Mark 11:12-25 || The Book of Mark || Pastor Aaron Levy

My name is Aaron Levy.

I get the honor of being the campus pastor here

and the honor of being a part of this Mark series.

Who is ready to squeeze the scriptures tonight. Anybody loved

the Bible here, Anybody loved the Bible online. So if

you're newer to our community. At the top of the year,

we bought these Mark Journals. We have them in the

Patriot Shop and it's one page of scripture in one

page where you could put your notes in. If you

have one, just put it in the air. Let me

see if you have one. Man, that's good.

That's good. That's good. Let's say like you're you know,

is July.

It's not too late, and you're like, you know, I'm

still planning on getting one, razor, haam, I'm still planning

on getting one. Okay, Well, we're a generous church. I'm

gonna have one of our elders come up. The first

four people that come up will get the Mark Journal

for free.

The first four.

Okay, no, my guy, my guy, my guy.

Okay. Did everybody get a pen?

Yeah? Okay, Now make sure you use them to night,

and then we have plenty more in the shop. Got

plenty more in the shop. Hey, let's pray and then

let's jump right in.

God, you're in control. Thank you that you've given us

your word and it's true. So I pray that you

use your word.

To strengthen us, to empower us, to convict us, to

challenge us, but to make us more like you. I

thank you that tonight, somehow, some way you'll use me

as if we're having one on one conversations with people

in Jesus. Nay, we pray a man, a man man.

It's so cool going through one book for the entire year.

So we've been in Mark. We're in Mark chapter eleven.

Pastor Snaz killed it last week, Mark eleven one through eleven.

The triumphal injury made it so clear. But you know,

it's so cool because we rotate as communicators. And the

last time I was up here, I preached on Mark

chapter five, verse twenty one through forty three, and tonight

I'm going to be preaching on Mark chapter eleven, verse

twelve through twenty five. So I thought it would be

fitting because we love the Bible here, right, we have Matthew, Mark, Luke,

and John and both passages that I had the opportunity

to teach use a literary structure.

That Mark does.

It's called the Marken Sandwich like Christian markin so it's

the way that he writes in story form.

So this is what he does.

He uses one story as the bread, and then there's

the meat of a middle story in the middle that

helps give interpretation.

Of the first story.

I'll give you an example with Mark chapter five, verse

twenty one through forty three. You have a guy named

Giris that's the bread, and he has a daughter that's

twelve years old and.

That needs to be healed.

At the end of that story, that daughter ends up

getting resurrected from the dead. But in the middle of

that story, there's that tension where Jesus gets interrupted by

that woman that said, if I touch to him of

his garment, I will be healed. So the spiritual truth

is if you have faith that Jesus will heal, he

will do. So that's that Mark in Sandwich. Jiravis's daughter

is sick. Jiravi's Daughter's resurrects.

From the dead.

But what is the meat of the passage that we

need to talk about tonight? So I wanna do that

at the very beginning because we're gonna get in the

scripture and we're gonna look at contexts. So if you

look at Mark chapter eleven, twelve through twenty five, the

bread you'll first start seeing is that Jesus curses a

fig tree because there's no fruit in it. At the

end of the story, the disciples see, wait, you curse

that picture in it actually withered to his room. But

the meat of the patchage that we're gonna talk about

tonight is the temple.

And there's certain things.

About the temple that we're gonna learn to help us

interpret what Jesus was doing with the fig tree.

Does that make sense?

Okay, let's all stand to our feet and we're gonna

read the first couple of verses. We stand to honor

the word of God and we're I'm gonna be reading

from esv. It'll be on the screens or in your

Mark journal, And if you have a journal, i'd encourage

you to highlight, write notes to yourself, write prayers, etcetera, etcetera.

I'm gonna read Mark chapter eleven, starting at verse twelve,

it says Jesus curses the fig tree.

On the following.

Day when they.

Came from Bethany.

