Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously

But today and next week we are wrapping up a series that we kicked off the first week of January, and it's called Whatever You Do, Don't.

Whatever You Do, Don't.

The basic idea behind it is pretty simple.

It's the start of a year.

We want to have as good of a year as possible.

We want to experience all the good things God has for us.

We also want to be ready to handle all of the hard things that life has in store for us.

And success is not so much about walking a tightrope and doing everything right.

It's mainly about avoiding major pitfalls.

I've said this every Sunday, but I think it bears repeating.

We tend to think of God's will like a tightrope.

That God has one good option, one good choice.

And if we make one mistake, we step a little to the left, a little to the right.

We are outside of God's will, and he's angry and he's upset, and now everything's ruined.

That is not the way God's will works at all.

And we know that because of Scripture.

Because of how He's revealed Himself to us throughout the centuries.

Look at the Garden of Eden.

It's the clearest picture we have of God's will on this earth.

We haven't messed up yet.

It's how God originally designed things.

And if you know the story of the garden, they were to eat from all of these trees.

And it wasn't like there was one tree they were allowed to eat from and every other tree was off limits.

It was the opposite of that.

They were able to eat freely from a wide variety of trees, just pick whatever they wanted, literally eat whatever.

Oh, just avoid that one tree.

That is disaster.

God loves freedom and he gives us freedom.

And here we are at the outset of a year.

It's still really early.

We're still in the first month, and we have so many options.

We have so many choices ahead of us, and most of them are good.

We could go this way, we could go that way, and it's fine.

But what we don't want to do is step into the obvious pitfalls and traps that might lay in front of us.

If we can just avoid those, we will have a really good year.

So it's whatever you do, whatever choices you make, great, just don't do these things.

And the first Sunday, we actually talked about that story in the garden.

We said, Don't eat from the wrong tree.

Especially as it relates to your relationship with God.

If you weren't here for that Sunday, listen to it online.

Last week we said, Don't rely on your flesh.

Don't rely on your strength.

Rather, rely on the strength that God has and be open to the idea that God has solutions to your problems that maybe you could never think of or solve on your own.

And today, we're gonna, this is gonna be a fun one.

Like I'm super excited about today, so I'm just gonna say this on the front end.

I'm kind of giddy because of all the stuff we get to talk about today.

Here's the the takeaway today.

Whatever you do this year, whatever you do, don't take yourself too seriously.

Whatever you do, do not take yourself too seriously.

Now, taking yourself too seriously manifests in all kinds of different ways.

And I'm gonna say on the front end, I'm no, none of us have ever done these things, right?

Uh it could be that you're someone who's really easily offended.

Like someone says something, you know, in your presence and it bothers you, and you're just, oh, I can't believe they said that.

You know what I mean?

Or it could be that minor inconveniences really upset you.

You're in a drive-thru and it's just taking way too long.

And people don't realize who you are and how busy you are and where you've got to be.

And they need to speed it up.

Like everyone needs to speed things up for you.

I've definitely never done that before.

Um be the inability to laugh at yourself, just the inability to have fun at your own expense.

It can be so many different things.

It can be this sort of do you know who I am mentality.

I won't tell you which child of mine.

I'll protect their identity.

But when one of my kids was about five years old, they were playing on the playground in our kids' area.

And they were climbing on a part of the playground you're not supposed to climb on.

It is off limits because it's not safe.

It's not designed for that, but kids are amazing at finding ways around things, right?

So there's my child on this part of the playground, and the the person who was doing the child care that night looked at them and said, Hey, you gotta come down.

You're not able to be up there.

And here was this child's response.

My dad is the pastor.

It's funny, the person who uh who told us that was laughing about it.

Like, and then they said, you know, my dad's the pastor, and I was like, oh, that's so funny.

And then as soon as we got home, I was like, listen, we're having a conversation.

Okay.

We put it in, we put it into that fast because you know what's interesting about our culture at his hands, and if you're new, this is a it's one of my favorite things about our culture.

Is my name's Justin.

Just call me Justin.

You do not need to call me pastor.

Like that, we don't do that.

We actually had this is awesome.

