The Kingdom Way | Luke 5: 21 & 25 Part 2 with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch podcast.

My name is Clayton.

I'm the pastor at MetaCurch, and I hope that today's message is inspiring and enlightening and really builds you up wherever you're at in life.

I'm just curious.

Uh anything exciting happened like last night?

Anything?

Oh my goodness, bro.

Man, if you are not a Spurs fan, I just my heart breaks for you, bro.

It's crazy.

It's crazy, man.

I've been a Spurs fan since I was nine years old.

And uh that was a powerful moment surrounded by 400 crazy San Antonians last night, a little food truck parked near my house, driving around until way too late when I was supposed to be preaching, honking my horn like a Puro San Antonio.

Got caught by a couple congregants who were like, aren't you?

And I was just like, You didn't see me.

Man, I'm excited.

If you're new with us, my name's Clayton, and uh, I'm so glad that you came.

I'm the lead pastor here.

I want to welcome you here in Helotus, and I'm so proud of what God is doing in Helotus.

I want to welcome those joining us online and everyone who's here and getting under this word.

I'm just glad that you're here.

We've been walking through the Gospel of Luke very slowly, very intentionally.

We want to know who the real Jesus is.

Amen.

Not who culture tells us Jesus is, not how we've crafted and shaped him and made him safe and user-friendly.

The real Jesus, because that's who can save us.

That's who we follow, that's who created us, that's who instilled a purpose inside of us.

And so we want to know the real Jesus.

We're in uh the second section of Luke.

We made these sections up just so we can follow the narrative.

We call this section the kingdom way.

And where we're at in the text, Jesus is explicitly telling us how to live as a part of the kingdom of God right here and right now.

Jesus, while he was on earth, he did this perfectly, and we are trying to imperfectly follow him into that same pattern.

As believers in God, we believe that there is a kingdom that is God's, that right now it exists in a spiritual realm, but someday the kingdom of God will come here to the earth.

Amen.

In the meantime, we do not wait to die so that we can go to heaven to be a part of that kingdom.

We live like Jesus and we start operating as a part of that kingdom right now.

We start building that kingdom right now, we start prioritizing that kingdom right now, we start investing in that kingdom right now.

And Jesus is telling us how to do this.

Now, we've covered a lot of ground.

We've been in the same passage.

This is now our fourth week.

And I can't get you caught up on several hours of content, but you can get caught up by going to youtube.com slash metachurch.

And I would really encourage you to go get the full context of what we're talking about today.

You're gonna spend those hours doing something, scrolling through TikTok or listening to uh politicians scream at each other or however you use your time.

And so just get on YouTube, watch game seven highlights, and then watch a few sermons so you can get caught up in the text.

Let me read you the whole passage of where we're at.

We're in Luke chapter six, starting in verse 20.

It says, then looking up at his disciples, Jesus said, Blessed are you who are poor because the kingdom of God is yours.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, because you will be filled.

Blessed are you who weep now because you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, exclude you, insult you, and slander your name as evil because of the Son of Man.

Rejoice in that day and leap for joy.

Take note, your reward is great in heaven, for this is the way they used to treat the prophets.

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your comfort.

Woe to you who are now full, for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who are now laughing, for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for this is the way they used to treat the false prophets.

We've been walking through this.

This is the beginning of Jesus' most famous sermon, the sermon that he would take everywhere he traveled to teach people how to live as a part of the kingdom of God.

And he starts this sermon by just shocking the audience and saying, Everyone that you think we should take pity on, those are the ones who are blessed.

And all of the people who you think are blessed by culture's scoreboard, those are the ones that you should take pity on.

And we've been breaking this down.

What does it mean?

Blessed are the poor.

What does it mean?

Blessed are the hungry.

You can go back and watch those.

Uh, to understand what Jesus is doing here, you need a lot of context.

But the most important is Jesus is contrasting now versus later.

Now versus later.

Jesus lived every second on earth with his eyes on eternity.

The apostles, the men and women who started this movement and who God used to change the world, they always had their eyes on eternity.

They lived now for the kingdom of God.

They live now with their eyes on Jesus, the perfecter and finisher of their faith.

And the reason that we have to keep our eyes on the end, on eternity, is if not, we will become obsessed with the kingdoms of this world and we will invest all that we are and all that we have into the right here and the right now.

And listen, you live in the world, scripture says, but you are not of the world.

And so if all of your investments are into these kingdoms, then your investments will not escape this life.

Right here and right now, you can begin investing who you are and what you have in the kingdom of God.

And those investments will yield reward forever.

Amen?

We believe that.

All right.

So here's what we've been doing.

We've been looking at the first couple of contrasts: poor versus rich, hungry versus full.