He was hungry, being Jesus, and seeing in the distance,

please say distance a fig tree in leif. He wentn't

to see if he could find anything on it. And

when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves,

for it was not the season for figs. And he

said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from

you again? And his disciples say, disciples heard it. The

title of the message tonight is distant Disciple. Distant Disciple,

you may be seated. We're looking at this tension because

Jesus is the master teacher with this fig tree from

a distance.

He sees a fig tree.

Because he's hungry, and he gets closer and he finds

out it wasn't what he was looking for. Distant Disciple.

We're gonna talk about three enemies of discipleship tonight, and

they'll be on the screen.

Verse twelve through fourteen.

What we read is the distance is an enemy to discipleship.

Verse fifteen through nineteen will be distractions, and verse twenty

through twenty five.

Will be doubts.

Shout out to Elyssa for that spirit led exhortation. She

didn't know my sermon point would be doubts. Long distance

relationships are hard.

Somebody said, yes, I feel you.

My wife and I before we got married, there was

a year span when she lived in Baldwyn Park and

I lived in San Diego, and we had a decision

to make, because when you have a long distance relationship,

it's either we make a decision to go closer or

we just go in our separate ways. And we made

and I made one of the best decisions of my life.

I started following Jesus of saying, Babe, where you moved

to San Diego and we got married, But there were

some things that had to change in order for us.

They're going from a long distance relationship to a close relationship.

And you may have a relationship with Jesus, but you.

May find tonight maybe you've allowed some distance between the

relationship that we have with Jesus. But hopefully tonight as

we learn about the these enemies, and then we learn

about the friends of discipleship, where we get a little

closer and closer to Jesus. Amen, Now let's talk about

this fig tree. Jesus would always use these objects.

To teach his disciples.

He's the king of illustrations. Now, Jesus wasn't being mean,

And that's why we got to look at the context

of the scripture. If we look at the purpose of

a tree, it normally has two purposes. It provides shade

and it provides fruit. But what was Jesus looking for?

We could talk back in church this patrio. He's looking

for fruit.

He's not looking for shade, right, So from a distance

he sees the leaves and it's like, okay, cool, I

could get some fruit. Now, let me tell you a

little bit about fig trees. Fig trees have a process.

They go from root to branch to fruit buds to

leaves to full fruit. So when Jesus is seeing the

fig tree from a distance and seeing the leaves, he's like, cool,

I can at least get some fruit. And then he

comes closer and he recognizes, wait a minute.

This tree is out of order. It's out of process.

It has these leaves, but it has no fruit.

That's why it got cursed, because sometimes we use leaves

to hide the fact that we don't have fruit. If

we look at the context of the scripture, if you

go to a market, chapter eleven.

Verse eight, it should be on the screens.

Look what it says here is pastor snows Tak taught

it last week, and many spread their cloaks on the road,

and others spread leafy branches that they have cut from

the fields. I got some leafy branches in my hand

right now, and let me illustrate what happened, just for context,

so you can understand why Jesus may have been already

overleave before Jesus got there.

They would spread these leaves.

On the ground before he got there and as he

passed by. When you pass by, that's a long distance relationship.

People are praising him with leaves already dropped for him.

You catch it.

But what's the purpose of trees to provide shade and

provide fruit. Beware of people before you're in the room

will throw shade about you, and then when you come.

And pass by, they praise you.

Because it's the same people that praised him the next

week they said, crucify him. Beware of shady Christians that

when you're not there.

They say, I don't know about this guy.

And then when you come in.

The room, hey, pastor how you doing, Boddy?

But we need to be just like Jesus and just

walk past the shade. Walk past the shade, because a

week later, the same people that praised him would say,

crucify him. Sometimes Christians are shady, lip surface, but not

life service. I'll tell you something that you want to hear,

but when you're not around the path that I've laid

out for you may hurt you. I give us more

context if we go all the way back.

To the garden.