About a year and a half, two years ago, somehow someone got a hold of our email list and sent like a scammer email trying to get people to click a link and go and give their financial information.

And no one fell for it.

Because the scammer finished the email and it said, sincerely, Pastor Justin McTear.

I have never once signed an email with a title.

I don't even use my last name.

And so if you go here, you've been here long, you get emails from the church.

Those are for me.

It just says, you know, love you guys, Justin.

And so instantly everyone's like, this is super fishy.

And that's not just some random part of our culture.

Listen to what Jesus says.

And guys, in the back, I'm going out of order, so I apologize.

This is Matthew chapter 23, verses 8 through 12.

Matthew 23:8–12

Jesus said, Don't let anyone call you rabbi, for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters.

And don't address anyone here on earth as father, for only God in heaven is your father.

And don't let anyone call you teacher, for you only have one teacher, the Messiah.

The greatest among you must be a servant, but those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

That's just part of our culture.

So you can call me Justin, you can call me Jason, you can call me anything that starts with a J.

Oh, just uh don't call me pastor.

No, but the joke is it's not my it's not my title, it's my role.

That's how our culture works here.

And it helps us not take ourselves too seriously.

This is so important because if you take yourself too seriously, it ruins joy.

The more seriously you take yourself, the more easily offended, the more easily upset when you're inconvenienced, the more highly you regard yourself, the less has to go wrong for you to become upset.

Does that make sense?

It's like the higher you regard yourself, small things bother you way too much.

And all of your joy and all of the all of the happiness that you can experience in normal everyday life is easily messed with and ruined.

And that's not the life that we want to have.

Scripture, by the way, speaks to this so many different times.

For example, James chapter 4, verse 6 says that God gives grace generously, and as the scriptures say, God opposes the proud.

James 4:6

We might say those who who value themselves a little too much, take themselves too seriously.

God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

Philippians 2 says, Don't be selfish.

Don't try to impress others, be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.

Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges, he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.

And when he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God, and he died a criminal's death on the cross.

If Jesus didn't take himself too seriously, even though he was and is God, surely we can do the same.

That's essentially what the Apostle Paul, who wrote that, is saying.

How about Romans chapter 12?

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Because of the privilege and authority that God has given me, says Paul, I give each of you this warning.

Don't think you are better than you really are.

And that's where it is.

Don't think you're better than you really are.

Don't take yourselves too seriously.

Don't try to impress others.

Don't try to have a lofty view of yourself or project a lofty view of yourself.

And if you'll do this, if you can master this, you will have as much joy as you can possibly have this year.

Because nothing ruins joy like taking yourself too seriously.

So I want to explore this just a little bit and focus on two concepts.

Two concepts that are very similar, kind of like two sides of the same coin.

And if you can do these things, I'm telling you, you are set up for success when it comes to this part of life.

Okay?

Number one, the key to not taking yourself too seriously.

First one, really simple.

Do not exaggerate or flaunt the good stuff.

This year, when good things happen to you, when you do something really well, when you experience success, do not either exaggerate it or flaunt it.

Now, I know that many of us are probably like, I would never.

I would never.

But human nature, if we can be honest, human nature has a tendency to do this.

So I'll give you an example from my own life.

Um when I got hired here at 23 years old, it's the last time I've ever updated my resume.

So I love this place, I'm planning on being here, haven't updated my resume in 20, well, 17 years since I was 23.

So on my resume, it said that I was the vice president of marketing at this marketing company that I worked at right out of college.

And that was true, that was not a lie.

I worked there for about a year, and my boss met with me and he said, I'd love to give you a raise.

That's a weird thing to hear because it indicates you're not about to get one.

And if you've ever worked somewhere, you'd love to get a raise too, right?

So when your boss says, I'd love to give you a raise, you know you're not.

Like it, it's because they would just say, here you're getting a raise.

But he said, I'd love to give you a raise, but I can't.

So instead, I'm gonna give you a title.

And he gave me the title, Vice President of Marketing.

And I got business cards, and it actually felt really good.

I'm not gonna lie, it felt really good.

I was very young, I'm the vice president.

And here's the catch: there were three people that worked at the company.

Um, and so technically we were all a president or vice president of something, right?

