Jesus is the Truth

All right, well, if you are brand new, we've been doing something all year long, but don't worry, you're not like too late.

Uh better late than never.

We're doing this thing called the whole story.

We're going through the entire story of the Bible, less than a year.

We started it back in February.

We will end it before Christmas.

And right now, we are about halfway through our very first series that's in the New Testament of the Bible.

It's a series that we have called the New Human.

The New Human.

There's two main characters in the story of Scripture: there's God and humanity.

And up to this point, like God has been doing his job.

He's been doing a great job.

He's been doing amazing things, miracles.

He shows up, he does exactly what you would expect God to do.

And then there's people.

Not so much.

Like, people are struggling.

Every once in a while there'll be a person and they're like, man, they seem like they're doing great.

They've got it figured out.

And then pretty quickly they're like, how could I sabotage this?

And it just seems like God is doing amazing things, and people keep undoing what God does, and there's this tension.

And then there's a new human that shows up.

Jesus.

He steps onto the scene and he does things that no one's ever done before.

And he says things that no one's ever said before.

And there's just something undeniably different about Jesus.

He catches everyone's attention.

Some people love him, many people hate him.

But he's one of those people that you just can't ignore.

There's something different, there's something new.

Let me give you an example.

In Mark chapter 2, there are these people who come to Jesus in faith because they've heard that he can heal people.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

And they have a friend who's paralyzed.

And so they actually go up on a roof and they let their friend down to Jesus as he's teaching in this room through this roof.

We pick up there in Mark chapter 2, verse 5, it says, Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, My child, your sins are forgiven.

Mark 2:5

But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, What is he saying?

This is blasphemy.

Only God can forgive sins.

Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking, so he asked them, Why do you question this in your hearts?

Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man, Your sins are forgiven, or stand up, pick up your mat and walk?

So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.

And then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, Stand up, pick up your mat and go home.

And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers.

They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, We've never seen anything like this before.

And that is summing up Jesus in a nutshell.

We've never seen anything like this before.

We've never seen anyone like this before.

And those Pharisees, those religious leaders, they actually had the right question in mind.

They essentially look at Jesus as he says, Your sins are forgiven, and they say, Who does this guy think he is?

Like, who says that?

Like, can you imagine if you were talking with someone and they said that to you, they said, My child, your sins are forgiven.

You would like back away slowly, right?

That's the right question.

Like, who does this guy think he is?

Who on earth has the authority to forgive sins?

Many of you have probably watched a very popular show called The Chosen.

And in the chosen, there's this scene similar to this, not the exact same story, but a similar situation.

This happened to Jesus a lot, where he would do something, and the Pharisees, the religious people would question his authority.

And in the show, they look at Jesus and say, Only God has the authority to do this.

And Jesus says, Good point.

The people said, We've never seen anything like this before.

And you know what's amazing is when it comes to Jesus, not only have we not seen anything like him before, we haven't seen anything like him since.

Throughout all of history, he stands alone.

There is something different about Jesus.

There's something new.

And so what we're doing over the course of these several weeks, it's a five-week series, we're trying to ask that question: who is he?

Like, who is he?

Who do I think that he is?

And like I said, the Pharisees had the right question because to understand who Jesus is, for us to make up our minds about who he is, to really be resolute about that, then we need to at least explore who he says that he is.

Who does he think he is?

And so we've looked at five different angles.

We're halfway through this right now.

And here's the way it breaks down.

We've looked at the fact that Jesus is the one.

The one what?

Well, the one that the scriptures, the Old Testament, spoke about, prophesied about.

Jesus himself, in this story, calls himself the Son of Man.

That is a title that he's grabbing from the book of Daniel.

There are all these prophecies in the book of Daniel.

Daniel chapter 7, if you want to read it, where it talks about this figure, this divine figure, the Son of Man who will come.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

And Jesus is claiming to be that.

So Jesus is the one that the scriptures spoke about.

He was the one that all the people following God were waiting for.

