Seeing Jesus in Matthew: Make Room for the Kingdom

You guys. Good morning. Hey, we are doing what we do. We're going through the

Bible today. So we're continuing on the book of Matthew. There are Bibles in

front of you if you need one.

I'm also going to put all the like references up on the screen so you don't

have to follow along, but I would encourage you to, if you'd like to just track with us.

So going on, continuing on the book of Matthew and we're picking up in chapter

19, verse 16, which is where we left off last week. Well, where Michael left off last week.

And man, this is one of my favorite passages. there's just a lot to it.

You maybe have heard of it before. It's a passage that is oftentimes referred

to as the rich young ruler, because it's about this guy.

He's a young man. He's rich. He's.

It's such like a thick and rich passage. There's so much in it that we're actually

going to take two weeks to go over it.

So today we're just going to start out, we'll get acquainted and just talk about

it generally. And then we'll go more in depth next week as we finish out the chapter.

But before we jump in to the content, talking about the rich young ruler,

I just want us to think back because we've been progressively making our way

through the book of Matthew.

And we've been familiarizing ourselves with Jesus. And I just want us to remind

ourselves of what his message is.

The book of Matthew and other gospel writers and really throughout scripture

refers to, in shorthand, Jesus's message, the thing he went around preaching

as the gospel, which is derived from a Greek word that just means good news.

Jesus went around proclaiming good news to people.

And he just said that's what he does. Like, that's his thing. He's known for it.

In Matthew 4, so going way back early on in the book, like chronologically,

Matthew introduces Jesus in the first couple chapters.

He talks about sort of his backstory. He talks about Jesus's cousin,

John the Baptist, a familiar character, right?

And then after John the Baptist kind of prepares the way for Jesus's ministry

and introduces him to the world, the people around in his time,

Jesus's influence begins to take off and his ministry becomes very popular.

And that's what we've been reading. We've been reading about that,

his influential ministry for the last 15 chapters.

And throughout that time, Jesus is doing the one thing he does.

He's talking about the gospel.

We read about his clear message that he's proclaiming in Matthew 4, verse 17.

Matthew 4:17

It says this, From then on, that is from the time that John the Baptist kind

of handed off the reins of ministry to Jesus, Jesus began to preach this,

Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near.

Skipping ahead just a couple of verses, Jesus went around all over Galilee,

teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the gospel of the kingdom,

and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

It was his MO to talk about the gospel and to preach the good news.

But we see here this very deliberate phrase, this familiar refrain.

We could think of it in modern terms like a mission statement or a vision statement.

Jesus' elevator pitch of what his message is. It's right here.

Repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near. Or if you want to do the

old King James, because the kingdom of heaven is nigh, right?

Whatever that means. But it means because the kingdom of heaven has come near.

But like, this is an interesting phrase. It's an interesting message.

And I want to think about it for a little bit.

First thing to notice about it, it starts with a command, repent.

I think I have a sentence diagram here. Yeah. So there begins with a command, repent, do something.

And everyone hears that part loud and clear, even today. Everybody knows,

I think if you ask somebody who has very little context for Jesus,

very little understanding, just like kind of like a basic understanding of Jesus,

they would probably say, yeah, I think Christians are supposed to repent.

I feel like that's part of the deal. And they probably know that because they've

been to a Mariners game. That's a Seattle joke.

Or they've seen depictions in the media, you know, of people standing on the

street corners yelling, you repent. Jesus is telling you to repent,

right? So they have this idea.

People have this idea that repentance, the work and act, a behavior of repentance

is a part of Jesus's message. But the question is, what does that mean?

That's a very important question. You see, the thing about commands is their

meaning is tied up in their context. Quit it.

What does that mean to you? Well, when I say that to my children and they're

going blah, blah, blah, and I say quit it, they say quit what?

But they know. They know, right? They know what? Because of the context, right?

So, but like a command is really very much dependent on its context.

We do this thing. We interpret commands based on their context,

based on how they're situated in a phrase, in a sentence, based on the situation

in which that command comes to us.

So when we think about repent, we really need to think about its context or

else as a word, it can mean whatever.

Quit doing what? Repent of what? What is repentance? Is it feeling really bad

about yourself? Sufficiently bad?

Whatever that means, some of us are really trying that. Is it changing yourself?