So vice president of marketing made it seem like I was a little bit higher up on the totem pole than I really was, because I mean, honestly, I was only one step away from the top, but I was also only one step away from the very bottom.

I was right in the middle, and it just it gave a different feel than the reality.

That title gave a different picture to people than the reality of my day-to-day life.

But, you know, it wasn't a legit title, it was on my business card, my boss approved it, so when I filled out my resume for here, I was like, well, I am the vice president of marketing at my company.

Don't ask how big it is, right?

It wasn't a lie, but I was not hesitant to put that title down because it sounded good.

That's kind of the way the world works.

We we either flaunt or maybe we exaggerate just a little bit.

I think social media has made this so much easier.

And I'm gonna be honest, I struggle with this, especially when it comes to my kids.

I was thinking about this yesterday.

Um, you may not know this, but I have a daughter who does ballet.

And see what I just did there?

I subverted your expectations.

Those of you guys who have gone here for a long time, you know what just happened.

All right.

Oh, actually, I have a son who plays basketball.

And uh so yesterday, we're in this tournament, and and we beat a public school.

My son goes to a small private school, we beat a public school by 20.

And I took a picture of the scoreboard and I posted online.

I flaunted.

I was like, it's a good Saturday when you're whooping a public school by 20 points and they can't guard your son.

And then the next game, we got beat bad.

And I didn't post that.

I didn't take a picture of that scoreboard, and I didn't say it's a bad Saturday when no, like it's how life works, right?

We tend to highlight the good stuff, and here's what hit me.

I do this with my kids all the time, and and part of it is so good and innocent.

We should celebrate our children.

I'm talking specifically to those of you who are parents, then I'll talk to the rest of us in a second.

But like, if you're a parent, you should celebrate your kids when they do something awesome.

That's great.

If your motives are to simply celebrate them, to highlight something, maybe to have something to remember, that's great.

But the lines blur really fast, and pretty soon you find yourself, at least if you're like me and you're covering for past insecurities, whatever, um, it's like you're getting some feeling of success from what your children are doing.

And that's not good.

It used to be that when your kids did something awesome, you posted it on the refrigerator.

Because that was for them.

They would see that.

Most kids aren't on social media, at least not the one you're on.

Uh, parents, you may not realize that, but if if they're on, if you're following their social media, they're just more active on another form of social media.

Okay?

That's the way it works.

So follow on everything, and eventually they'll run out of options.

Um, but but reality is that we tend not to do the refrigerator stuff anymore because we're displaying our kids' accomplishments to the world.

And sometimes that can be because it gives us a feeling of success.

We're sort of flaunting the success of our children to feel good about ourselves.

I'm talking about myself right now and hoping there's at least one other person that relates.

But that hit me this week.

Like, that's not good.

But but if it's not our kids, it's just it's us in general.

We can so easily create this very carefully curated persona that we put out there to the world that we've just highlighted every good moment, every good thing, and here's where that becomes dangerous.

Because if that's your persona, if that's what you've put out there to the world, well, the second you fail, or the second that that persona falls apart a little bit, it just affects you way too much.

It just does.

When we either exaggerate or we flaunt the good things, we tend to build ourselves up into a version of ourselves that isn't actually reality, and when reality shows itself, it bothers us too much and it ruins our joy.

So don't flaunt or exaggerate the good stuff.

Listen to what Jesus says.

Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

He says, Watch out.

Don't do your goods, your good deeds publicly to be admired by others.

Really think about that.

Let that sink in.

Watch out.

Don't do your good deeds publicly to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.

When you give to someone in need, he uses this as an example.

He also uses praying and fasting later on in Matthew 6 as examples.

He says, Don't do as the hypocrites do, blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity.

I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get.

But when you give to someone in need, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

Give your gifts in private, and your father who sees everything will reward you.

No doubt this year, you are going to do some great things.

You're gonna have some wins.

And I'm not saying that you can never share those with the people you love.

I'm not saying you should never ever celebrate those publicly, but what Jesus is saying is that maybe we ought to value our wins being more private.

That when we do something really good, that we should do it primarily for an audience of one, that we should let that be something that we savor with the Lord, and we don't need everyone else to know about it.