Jesus is also the word.

John chapter 1 says, In the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God.

John 1 · chapter mention

John, one of the disciples of Jesus, describes Jesus as the Word.

And if you're like, what is that all about?

You can listen to the message from a few weeks ago, but it's essentially a claim of divinity.

The power that Jesus has, these miracles that he performs, is for a reason.

It's because he is someone special.

That he has a power.

Unlike anyone else.

Jesus is the word, he's God.

Last week we looked at the fact that Jesus is the way.

He's our way to salvation, he's our way to the forgiveness of sins.

And in most situations in life, Jesus is our way forward, he's our way out, he's our way back to where maybe we feel like we ought to be.

Jesus is the way.

Today we're going to look at the fact that Jesus is the truth, and next week he's the life.

By the way, those last three statements, the way, the truth, and the life, come from John chapter 14, verse 6.

John 14:6

Jesus said another audacious thing.

He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one can come to the Father except through me.

I'm the way, the truth, and the life.

Today we're going to focus on this fact that Jesus is the truth.

He's the truth.

Now, I have four children.

I talk about them all the time.

They give me so much material.

It's great.

In fact, I told a story about my daughter a few weeks ago, and I hadn't run it by her yet.

And I guess we have this deal that she remembers very clearly.

It's a little more hazy to me, that um I pay her to use stories.

And I do remember that, but she said that if I ever do a story and I didn't get her permission, it's double.

And so like I'm in the hole with my daughter right now.

But one of the things that being a parent has taught me, and many of you can relate to this, even if you don't have kids, is that I just, I hate being lied to.

Like I just, who you know, it's it's one thing when my kids make a mistake, when they mess up, but when when they lie to me about it, and like I know, because most of the time kids are pretty bad liars.

Like they just, I don't know, like, and there's a deep anger that can boil inside of me sometimes because I just I hate being lied to.

Lies are are all around us, they're everywhere.

And that's a problem because the most dangerous thing about a lie is that oftentimes it's believed.

It's very easy for us to believe lies.

Like if we're honest with ourselves, we are so susceptible to believing lies.

And we live in a world that's full of them.

I'll give you an example, kind of a funny story.

When I was in high school, uh, every summer, this church that I was a part of as a as a kid would go on this big, giant trip.

We would take all the high school students and we went to like a camp that had hundreds and hundreds of students from all over the country.

Different churches would come, show up, and we would have this giant youth camp.

Did anyone grow up in church going to youth camps?

In other words, did anyone get saved like six times as a child?

Okay, you're like me.

Okay, cool.

If you went to youth camp, you know what I'm talking about.

So went to youth camp.

Well, when I was a rising senior, we were at this great camp, it was a great experience.

In fact, my wife Megan was there.

We weren't dating yet, but we were like friends, kind of some of the early moments in that relationship.

And and this camp was pretty special because the guy leading worship for the camp was kind of a big deal.

Like he was a known person.

He went on to do a bunch of different albums, got kind of like Christian music famous, you know?

And so he was the worship leader at this camp, and everyone was just like, ah.

And every single night, he would have this coffee shop thing where like hundreds of people would hang out late at night, he would play music, some of his friends would play music, even some students would come up and play music, and it was just it was like the biggest thing to do at night at this camp was to hang out and watch this guy do music.

And I've always been kind of a class clown.

Um like I've always, for the sake of being funny, gotten myself in a fair bit of trouble.

That's a recurring theme of my life.

I've gotten a lot better over the years.

But I had this idea, I don't know why, I don't know where it came from.

It's just probably my innate desire to like just be a goofball.

And I was like, man, I want to, I wanna like prank the whole coffee shop thing.

Like, I just want to mess it up.

Um, again, I was a kid, so forgive me.

So I happened to know the sound guy fairly well that was with this uh this band, and I told the sound guy, like, hey, can you do me a favor?

Will you tell this worship guy about me and you know, like lie, and tell him that I'm this incredible like singer, songwriter, musician, but I'm super shy.