Here's how we talked about them.

We said poor versus rich is about security.

What do you trust?

We said that hungry versus full is about satisfaction.

What do you crave?

Today we are looking at weeping versus laughing.

This is about sensitivity.

Sensitivity.

What moves you?

Let's look at our text very directly.

We are in verse 21b and verse 25b.

It says, Blessed are you who weep now, because you will laugh, and woe to you who are now laughing, for you will mourn and weep.

Just like we've done every week, before we understand what it says, we have to understand what it does not say.

The same way, blessed are the poor, is not about your bank account.

The same way, blessed are the hungry, is not about what is in your stomach.

Blessed are those who weep.

Is not Jesus saying that if you are happy, that if you are celebrating, that if you are laughing, that if you, I don't know, were out honking your horn on the streets of San Antonio until midnight last night, that you are in sin.

As a matter of fact, a lot of the times that we run into Jesus in the Gospels, Jesus is with the boys.

He's whining and dining, he's laughing, he's full of joy.

Jesus isn't saying avoid joy.

Scripture tells us the joy of the Lord is our strength.

So we have to understand how these words were used in their original context.

Every once in a while we go to the original biblical languages.

The New Testament was written in Greek.

And so when he says, Blessed are those who weep, weeping is this Greek word kleo.

Kleo.

And what this means is to feel something so deeply that it manifests physically.

It could be through just aching or longing or grunting or yes, even actual tears, crying.

This is kleo.

It is this internal sense that has to make its way out because it's so intense.

Then there is the word gala.

This is the word for laughing, but this is not cutting up and having a good time, full of joy in a holy setting with your friends.

Galeo is a laugh of indifference.

Galaleo represents somebody who has hardened their hearts and will not be moved by the suffering around them.

If you're taking notes, and I hope you are, let me give you some easy definitions.

Cleo is a heart that still feels what matters to God.

Things that break the heart of God break your heart.

Galao is a heart that is numb to the things of God, desensitized, hardened.

This is a heart that we have built walls around to keep pain away from our heart.

The problem is we all live in this very broken world and it's full of pain and it's full of suffering, and we all have experienced pain and we have experienced suffering and we observe suffering all around us.

And some of you, your very jobs, because you are out protecting people, or because you are being deployed into dangerous areas, or because you take care of people as an EMT, you have to be able to show up in the midst of suffering and still function.

And so you learn these skill sets of compartmentalization.

And maybe God has gifted you with the ability to be in chaos and still be able to think clearly.

But what we can do is because of what we observe, we can begin to erect walls around our heart to not let that pain and not let that suffering touch us.

We don't know how to carry it, we don't know how to be grieved by the things of the world and take it and place it on God, knowing that we can't ultimately carry it.

So we just don't let it touch us at all.

And the problem that we might miss is that same wall that you build around your heart to keep pain out might also be keeping the voice of God out.

And so Jesus says, Blessed are those who have a soft, sensitive heart that can still see and perceive the things of God.

This isn't about emotion, this is about sensitivity.

Are you sensitive to the things of God?

Here's what this might look like.

This might look like being in a world where there is so much brokenness and so much suffering that when you spend time with God, pause, you should be spending time with God.

Some of you are carrying immense burden because you have never learned the discipline of every day spending solitude before the Lord and transferring all of those burdens and all of that weight and all of that anxiety onto your Heavenly Father, who's the only one who can carry it.

When your three-year-old is trying to pick something up in your house and carry it and carry it and carry it, and you're watching them and you're just waiting, going, if they ask, 40 pounds is a lot to them, they only weigh 35 pounds.

40 pounds isn't a lot for your boy, I can carry it for them if they'll just bring it to me.

And this is us, man.

We are like these intransit kids who are just like, I will carry it, I will do it, I will be the man, I will be the woman of God, I'll do it all on my own.

We try to carry this weight that actually belongs to the Lord.

We have to give time to the Lord.

Part of following Him is being in relationship with Him.

This is like you'll never build a good marriage if you never have alone time with your spouse.

Can I tell you the one common denominator of like every time a marriage comes to me and they're really struggling, they've stopped dating.

In their mind, dating is what you do to get married.

No, no, no.

Dating is what you do to stay married.

So do you have time with your Heavenly Father?

And in that time, are you allowing your heart to be affected by the brokenness around you?

When is the last time that you shed tears over the state of the world?

And not just the world at large, your world, your world, your circle.

Because there's pain and suffering and brokenness in your world, at your place of work, in your family, in your neighborhood, in your gym, in your social circle, there is pain and suffering and brokenness.

And are we numb to it?

Are we desensitized?

Or do we get before the Lord and shed tears before the Lord?

What's going on in your family?

What's going on in your marriage?