We just don't need that.

And so if you want to learn how to not take yourself too seriously and be subject to your joy being malfunctioning at every possible moment, every single time that something goes wrong, every single time that you have a failure, your joy falls apart because you've built up this version of yourself that can't possibly live up to reality.

Just take a page out of the book, out of what Jesus says, and keep a lot of those wins to yourself.

Let them be private, as private as possible.

That will kind of protect your joy when there's negative things that pop up because you don't have this persona that you've created.

Okay, we're gonna move on.

That's the first one.

Maybe that was just mainly for me.

Stop boasting about the accomplishments of your children.

Because you didn't do that, Justin.

Like that's the funny thing.

It's not me.

I do have a daughter that does ballet.

15 hours a week.

She was Clara in the Nutcracker.

I wasn't Clara in the Nutcracker.

I would be a terrible Clara.

But she was.

It's just so easy to do that.

Okay.

Let's move on.

This one, this next one, guys, I think this is like the secret sauce.

This is it.

This is ooh, you want to master not taking yourself too seriously and being able to be humble and truly live like Jesus is talking about.

This is the big one.

Not only should you not maximize or flaunt or exaggerate the good stuff, but here's where it is.

Do not minimize or gloss over the bad stuff.

The key.

I mean, this is to me like the biggest one.

To not taking yourself too seriously, to truly being humble as Jesus calls us to be, is to not minimize or gloss over the bad stuff.

To just own it.

And that's really hard to do.

1 Timothy 1.15.

This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them all.

This was written by Paul, one of undoubtedly the most important people in human history.

Like, if you want to talk about people who have had an impact on the world, Paul is definitely the most read author of all time.

No doubt.

No one has ever written more things that more people have read than Paul.

And Paul calls himself the worst of all sinners.

And he's not doing it so people will go, like, oh, Paul, clearly you're not.

That guy is.

Like, he's not doing that, right?

It's not sort of this false humility that's designed to get other people to say, no, no, no, no, no.

You're not thinking of yourself.

Paul, you're amazing, you're wonderful.

Like, Paul believes this.

I read something when I was in college that blew my mind.

It was written by a man named Dietrich Von Hoeffer.

And if you don't know the story of Dietrich Von Hoeffer, go look it up.

He was an amazing follower of Jesus that lived during World War II.

He was German and he became part of a resistance movement to Hitler.

He was executed right before the end of World War II.

And he wrote some incredible, incredible books, many of which he wrote while he was in prison.

And I was reading one of those books, and this is what he said, reflecting on this statement from Timothy.

He said, if my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all.

Think about that for just a second.

If I can look at my sin, and if any part of me is like, it's not that bad.

It's not as bad as that.

That means that some part of me hasn't really actually dealt with my sin at all.

I haven't really owned it.

It's something that God has taught me with that in my life, because I got I got so much sin.

Like I got extra sin.

Anyone else have leftovers?

You're like, I got sin, and then there's more in the back.

If you want.

How much sin do you want?

Like I got plenty.

Religion, and when I say religion, I don't mean reverent worship of God.

I mean sort of the man-made structures that tend to give point systems to which sins are the worst and which good deeds are the best.

You know what I'm talking about.

Religion teaches us to hide our sin, to minimize our sin.

To judge the sins of others.

But Jesus teaches us to own it.

And I recognize that, like in the church world, at least in America, talking about sin has sort of fallen out of style.

You just don't talk about it that much because it's not pleasant.

Who wants to come to church on a Sunday to talk about sin?

No one raised their hand.

Okay, good.

Or maybe in some cultures it's like overemphasized and it's just a guilt trip, and that's not Jesus never guilted anybody except the Pharisees who needed a little bit.

You know?

Because they they thought of them, they took themselves too seriously.

Look at what Jesus says to the Pharisees in, oh, let's go to Matthew chapter 9.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners.

Guys, these weren't just sinners.

These were sinners with bad reputations.

These are the worst ones.

But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with such scum?

And when Jesus heard this, he said, Healthy people don't need a doctor, sick people do.

And then he added, Now go and learn the meaning of this scripture.

I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices, for I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.