And maybe he'll like like urge him to invite me up to sing.

And so he's like, Yeah, I'm on it, let's do it.

And I had like all of the students at my church were in on this, and so like the third night in, he's singing one of his songs and he stops and he says, Hey, I I've been told by my sound guy that we've got this this student here that's apparently just an unbelievable singer-songwriter, but he's really shy and he doesn't like performing in front of people.

But what do you guys think?

Should we should we bring him up?

And everyone's like, Yeah, bring him up, like everyone's going nuts.

So I come up, and like I start, I take he hands me his guitar, which I did not expect.

Um and so I'm like, oh, okay, so I'm holding his guitar, and I and I start to set up this song, and I set it up like for a ridiculous amount of time.

Like that's part of the shtick.

Like, I'm just talking and talking about how I was in a really bad place when I wrote this song, and how this song really got me through a hard time, and it's just like it's it's painful how long this is going.

And everyone at my church is laughing hysterically, which is making everyone else think that they're bad Christians.

And so, like, my friends, I can still remember Megan like dying in the front row, and everyone's like, Shh, guys, stop, stop.

And so eventually it gets to the point where I've just got to do something, right?

And I can't play guitar and I cannot sing.

Uh, I mean, I can, but like most of you, like, that's just how it is, right?

If we're being honest.

But I make a joyful noise, like I worship.

You don't have to be a good singer to worship.

And so it gets to the point where I got, I'm like, what?

I hadn't really thought it through that far.

I'm like, what do I do?

So I basically just decide, all right, here it goes.

And I strum the guitar and intentionally drop the pick in the middle of the guitar.

It was an acoustic guitar.

And then I kind of panic and I'm like, oh, oh no.

And I start to shake the guitar, and this sort of freaks out the musician because you're not supposed to shake guitars, but whatever.

And so he's like, hey, hey man, you're good, you're good.

Here, here's another pick.

And I was like, oh man, how do I get out of this?

Like, I didn't plan this well.

So I go, okay, okay.

And everyone's like, you're good, you can do it, you can do it, come on.

And my friends are laughing and everyone's getting mad at them, and it's great.

And so I just I don't know what to do.

I I talk a little bit more, I kind of okay, guys, okay, all right, I'm ready.

And I strum again, I drop a pick in again, um, and then I like panic and I put the guitar down and I run out of the room, and that's it.

And I'm like, ha ha, funny, funny, you know, all my friends are like, that was hilarious, you know, and it was over.

It was stupid.

Why am I doing this?

I don't know thing.

But here's the deal.

I greatly underestimated how many people would believe that I was actually a musician who was really shy.

And instead of recognizing, oh, this was clearly some idiot doing a dumb prank that isn't even very funny, no, no, no, no.

The very next day, I'm walking in like the campground, and these like ninth, a bunch of ninth grade girls, I was big with ninth grade girls at the time, a bunch of ninth grade girls came up to me.

That's a joke.

But they're like, hey, oh guys, I could I didn't know what to do.

They said, Listen, last night our youth group got together and we spent two hours praying for you.

And we want you to know that God has given you a gift, and do not give up on your dreams.

You're gonna make it.

Like, what do you say to that?

Like, what do you do?

Do you go, oh, I was just joking, I don't do music at all, I was just having fun at your expense?

That's not what came to my mind.

I was like, thank you.

And so, like, I thought, well, that was funny and weird.

No, this happens all day long.

Apparently, the the youth groups from every other church who was there made it their priority that night to spend hours of time on their knees together praying that God would encourage me and that God would lift me out of my shyness and and my feeling of failure.

And I just had people coming out of the woodwork, like other youth pastors coming up to me and being like, hey man, listen, keep it up, all right?

Like we all sometimes, you know, we struggle through the things, but if God's called you to do it, you gotta do it.

And I'm just like, yeah.

It felt horrible.

Felt horrible.

I just underestimated how easy it is to believe a lie.

