Jesus Is The Way | Ben Foote

All right, hope. How we doing? We good? Very good. Nice.

Awesome. Hey, uh, so my name's Ben. Okay? Uh,

I am from Colorado, but I've been here the a few times to be able to teach.

I'm always honored to get to come out here to teach. But um, again,

no introduction with myself. I'd still love to meet you though.

I'll be wandering around after this thing probably looking lost and lonely.

So , come, come talk to me. Um, I'm very pumped. You're here.

I'm pumped you're here because we're in the middle of this series called

Foundations of our Faith. And so it's just one of those series where like,

if you follow Jesus your whole life,

or if you're just now kind of exploring the whole faith idea,

then this is a really good series to be here for. So on puncture here,

we're gonna continue today. Um, but actually to,

to get started together right now,

I wanna tell you a story from my personal life. Okay? So I,

I went to college in east Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains in a tiny little town

called Johnson City, Tennessee. And I loved living in this area.

And this was in college. This was back before I had kids. So I had like time,

I had time to go hiking, and I,

I hiked and I camped and I did trail running and kayaking.

Like I did all that stuff out there. I absolutely loved living in this area.

One of the things that I loved the most was going caving, okay? Exploring caves.

And, and the caves in Tennessee are exactly what you're picturing in your mind.

They're like legit caves. These, you know,

big cavernous rooms with s stites and s stalactites and Underground

Lakes and the entrances, you know, are these big gaping holes, you know,

with bats and ghosts and, you know,

people making drugs out of household cleaning products. It's like,

it's everything you're picturing with a cave.

So I loved caving right now there was this one cave called Salt Peter Cave

that was supposed to be like right behind our campus within walking distance,

but me and my friends could never find it.

One of the reasons we could never find it is you could only really look for it

at night because it was on this really old guy's property.

And there were these like legendary stories on campus about he,

he would chase off potential campers by firing a shotgun over their heads.

So didn't stop us from looking for the thing, we just,

we just couldn't ever find it until one day I'm at the campus

library, I come across a book called Caves of Tennessee.

It was a caving guide with hundreds of caves complete with, you know,

descriptions and maps of the interiors. And most importantly,

GPS coordinates for how to find these caves.

And Salt Peter Cave was in this book. So I check it out from the library,

super pumped. I go straight back to the dorm, I rally all my friends. It's like,

tonight we are finally gonna go to Salt Peter Cave.

By the time the the sunset,

all of my friends chickened out like 'cause of, you know,

old men with shotguns.

And so everyone chickened out except for me and my friend Troy.

And Troy and I are like, fine, that's cool. You are loss. You know, we're just,

we're the two of us will go into the woods at night by ourselves without you,

which is of course the beginning of every horror movie ever made.

Um, and so we go out,

we're traipsing around in the woods where these GPS coordinates are.

We still can't find any cave.

We decided we weren't gonna use our flashlights until we were in the cave.

That didn't help. But we didn't wanna be seen by this old man. We,

we couldn't find the cave.

So we're just kind of groping around in the dark looking for anything that looks

like a cave entrance. After about 15, 20 minutes of this,

the clouds kind of roll away from the moon and we can see a little bit more

clearly.

And we realized we're like 20 to 30 yards away from this

ramshackle little cabin. Okay?

You can see the silhouette of it in the moonlight.

And there's no lights on inside. And this is when we realized like, oh,

this cave is like on top of the old man's house.

Like we're in his backyard right now.

And this is when things start to get terrifying, .

'cause I hear footsteps off to my left in the leaves. Like I hear that,

you know, there's like, and I'm trying to convince myself,

like if you've done a lot of camping, you know,

everything at night in the woods sounds bigger than it really is.

And so I'm like, it's probably just like it's a squirrel and I'm freaking out.

I'm gonna be fine.

But what was really concerning is that the noise would start anytime I was

walking and then it would stop anytime I stopped, as if, you know,

someone's stalking, stalking me. And so I eventually get closer to Troy.

I smack him, he gives me the nod, like yeah, I hear the same thing.

And we just go frozen, completely silent in the woods at night,

trying to see if we can hear anything. That's when it happens.

The noise starts up while we're frozen and it just goes,

it's coming right at us. Gets closer, it speeds up. It's like,

and then both Troy and I are just like run. So we take off,

we go sprinting outta the woods.