What's happening with your kids?

Do you shed tears before the Lord?

Or are you just staying strong?

I gotta stay strong for the Lord.

We have this idea of like, I gotta stay strong.

No, no, no.

You need to be like Christ, who the night before he was executed, went to a garden and took his three closest friends and said, Please stay awake with me because I'm going through it.

And he knelt and he prayed and he wept and he wept and he prayed until sweat came from his forehead.

That scripture said was like blood because the vessels were breaking beneath the skin because he was under so much stress and he didn't hold that stress in.

He brought it to the Lord and he cried out and he wept before the Lord.

And you're like, I'm too manly for that.

Maybe you are, I don't know.

I'm gonna tell you right now, you are not more manly than Jesus Christ.

You did not take the sins of the world upon your back and carry your own cross up a hill and take the nails through your wrist and the nails through your feet.

And as you are hanging on a cross, suffocating to death on your own bodily fluids, look at the people who put you there and look to your father and say, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing.

You might be manly as all get out.

You are not more manly than Jesus Christ, who got on his knees and wept before the Lord.

When is the last time your heart was broken by your own sin?

When you got before the Lord, and were like, How did I do it again?

How am I a grown man saved by the blood of Christ, and I'm struggling to get this right and allow your heart to be broken by it?

When is the last time that because you chose to carry a cross and suffer for the Lord, that in your suffering you went to the Lord with tears and said, It's so heavy, God.

What you've called me to is so heavy.

I don't know how I'll keep going.

You think resilience is hardening your heart to the point that all of these things don't affect you.

That is not resilience, that is weakness, that is foolishness.

Resilience is having a sensitive heart that can feel all of the weight and all of the pain and all of the suffering and trusting God enough to keep walking anyway.

That's what actual resilience looks like.

Jesus is this incredible example for us.

In one of the most interesting moments in scripture, it's the shortest verse in the Bible.

You might know it.

It's two words.

It says, Jesus wept.

The context of this is that Jesus, one of his best friends, a guy named Lazarus, has died.

But guess what?

Jesus let him die.

Maybe that sounds harsh, but here's what the text tells us messengers were sent to the town Jesus was in.

The messengers told him, Jesus, your friend Lazarus is very sick and he might die.

They're trying to rush Jesus back to Bethany so maybe he can heal Lazarus.

And the text says because he got that news, he stayed longer.

He let Lazarus die.

Then he comes back to town.

And Jesus already knows he's going to bring Lazarus back to life.

He's gonna come to the tomb and go, Lazarus, enough playing around.

Let's get out of that tomb.

And Lazarus will come back to life in his grave clothes, and he will walk out of that tomb.

He knows that's happening.

But when he gets to Bethany, Lazarus has two sisters, Martha and Mary.

Jesus is very close to Lazarus, he's very close to Martha, he's very close to Mary.

Martha and Mary come to Jesus brokenhearted by the death of their brother.

And Jesus could have been like, ladies, it's fine.

I'm here now.

I've got it all under control.

He saw the grief of his friends and it broke his heart.

And Jesus wept.

He let him die.

He knows he's gonna raise him, and Jesus wept.

We have to realize the tension here is that we live in a culture that in almost every way pushes us and programs us to have hard hearts.

And if we have hard hearts, it's going to be very difficult to live like Jesus lived.

And if we do not live like Jesus lived, we will not experience the kind of power and world-changing attributes that Jesus had.

We will struggle to hear from the Holy Spirit and follow his promptings.

We will struggle to die to our sins.

We will struggle to make an impact to the world around us.

I thought of some phrases that we say all the time in our culture, and we don't think a lot about them, but if you do sit and think a little bit about them, what they really mean is that we are going to cope so we don't have to feel the things that are around us.

Here's one of them: we say this ignorance is bliss.

It'd be better if I don't know about it, because if I know about it, then I have to deal with it, and I have to deal with it, then I have to feel it.

Ignorance is bliss.

We're in a very difficult spot because of when we're living.

For most of human history, the only concerns you had were in your very small, isolated social circle.

For most of human history, people didn't travel more than 50 or 100 miles away from where they were born.

For most of human history, you had your family and a few extended friends.

And that was it.

That's who you were connected to.

So those were the problems that you were aware of, not anymore.

We're in the digital age.

So you are connected to everyone everywhere, which means you are connected to problems everywhere in everyone, which means you are aware of suffering, brokenness, and pain all the time, everywhere.

And it's too much.

Psychologists came up with this term, it's called compassion fatigue.

That's what ignorance's bliss is compassion fatigue, where the scope of the problem is just too big.

And so you decide, I'm just gonna ignore it.

I'm just gonna live like it's not happening, I know it's happening, I'm just going to ignore it.