And if it means to change yourself, what about yourself do you need to change?

If it means like think differently, okay, well, if you have to do this thing,

this mystery thing, this action I need to take, and if it involves my brain,

like what about my brain needs to change?

It becomes very difficult without some specificity, with some context,

with some direction to respond to the message of repentance.

But luckily, Jesus' command to repent is actually very well contextualized throughout

his ministry. It's not just repent, not just do something.

Do this thing, repentance, because the kingdom of heaven has come near.

The context of repentance is the nearness of the kingdom.

So let's think about that for a minute. I bet you've been to a restaurant before. Yeah.

You've been to a restaurant before. Maybe you had some zerts.

You had a drink. You know, but you're like, you know, you just you're kind of a mess.

Your stuff is all over place You put your plate right in front or your cup right

in front of you, you know That's what I do And then what happens is after a

little while your meal comes and the waiter who looks a little bit like this Like has some food.

He's smiling way too much and you're like, it seems like you're overselling

it buddy Right, but but he's got it's got some food in his hands holding two

plates The kingdom of dinner is coming near,

And what you do I mean, you respond to the nearness of your dinner The nearness

of these plates And you recognize, if you're polite.

Oh, I should make some room so that this guy who's holding these things and

has his hands full can put these things down in front of me.

And so you probably push your plate over unless you're at a really nice restaurant

and someone else does it for you. But this is Seattle. We don't really do that.

You put your plate, you move your stuff, and then the waiter can put the plate down in front of you.

And I would say that the gospel is a lot like that. The good news of Jesus Christ

is a lot like that. The gospel is God himself coming to you.

He's got something good prepared for you, something that is for your nourishment,

something that your life depends on, food, eating, sustenance,

something that is able to sustain you. It is the kingdom of heaven.

And all that you have to do is repent, which is as simple as responding to the nearness of its coming,

and making some room so that what is being brought to you, you can receive it,

so that it can sit in front of you, so you can make use of it.

I think it really is that simple. It is responding to the nearness and making room.

So I just want to put that image in your head. We're going to talk about it

a little bit more as we go along here.

But it's really important for us to just have that idea in our head as we get

in here. So jumping into Matthew 19, 16.

It's totally fine. It's totally fine. Doesn't bother me at all. It's very good. But no.

Jesus, it says, Jesus came up and asked him, Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?

So this person comes up to them, up to Jesus, and everyone, so the thing about

Jesus is like everyone realizes Jesus has something to give them.

He understands this. People are coming to Jesus all the time asking to receive something from him.

But a lot of people, and this man is a good example, just can't figure out how to receive it.

Because they live in a culture that's really dominated by a lot of ideas about how to manage God.

It's a lot of like, well, if we do this, then God will owe us this.

So it's a lot of performing certain actions, certain habits, certain things.

And then God will kind of be obliged to give us things that we want.

And so he's dominated by that idea, by that way of thinking about God.

But the people in his day, this man included, don't know much about Jesus's

unique ideas about how present and faithful and kind and gracious God is.

I mean, Lenore read from the Sermon on the Mount before, talking about how near

the kingdom is to broken people, hurting people, people who are not really performing up to the standard.

Jesus is like, those people are the ones who have the nearness of God right next to them.

So Jesus had this particular way of understanding the closeness of God.

And so it is new territory for a lot of people and it conflicts with a lot of

their preconceived ideas about what God was like.

And so this someone, this person who as we go along in the text,

we learn about him. He is a young man. He is a wealthy young man.

He comes to Jesus and he wants to know, what do I have to do to receive this

thing that you're trying to give me? This eternal life.

And which would have been kind of an ancient Hebrew way of talking about a life

with God, this life of promise, this life that's laid out in the scriptures,

a kind of a fullness and a peace and the righteousness that God invites his people to.

Like they would have had a clear picture of them and God wants something really

great for us, but they wouldn't have had the sense of how do we receive it?

In other words, he's asking, what is repentance anyway?

What is the thing I have to do to receive this great thing that you're talking about?

And Jesus replies, in a rather confounding way. He says, why do you ask me about what is good?

There is only one who's good. And if you want to enter into life,

well, keep the commandments.

So Jesus says, God in his goodness has spoken to you and he's told you what is good.