The funny thing is, years later I got hired here and I was in charge of our kids' areas for a long time.

And we didn't have someone to lead worship for the kids.

And Susan, many of you who are here back in the day remember Susan, she's like, Well, Justin, you're just gonna have to lead the worship.

And I was like, I don't know a worship person, I don't sing.

She's like, Well, you're you're gonna have to do it.

And that memory came back to me, and I was like, Yeah, it's probably appropriate.

Um So I did lead worship here at his hands for the the elementary school kids for a minute, and that was my that was my payback, I guess.

But man, in that moment, like I just, it never occurred to me that people would actually believe the joke.

I thought it was just goofing off in front of my friends, but everyone believed it and they prayed, and I felt like the worst person alive for like five minutes, and then I got over it.

Wasn't that big of a deal.

We are very susceptible to lies, and they're all around us.

And deep down inside, we hate being lied to, but if we're honest, we have a hard time sometimes figuring out what's a lie and what's true.

And here comes Jesus, and he claims to be truth itself, like truth incarnate.

Jesus talks about the truth all the time.

In fact, one of Jesus' most famous statements is, I tell you the truth.

John chapter 5, verse 24, Jesus says, I tell you the truth.

John 5:24

Those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life.

They will never be condemned for their sins, but they've already passed from death into life.

Jesus prefaces that bold statement by saying, I tell you the truth.

Some translations uh say, Truly, truly, I say to you.

This is like the favorite saying of Jesus.

This saying, I tell you the truth, shows up about 70 times in the Gospels.

He's always prefacing what he's saying with, Listen, I tell you the truth.

Jesus prays in John chapter 17 about us, his followers, and he says to God the Father, make them holy by your truth.

John 17 · chapter mention

Teach them your word, which is truth.

There, Jesus affirms and helps define for us what truth is.

Truth is the word of God.

He affirms Scripture, and for some reason, in the last couple of decades, there's been this really bizarre push, especially among like modern churches, to sort of try to distance or separate Jesus from Scripture.

Right?

To kind of have this strange game where it's like, here's Jesus and here's what he says, but then you know, there's the scriptures and like the Old Testament, like, don't pay attention to that so much, just focus on Jesus, and that's silly because Jesus quotes the scriptures constantly.

Jesus affirms the scriptures all the time.

Now, sometimes Jesus helps reframe the scriptures for us so that we better understand it because he understands it in a way that we don't, but he affirms it constantly.

In fact, he said to the Pharisees, You search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life, but the scriptures point to me.

And Jesus tells us here that the truth is God's word.

And it's a source of truth that we go to.

It's why we build our lives upon it.

In John chapter 16, verse 13, Jesus is promising the Holy Spirit, and he calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of truth.

John 16:13

He says, When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.

Jesus says, I am the truth.

He's essentially saying, Everything I say, everything I do, it is right, it is good, it is true, and you can build your life on it.

He's the truth.

And as followers of Jesus, and I know not all of us have made that decision, but if we're followers of Jesus, we are called to live by the truth.

In 3 John, uh, John, who is one of Jesus' closest friends, he's one of he's the last living, original disciple of Jesus.

And he writes to this church.

He says, Some of the traveling teachers recently returned and made me very happy by telling me about your faithfulness and that you are living according to the truth.

I can have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth.

This is a theme that we see over and over again.

It's like God is trying to say, hey, this matters, truth really matters, Jesus is the truth, what he says is true, what he does is true, and we've got to build our lives upon it.

But like I said earlier, we live in a culture that is filled with lies.

They're everywhere.

Like they're everywhere.

And they're not harmless.

You know, like the story that I told, I hoped that that was somewhat of a harmless lie.

I thought that it was.

I never really thought about people believing it.

I thought it was a joke, but it actually like, I mean, the thought of people spending time praying to God that night, like that was I didn't like that feeling.

Lies are all around us, they're very, very powerful, and they're not innocent.

Most lies are designed to sabotage our lives, to keep us from experiencing the good things that God has for us.