Jesus had an issue with a fig tree because a

fig tree is connected to the first sin. If we

looked at Genesis chapter three, verse six through eight, what

happened was Adam and Eve are in perfect conditions, with

a perfect God, perfect job, and then they got tempted

to take fruit they shouldn't have took. And it says

so when the woman saw that the tree was good

for food, and that it was the delight to the eyes,

and that the tree was desired to make one wise,

she took of his fruit and ate, and she also

gave some to her husband who was with her, and

he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were open,

and they knew that they were naked, and they sold

fig leaves together. See how the context of the Bible

makes it more makes it make more sin. They sold

fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths, and they heard

the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden

in the cool of the day, and the man and

his wife hid themselves from the presidence of the Lord

God among the trees of the garden.

So Ever since the garden.

Fig leaves were a symbol of hiding from God.

Fig leaves is a symbol of shame. Fig leaves is

a symbol of I.

Don't want to be in the presence of God. And

so Jesus sees this fig tree. It doesn't have fruit,

it just has leaves.

You're out of order. It's a picture of Israel.

It's a picture of you and I where Jesus will

want to come to us unschedule and find.

Fruit in our lives.

Let me give you more context Jeremiah, chapter eight, verse thirteen.

When I would gather them, declares the Lord.

There are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on

the fig tree.

Even the leaves are withered.

And what I have gave them has passed.

Away from them. So I'm just trying to.

Bring a little more clarity to the fact that Jesus

is not just being rude about a fig tree. Ever

since the garden he might have been triggered by a

fig tree and these fig leaves he had already had

to walk over, these dead leaves of people praising him

that were fake. Because Jesus will come to your life

when he's hungry for fruit.

Just like when you're at your house. Do you go

to your house and.

You're hungry to get something to eat, and then you

go to the refrigerator and you find that you got

nothing in the refrigerator.

This is what Jesus had to deal with. That's why

you're like, man, Jesus, curse.

What's the same thing you do when you go to

a refrigerator. You'd be like, man, I got none to eat?

And these right here represent the leaves of the fig tree.

A lot of times we have Christianese on our refrigerators.

Won't need to do it too. Blessed to be stressed.

He gives his toughest battles to a strongest soldier.

Jesus don't care about none of this. He wants to

go on the inside of your life and say, where's

the fruit. And there's so many times in my life

and maybe in your life where we've been caught up

on how we look or what we say on the outside,

but out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

When God comes to your life, will he find fruit?

Because Jesus is hungry for you to be discipled.

So if distance is an enemy of discipleship, what's a

friend of discipleship.

I'm glad you asked.

That's true devotion, devotion, And you know, devotion time is

a lot like grocery shopping.

I suck at grocery shopping.

I get anxiety when my wife, Hey, can you go

to the store real quickly?

Get Oh. I don't want to get it wrong. Can

you give me a pitch? Sure of it?

I don't want to get the right these meats? Have

this meat is sixty eight cents.

More than this.

I gotta make the right choice. Like I get so,

I don't know where stuff is. I call my wife.

I don't have signal, Babe, where's the bacon at?

Where's the way?

But that's a lot of times. That's how my devotion

time started. I came to ALFC when we were called

ALFC Pastor, Diego Pastor, Adam Pastor and eighty give these

amazing messages. I'm like, okay, And now it was time

for me to go home and feed myself. That's why

a lot of Christians say, you know, I just wasn't

getting fed anymore. Oh wait, you're still expecting the church

services to be your only feeding program.

Oh you're not grocery shopping.

See here's so, here's what my wife taught me about

grocery shopping. The first thing we need to do is

get a grocery list. So we gotta look in our

life and we gotta see what my life empty right now.

We got to see the areas in our life where

we need to grow, and that may be the.

Areas of our life that we read.

I'm so excited because Patreot is about to do our

next discipleship sprint and it's actually how to read the

Bible for yourself. There may be a QR cod that

will be on the screen right now. Because if this

interests you and you're looking for ways that you can

improve your devotion time or understand how to read the

Bible for yourself, you want to register for this before

it sells out because this is going to be a

good one. But grocery shopping starts with a grocery list.