So you should keep the commandments, which is surprising for us Protestants,

right? I mean, if you have some church background, you know that's not how you

get saved, Jesus. What are you talking

about? You don't have to keep the commandments, you have to have faith.

If someone came to me and I said, how do I get right with God?

I probably wouldn't say keep the commandments. Because when we think about eternal

life, we, if we have a church background, If you don't, I'm not talking to you,

but people who understand this, if you've read the Bible, we know that we're

saved by faith by trusting in Jesus.

So what is Jesus talking about here? Is he contradicting himself?

Things that he says later? Here's the thing.

Jesus speaks into a culture with a lot of ideas about God, a lot of ideas that

commandments are what keep us right with God.

And he's not really against the commandments. He just doesn't load them with

the kind of weight and freight that the culture loaded them with.

He doesn't think they can get all the things, but he's not against the commandments.

In Matthew 5, 18 through 19, Jesus says this, Truly I tell you,

until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of the

letter will pass away from the law or the commandments until all things are accomplished.

Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others

to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever does and teaches these commands will be called the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus is not anti-commandment.

He's not anti-law.

He's not saying, oh, well, just forget about that stuff and it doesn't matter

and it's meaningless. He doesn't say just throw out the Old Testament,

but just think about the grace.

But Jesus also, throughout his teaching, he understands that the commandments

can only do so much and they can't actually deal with the heart.

They are boundaries that show us what's wrong, but they don't do much to bring

us into a transformed life, into this eternal life that this man is longing after.

We'll talk about that in a second. But just to make that really clear,

I was talking a couple of weeks ago with Stephen after church.

Hi, Stephen. I think they're in Mexico right now.

Pretty nice place to be. Talking to him after church, and he shared something

with me that I thought was such a fascinating illustration.

And that's that when building codes in the United States started to take off

sometime in the 1920s to 1950s, like towns made building codes and then states

made building codes and then there was a national building code eventually. Right.

So you have all these rules and definitions. What what suddenly happened is

that builders had a clear boundary for what was right, what was wrong.

Like you can't build in this way because that is dangerous.

Right. So there's a very clear boundary marker of what not to do.

But the consequence of that is that in the post-war housing boom,

when we started industrially printing houses, like we got to make a ton all

of a sudden, builders started to design homes around what not to do,

to satisfy the minimum standards so that the house doesn't fall over.

Instead of these craftsman homes where the builders had experience and they're

just like, well, we just know what to do because we know how to make a good

house. The builders started to build around houses.

How to not make a dangerous house. And it's really clear to me,

I love that illustration because it makes it so clear that what the law does

is it keeps us from the really bad, but it doesn't do much to point us and keep

us focused on what's really good.

And this young man, he can't articulate it, but when he hears Jesus talk about

the commandments, he feels it in his bones that that's just like,

yeah, keep the commandments.

Okay, Jesus, I get that. but there's got to be more than that because keeping

the law isn't scratching the itch for me.

It might have helped him avoid really bad things, but it doesn't point him to

this eternal life. He's still longing for it. And so he goes back to Jesus and

he said to Jesus' response that he should keep the commandments.

He says, well, which ones?

Like, let's clarify, which ones are you talking about? And then Jesus responds.

He says, well, he lists some of the commandments.

Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness.

Honor your father and mother.

And love your neighbor as yourself. One of those is not one of the Ten Commandments.

We'll talk about that more next week.

And so his response is, well, I've kept all of these. So what do I still lack?

This man says, well, if that's repentance, if that's this message,

if that's responding to what you said, I've already done that, but I still lack.

So what am I missing? Surely there must be more.

And Jesus stops dangling him along and he tells him something very direct.

He says this, if you want to be perfect, go and sell your belongings and give

to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.

Then come and follow me. And when the young man heard that, he went away grieving

because he had many possessions.

So what is Jesus saying?

Well, he's giving him a command. Go sell your possessions.

Which seems like a lot. And it's funny, he just didn't tell everybody that.

So like, what's up with this command? Well, let's think about the context of the command.

There's more to just go and sell your possessions. The reason for the command

is explained in the context.

The reason for the command is, I think I have a slide, another diagram,

because you know, we need to understand.

So that you can then come and follow me. It's not just an arbitrary command.

It's a command that will lead him to something else.

And this man hears this command and he just doesn't know what to do with it.

He goes away grieving because he had many possessions.