The footsteps are behind us chasing us the whole way they chase us until we

break out of the tree line and into this meadow that's within like sight of,

of the campus parking lot and street lamps.

And that didn't stop us from running. We ran all the way to campus,

all the way into the dorm room, all the way up the stairs.

We didn't stop running until we were in my door room with like the door locked,

right? We like collapse in the room. We're panting, we're trying to recover.

And I grab this caves of Tennessee book 'cause I'm furious, right?

I am like this thing almost got us killed.

And this is where I start to feel really stupid because I never read the

entry on Salt Peter Cave. I just saw coordinates, put 'em into my device, right?

But now I'm sitting on my bed, I'm reading this book for the first time.

I realize there's two sets of coordinates for Salt Peter Cave. Okay?

The second set of coordinates take you to the cave,

which is like half a mile from where we were just wandering around.

The first set of coordinates take you to the old man's house to ask permission

to be on his property . And so we had the wrong set of coordinates,

like I still to this day swear like it almost got us killed. Now,

side note,

beyond all forms of wisdom and sound judgment,

we put the second set of coordinates in. We went back like an hour later. We,

we didn't get shot. We were there for hours. It was a beautiful cave,

had a rope ladder down to an underground lake. It was perfect.

But the moral of the story is that we, what we wanted was good.

It was right. We just wanted to explore a cave.

The problem is that we had the wrong coordinates,

we had a bad set of directions and we didn't even know it yet.

In other words, we were looking for the right thing in the wrong place.

Okay? Now here's why I tell that story, right?

We're in the middle of this series on the foundations of our faith.

We're talking through the four, four foundations of the Christian faith,

which are, we are created, we are broken, we can be fixed,

and we are on our way towards something better. Alright?

We've already covered the first two. Today we're talking about we can be fixed.

And I think that deep down in our guts in every human being walking

around planet earth, you know that you can be fixed.

I think there's something in us.

I think it's God given this little voice in you telling you it's possible,

it's possible to be fixed. The problem is like my story,

we go looking to get fixed in all of the wrong places.

This has been going on since Adam and Eve, like Clay talked about last weekend,

like the fall, like the moment that sin enters into the world.

It's really the result of Adam and Eve looking for the right thing in the wrong

place. What were they looking for? Well,

the temperature distorts what they were looking for.

But you might remember this from last week.

He says that if they take the fruit that God told them not to eat,

then God knows that when you eat of it,

your eyes will be opened and you will be like God

knowing good and evil.

Very next verse says that Adam and Eve found that desirable.

What did they find desirable?

The idea that they could become more like God. What's wrong with that?

Well, in in most ways nothing. I mean like,

like we're about to talk about next week,

like much of the Christian journey is the sometimes painful,

sometimes joyous up and down peaks and valleys journey toward

becoming more like Jesus.

Adam and Eve wanted the right thing to become more like God.

The problem is that they were already in the ideal setting

for becoming more like God because they were in intimate relationship with him.

Here's what I mean.

One of the verses in Genesis that drives me absolutely nuts goes like this.

It happens right after Adam and Eve take the fruit and right before they run and

hide from God, the verse goes like this,

then the man and his wife Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God as he was

walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

This verse drives me bonkers because it's a picture of what

like was lost for us. I mean,

Adam and Eve used to take literal walks with God in the cool of the day.

Okay?

Those sometimes special moments that you have with your kids or your spouse or

your friends where you go take a walk after dinner when the sun is setting and

the heat is starting to burn off in the cool of the day.

Adam and Eve used to do that with God, okay?

They were in the perfect setting to become more like God because they walked

and talked with him. They were in intimate relationship with him.

Things went south.

When they started looking for the right thing in the wrong place,

they started looking for the right thing to become more like God in the wrong

place. The one thing he told them not to do, take a shortcut.

And the result of looking for the right thing in the wrong place is everything

Clay talked about last week. In case you missed it,

this is when sin enters into the world. This is when the,

the fundamental curses of power and sex and money and career take

poisonous root in a, in creation. And Adam and Eve are banished from the garden.

Or in other words,

the result of their sin is that there are no more evening strolls with God

in the cool of the day.

And I would argue right, that,

that the core yearning of all of humanity has never changed.

It's been the same ever since.

That moment when Adam and Eve get kicked outta the garden.

