for the very first time.

In some ways she kind of you could say that she saw them in a different way.

You know, she felt them and she knew their essence and you know how they felt and how they smelled and all their things.

I'm sure she knew all that.

She saw them before, but now she saw them and they were brighter and more wonderful and beautiful than she ever imagined.

What's a little bit ironic about her story is the technology that gave her her sight back had existed for 40 years already.

She just didn't know it years already.

She just didn't know it.

There is a version of sight that Jesus gives us that has existed for 2000 years.

It is spiritual sight.

It is the ability to see him, and here's what it takes.

It really doesn't just take trying harder to be pure.

It doesn't take trying harder to be righteous.

It takes giving him our heart and saying I need you to give me a heart that can see.

I need you to restore spiritual sight to me.

I need us to be honest about this.

My heart is not always right, but I know that you could make it right.

There's a gentleman by the name of Nicodemus in the book of John.

He's a really religious guy.

He's probably done a lot of good for the Jewish people.

He shows up at night talking to Jesus and he's like Jesus.

There's just things I don't get.

I don't understand what when you're saying that somebody has to be born of the Spirit.

I don't understand that.

What is that?

And Jesus says to him, nicodemus, in John 3, 6, flesh gives birth to flesh, but spirit gives birth to spirit, it says Nicodemus.

Animal gives birth to animal, vegetable gives birth to vegetable, spiritual must give birth to spiritual.

And he's not saying hey, Nicodemus, all your like good stuff you ever did that was dumb and worthless.

I'm sure all that was still great, but what Jesus was telling him is there's still one more thing for you to do, though.

You need me to give you some eye surgery.

You need me to give you some heart surgery, because you cannot see the kingdom of God unless you are born again.

Unless you're born of the spirit, unless you allow that surgery in your heart, you won't really be able to see all that God wants you to see Nicodemus.

He says you should not be surprised by my saying you must be born again.

The wind blows wherever it pleases.

You hear it sound.

You can't tell where it comes from or where it's going.

So it is with everyone born of the spirit.

When someone is born of the spirit, you don't always know Like, when did that happen?

What happened there?

Because it's like the wind, it's mysterious.

You don't really see where the wind started, you just see where it blows through, you see its effects, you see the leaves rustle and you see stuff blowing around.

You don't see the wind, you just see its effects.

And Jesus says that's how it is.

When the Spirit of God causes someone to be born of the Spirit, he does his spiritual surgery on their heart and opens their eyes.

He does it and you can't tell how or when it happened exactly.

You can just tell that it's happening because now they care about the things of the kingdom.

My friends, here's the reality.

Every one of us probably heard something in this message today that Jesus is tapping on the door of our hearts about.

Whether it is, hey, I need you to get more filled up with me, to bring more of me into your world, or I need you to think more about a purer, more zealous, straight forward, focused running after me in order to really see me more clearly.

Whatever it is for you, I want to pray for us right now.

We need to go get some of that water from the Holy Spirit to really do anything effective for the kingdom.

Let's bow our heads and we're going to pray together.

Father, in Jesus' name, I thank you that your presence is here.

I think you love everyone here so much Everyone listening online, listening by podcast.

I know that you have specifically created them with love in your heart.

You know everything about their personality.

You know everything they've ever done, right or wrong, and you love them more wildly than we can ever imagine.

And you sent your son, jesus Christ, to pay for the sin that keeps each of us away from you, to close the distance, to make sure that nothing can keep you from your children.

We thank you for that.

God.

As we're sitting here praying with your eyes closed and your head bowed, if you would be one of the ones that says you know, I really believe I need more of the water of the Holy Spirit flowing in different directions in my life.

You slip your hand up in the air.

You don't have to look around, nobody's looking.

If you would say I need more of the Holy Spirit's flow, bringing righteousness into my life, that's really good.

Holy Spirit, we ask that you would do that.

Would you go to their specific places where something's got to give, something's got to break loose?

Would you flow into those places?

God?

There's places where some of us really need an extra dose of mercy, and we want to.

That's the thing.

We want to be merciful.

But there's things that are so painful and they were so harsh and it's so hard to just kind of get past that we need your help to do it, lord.

We need you to soften our hearts and make us people of mercy.

If you want to ask God specifically today for an extra dose of his help to be merciful not your own mercy, his mercy through you go ahead with your eyes closed, head bowed.

Raise your hand, god.

I need extra mercy toward different ones myself.

Thank you, god.

We believe you're seeing those specific places and you're gonna do it Now.

If you're one of the ones who may be like Nicodemus, you're a great person.

You're probably even a leader of sorts in different areas.

You know a lot about God and that kind of thing, but the truth is you've never invited him to give you eye surgery.

You've never invited him to give you heart surgery in such a way that your heart would beat so much deeper for him than it ever has.

If you're one of the ones who you know about Jesus and you like Jesus, but you've never closed the distance, you've never said Lord, forgive me personally, between you and I not between me and a church, or me and some other people somewhere between you and I I want to ask for your forgiveness, jesus, for what I've done wrong.

I want to ask for forgiveness for the places I was callous towards you, or I resisted you, or I didn't follow through with the thing that I promised I would and then I didn't.

I'm one of the ones, god, who needs that spiritual surgery.

If you're one of the ones who would say that, would you lift your hand up?

I want to ask you to do it very boldly and bravely, on the count of three, to demonstrate to God.

Lord, I'm personally right now, and that's just a thought I'm actually asking you do heart surgery and eye surgery on me right now, heads bowed, eyes closed.

Raise your hand on the count of three one, two, three.

Raise your hand, jesus, I need you to give me heart surgery, eye surgery.

I need you to open my eyes.

I need you to open my heart.

I need you to be my God.

I need to be your person in a holy way In Jesus' name.

If you're watching online, you can raise your emoji hand out there.

Father, we lift up everyone within the sound of my voice.

We're asking you to circumcise our heart.

We're asking you to do surgery on us.

Open our eyes to things we have not seen.

Raise us up to run after you, to hunger after you, to thirst after you, to see you for the glory and the good and the prize that you are.

Help us to forget what is behind and strain forward toward what is ahead and press on toward the goal of the prize of Christ that is already ours in you.

We thank you so much that you did it, lord.

We thank you for dying on the cross for us.

We thank you so much that you did it, lord.

We thank you for dying on the cross for us.

We thank you for forgiving us.

We are here, god.

We're in your character development process.

Make us brand new people In Jesus' name, amen.

Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.

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