You know what I lack a good attitude. I lack

discipline in my life. I lack obedience in my life.

So we need to start with the milk of the word.

Starts shocking the sill. The only time I do this

is when my wife is back in the garage and

will somebody help me?

But this is what devotion time wants looks like.

We're by yourself or in your neighborhood group. You are

in devotion with God, and you're storing your heart for

what God may pull out of you in the future.

Season.

Then you can graduate to the meat of the word.

I'm gonna store this meet up here for the This

some carnelia, saarta, okay.

Some lamb.

But this is what discipleship looks like. A devotion to

God by yourself, so that way, when God comes to

you or your spouse comes to you, you have things

to offer. So we talked about.

Distance as an enemy.

Let's talk about this second enemy of discipleship.

Distractions.

Everybody say distractions. You know, there's a quote by Socrates.

It says, beware the barrenness of a busy life. You

ever talk to somebody and they're always busy. I'm busy,

I'm going here, I'm busy.

I'm busy. I'm busy.

I've got time for that.

I'm busy for I can't.

Grocery shop myself because I'm too busy.

I'm too busy. We may want to just start asking.

Is all that busyness resulting in productivity? Is all that

business resulting in fruit in our life? Because sometimes we

use busyness as a distraction to focus on the things

we really need to focus on. So if we look

at Mark, chapter eleven, verse fifteen through nineteen, we already

have in mind the sandwich.

So the bread was dang, Okay.

Jesus was a distance from a fig tree, but when

he gets closer up to it, it's out of order,

and he doesn't like it, and he curses it. So

that's in mind. But now we're about to get to

the meet you guys with me verse fifteen through nineteen.

And they came to Jerusalem, and he entered the temple.

Side note, whenever I see a word in the Bible,

repeat it multiple times.

Lean in and get more curious, okay, and.

Began to drive out those who sold and those who

brought in the temple. And he overturned the tables of

the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons,

and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through

the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to him,

is not written my house shall be caught a house

of prayer for all the nations. That's Isaiah fifty six.

He's quoting.

But you have made it a den of robbers. And

the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were

seeking a way to destroy him, For they feared him

because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching, And

when evening came, they went out.

Of the city.

Jesus comes inside the temple and he says, what is

all this buying and selling?

He flips tables and so forth.

Now, if you don't know context of scripture, some of

you may go to the Patriot shop tonight, Rafi stop

selling hoodies, no more kombucha, no UCU uniforms.

But that's not what he's talking about.

It will be wise for us to understand what he

means by the temple. So let's define what the temple means.

The temple is just the meeting place between God and man.

It's also a place of worship. And then after the fall,

the temple became the place of sacrifice for forgiveness. That's

why a lot of times, a lot of scholars would

determine that the Garden of Eden is a prototype of

the Temple because Adam and Eve would spend that quality

time with God. Their worship was their obedience in their job.

And when they fail and they try to sew fig

leaves for themselves, what God did is he slaughtered an

animal in Genesis chapter three, verse twenty one, and with

the skins of that animal, he made a covering for them,

showing a forecast of Jesus being the lamb that would

be slaying to cover our sins. So that's the temple,

a meeting place for God, a place for us to worship,

and a place for sacrifice and forgiveness. Now, since that's

in Jesus' mind, what ends up happening when he comes.

To the Temple. I'm glad you asked. But before I

show you that, before I.

Share that, let me show you what the temple look

like when Jesus walked in.

And if you really.

Want to be a Bible nerd, you could download an

app called Immersive Held Herod Temple and it will actually

take you through the temple and like you're playing roblocks

or something like that. But if you look at Herod's temple,

the first thing that I see.

Man, there's a lot of division.

There's a place for the gentiles, there's a place for

the women, this place for the Israelites, the place where

the animal sacrifice.

Then there's the place for.