I I think that ever since that moment,

the core yearning of humanity is how do we get back?

Okay? Not physically, not back to that place, but relationally.

How do we get back to the place where we can walk and talk with our God in the

cool of the day? Even if you don't believe in Jesus and you would,

so you would never phrase it this way.

I still think that that's the core yearning of your heart. How do I get back,

back to what? How do I get back to being fixed? To being whole and complete?

How do I get back to, to being at peace with God and myself and other people?

Like how do we get back? I even,

I even think that sin is really just,

most of the time it's really just us looking for the right things,

but we're looking in all the wrong places. Like for example, we,

we want to be cherished and desired. There's nothing wrong with that.

That's right. That's good. But we're looking for it in one night.

Stands and toxic relationships or, or we want to be in community,

but we're looking for it by drawing people into our orbit through gossip and

slander. Or we want to feel like we're enough,

but we're looking for it through career and popularity and achievement.

Or we want to heal from our past,

but we're looking for it by numbing ourselves with addiction.

Like nine times outta 10 when we sin,

or as my daughter likes to say, when we get off the tracks,

it's because we're looking for the right things.

We're just looking in all the wrong places. And so what do we do about that?

Right? If we want to be fixed, which is a good thing to want,

well then where is the right place to start looking for it

to explore that question together. Today, I,

I want to turn to the Bible and zoom in on the beginning of a very specific

relationship. It's the relationship between Jesus and a man named Matthew.

Okay? This story is only five verses in the book of Mark.

So if you're reading through your Bible,

really easy to kind of blow right past it, but we're not gonna do that together.

We're gonna spend a lot of time in these five verses breaking them down,

getting context, making sure that we genuinely understand our story.

If you wanna follow along in your bible, Bible app or whatever,

we're gonna be in Mark chapter two starting in verse 13.

And our story begins like this. So once again,

Jesus went out beside the lake and a a large crowd came to him and he began to

teach them. And as he walked along,

he saw Levi son of sitting at the tax collector's booth,

right, right away. We'll, we will pause to get some context, okay?

Jesus is at the Sea of Galilee. This is one of his favorite haunts.

He comes here all the time to hang out.

And so he's walking and talking with this large group of people.

And while he's out on this stroll, he comes across Levi,

he sees Levi sitting at a tax collector's booth. All right,

so Levi, just to clarify, he's,

he's way better known by his Aramaic name, which I'll use for the rest of today.

His Aramaic name is Matthew, okay?

As in the guy who ends up writing the first gospel you'll encounter in the New

Testament. And before we kind of continue our story to really grasp our story,

we're gonna take some time to talk about what tax collecting is all about and

who Matthew is. Okay? First tax collecting.

So tax collectors were hated in Jesus' day.

Some of the most hated people in Jesus' day at this time,

Israel is under Roman occupation.

And so taxes are not clean and orderly and regulated.

Taxes are a racket, okay?

It's a mob tactic used by the Roman occupiers to get rich.

And so Rome taxed everything in the nations that they occupied.

There were bridge taxes and road taxes and income, grain, wine, fish, fruit,

taxes, you name it. And then to make more money,

they would charge these taxes at criminally high percentages.

And so Rome basically padded their pockets.

They got rich by like literally robbing the Jewish people blind

and calling it taxes, okay? To make matters worse,

the tax collectors,

the people who actually took the money from you and gave it to Rome,

they would bump those already high percentages up just a little bit, right?

Because when, when you're handing like money,

stolen money hand over fist to the Roman government,

you can get away with putting a few coins in your own pocket to make yourself

rich. And then absolutely worst of all,

in Jesus' day, the, the tax collectors in Israel, they were all Jewish people.

They were Jews employed by the Roman government to fleece their own people.

And so needless to say,

the Jew Jewish people who became tax collectors were either very

nasty people to begin with or they were very desperate to put

food on the table.

Jewish people hated tax collectors. Okay?

That's tax collectors. Some background on Matthew.

If you go read Matthew's gospel,

you'll see that like we learn more about Jewish like prophecy,

messianic prophecy.

We learn more about the Old Testament from Matthew than any other gospel

author. So,

so Matthew like didn't just kind of understand Judaism,

he was absolutely steeped in it. He was fluent in the Old Testament.

He was like a scholar of Messianic prophecy.

The the point is that he really knows his stuff.