Here's the thing. I have a ton of sympathy for this guy.

I don't think we have a reason to believe in the text that he was a particularly

greedy or crooked person. He's not a person who just loves money.

In fact, I think he's probably actually a person who's extremely dutiful and responsible.

And his grief from hearing this command has tied up a lot in that.

Because in Hebrew culture, there was only one way for a young man to be rich.

You couldn't go around and make money. You kind of just worked the land.

And so the only way for a young man to be rich is if their father dies and leaves

them their possession. He's the firstborn in the household.

He's the next male in line to be the patriarch of the home.

And so he's a young man whose father has likely died, leaving him not only great

possessions, but also all the responsibilities, taking care of his mother,

his siblings, aunts and uncles.

Like this is the way Hebrew culture was organized. They were like tribes and clans.

They would get together and the patriarch was the one who owned all the stuff,

but also had all owned all the responsibility.

So when Jesus tells this man, go and sell it all, that is not a small thing

to ask. It's not that he just loves his money so much.

So, I mean, the question is, why would Jesus ask such a thing?

Is this like a new law? Are there just like new sets of commands and more things

we need to perform to? Does everyone here have to go and start selling off everything they own?

Does, do we have to perform our way into the kingdom? Is that how it becomes

near to us? Do we just like respond like in such a radical way?

Does Jesus somehow hate all money and we just have to become,

I don't know, like live in a collective? Some of you guys would like that, you know.

I think the answer to all those is no. Jesus is not making a new law.

He is not asking us to perform our way into the kingdom.

He does not hate money as a blanket statement.

Well, so what's going on here? Well, think about the gospel.

The kingdom of heaven has come near. And Jesus, God himself, has come into the world.

He's got something to give to people.

He's holding out life. He wants to put it down in front of this man because

this man longs for something more.

And Jesus has the things he longs for. But Jesus comes up to this man,

willing to give, because he's the giver of life. He's the bringer of the kingdom.

And he looks at this man and he says, there's a lot in front of you.

And there is no place for me to put these things down.

There is a complex web of attachments and desires and hopes and fears that are in this man's heart.

And they are tangling him up. He has many possessions, but he also has many

other things, many things, not just measured in wealth.

He has many things that are forming his identity and forming his fears and his

anxieties, things that are just like, like tied up in his heart and his mind.

And Jesus is like, I want to give this thing to you, but there's no room for

it to come down into your life because you are so occupied with so much else.

And so Jesus sees this man, the man who's longing for eternal life.

And he knows, man, there's no room for me to put my kingdom down.

And so Jesus' command, though it seems harsh and it seems direct.

And yeah, he goes away grieving, but I don't think that's the end of this man's story, to be honest.

It seems like a lot, but he understands that he needs to make room.

Jesus doesn't want rich people to be poor. Jesus doesn't want poor people to be rich.

Wealth and poverty are not really the metrics of the kingdom.

They're not the things that we're measuring.

But what Jesus wants from this man and from everyone is people who are receiving his kingdom.

People who can receive his kingdom. People who are organizing their life around

feeding on the resources that God is presenting in Jesus Christ.

Who are living their lives around, again.

Receiving from God, taking from God all the things, all his kindness,

all his love, all his security, all his blessings, and just,

being just wide open people, people who are depending upon his presence as an

everyday reality, people who are living in a reality that Jesus brings about

in the kingdom, which he still is bringing about today.

He wants people who can receive this kingdom.

And obviously, the passage focuses on the particular difficulties of wealth and possessions.

And as the chapter goes on, Jesus starts to talk about that with his disciples.

And next week, we're going to go talk specifically about that sort of attachment,

wealth, possessions, power, those kind of things, because Jesus has a lot of

understanding about the unique challenges of those things.

But for the rest of our time, I just want to think about this in a general sense,

of how are we people, whatever the challenge would be.

If it's attachment to money, attachment to performance, or like,

you know, attachment to sin, like lust, like whatever the thing is that is vying

for your attention and dominating your heart.

Like, how do we give that over to Jesus? How do we be people who don't go away

grieving, but who go away giving up these things, repenting of these things

so that Jesus can bring something so much better.

So how do we make room for the kingdom is the question that I want to spend

the rest of our time thinking about.

Do a time check. Okay. Okay, we're all right. For now.

So the gospel is this good news. The kingdom is near.