The Holy of Holies. A lot of sectioned off. But

I haven't showed you the whole thing yet. Let's go

to the next picture and show you what area we

would have access to. We would only have access to

the outer areas because most of us are gentiles. So

let me explain what Jesus saw why he would get

so upset.

He sees all this division.

That's why he said this should be a house of

prayer for all the nations. But he sees this division.

And can you imagine coming to church. You're going through

things in your marriage, you're going through things with your kids,

You're burned by sin, and in that day you would

bring your animal to be sacrificed for the atonement of

your sins.

But a lot of people would travel from far distances.

And when they would travel from far distances, they wouldn't.

Bring the animals.

So then there's some smart marketplace leader says, oh, you

don't have your animal, you can buy it here. So

in those gentile quarters you would see all these lambs

available for sale. And now all this ruck is going

on with lambs available for sale. So now I got

to see if I have enough money to be forgiven.

But I don't even have the correct money because my

money is considered pagan. So now I gotta stand in

another line for currency exchange.

Imagine I'm guilty of sin. I want to.

Worship God, but I'm standing in line looking for lambs.

Then I'm going to the courage see exchange, and these

currency exchange people, we're ropping people like crazy. Oh you

want to be forgiven? This is how much the lamb costs.

Oh you want to be forgiven? This is how much

this cost. And Jesus being so upset about that, it's

saying forgiveness is free.

I'm the lamb that was slain. Get rid of this

business model. Come to me. I'm the lamb that was slaying.

That's why in John chapter two, verse nineteen, Jesus would say,

destroy this temple and in three days it'll be built

up and people are like, what are you talking about.

It's so many years to build this.

But Jesus is the ultimate place of the temple because

Jesus is the meeting place between God and man.

Jesus is who we worship.

Jesus is why we have forgiveness. So when he sees

this business model, it's such a distraction to worship.

It's a distraction to the temple. I give an example

of that.

The free forgiveness of Jesus reminds me of when my

daughter comes to the house.

I'm in a new season.

In my life.

My daughter is gonna come on stage.

I'm in a new season in my life where my

daughter moved out a year ago, and I told my daughter,

here's the key, your family come over whenever you want.

But when she comes over my house, the first thing

she does is go to my refrigerator. So I'll be

low key triggered sometimes because I'll have something for me

and now my daughter is shopping for it. Now, could

you imagine me coming.

Up to my daughter, Okay, you took the strawberries.

Oh no, no, no, no, no no, you took the strawberries,

you took.

The milk, No no, don't.

Disrespect you took the carrots. That's gonna be twenty six dollars.

This is what people were dealing with back in the day. Now,

how would that impact my relationship with my daughter? If

I'm saying come over whenever you want, let's hang out,

and she's hungry. If I'm the father, should I have

fruit available for my children? And God the Father would

send Jesus as fruit, saying we could come to him

and freely receive from him. Amen, So it's free. You

could take it as fine. When my daughter comes to

the house, there are times she don't be looking at

our decoration. There's times when she looks at my refrigerator

and she'd be.

Like, man, ain't nothing needing his house? You didn't put

in on it.

But since I'm the father and says I want relationship

with my daughter, says I want relationship with my son

freely given, come.

Over at any time, and there's fruit available.

And since Jesus has done that for us, he expects

us to do it to others. But sometimes we get

so distracted by things going on in our life that

we forget that we're blessed to be a blessing. So

If the enemy disciple of discipleship is distraction, what's the

friend of discipleship that counteracts this?

Thank you discipline? Everybody say discipline.

Hebrews twelve eleven says, for the moment, all discipline seems

painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields peaceful fruit

of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

That's why we open up our worship set with Lord,

prepare me to be a sanctuary.

I'm a temple.

I have the Holy Spirit, pure and holy, tried and

true with thanksgiving.

I'll be a living sanctuary for you, Jesus.

You can come to my life at any time because

I have a disciplined life, knowing that a unscheduled times

you will call me to be a blessing for other people.