That leads to biblical scholars making an assumption that I agree with.

The assumption is if tax collectors were either nasty people to begin with or

very desperate, then Matthew's probably the latter.

He's probably a very desperate person. 'cause he didn't hate his own faith,

he didn't turn his back on his own faith. He knew a lot about it.

He loved and cherished his people.

This is where you and I can start putting ourselves into this story.

We can identify with Matthew. I can at least,

it's like Matthew had made a decision out of desperation that he cannot get back

now, right? He, there's no going back to the way things were for Matthew. He,

he was looking for the right thing to be a provider in the wrong place.

He became a traitor to his own people. And I,

I will bet you every extra coin in Matthew's pocket that he would do

anything to go back in time and make a different decision to,

to look for the right things in the right place. But it's too late.

Now I know how that feels. You know how that feels.

Matthew knows how that feels, right?

That's tax collecting. That's Matthew back to our story.

So Jesus is walking along the sea of Galilee and he comes across Matthew,

here's what happens next. As he, Jesus walked along,

he saw Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. Follow me.

Jesus said, and Levi, Matthew got up and followed him.

And this is an incredible moment that will miss if we don't slow down right now.

Why is this an amazing moment? Well, first of all,

we're told that Jesus sees and talks to Matthew.

That alone is incredible. Okay?

Matthew has a tax collecting booth on the Lakeshore.

He's there to take people's money.

Nobody goes out of their way to look at or talk to Matthew.

Most people are trying to get around this guy's tax collecting booth so that

they don't have to pay taxes.

Like Matthew's whole job is basically to try to force people to give him the

time of day. He sits there at this booth and he goes, Hey, hey, hey you.

So you just docked your boat.

So I need harbor tax and I need fish tax on the catch that you just made.

And if you're gonna go head over there and go sell it at the market,

then I'm gonna need road tax.

Nobody goes out of their way to talk to a person like that.

We're told that Jesus does.

And then the thing that really blows my mind is not only does Jesus see and

talk to Matthew, but he commands Matthew toward immediate discipleship.

He says, follow me. Notice what he doesn't say.

He doesn't say, Matthew, dude, how did you wind up here of all places?

How did you possibly think that this would be a good idea for your life?

He doesn't do that. He doesn't go, Matthew, Matthew, Matthew,

how are we ever gonna unscrew your life? He doesn't say that. Instead,

Jesus looks into the eyes of the most hated man at the lake that day and he

simply says, follow me. No preface,

no disclaimers,

no list of things that Matthew's gotta change before he's allowed to follow

Jesus. None of that. Just Jesus going, Hey Matthew,

I want you exactly as you are here and now today. So come with me and follow me.

And maybe for some of us that is all that you needed to hear today.

Maybe that's why God brought you in here today.

'cause all you needed to hear is that Jesus doesn't guilt trip you.

He doesn't look at you and go, how did you possibly wind up in this mess?

He doesn't do that. 'cause he doesn't ask dumb questions.

He already knows the answer to that one.

You're in the mess that you're in because you're looking for all the right

stuff, but you got off track and you're looking in all the wrong places.

So he doesn't guilt trip you. He doesn't ask dumb questions.

Instead he looks at you and says, all right, follow me. No,

you don't have to have everything figured out right now. No,

you don't have to clean your act up. I'm gonna help you clean your act up.

So I want you as you are here and today now.

So just come with me and follow me.

It's totally upside down. It's totally backwards from the,

the way that a lot of us were led to, to believe that Jesus operated. Like we,

we were told that Christianity was for perfect, nice people.

And then Jesus is going, no, I'm, I'm here for the Matthews of this world.

So Jesus looks at Matthew and he goes, follow me.

And the Matthew makes the first good decision that he's made in a really,

really long time. He drops everything and he follows Jesus,

here's what happens next. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house,

many tax collectors and sinners,

these are Matthew's buddies were eating with him and his disciples for there

were many who followed him.

And when the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw Jesus eating with the

sinners and tax collectors,

they pulled some of Jesus's disciples aside and they asked,

why does Jesus eat with people like that again?

We'll pause.

Jesus winds up eating dinner at Matthew's house with Matthew's buddies.

And that's a way bigger deal in ancient Israel than it is for us today. In 2024,

sharing meals with people, especially dinners in ancient Israel,

they were like social statements basically. So when you had dinner with someone,

that was your way of telling the world, I'm in tight with people like this.