In fact, in John chapter 8, Jesus describes our enemy Satan, and he says that he has always hated the truth because there is no truth in him.

John 8 · chapter mention

When he lies, it is consistent with his character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

And so we have this unique choice as Jesus followers that we have this man, we have Jesus, God in the flesh, and we have what he said, what he taught, and it is truth.

And we have a world that views things very differently, that very often disagrees with Jesus, disagrees with the word of God, the teachings in Scripture that Jesus affirms, and puts us in a position where we feel like we have to choose.

That to stay true to the truth of Jesus means that I gotta go against the grain and reject many of the ideas of the world.

And we see a pressure, we feel a pressure very often to go along, to adjust the things that we believe based on the truth of God's word, and instead just kind of go along with the way that things are going in the world to adopt those views.

But Romans chapter 12 tells us don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way that you think.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

This is tough.

This is tough to live out.

In fact, I've had a lot of conversations in the last few weeks with people who have talked to me about how their jobs make it very difficult because at work they are they are under so much pressure to say things, to go along with things, to affirm things that are contrary to scripture.

Like, what do you do?

You know, sometimes we're we're even compelled to do that out of love, right?

Like sometimes we we're compelled by the world that we live in to abandon certain stances on things that Scripture says are clearly true and go along with the way that the world sees things, because if we don't go along with it, we feel like we're not loving.

It's like a twisted idea of compassion that in order to be compassionate and loving, we have to go along with something that we believe is a lie.

But 1 Corinthians 13 says that real love, God's love, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rather real love rejoices in the truth.

And so how do we navigate that?

Like, it's funny, many of you are probably filling in the blanks in your mind of like, what kinds of things is Justin talking about right now?

And the truth is, I could talk for hours and not even cover all the different, all the different things that our culture is obsessed with right now, all the different things that are out there in the world that we're told that we're supposed to go along with this and believe this, that are contrary to scripture, I could talk for hours and we wouldn't even cover half of it.

That's how many lies are out there in the world.

But it's not just about us recognizing every lie and calling them out, it's about us having the ability as people to discern truth for ourselves.

Like, how do we do that?

How do we navigate a world full of lies and hold tight to the truth, like grasp the truth?

We have to, by the way.

In fact, Ephesians chapter 6 talks about how we have this spiritual armor, it's a metaphor.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

And it's talking about the fact that Satan lies and we've got to resist Satan, and we do that by making sure that we're we're equipped.

And the very first piece of armor listed is the belt of truth.

Like, truth is it's necessary.

We have to hold tight to truth.

The truth of God, the truth of Jesus, the truth of Scripture, we gotta hold on to it.

No matter how much pressure, no matter how many people say whatever they want to say about us, if we do, we've got to hold tight to it.

Because if you base your life on lies, you are susceptible and vulnerable to your enemy.

It's just as simple as that.

So, how do we grow in that discernment?

I was thinking about that this week.

Like, man, I don't just want to sit up here and be like, that's a lie, and that's a lie, and that's a lie, because then you'd clap and you clap because you already agree with me, and that wouldn't really get us anywhere.

But how do we actually individually grow in that ability?

I was having a conversation with my father-in-law, who's a very wise man, and I'm not just saying that because he's my father-in-law, but maybe I am.

Um, no, he's super wise.

And he said, Oh, you need to research how they they train people in the financial industry to recognize counterfeit bills.

And so he sent me some articles, really interesting, stuff I had never really thought about.

They don't train people to identify counterfeit bills by showing people a variety of examples of counterfeit bills.

Like you get to that eventually.

But when they start training people in the financial world to spot counterfeit bills, they just let them spend an immense amount of time with the real thing.

Getting very used to the way that the real thing feels, the way that the real thing looks.

Because if you become so familiar with the true version, it becomes much easier to spot the fake.

And so think about that.

We have Jesus as the truth.

Jesus is the truth.