That way I can keep my heart from the weight of the brokenness that I'm observing all of the time.

If you in your town had one homeless person in the whole town, it's like you and a few people could get together and radically change that person's life.

It's like you could go make sure they are fed, you can get them the right clothes, you can get them into rehab, you can get them clean if they are addicted, you can build a skill set, you could pay, five of you could get together and put them through technical school.

You could put a resume together, you could get them a job.

When they had a job, you could help them learn how to steward money.

When they could steward money, you help them sign a lease on an apartment.

Life has changed.

One guy, I can do something about that.

If there are 10 homeless people on every single street in your city, you just go, well, what do I do now?

It's too much.

Even if I did help, it's like a drop in the bucket, you know.

It's called compassion fatigue.

You know about all the problems in all the places all of the time, and so you just shut down.

There was an interesting social experiment.

They brought people in, they paid them for their participation.

They had two groups, they told both of them about the same problem over in Sub-Saharan Africa.

There are kids who don't have access to food or to clean water.

But the information in the two groups was radically different.

To one group, they told all the numbers.

30,000 kids do not have access to clean water, 50,000 kids food insecure, 20,000 kids who die of malaria, thousands and thousands and thousands.

The other group, they told the story through one girl.

They said, We want you to meet this one girl.

Here's her life story.

Here's what she deals with on a daily basis, and she represents thousands of kids in her area.

At the end of the experiment, out of what they were paid to take part, they were given the option to donate back some to that cause.

When people were told about thousands and ten thousands and thirty thousand and forty thousand, they gave almost nothing.

It's just a drop in the bucket.

The group that was just told about one person, they gave three or four times as much money.

I've got great news for you.

God has called you to change the world.

That's true of this movement we call church.

God has called you as an individual to make an impact in your world.

It can be very intimidating because the last words of Jesus in Matthew's gospel is go into all the world and preach the gospel.

Compassion fatigue.

It's like I can't get to all the world.

Gas is four dollars, I can barely get to H E B.

And I gotta go the whole world.

That verb in Greek is better translated as you are going into the world.

As you are showing up to work where there is pain and brokenness and suffering, as you are showing up in your home where your family needs you, as you are showing up in your gym, as you are walking through where God has placed you, have a sensitive enough Heart to be aware of the kingdom opportunities that are all around you.

We can get so overwhelmed with the amount of need that we just go, it's better not to know.

And we distance ourselves from it.

Here's another thing that we say uh we say this, I'm just laughing to keep from crying.

Just slow down.

I'm laughing to keep from crying.

That is a colloquialism, that's a saying in our culture, that just literally means I'm coping so I don't have to feel.

That's all it means.

I'm finding a way to cope with this where I don't have to let the reality of the situation sit on my heart.

Jesus shows up, he knows Lazarus is dead, he knows he's gonna bring him back to life.

Mary and Martha come to him, and he could have just laughed.

Ladies, come on, come on, it's me.

He's gonna be fine.

His heart breaks because his friends, their hearts are broken.

And what if the call isn't to cope and ignore and push away and laugh and make jokes?

Here's what this is this is misplaced bravado.

This is us, especially as Westerners, especially as Americans, raised in a culture where we are told, listen, dude, nobody wants to hear you cry about this.

What do you want me to do about it?

You want me to call a whambulence?

Is that what you want?

That's how we're raised.

Now, listen, some people cry too much.

Some people are overly sensitive and it's not good.

It's actually your coping mechanism.

Some people are in really difficult positions and they're there through no fault but their own sin.

Some people use their tears to manipulate.

It's not what I'm talking about.

I am talking about when you go through a real season of suffering.

And when you actually start to follow Jesus, which I remind you every week to do that, you have to deny yourself every day, and you have to carry your cross.

Jesus is going to ask you to act in ways that are counter to the culture and it will bring opposition and suffering.

And we've got this idea once we start suffering for Christ, as if, like, well, look, I'm suffering for the Lord, but I'm not gonna complain about it, I'm not gonna cry about it.

Like, we think that Jesus is informed by our culture, where when carrying our cross gets really heavy, instead of just allowing that weight to sit on us and to cry out, Jesus, I don't know if I can do this anymore.

This is heavy, man.

This is heavy.

What you've called me to at work, the person you've called me to love, who is very hard to love, the children who are in act of rebellion, this is very heavy, man.

Cry out to him, literally cry, weep to him.

This is heavy.

Because those who trust him enough to be honest with him, he will renew your strength.

We think Jesus was programmed by like the American ethos, where if we stop and are honest about how heavy our heart is, Jesus is gonna be like, Do you want me to call you a wambulance?

This is how we think.

Nobody wants to hear me cry about this.