In the same way when you declined a meal with someone,

you were telling the world, I'm not in tight with people like that.

The fact that Jesus is sitting inside Matthew's house,

having dinner with Matthew and his tax collecting sinner,

friends is saying something, Jesus is hanging out with a really rough crowd.

And what he's saying to the world is, I'm in tight with people like this.

Well, at one point, the Pharisees religious leaders, they're walking by,

they see Matthew's got another one of his parties going on.

And so they kind of peek into the window.

And this is where my imagination goes wild.

'cause I like to think that it was a crazy party. You know,

it's like loud music inside and someone's doing a keg,

stand at the window and jumping off the balcony on a dare or whatever.

I'm making all that stuff up. But the point is,

they look in the window and they see that Jesus of all people is having dinner

during one of Matthew's notorious dinner parties. And they're shocked.

They're offended. So they grab some of Jesus's disciples and they go, Hey,

this Jesus guy that you're following around, why is he having dinner with these?

Why is he in tight with people like that? For that matter?

Why are you following this guy around?

Because he's got to be as much of a dirty,

rotten scoundrel as the per people that he hangs out with, right?

Well, Jesus overhears them asks that question and he addresses it.

And when he speaks, he brings a little bit of heaven to earth with him.

He gives us a glimpse into what his kingdom looks like and the kinds of people

that he wants in his kingdom. Look at this on, on hearing this,

Jesus said to them, said to the Pharisees, oh,

you wanna know why I am at this dinner party? Great.

It's because it's the healthy who need a doctor or, or it's,

it's not the healthy who need a doctor, it's the sick. And he goes,

and I've not come to call the righteous, I've come to call sinners.

In other words, Jesus just goes, listen, like I,

I'm not here to hang out with the people who think they're perfect.

I'm here to hang out with the people who know that they're broken and they're

tired of hiding it.

I'm here to spend time with the people who know that they're sick and they're

ready to get well again. Like I'm here for the outsiders. I'm,

I'm here for the insecure and the confused and the lonely and the hopeless and

the depressed.

I'm here for the people that they've been looking for the right things.

They've just been looking in the wrong places.

They've had really bad directions. And so just, you watch,

'cause I'm gonna love people like this and I'm gonna change their lives from the

inside out. Boom. Classic Jesus,

like mic drop end of our story.

What does this story have to do with our series? Because remember we're,

we're talking about the foundations of our faith and today we're talking about

the fact that we can be fixed.

Ensure Matthew's a drastic example of this.

Like many of us will not have stories as drastic as Matthews. I don't right?

Matthew was a political traitor, a hated man lost in desperation.

Then he starts hanging out with Jesus. And by the end,

Matthew ends up writing one of the like most historically influential books

of all time, the gospel of Matthew.

But what I want to focus on together to end today is that

all of that transformation in Matthew's life,

it started on the beach one day and it all started with Jesus looking

at Matthew and saying, Hey Matthew, come walk and talk with me.

Matthew followed and it changed his whole life.

He didn't even know that that's what he needed.

Like if you were to ask Matthew before that day, Matthew,

what's the number one thing you need right now?

He probably would've said something like, well,

I need to make a living without being a tax collector and I need to not be hated

by my entire community. Like I need peace, I need friends,

I need a few extra bucks. I need my life to have purpose.

That's what he would've said. But like I argued at the beginning of this thing,

even though he wouldn't have phrased it this way,

what Matthew actually needed and yearned for was to

walk and talk with his God in the cool of the day.

And then here comes Jesus saying, Hey Matthew,

go on a walk with me. It like gives me chills.

A key verse to understanding this foundation of our faith,

this idea that we can be fixed. It comes from Jesus' mouth in John 14, six.

Jesus says, I am the way and I am the truth and I'm the life.

And no one comes to the Father except through me.

So Jesus knows that you and I tend to think just like Matthew did,

right? If I were to ask you right now, dude,

what's the number one thing you need right now?

You would probably say stuff like,

I need to get my marriage back before it's too late.

Or I need to figure out how to raise these kids.

Or I need a break from all this depression and anxiety or loneliness.

Like I need peace, I need friends. I need a few extra bucks in my pocket.

I need my life to have purpose. That's what we would say.

'cause those things just feel so immediate and critical.