And if we want to be able, as people to recognize the lies of the world, and not just like the big cultural lies and that kind of stuff, but even the small lies that we were taught growing up that we may believe, that we're tempted to come up with on our own, that affect how we approach life.

If we if we want to spot all of those in our own lives, we've got to spend a lot of time with the truth.

We've got to spend a lot of time with Jesus.

We have to become so familiar with Jesus, with what he says, with who he is, that when we come across anything, even a thought in our minds, and it doesn't go along with Jesus, we're like, wait a minute, that's not true, because that's not Jesus.

We become able to spot the lies by being so familiar with the truth.

And so here's what I want to do as we as we wrap up this morning.

I was up really late last night, like later than I wanted to be.

And then I was up really early this morning, much earlier than I wanted to be.

And I'm like, Lord, I just I just want us to spend some time in your truth.

And specifically, like Jesus, in your truth.

What is the truth that you've taught us?

See, in order to be students of truth, we have to see Jesus as our teacher.

This is something I'll talk about from time to time.

I'm really passionate about this.

Like, is Jesus your teacher?

Is Jesus' voice, are the words of Jesus the words that you run through the most often in your mind?

You know, this is a story that I've I've told before, but um, I I I love to listen to podcasts.

I'm like a like I love podcasts.

And a few years ago I got really into this political podcast, and I still listen to it from time to time.

It it lines up with the way I see things politically.

And this podcast happens to be hosted by uh a man who's an Orthodox Jew.

And I listened to him all the time, and I got to the point where I was like saying the things that he would say in the podcast in conversations, like as if it was me who said it, not trying to intentionally act like it was me, it's just I was listening to it so much that it was just like coming out.

And then I got convicted, even though I agree with this guy and think he's really smart.

I was like, man, he probably shouldn't be the Jewish man that I spend the most time listening to.

And I was talking to another friend of mine, and he was like on a political kick, and you know, those have their place, but they also don't always lead us where we need to be.

And I said, hey man, do you listen to this guy?

And he goes, Yeah.

I was like, I could tell because of some of the things you're saying.

I said, you know, I listen, I listen to him too, it's great, but um, God just really God really convicted me a few years ago that he should he just shouldn't be the Jewish man I spend the most time listening to.

And he goes, Yeah, you're right.

He listed another famous Jewish podcaster, and I was like, no, no, no, Jesus.

I'm talking about Jesus.

Like, if I have anyone else's words running through my mind more than Jesus Christ, I'm just I'm just settling for less.

And so I have to have the ability as a person to say, no, he is my teacher.

He's the one that I sit underneath and I listen to.

He's my, to use a Jewish term, he's my rabbi.

Like, read the story of Jesus.

His disciples would call him teacher, teacher, rabbi, because we're supposed to learn from him.

And he actually beckons us to.

Right?

So Matthew chapter 7, verses 24 through 27, he says, Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.

Matthew 7:24–27

Though the rain comes in torrents, and the flood waters rise, and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it's built on bedrock.

But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand.

When the rains and the floods come, and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.

Matthew chapter 11, verse 29, Jesus says, Take my yoke upon you, let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Matthew 11:29

Jesus beckons us to be his students, to make him our teacher, because he is the truth and everything he says is true.

So here's what I want to do.

I just spent some time praying.

And you know when you go to a restaurant and you want to order some appetizers and you just don't know what you want to pick, and they always have like the sampler menu.

That's like my favorite thing.

Like, just give me, give me a little bit of everything.

But that's what we're gonna do for about 10 minutes.

And I'm probably lying about how long it's gonna take, but that's okay.

Here are some things that Jesus has taught us.

And my prayer is that as we cover all of these, one or or maybe a few of these are for you.

And they speak directly to something you're dealing with in your life today.

Don't be surprised if that happens because that is that's just the way the truth of God works.

Number one, this is something Jesus has taught us, it is true.

But do something.

Do something.

Matthew chapter 7, verse 12.

Matthew 7:12

Jesus says, Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you.

This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.

Do something.

You know, it's interesting, Jesus is the first person in history that ever said that.