So I got a discipline grocery list that you may

just want to take a picture of. Those are some

scriptures that I go to for discipline online. You could

just take a screenshot of that. But there are some

things that remind us, like for example, First Corinthians six

nine through twenty says, our bodies are a temple. We

house the Holy Spirit, and we've been bought with the

price Isaiah chapter twenty six, Verse three says you will

keep him in perfect peace. Whose mind is stayed on you?

Are we disciplined with our thoughts? How often do we

think about what we think about? And there's just maybe

some scriptures that you want to meditate on and just

go grocery shopping yourself as you work out your salvation

with you if you're in trembling.

Amen.

So we talked about distance as an enemy and if

you if you're distant, then you need devotion. If we're distracted,

we need discipline. But our third point is what about

when we doubt? And I'll give the friend on the

front end. Whenever area of your life that you doubt is.

An opportunity to depend on God.

All the uncertainty that goes on in our.

Life causes us to doubt.

But when we doubt, maybe God is saying, that's the

exact area where I want you to depend on me.

Let's look at verse twenty through twenty five. As they passed.

By in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered

away to its roots, and Peter remembered. Peter remembered that

was gold to me and said to him, Rabbi, look.

The fig tree that you curse has withered, and Jesus

answered them. Have faith in God. Truly.

I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be

taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not

doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says

will come to pass.

It will be done for him.

Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe

that you have received it and it will be yours.

And whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything

against anyone. So your father also, who is in heaven,

may forgive you of your tress passes.

Let's talk about this with the remaining time.

Peter the next day looks at the tree. God says something,

we sang that song. If you said it, I believe it.

So Jesus turned water into wine. But he can also say, hey,

you're withered, and then the next day is withered.

So he's like, man, it's withered to the roots.

Now, if we look at that at face value, were like, dang, Jesus,

Now give the tree a chance.

Where's your mercy?

Maybe the mercy is the tree getting a fresh start.

It's on a faulty foundation and in order.

For it to rebuild. It has to go back to

the roots.

A lot of times what we want is okay, I

got it wrong, but let me just keep adding from here.

No no no no no, no no no. We gotta

go to the root of things.

So that way, if we go to the roots, the

branches will be healthy. Then you get the fruit buzzed,

then you get the leaves, and then when Jesus comes

to you, you get blessed. So maybe God allowing certain

things to wither away for a season. It may be painful,

but also discipline is painful. It may be a blessing

that may be happening in the future if God, if

we allow God to take us back.

To the roots of things.

But I love the Bible because it says Peter remembered,

and there's different fouls that pop up. Because Peter is

one of my favorite characters in the Bible. And Peter

would have times in his life where he doubted. And

let me give you an example of this to drive it,

because here's what a disciple needs to be good at.

The thing they choose to remember and the things they

choose to not remember anymore.

This is what happened when.

When Jesus gets arrested, Peter tries to be the hero,

cuts off Malcu's ear, and then Jesus goes away to

get arrested.

And now let's look at Luke.

Chapter twenty two, verse fifty four. Then they seized him

and led him away, bringing him into the High priest house,

and Peter was following at a distance.

Peter was a distant disciple.

Why because Jesus goes away to get arrested, and Peter's like,

I'm doubting what's gonna happen in my life. So I'm

gonna back up a little bit, and I've allowed distance

between me and Jesus. And whenever we allowed distance between

us and Jesus, that's when we deny Jesus in our lifestyle.

Notice that he followed Jesus from a distance, and then

right after that, I don't know who Jesus is.

Notice how he was really tough in front of that

guy Malchus.

But then when a female said, do you know Jesus, Nah,

I don't know Jesus.

Come through distance from Jesus.

Has Us compromised our values? But it says Peter remembered.

So that's why if we got all the way to

verse sixty one, right after he denies Jesus, and the

Lord turned and looked at Peter from the distance, look

at the same language. And Peter remembered the saying of

the Lord how he said to him before the rooster

crow said that you will deny me three times, and

he wept bitterly. When we allow our doubts to get

the best of us, we'll end up weeping bitterly because

we'll end up making decisions that aren't in alignment with

the values that we sought out to have with Christ.