God does.

Here's what he knows.

If you desensitize your heart to real suffering and struggle, then you will also be hardening your heart to the very voice of God.

Here's what we say ignorance is bliss.

We say, you know, I'm just laughing to keep from crying.

God says, just cry.

When it's heavy, cry, cry out to me.

Here's what we say.

It is what it is.

We're all inconsistent.

I'm not immune from that.

So I'll tell you two things.

I hate this saying, and I use this saying.

It is what it is.

There was a point in this series where the refs were so bad, I was like, I don't know.

It is what it is.

I say it and I hate it.

Because it's a false view of reality.

What this means is look, things can't change.

There is no hope, there is no option, the future is set, and all that means is you don't believe in God.

It is what it is, is not reality for the follower of Jesus Christ.

God is what it is.

God says what it is, God determines what it is.

And this view of reality that everything is just set, and we don't have a hotline to the supernatural creator of everything, is a misplaced view of reality.

This reality isn't what it is.

This is not the realest reality.

The realest reality is where we are citizens, we are citizens of heaven.

Our kingdom is still yet to come.

The reality is found in God.

Here's what we should say: it isn't what it is.

This pain and brokenness and suffering and division, that's not how God designed it.

That's not how God created it.

We broke this with our sin.

Jesus is redeeming and rescuing it through his church.

One day he'll crack the skies and come back.

He will make every wrong right, he will make everything just.

The new heavens and new earth will be instantiated.

He will be the ruler of all rulers, the king of all kings.

Right now, here's what we should believe: it is not what it is.

What it is is still coming, and it's coming when Jesus Christ cracks the skies.

You guys should clap for that.

That's good news.

Let me tell you the problem of it is what it is.

It's what we call cultural drift.

Cultural drift.

Our hearts become desensitized to sin and hopelessness.

This happens through every major influence on our lives.

I'll give you a very clear example.

Do you remember I love Lucy?

I just lost all of Gen Z, I'll get them back.

Lucy was married to Ricky.

Ricky was a spicy guy, very passionate.

And yet, somehow, when you would get a peek into their room every once in a while, do you remember where they slept?

Separate twin beds.

Why was that?

Because not all that long ago, our culture believed that even putting a husband and wife in the same bed together could raise our pernient interest.

It could lead us to something like lust.

And so every once in a while you'd get a peek into this married couple's room in this sitcom, and they wanted to be so careful to not incite lust in the audience that they had them sleeping like bunkmates in separate twin beds.

That was not all that long ago.

And now, if you think about every huge major big dollar television show that comes out, almost without exception, they have graphic, explicit sex scenes.

Full nudity, graphic sex.

Not that long ago.

What happens is the change happens slowly so that the change can happen quickly.

And the culture just drifts.

And it gets further and further from truth, further and further from hope, further and further from God.

In a lot of our lifetimes, politics was like this: I think this, you think that, one of us is probably right, we'll figure it out together.

And then it was like, I think this and you think this and I think you're wrong.

And then it was like this, I think this and you think this, and you're an idiot.

And now it's like, I think this and you think this and you're evil.

The drift of division.

Here's the problem: cultural drift informs us.

And if we are not spending time with God, if we are not spending time in his word, if we are not seeking actual truth, if we are not seeking actual wisdom, then we will be floated along by that current of cultural drift, and it will singe our conscience.

Can I tell you something you might not know?

Okay, let me try.

Let's take a breath.

They stayed up late, there was a spurs game.

Can I tell you something you may not know?

Your conscience is not the Holy Spirit.

When you begin to follow the Holy Spirit, your conscience becomes informed by the Holy Spirit, but your inbuilt moral guidance is not the Holy Spirit.

And the reason we know this is because your conscience can be singed by the culture.

The culture is not God, and your conscience is not God.

I'll give you a very simple example.

There was a time period, it's the greatest moral stain on our country.

There was a time where across the entire world, slavery and indentured servitude was just normal.

Status quo.

One of the things that made American slavery a unique moral evil is that it was ethnically based.

And so we went across the ocean to get people, to bring them over.

We would stand them up in auctions and sell them and convinced ourselves that they were not human in the same way that we are human, that they don't bear the image of God in the same way that we bear the image of God.

Now, I don't know if you're a history buff, but I have read maybe a majority of the writings of the founding fathers, many of whom owned slaves.

And there were thousands of men and women in America during that time, you can argue with me if you want, who were Christians and went to auctions and bid on human beings and owned them as slaves.

And you can read their writings.

They loved the Lord, they had put their faith in Jesus, they gave to their church.

How?

Like, how?

It's because the culture had drifted into normalizing slavery.

And the culture had singed their consciences and hardened their hearts.