And that means the power and the supply and the grace and the love and the attention

and care of God himself is just washing over the world.

Like when Jesus would go around talking to people, he'd be like,

it doesn't matter if you're poor. It doesn't matter if you're broken.

God is so present. He is with those who mourn. He's with those who grieve.

He's like subverting all these ideas about what we think is good and right and

who is well off. And Jesus just says, no, like the one who's well off is the

one who has God near them in whatever circumstances they might find themselves in.

God himself is just washing over the world.

And the gospel is that Jesus is coming to us. God himself in the flesh.

And he calls us to just receive everything from him first with forgiveness and

then to receive adoption, like to become a part of the family to the point where

we can just like, no, like, like, I don't worry about calling up my dad.

I have a good father. Some of you guys don't. So I'm not trying to brag,

but I have a good father. And if I really needed something from him,

I could call him and ask it for it. And it would be done tomorrow or today.

Depends, You know, but it would be done like, I have a confidence because my

father loves me and I know that. And he's shown me that over years and years

and years that I can rely on him.

And so Jesus is coming in. He's trying to talk about this kingdom and he's saying,

this is a kingdom where we can rely on God.

He is good. He is kind. He's forgiving. He adopts us in it. He gives us life.

And so repentance is the appropriate response, but repentance is not. Do better.

Try harder. Do more. feel sufficiently guilty.

It's not feel sufficiently guilty.

It's not go to church. It's not read your Bible. Repentance is by faith,

looking to Jesus, seeing he

has something for you and just making room and taking what he's offering.

And there are stages to that. And I know it's almost lunchtime,

but I apologize. We're going to continue with the restaurant metaphor.

You guys are going to be really hungry by the end of all of this.

Just like in a restaurant, there's stages to the meal.

There's stages to this as well there's there's the starter course anyone ever

been to a super fancy restaurant where they give you an amuse-bouche,

ask dave and rachel they can tell you what that means they they speak french,

but in a super fancy restaurant,

you go there and you get an amuse-bouche i probably said it wrong i'm not embarrassed

and what it is it's a very tiny like usually just a bite of something super

intricate and complicated.

Like somebody spent way too much time on this one bite of food. That's what it is.

And you don't order it. That's the thing. You didn't say, I'll take the amuse-bouche.

They decided you're going to take this.

Everybody gets this. If you're sitting down at this restaurant.

You're going to have this.

And the chef gives it to anyone who sits at the table.

And what it's supposed to do, it's supposed to get you excited about everything

that's coming after and i i did a little research a little,

I've been doing it my whole life. So, and like, actually, like,

like this is like a whole thing where what the chef is trying to do is they're

trying to like introduce themes and things that they like and show off their

skill through this little tiny bite.

And so you can kind of see, oh, this chef is good at fish. Who is?

I'm not a fish guy. I'm sorry. I don't mean to. Yeah, I didn't mean to start a fight.

Like, so this chef is good at, you know, whatever, whatever chefs can be good

at. But it's like it's like meant to to to wet your whistle.

That's I apologize for saying that phrase, but it's meant to get you excited

about what is to come about. But what's what else is going to be coming on?

And it's meant to give you confidence that this chef knows what he's doing or she's doing.

And like in the life of the Christian, like we all get this.

We all start with the same thing. We didn't order it, but somebody walks up

to it. Jesus walks up to it and he offers it to us and he puts it down before

us. And that's what we call salvation.

It is God bringing us into his life for the first time.

And we know because he puts that thing before us and we're able to receive that

there is much more to come. And we're going to get all the way to the dessert course.

We're going to get all the way where we're going. and he's going to attend us

through that because he has started us out with this thing and it is, it's beautiful.

And we receive life from God and we now know we're at the table and we're going

to be a part of this meal and the chef is going to attend us through this whole time.

The promise of salvation is that God is not going to abandon you,

that your sin, all these things that you feel guilty about and all the things

that you were so ashamed of in your life and all the things that you think God

could never forgive you of, God comes up to you and he gives you a beautiful,

well-prepared, carefully crafted thing.

He sets it before you. You didn't know you wanted it, but then you taste it

and you say, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I wanted. And all of a sudden

you realize, oh, this chef doesn't hate me. He didn't hide, you know,

a trick in the food. It's a good thing.