They're just like right in front of our face. It's all we can think about.

So those are the problems that we're trying to fix,

but we're trying to fix them in all the wrong ways.

Looking for the right things in the wrong places,

looking for intimacy outside of our marriage,

looking for career success by fudging the numbers,

looking for acceptance on social media,

looking for purpose and politics like you name it. And then meanwhile,

for 2000 years, Jesus has been saying the same thing. He said in John 14, six,

he's going, no,

what you really need is to be in relationship with your father. Again,

this the biggest need that you have.

It's the need that all other needs stem from.

And no one comes to the Father except through me.

So make me your way and make me your truth and make me your life.

Go on a walk with me.

Our main problem as humans is that we are broken and and just

like Clay talked about last week, like this all went down with Adam and Eve.

Humanity went looking for the right thing in the wrong place.

The result is that we're separated from God. We're kicked out of that garden.

The gate is closed and padlocked.

But then like Aaron and your other teachers talked about on Easter,

like through Jesus' death and resurrection,

he smashed that padlock off the gate,

he kicked the doors of the kingdom of heaven wide open. He took your sin,

the thing that separates you from having a relationship with your father.

He embodied it in himself. He put it to death on a cross.

And then three days later, Jesus was resurrected and your sin stayed dead.

Which means now we can be fixed.

We can have a relationship with our God again. How?

By simply putting your faith and trust in Jesus, making him your way,

truth and life. Make him your way, the way that you approach life now,

make him your truth, the way that you view life now and just make him your life,

your everything, your passion, your purpose.

We can be fixed by looking for the right things in the right place for a change

of pace.

Because Jesus is the right place to look for the things you need the most.

Jesus came so that we can be fixed. And honestly,

sometimes we distance ourselves from that truth by convincing ourselves that

yeah, the main thing he fixed is so that we get to go to heaven when we die.

Well, yeah, that's true, but it's not all of it.

Sometimes people will sterilize that truth by giving it fancy

$10 words that only people in Bible college care about. You know, they,

he fixed us for redemption, for reconciliation, for propitiation,

for substitutionary atonement. It's like, okay, yeah,

if you wanna talk like a normal person and put it on simple levels and make it

relational,

one of the main reasons that Jesus Christ died for you was because God missed

going on walks with you in the cool of the day.

He craved to be in relationship with you.

Next week we're gonna end this series by,

by talking about how we're on our way towards something better.

So next week we're gonna talk about what that walk with Jesus looks like because

it's a lifelong thing. It goes up, it goes down, it gets crazy, right?

So we're gonna talk about what that walk looks like next week,

but to kind of prepare ourselves for next week.

I wanna throw out a challenge to you.

And I'm actually pumped about this challenge. I'm, I always,

I always do all the challenges I throw out with you.

I'm actually excited about this one. At the same time,

it's gonna sound so simplistic that at first you're gonna be like, that's not,

doesn't sound spiritual. Like that can't be what faith looks like.

But at the same time, it was Jesus who said,

come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I'll give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you.

So connect yourself to me and learn from me 'cause I'm gentle and humble in

heart. And you'll find rest for your souls. 'cause my yoke following me,

connecting yourself to me is easy and my burden is light.

Sometimes. Not always for sure,

but sometimes a lot of times following Jesus is way easier than the

roads you've been walking down for the last few years.

And so sometimes a life of practiced faith looks super simple.

So it's a simple challenge for us.

If I were to kind of try to explain why this is the challenge,

I'd tell you that if you were to read through all four gospels in one sitting,

if you follow Jesus,

I encourage everyone should do that at least once in their lifetime.

You have to block out a large part of the day.

But if you were to read through all four gospels in one sitting,

you would be shocked at how much walking around goes on in those things.

Like it's a lot of walking around. It's like, yeah, sure, everyone's got the,

every single gospel has, you know, very dramatic ending.

But like most of it is just Jesus walking around.

He even comes across as aimless sometimes. Like there's,

there's stories where he'll go into a town and spend all day there.

And then at night he'll be like, all right, I'm leaving, you know, bye guys.

See you later.

And then the next morning he'll go back to that town as if he's like,

I actually kind of have some stuff I still wanna do here.

Like he sometimes comes across as aimless, like a nomad, like he's wandering.

But if you again, were to read through all four of those gospels in one sitting,

you would see he never wanders alone.