And all they had to do was open this up.

Because you read the writings of Paul, and again and again and again, he reminds us there is now no Jew or Gentile, which means ethnic distinctions are erased in Jesus Christ.

There is no rich or poor, which means class distinctions are erased in Jesus Christ.

There is no distinction or favorability between male and female.

Those are erased in Jesus Christ.

You can get in the New Testament.

You might not know this.

There is a book in the New Testament called Philemon.

It is a letter from Paul to a slave owner about his runaway slave Onesimus.

And what does Paul implore him?

He begs him.

When he comes home, do not accept him as a slave, receive him as a brother.

There's an entire book in the New Testament that is just an abolitionist letter.

All the people of God had to do was get their truth from God, and then their Holy Spirit would have lined up their conscience where they would have known how to live, and before we judge them too harshly.

There are so many things in our culture that so many Christians have rationalized.

And I'll just tell you, man, I've been in ministry for a long time now, and I can't tell you how many people have come to me and had this exact conversation like this.

Hey, I realize it says this thing I'm doing is definitely sin.

But here's what's weird I don't feel like I'm sinning.

I don't have like a check in my heart about this.

And it's because culture has so dulled their conscience that now they have rationalized a sin that is explicitly forbidden by God.

It happens all the time.

People come in, there's been no affair in the marriage, there's been no abuse, no abandonment, there is no biblical foundation for a divorce.

And they come in and they go, hey, I prayed about this, and I really, I just, I feel like, like my emotions, my conscience, I feel like God is okay that we get divorced.

I love literally every single one of you.

You gotta take that argument to a different pastor.

You gotta find a pastor that's not on the word.

Because your conscience is not my God.

The author, James Clear, a great book, Atomic Habits, he says, every action you take is a vote for the person you're becoming.

Let me say that again.

Every action you take is a vote for the person you're becoming.

Which means when the Holy Spirit prompts you to do something uncomfortable, when the Holy Spirit says, you need to go to your spouse and you need to apologize, and you think, me apologize.

If anybody should be apologizing here, you want me to apologize, and you go, no, thank you.

That is one vote for you becoming a person who does not follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit brings conviction into your life about sin, and you go, listen, I mean, look at the culture, it is what it is.

Everyone does this.

I'm not stopping.

That is a vote for you to become a person who cannot hear the voice of God.

And so we harden our hearts and we numb our hearts, we build walls around our hearts, and you need to know this.

God never stops speaking to your heart, but you can become so desensitized that you can no longer hear his voice.

The church has done this.

There are pastors who are like, look, I'm not teaching on giving, I'm not teaching on a biblical sexual ethic, I'm not teaching on the sanctity of life.

Our culture is just not there.

Like, it is what it is.

People aren't gonna give a high percentage of their salary to the church.

They're not gonna do it.

I'm not gonna waste my look.

People are going to move in together and start having sex.

They're not gonna wait till they get married.

Nobody, it just, what is it?

It is what it is.

Churches, movements, denominations who won't teach on this stuff anymore.

Because they've bought the lie.

It is what it is.

So their heart grows hard.

And what I want to be, and what I want you to be, and what I want this movement to be, and we're all struggling to do it together.

I want us to be like Jesus.

And the culture is like, stay hard.

You gotta be tough, you gotta man up.

Nothing bothers you, you have to be stoic, you gotta be it's like now I want to be like Jesus.

I want my heart to stay soft.

Since this doesn't mean when chaos comes, I can't organize my thoughts and be a man and lead people through chaos.

It just means I know that's not through my strength, but through the strength of God alone.

Every week we've been looking at characters.

We looked at Abraham as a great example of being the poor in spirit.

We looked at Esau as a terrible example of filling his temporary hunger while giving up eternal reward.

Today we're gonna look at King David.

If you know anything about David, he started as a shepherd boy, he was anointed as a young man.

David could hear from the Lord.

David had a soft heart, as a matter of fact.

David is called a man after God's own heart.

That's how he's designated in scripture.

David shows up as like a pre-pubescent teen to the front lines, the army they're facing off against a literal giant who no one will stand up to.

And the Spirit of God is like, do something about it.

And this 12-year-old is like, I got you.

David, as a man who's being hunted down by King Saul.

King Saul goes to relieve himself in a cave.

He doesn't know.

David's in the cave.

He could just slit his throat, and God says, David, don't touch him.

And he can hear him.

And he doesn't.

Over and over.

David just has this ascendance and all of it because he can hear from God until he can't.

And David should be a warning to us that you can be all in, bought in, sanctified, redeemed, on fire for God, building his kingdom.

And if you are not intentional, you can grow a hard heart.

We're gonna look in 2 Samuel chapter 11.