The Pharisees were probably, is he talking about us?

Yes, like he is.

The Pharisees took themselves very seriously.

Super religious, super uptight, and they viewed everyone else as beneath them.

And Jesus says, Look, I'm here for people who can own.

The fact that they've got problems.

Those are my people.

You guys who pretend like you've got it all together, you guys who gloss over all the bad stuff, you act like you have no sin.

It's really hard for me to talk to y'all.

It doesn't tend to work well.

I'm here for the ones who can own it, who can say, I've got issues and I know it, and I'm not hiding it.

What God taught me over the years is that if I don't own my sin, I can't fully own grace.

They're tied together.

And if I minimize my sin, if I act like my sin isn't that big of a deal, then I'm actually just minimizing how much God has forgiven me.

Does that make sense?

So here's an analogy, and if you've gone here for years and you've heard me say this before, I apologize, but this one really helps me out.

Do I think of my sin as like a puddle in a road, like a puddle of water in a road that's an inconvenience?

Or do I think of my sin as like a semi-truck coming at me on a road?

Let me explain.

Let's suppose that you're walking on a road and there's a puddle of water in front of you, and you're about to step in it, and someone comes and shoves you out of the way.

Like they show up and they just shove you.

Would you be thankful?

Not really, right?

Like maybe a little bit, because you almost stepped in some water, but you would be like, bro, what why?

That was a that was overkill.

You know what I'm saying?

You wouldn't be grateful.

You would you'd probably upset.

You might get in a fight.

Because that's just, it's not that big of a deal.

I was gonna step in some water, great.

If someone would have said, hey, watch out for the puddle, you'd be grateful.

But if they shoved you out of the way, if they got personally involved, you would not be super thankful.

What if instead of a puddle, it's like a manhole, an open manhole, like from a cartoon, you know?

And you're about to step in the manhole.

If someone comes and shoves you out of the way, are you grateful?

Yeah, like kind of.

For sure.

You're definitely more grateful than ungrateful.

Because you could have fallen in that manhole, you could have gotten really hurt, maybe the shove still hurts.

And so your instinct would be maybe anger at first.

You'd be upset, but then after you realize that it was a manhole and ooh, you're like, you're gonna calm down and go, okay, thank you, once reason sets in.

But what if what if you're walking in a road and a semi-truck is headed for you and someone shoves you out of the way and they get hit?

Are you angry?

Are you upset?

Or are you filled with such overwhelming gratitude that you couldn't even process it because you realize what should have happened to you is taken by somebody else?

And the reality is, scripture teaches us that our sin is not a puddle in the street, it is a semi, it is serious.

It is, sin is serious.

And Jesus dealt with it seriously.

He did shove us out of the way and take it for us.

He died on the cross, he took our punishment.

That is Jesus.

And if we don't see sin like that, then we have this tendency not to be filled with overwhelming gratitude for what God has done.

And I spent most of my life minimizing my sin.

I was really good at it.

I was really good at saying things like, you know, I struggle with this.

When in reality, I was addicted to it.

You know, see how you can do that?

Instead of just saying, Oh, I'm addicted to this, I can't seem to live without it.

Instead, I say, you know, I just have a hard time with this.

And I'm not talking about beating yourself up.

That's not what this is about at all.

Like the reason I'm smiling is because this was a real key to joy for me.

Because if I can just own it and I can say, no, no, no, my sin is, ooh, it is bad, it is ugly, just like Paul, I am the worst of them all.

That means, if I can own that, that means I can own just how much Jesus has forgiven me.

I can own all of it.

I can either live as a person who feels like, you know, I'm I got some stuff, but I'm not that bad, I'm not as bad as those people, you know.

And God has forgiven me, and He should forgive me.

Honestly, I kind of deserve it.

Right?

Of course, we would never say it like that.

But if we if we minimize our sin, if we minimize the bad stuff, then it means we've also minimized just how much God has done for us, just how much he has overlooked our mistakes, just how much he has forgiven us for.

And so the key to not taking yourself too seriously, like one of them, you know, don't don't flaunt, don't maximize all the good stuff and put that out there and project it to the world and puff yourself up, but also don't minimize the failures.