But there's hope for us, because if we look at

Peter's story, Jesus is not impartial. The same way he

treated Peter, it's the same way he'll treat us. Peter

stayed in community, God forgiven, ends up being the first pastor.

But to conclude this weeping bitterly on having the remembrance

of our sins, the remembrance of our doubts, the remembrance.

Of things that happen. And that's why I said.

Alissa's exhortation with spirit leg because that's where I was going.

At the end of the message.

There have been things that have been said to you

or there have been things that have been done to

you or that you have done that we hold on

to that prevent us from moving forward in our faith journey.

So if I go to my refrigerator.

And I looks like I don't have anything, well, my

daughter clean me fresh out. But if I look closer,

there are some old things that I've the word in

my heart and I'm not.

Ready to let them go yet.

The other day I asked my wife because I have

some buns in the pantry.

And I was like, oh, babe, can you make some burgers?

She was like, that bread is so old. What was

I doing? I was asking for new meat with stale bread.

What do I mean by that?

Prayer gives us the opportunity to open our hearts and

deal with the junk that we've held onto in the past.

There are certain things that have withered away, and we

hold on to them just in case because I'm doubting

I'll never trust again. And what prayer does is just

exactly what my wife does when she goes grocery shopping.

She gets a list together, and then she puts a

trash can next to the refrigerator and starts throwing out

the things that are old, because we don't have room

for anything new if we keep storing the things.

That are old in our life.

That's why when he said when you pray forgive, that

makes me think of the Lord's prayer. Give us this

day our daily bread. Sometimes we be storing bread that's not.

Good for us.

If we go to God and get daily bread. The

next phrase, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive

those that trespass against us. Maybe the hard time we're

having with forgiveness is because we're holding on to old

bread and not going to God for daily bread. What

God wants to do in this moment is saying, maybe

the distance that we're experiencing is the back it's that

you've been carrying, and this moment, Jesus says, hey.

Just get that to me.

I died for it. Let's remove this from your life.

So I want to do something in this moment. If

you're in person, I want you to close your eyes

inside outside. If you're online, can you lock into me

for a moment. What are the things in your life

that when I pull this baggage out.

Of the refrigerator, what fouls popped up?

What are the things from the past that you're holding

onto in your heart that is not leaving room for

Jesus to do something new in your heart. This is

a moment where Jesus wants to clear out your refrigerator

because he wants to bring something new to you. Right now,

Jesus is saying, drop it, release it, because Peter would

experience that.

He wept bitterly. It did happen.

Peter failed, but you know what, he chose to keep

following because he chose that. He chose that jesus grace

is stronger than my failure. And with everybody here with

their eyes closed, the start line of our faith journey

is forgiveness. Maybe you've done some things and you haven't

confessed them to the Lord. You know the information about

the gospel, but you haven't moved forward because you haven't

confessed them.

Or it's been years.

You are a Christian, you know this Bible story, but

there are some things that.

You've held on to. You want to receive new revelation.

You want a new season, but there's old baggage that

hasn't been released yet.

Let's do what Peter did.

Let's pray, and when we pray, Jesus will meet us

right where we're at. God the Father will send his

son Jesus Christ to live the perfect life. We couldn't

live and die the death that we deserve. And all

He's asking is, will you accept my sacrifice and surrender

to me. So I want us all to repeat our

prayer after me. Please to encourage those that are praying

this prayer for the first time to start their faith

journey with Jesus or to rededicate or continue your faith

journey with Jesus, say with this with me. Please, Dear

Lord Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross

for all of my sin. I receive your forgiveness. Help

me to remove the files that pop up. I thank

you in this moment I am free. Teach me to

trust you again. Give me an appetite to be in

your word. Give me an appetite to be in community.

In Jesus name, we pray