And his, he, he, in, you know, going to away from the chef metaphor, he loves me.

Chef should not love you. That would be weird, right yeah but like he loves me and he cares for me

so we so we start with this thing so your sin and your failures because of what

jesus christ has done the work that he has done to prepare away for you are taken away

and so now you have a place at the table and you can expect a meal to follow

that will get you all the way through salvation is this first thing and.

I really like this metaphor. The other great thing about this is that when they

bring a small plate, you know what a small plate is? A small plate is small.

So if you've got a lot of junk in front of you, you don't need to clear it all away.

You just need to clear enough away. Say, I'm going to put this to the side that

that first thing can sit down in front of you and you can start to have enough.

You can start to be moving onto the table. You don't need to clear the whole table.

Jesus will come along and he'll clear the other things out of the way as they

need to be cleared out of the way.

And that's where we go from there. Like from the start, you go on to the entree

or entrees, like the main courses, the dish comes out. So salvation is not the end of the meal.

And this, my gosh, Christians, salvation is not the end of the meal.

There is so much more to a life in the kingdom than just saying,

I got my fire insurance. I got my card punched. I guess I'm just going to go my own way.

Like, salvation leads us into this relationship, dynamic relationship of receiving

from God, feasting at his table.

The meal is not the end. It's just the starter.

And that's how the Christian life works. Like, Jesus is going to come back once

you've taken this thing, this first beginning little bite.

And he's going to come up with another plate and the plate's a little bit bigger.

And so he's going to have you clear some more things out through repentance,

through making room for the kingdom in your life.

You're going to have some things that are just in the way of what God wants

to do and what he wants to give you.

And so you make room, you say, all right, this attachment to money,

this attachment to anxiety, this attachment to what people think of me,

these kind of negative thoughts, my persistent.

You know, whatever, like struggle with sin, whatever that thing is.

Over time, Jesus will be ready for you to repent of those things,

move them along, so that he can make room for more and more and more.

As he brings more and more and more, you can keep clearing things away.

This is important because I think a lot of people think, oh,

I just have to make my life good enough right at the beginning and throw everything

out, turn the table over. Well, that's not helpful.

You need to make enough to receive what God has, and then he will help you along

in this process of making room in this lifelong, beautiful calling of walking

with Jesus, making room for the things he has slowly.

And in the same way that doesn't require me going around, beating myself up,

turning over my whole life, talking about how bad I am, thinking about how bad

I am, it doesn't require anything more than by faith, just paying attention

to Jesus, what he's got in his hands,

what he wants to give to you, and then making room for it accordingly.

And that'll be different at different times in your life. Your whole life will

be just receiving new things from the Lord and making room for them.

That new song we just did, one of the co-authors on this is a lady named Jess

Rae, and I was able to see her in concert on Seattle on Thursday, and it was really good.

And she has this song that just keeps going through my head.

And so I'm going to read you a song lyric by Jess Rae. It says this,

I know how to curse the path I tread.

When will I learn to bless it all instead? To open my arms and kiss the face

of my own life as it comes my way.

I can still hear your voice echoing.

Blessed is he who's not offended by me. It is what it is, has been my song,

but it's turning into thy kingdom come.

And I love that last line, especially.

I think a lot of us go through our life like the rich young man,

and we just cope. We're good copers. I'm a great coper. That's one of my best skills.

I'm usually fine 99.9% of the time.

I very rarely do, am I really bad? I can usually like stay within a very tight range of emotional.

Steady Eddie. But you know what that is? That's just me saying life is what

it is. I can accept a lot about life.

I can accept the good things and the bad things along the way.

But that is a far cry from receiving from God his kingdom.

That is a far cry from me looking at my life and my day-to-day experience and

saying there's someone back there who's preparing good things for me,

and i just have to make room for them and so it is what it is is not true because

i have a god who's working in

my life he's bringing blessing upon blessing not so that i'll have a yacht.

So have a life with him. How awesome is that?

His kingdom is coming is so much better than I can handle it because I've got

the resources. I've got the emotional resources. I've got the money.

I've got whatever I need to depend on that I'll be okay.

How much better it is to empty those things away and just say,

no, I want your kingdom because that's so much better than my,

it is what it is and I can cope.

And I think so many of us are engaged not in practicing God's presence,

but in the active practice of his absence.