2 Samuel 11 · chapter mention

Notice what it says.

It says, In the spring, when kings march out to war, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel.

They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained, but David remained in Jerusalem.

The author is not hiding the problem here.

Look at what he says.

In the spring, when all of the kings are supposed to go out to war, David stays.

David is not where he's supposed to be, and he's about to do what he is not supposed to do.

In the next verse, it says, One evening David got up from his bed and he strolled around on the roof of his palace, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing, a very beautiful woman.

Look, if you think this was an accident, you're not paying attention.

David isn't where he is supposed to be.

He lives in a palace multi-story that is high above all the residences in Jerusalem.

He's already in bed.

He should stay in bed.

Nobody has a walk-in, multi-faucet shower, okay?

You showered outdoors, you got some water, and you waited until it was dark, but not too dark to see.

And you would go outside.

David knows.

If he gets up and he goes out, there's a good chance he gets a peek at something.

And he's right.

He's not where he's supposed to be, he's not doing what he is supposed to do.

And God speaks to David.

And for most of his life, he listens.

And if you don't think that God is prompting David in these moments, you don't know God.

I guarantee God is trying to bring conviction to David.

David, your men are at war.

You are the king.

What are you doing in Jerusalem?

Pack your bags, get on a chariot, get to the front lines, go do your job that I have given you and blessed you to get to do.

Go out.

You better believe, as David starts having lustful thoughts laying in his bed, that the Spirit of God is like, David, shut it down, man.

What are you doing?

As he pulls off the covers, do not get out of bed, David.

As he gets out of bed, do not go on the roof, David.

As he goes on the roof, it's not too late.

Turn around, David.

Like the Spirit of God is prompting you, leading you into truth all of the time.

If you have a heart that can hear him, I don't know what it was.

I don't know if it was the money.

I don't know if he just had absolute power, which we know tends to corrupt absolutely.

I don't know if David had just been in so many battles, so many wars, seen so much bloodshed.

Maybe he just had to harden his heart.

I don't know.

We're not told.

But David has a hard heart.

And worse still, David cannot be corrected.

David is holding so much power with such a hard heart, no one even dares stand up to him.

Let me show you quickly.

So David sent someone to inquire about her, and he said, Isn't this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite?

And David sent messengers to get her.

And when she came to him, he slept with her.

And now she had just been purifying herself from her uncleanness.

And afterwards she returned home.

And the woman conceived and sent word to inform David that I am pregnant.

Listen to all the people involved in this story, and not one of them ever went, David, you sure about this?

Okay, David, just I just want to walk you through what you just said to me.

So you want me to go get a married woman and bring her to your bedroom.

That's what you want?

Nobody stands up to him.

Nobody says anything to him.

Likely because no one feels like they can.

David has a hard heart.

It gets worse once she's pregnant.

He puts together a plan.

He's like, I'm gonna call Uriah in from the front lines.

I'm gonna get him drunk, right?

So we're stacking sins.

I'm gonna get him drunk.

I'm gonna send him home.

He'll sleep with his wife.

The timing is close enough.

When the baby comes, he'll just assume it's his.

But Uriah is a good man.

And Uriah says, My brothers are on the front lines in war.

I am not going to go sleep with my wife while they're out fighting.

And so David runs into a problem of Uriah's integrity.

David sends a message back to the leader of the army.

He hatches a plan that all but guarantees Uriah will be killed in battle, and it's successful.

Once Uriah is dead, he takes Bathsheba as his own wife, and we see no evidence of remorse.

David's heart is just so hard.

You might know the story.

God sends a prophet named Nathan.

And Nathan confronts David with a made-up story.

We read that in the next chapter, chapter 12.

So the Lord sent Nathan to David.

And when he arrived, Nathan said to him, There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.

The rich man had a very large flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except one small ewe lamb that he had bought.

And he raised her, and she grew up with him and with his children.

And from his meager food she would eat, from his cup she would drink, and in his arms she would sleep.

She was like a daughter to him.

Does anybody else have a dog like this big that's really fluffy?

Anybody but me?

And you just feed them right off the fork.

And if they want to drink, you just and they sleep in your bed.

Y'all are too manly to admit this.

I'm not, bro.

I love this dog.

I mean, don't make me choose, bro.

You are the dog.

Like, this is the lamb.

He's got one lamb.

His neighbor has fields and fields and cattle and sheep, as many as you can count.

He's got one.

And he raises it like a like a daughter to him.

Listen to what happens.

Now, traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man could not bring himself to take one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare for the traveler who had come to him.

Instead, he took the poor man's one and only lamb, killed it, and prepared it as dinner for his guest.

Nathan tells David this, and here's David's response.

David was infuriated with the man.