Like, own them.

Own them.

Call them what they are.

Just call it what it is.

If you lie, I lied.

Right?

If you if you stole, you stole.

If you cheated, you cheated.

Just call it what it is, and then realize if I'm a liar and a thief and a cheater, I've been forgiven for being a liar, a thief, and a cheater.

I haven't been forgiven for being a guy who kind of sometimes struggles a little bit with a few things that he shouldn't.

You see the difference?

And there's freedom in that.

There's freedom in that.

Because we're all super messed up.

We we are, we're all messed up.

Now, we're all different works in progress, and God is in a process of sanctifying us, and and some of you are further along in that journey than others, for sure.

But there is not one of us who is less in need of God's mercy and forgiveness as another.

I don't care if you're here today and you're in the midst of serious addictions and issues, your relationships have fallen apart because you've messed everything up, or if you're here today and your life seems to be going pretty well, we are all at different places, but we are actually all 100% united by the fact that we are all sinners, we we all fall short of God's glory, and we all desperately need the love and forgiveness of God.

We cannot earn it, we cannot win it, it's been given to us, it's a gift, and we just have to accept it.

But if we can't own our sin, we can't own the grace and the gift.

Does that make sense?

All right, good.

I'll stop talking about it.

So, worship team, you guys can make your way out.

Don't take yourself too seriously.

Whatever you do, don't take yourself too seriously.

This is this is gonna be a year full of all kinds of things.

Like next week, I'll give you a hint.

Next week we're gonna talk about not being afraid.

Whatever you do, do not be afraid.

Can you think right now how many things you could be afraid of going into next year?

Guys, I'm gonna tell you a few that could happen.

Alright?

Donald Trump could be the president of the United States.

Guys, I'm gonna tell you, hold on, hold on, I'm gonna tell you another thing you could be afraid of.

Joe Biden could still be the president of the United States of America.

Right?

Now you're like, wait a minute, I can't figure out which one.

Ah.

If you know me well, you know, you know where I lie on those issues.

But my point is that no matter what happens, there's plenty of things to be afraid of.

So next week we're gonna talk about not being afraid.

Because actually, we're told in scripture over and over, whatever we do, do not be afraid.

But today, don't take yourself too seriously.

Laugh at yourself.

Laugh at yourself.

When you make mistakes, just own it.

It's funny, last Sunday we had a newcomer gathering.

Another one's happening next week if you're new, and uh this person asked me, hey, why do you guys do Lord's Supper all the time?

We do it every Sunday.

And some of you maybe grew up like Catholic, and that's a normal thing for you, but we do it wrong if that's the case.

Um, or some of you, some of you grew up in like it barely ever happened.

I grew up in a church where Lord's Supper communion happened, these guys just showed up with these big kind of gold canisters, and you know, I was like, what is happening?

You know, they bring it out, it was weird, and my parents just said, shh, and that's all I ever got.

Not really.

But here's what I said.

I was like, oh, I had a great answer.

I was like, well, we do this because Jesus said, whenever you get together, do this to remember me.

And the guy went, I don't think that's what Jesus said, and I was like, let me know what he said.

I don't know if you know this, but I'm the pastor of his name's church.

So there's no way I would ever misquote Jesus, especially not something I've said on this stage 500 times, right?

And there's no way none of the people who go here would have ever thought to check that and make sure.

They wouldn't just trust that if I say it it's true.

So it turns out what I was doing.

Jesus said to do it.

But he didn't specifically say whenever you get together, do it.

I was actually taking another verse and kind of smushing the two together, which I can make a case for, is not wrong.

But I sat there, and there was this part of me for a minute that just wanted to like curl into a ball and die.

Because I said it so confidently.

You know, I, oh, I've got the answer.

And turns out, you know, just wrong.

And you know what?

It's like awesome.

We're still gonna take Lord's Supper every Sunday.

Um it's a good thing.

There's a tradition there, not just with us, but with all of Christians.

In fact, we're about to do that in just a second.

If you don't have bread and juice, go ahead and grab it.

There's tables at the back.

Um, you're not messing anything up if you grab it now.

But guys, oh the freedom and just being able to laugh at yourself.