So this is the problem with the rich young ruler who's just like, he has much.

And so how could you give that away? Well, he had much, like he could handle

everything with all that he has, which is just a way of saying,

I don't really need God in my life.

I don't need your kingdom to

come because I am not in a place of great difficulty or poverty or need.

And so for this man, he is tuned into the practice of God's absence.

And that, and we'll talk about it next week, but for us, we live in one of the

wealthiest places in the country.

I mean, isn't it so easy to live your life as if God is not present and you

could avoid doing all the bad things,

like you could avoid an ugly life where you're murdering and committing adultery

and you can do all that stuff.

But is that the kingdom?

There's so much more to our life and it involves organizing our life around

the expectation and hope that God is going to be present with us.

Devin's uncle has a phrase. Devin's uncle is a pastor and it goes something like this.

It's, let's pretend as if Jesus was involved.

And honestly, that's all faith is. That is, faith is looking at my life and

saying, hey, hey, hey, let's try this.

Let's pretend as if Jesus was involved.

Come to my problems. Come to even my successes. Let's pretend as if Jesus was

involved, as if he had more to say than just, are you okay? You're just,

you're doing all right. You're coping just fine. Okay, great.

No, like he wants to bring his kingdom. It's so much better.

Let's pretend, let's by faith, believe as if my life was a place where God shows

up and organize my life around the way and train myself into that kind of life.

And we'll talk again more about that next week.

Worship team is going to come up here. But the final thing, the final piece

in the meal analogy is this, is that, you know, at some point you have your

starter and then you have your entrees and the courses just keep coming.

And then at some point you realize there is too much food for me to eat here.

And then it's time to go family style.

I went to dinner last night with some friends and we did family style and it

was great and everybody just, you know, reaching over the table.

And sometimes in the family style meal, you know, you got a big table,

you got a lot of food and there's a lot of people there. You need to just like,

take up a plate and you need to pass it to someone else who needs some food.

And so like this is the thing, like why come to church?

Why is God's mission moving forward through a community of people?

Because if you read the New Testament, like you can't miss that.

Like it's happening in a community. Well, it's because we're coming into the

kingdom. We're organizing our lives around his presence.

And then some of us like who are maybe just a little bit more practiced at this

or maybe extra loved. I don't know.

Some of us, like you have so much.

And what you're called to do at that point is to start handing that to the people around you.

To share what you have. To share what you've been given. We are to share our table with one another.

Like part of being in the kingdom is that like, yeah, God is caring for us.

But then we get to be a part of caring for one another.

Being partakers of his care for one another.

It's like such a beautiful thing.

We are starting today our prayer team up again, right? So we did it a while ago.

Things, I don't know, things fell apart.

But what we're going to be doing is after the message, every single Sunday from

here on out, there's going to be a prayer team available. So there's going to

be two people back there in that little corner. We kind of made some little

space back there. And then I'm going to be up here.

And we're going to be praying for anybody who wants to come up during our time

of worship. So we'll have two songs after this, and you can come up during that

time and receive prayer. Here's the thing.

Life in the kingdom is organized in this way. It's like a table,

but it's also just like, it's like a family style thing.

And sometimes like you want something like this man, he's lacked something.

He knows he lacks something.

You don't know how to receive it. Well, God has like brought us together so

that we can care for one another in prayer, in serving one another,

in all these ways that we're called to do.

And so part of that is just like, if you are sitting in this place,

right now, where you're like, okay, I hear this thing, this invitation to receive,

and I want someone to just hand me that, help me get what I am looking to receive from the Lord,

then you can come and just pray.

And so maybe it's like you've never had that first thing and you've never experienced

God's presence, like you've never started off and you've never known,

you've never had someone pray with you and speak to you the truth that,

man, you are forgiven and that is gone and you are now at the table and you have a life.

With God now, somebody can do that with you, for you.

But you also can just like, if you just like, man, you just have a need that

you don't know how to satisfy and you don't think it should be there and you're

kind of sick of it being the reality in your life, you can come to somebody

and they can pray for you.

And I can't promise you that that's gonna solve your problem right away.

But I can promise you that God is able and willing. And he oftentimes supplies

our needs with other people's presence and other people's activity. And so we can do this.

We can help one another throughout our days.

We can invite people to our table. We can serve them as Jesus serves us.

So we're going to work.