And he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die, because he has done this thing and shown no pity, he must pay four lambs for that lamb.

Listen to David.

He's like, not only did he do it, his heart is so hard, he's not even remorseful.

And Nathan replied to David, You are that man.

That's you.

You're king.

You could have anything.

And you took from Uriah the one thing that he had.

Here's what happens in this moment is all the walls built around David's heart implode.

He goes from Galao, the heart of heart, to Cleo, a soft and sensitive heart.

And he's devastated by his sin.

And he weeps before the Lord.

And he should.

And it's good.

Because blessed are those who weep.

And so what about you?

What area in your life have you grown heart of heart?

What things used to bother you?

They used to sit on you.

You used to feel the weight of them.

But you've distanced yourself now.

Ignorance is bliss.

I can't think about that anymore.

It's too big of a problem.

There's nothing I can really do about it anyway.

What areas are you just coping?

You know, you know what they say?

You just gotta laugh to keep from crying.

You just gotta cope with this pain.

Push it away, push it down, don't let it sit on you, don't trust God with it.

What about in your own behaviors?

What sins have you rationalized and normalized because you look at a culture that has abandoned Jesus and you go, look, I mean, I know it's not great, but it is what it is.

It does not make you weak to have a sensitive heart.

There is no one stronger than Jesus.

There is no one more powerful than Jesus.

There is no one who's changed the world like Jesus.

And he's called you to use his life as a template for your own.

I tell you guys all the time, I'm not preaching really at you.

I'm really preaching to me.

And you guys are just getting the benefit of hearing it.

As I've been studying this text, God's like showing me there's so many places I have a hard heart.

And so the only thing I can do is just throw myself before God.

Beg him to tear down walls around my heart that I have been building since I was a child.

Hardness of heart to try and protect myself from the pain, the very real pain in this world.

Life is very hard, and following Jesus is very hard.

That pain comes.

Relationships struggle and they end.

Children rebel, jobs are lost, health is compromised.

If we can't trust God with our pain, we'll wall off our heart.

And if we wall off our heart, we may not be able to hear the Spirit of God leading us into the purpose he created us for.

Here in just a little while, we're gonna give you some time to pray.

And if you're a believer in Jesus, man, I'm gonna ask you to get on your knees before the Lord and just to beg him.

God, break through.

Break my heart.

Renew my sensitivity.

For some of you in this room, in Helotus Online, you have a primary problem.

And your primary problem is you don't know God.

The way that we come into relationship with God is through faith in his son Jesus.

It's not an offer of religion, it's an offer of relationship that comes when we believe that Jesus is our only hope for this life and our only hope for what comes next.

When we are convinced and convicted that Jesus is God, that he came to this earth, that he died to pay the price of our sin, that he walked out of his own grave, that he's coming back for us someday.

When we put our faith in him, we are brought into an eternal relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Not because you were sprinkled as a baby, not because you grew up coming to church.

It is about an intentional decision in a moment in time where you enter into this eternal relationship with your Heavenly Father.

And if you have not done that, then you have to look for your hope in this world.

And this world will always let you down.

And you will have to grow a hard heart.

Because there's nothing outside of this life and outside of this world for you to find hope in.

And if that is you, you need to do something about that like today.

You are not promised tomorrow.

Time is of the essence.

And the God who created you loves you enough that he came down into our brokenness and exchanged his perfect life for your sinful life.

At the moment that you put your faith in Jesus, Scripture says our sins are forgiven, which means his sacrifice is applied to your life, which means when God looks at you, he does not see your sin.

He sees his son.

He sees you clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

If that is you, I just am certain that right now, the Spirit of God is pressing in on you, maybe even pressing in to a very hard heart.

And I want to encourage you with every fiber of my being to surrender.

Put your faith in Jesus.

Get right with God today.

As we close, if you bow your head and close your eyes, create a little bit of space.

I want to talk to anyone at one of our venues, anyone who's online who's never had this moment in time where you've put your faith in Jesus.

If that's you, I want to invite you to get that right today.

Here's what I'm gonna ask.

With everyone's eyes closed, this is a personal decision between you and God.

If that is you and you are ready for the first time to put your faith in Jesus, I want to ask you right now, right where you're sitting, to just simply raise your hand.

This is a symbolic gesture.

Raising your hand just says, Today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

For those who raise a hand, I can say with confidence out of scripture that God sees your faith and accepts it, forgives all of your sins, and right now has given you the gift of eternal life, a gift that no one and nothing can take away from you.

All I want to do is help you acknowledge this moment through a very simple prayer.

I'm gonna ask you and all the believers to pray this with me.

Let's pray like this.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God that you died for my sins and rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

So glad you joined us for today's message.

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