And so in that moment, last week, it's like, oops.

Oh well.

I don't know, he's probably not gonna go here, you know?

But it's okay.

We don't have that many spaces in the parking lot, so we'll figure it out.

I'm I'm on all the time.

I encounter people who model what Jesus teaches us.

To take the position of a servant, to lower themselves, right?

Because God promises He will exalt the humble, but he does oppose the proud.

And it's where you see yourself and you go, you know what, I am gonna be the hardest person this year to offend.

I don't take myself that seriously.

If I believe that I've been forgiven of everything that I've ever done, like I should be the hardest person on earth to offend.

So this year, when things happen, when someone says something that bothers me or makes a joke that I don't like or cuts me off in traffic or whatever it is, I'm just gonna be like, wow, whatever.

Not that big of a deal.

Because I don't take myself that seriously.

I'm not gonna flaunt the good stuff.

I'm not gonna exaggerate it, I'm not gonna put it out there all the time.

I'm gonna let some of the biggest wins that happen in my life be something that I maybe just share with the Lord and the Lord only.

Try it.

Jesus says to.

And when the bad stuff happens, whether it's you know serious or not that serious, just being wrong, just own it.

Be like, yep, that was on me.

That's that is like joy in life.

And so, with that said, let's take this cup.

We've got bread and we've got juice.

And if you're new, we do this every Sunday because Jesus said, whenever you get together, no, he didn't say that.

But he did say clearly, do this to remember me.

Do this to remember me.

And I need to remember what this meal represents.

This is a big deal.

It's a little meal, but it's a big deal.

If Jesus Christ, who scripture tells us is the author of creation, scripture tells us that he is the one who holds things together.

By the way, he showed us that.

The power that he had, he could say to a dead person, get back up, and they got back up.

That's power.

If Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, didn't take himself too seriously, if he could humble himself and become one of us, and then not even be like a really important version of one of us, not some earthly king, some wealthy person.

No, he's a carpenter.

Like, do you realize that Jesus made things for people and they probably complained about it?

That Jesus, if it was modern times, probably would have had bad Google reviews on his carpentry work.

Like, can you think about that?

But he made things to other people's specifications.

That means there were times that Jesus knew they were wrong.

He knew, he's like, isn't it gonna work?

But he did anyway, because that's what they asked.

Jesus washed the feet of his disciples.

And he took on the lowest position possible, and he died on a cross.

If he didn't take himself that seriously, if he was willing to humble himself, then God, how much more should we?

And this meal reminds us of just how humble he was.

I'm gonna go back and read Philippians one more time, chapter two, verses three through eight.

Don't be selfish.

Don't try to impress others, be humble, thinking of yourselves, thinking of others rather as better than yourselves.

Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges, he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.

And when he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross.

This is Jesus making himself low so that he could lift us up.

He didn't take himself too seriously, he didn't hold himself in such high regard that he was unwilling to make this sacrifice.

And all he asks of us is to not take ourselves too seriously to accept it.

And so with that said, let's take the bread and let's pray for it together.

Father, we thank you for this bread.

We thank you for what it represents.

This represents your body, Jesus, broken on the cross.

Nails driven through your hands and your feet, a crown of thorns placed into your skull.

I don't say that, Lord, to be graphic.

I just need to be reminded of how serious your sacrifice actually is.

And you did that for me, and you did that for everyone who's here, everyone who's watching, everyone on this earth, you did it for everyone, Lord.

You love us that much, and you humbled yourself this much.

Help us follow suit, help us do the same, Lord, as we live our lives this week.

Let's take the bread.

Father God, we thank you for this cup of juice.

We thank you, Lord, for what it means, what it represents.

This is your blood poured out.

You bled for us.

Lord, if you are willing to serve people this much, humble each of us so that this year we are willing to serve as well.

That any moment or opportunity we have to help someone else, Lord, that we do it.

We love you so much, Lord.

We thank you for this.

Help us follow your example.

Humble us, Lord, so that we can enjoy every little bit of life and not take every issue, every mistake, every problem, and magnify it.

You didn't do that in our lives, we shouldn't do that with others or with ourselves.

We pray this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

Let's take the juice.