He's always surrounded by his disciples. He's got crowds of followers.

Anyone who wanted to go on a walk with Jesus could go on a walk with Jesus.

And to me,

that's the way I'm wired is beautiful because remember the the core

yearning of our hearts is how do we get back to the place where we can walk and

talk with God in the cool of the day by wandering around ancient Israel

for three years straight,

Jesus was not being non-committal and he was not being aimless.

He was fulfilling for people the yearning of their hearts.

He was allowing them to come and walk and talk with their God in the cool of the

day.

And so here's our challenge and it's great because you know,

the weather's changing and winter's going back to sleep,

it's starting to warm up.

The challenge is go on a walk with Jesus and we read that and we first we go,

that sounds corny, like, uh, I'm not talking about a metaphor.

I mean like literally go on a walk . Here's what I mean.

If you're a morning person, that's great. Take a 20 minute walk,

just you and Jesus before breakfast in the cool of day.

Or maybe you're like me and you're not a morning person. That's great.

That's better is what I tell myself. Um, , if that's you,

take a 20 minute walk, just you and Jesus after dinner in the cool of the day,

walk with him, talk with him. When you talk with him,

don't need to use flowery language.

He's actually got a lot to say about how he doesn't really appreciate that you

talk to him like a normal person.

You talk to him as if he's the most ideal version of a father.

And you ask him like,

can you help me look for the right things in the right places?

So you talk to him, you say stuff like Jesus, who do you think I am?

'cause I got a lot of head trash going on up here. I'm very confused.

You go like, Jesus, what do you think I should do about my marriage?

I haven't even asked you yet. Like,

what do you think I should do about my kids or my single life or my dating life?

Like what do you think I do about my career or my drama or my trauma?

Just walk and talk with him. And I'm telling you from personal experience,

like I'm almost mad at myself for not doing this more often.

I should be doing this way more often.

But I'm telling you from personal experience,

you'll be amazed at how much peace and clarity you can get

by going on a walk with your God in the cool of the day. So do it.

Go on a walk with Jesus.

Do it as often as you can until next week where we talk about what a lifetime of

that walk looks like. Do it every day. Yeah,

we talked about it last week. We're broken. We can be fixed.

Jesus smashed through that. His death and resurrection. He smashed that padlock.

He blew the doors to, to the kingdom of heaven wide open.

He invites everybody in and he says to us the same thing he said to his friends

2000 years ago. He goes, I came for people who are sick, not for healthy people.

I came for people who are sinners and know it not for the self-righteous.

I came for people that you've been looking for the right stuff.

It's just you've been looking in the wrong places for a really long time.

He says, I came for you and so now you come with me.

Come and walk and talk with your God in the cool of the day.

Let's pray. God we get like sidetracked.

We get off track all the time. We do that sometimes that looks like us,

just our sinful nature. We just, we're looking for the right things,

but we're looking in the wrong place. It keeps blowing up our lives,

but we just don't know where else to look. So that's some of our stories.

But then others of us, we get sidetracked.

We get off track because sometimes we think about you poorly or we think about

you too small. We start to convince ourselves that, uh,

like life as a believer in you comes down to like a checklist of things that we

have to do and things that we're not allowed to do.

And we gotta keep that checklist going.

We gotta meet all of your standards to show that we're thankful for what you've

done for us.

And like we get so trapped in that like really small way of thinking.

And we totally forget that from day one,

your desire was to be in relationship with us.

That is the thing that you fixed through Jesus. Yes,

we get to go to heaven when we die. We're so thankful for that.

But at the same time,

like your son hung on that cross so that you could once again take walks with

your people in the cool of the day so that you could be in relationship with us

so that you could do this long journey of life with us so that you could weep

when we weep and celebrate, when we celebrate,

so that you could hold us strong when we're falling apart.

You did this so that you could be in relationship with us so that you could go

on a really long walk with us. God, please don't let us forget about that.

Yes, we wanna honor you. Yes, we want to be obedient, but at the end of the day,

we're in relationship with you.

You use words to describe yourself like Father and like friend.

God, help us to remember who you are. God,

help us to remember the relationship that we have access to. And God,

please don't let us take it for granted. God, I love you so much.

I thank you for this church.

I thank you for this time and I pray all of this in the name of the one who made

this possible for us. Jesus Christ. Amen.