We call that the golden rule, that's how it's traditionally referred.

Now, there are people before Jesus who said something similar, but not quite the same.

They would say the negative version of that.

They would teach, don't do something that you wouldn't want done to you.

Right?

Like, if you wouldn't want someone to hit you, don't hit them.

But no one ever taught the proactive version.

Like, no, no.

Do something, do something good, do something generous, do something kind for someone before they do it to you.

Like just live life going, man, what would what would encourage me?

What would bless me?

What would make me feel awesome?

What would help me out?

And who could I do that for?

It's an amazing way to live.

It takes you out of a lot of complaining and whining and feeling like a victim when you spend your time not thinking about what other people ought to be doing for you, but what you are able to do for other people.

And Jesus says, hey, do something.

That's truth that we could live by.

If you feel stuck right now, if you're like, I just don't know what to do with my life, I'm not sure what I should be doing with the rest of my day, do something.

And do something good, and do something good for someone else.

Here's another one.

Worry is pointless.

Worry is pointless.

Matthew chapter 6, Jesus says, That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life, whether you're gonna have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Isn't life more than food and your body more than clothing?

Look at the birds.

They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly father feeds them.

And aren't you far more valuable to him than they are?

Can all of your worries add a single moment to your life?

That's a question we should really stop and think about.

Can you worry yourself to a healthier, longer life?

And modern science would say, no, but you can shorten your life with worry.

Like stress does funky things to us.

He says, Why worry about your clothing?

Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow.

They don't work or make their clothing, yet Solomon, in all of his glory, was not dressed as beautifully as they are.

And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you.

Why do you have so little faith?

So don't worry about these things, saying, What will we eat, what will we drink, what will we wear?

These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.

Seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously.

And he will give you everything you need.

Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries.

Today's trouble is enough for today.

I have wasted so much time in my life worrying about things.

I was talking with a friend about this a couple weeks ago.

It's like when I look back at difficult situations that work themselves out.

We've probably all had those, right?

Moments where you're like, what am I gonna do?

How's this gonna work?

Ah, but it it worked.

And in hindsight, you're like, why was I so worried about that?

And then the next thing comes along and we worry again.

We're really good at worrying.

And when I look back at all the time I've spent my life, I'm like, man, what if I could calculate how many hours I have wasted worrying about something?

And it's amazing because even some of the things that I've worried the most about have happened, and I'm fine.

Like, worry is pointless.

Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7 says not to worry about anything.

Philippians 4:6

Instead, pray about everything, tell God what you need and thank him for all that he's done, and then you will experience his peace, which exceeds anything that we can understand.

His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

So maybe you're here today and you're worried.

Don't be.

Don't be.

God, he sees you, he's got you.

Like Jesus said to his disciples a bunch of times, what's the worst that's gonna happen?

You die?

Like, he has a solution for that, by the way.

There's just there's no reason to worry.

Worry is pointless.

That is a truth that Jesus teaches us.

Here's another one.

Feed your spirit.

Feed your spirit.

Right after Jesus was baptized, he was led into the wilderness like a desert to be tempted by the devil himself.

In Matthew chapter 4, verses 3 and 4, it says, During that time, the devil came to him and said, If you're the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.

Matthew 4:3

At this point in time, Jesus has been fasting for a crazy long period of time.

He is starving.

And Satan comes and says, Hey, stones.

Turn them into bread, right?

I love this by the way, because some of you are familiar with who you're familiar with Jesus' teachings.

Know that once Jesus said, Hey, parents, if your child asked for a loaf of bread, would you give them a stone instead?

Referencing the same exact moment.

Jesus recognized that Satan was not offering him bread, Satan was offering him rocks.

If we could have that same discernment that Jesus has when we get tempted with things, when we realize that, oh, what I'm being tempted with is not the real thing, it is not a good thing, it is a stone disguised as bread.

But Jesus sees through it.

And Jesus says, no.

No, the scriptures say people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Jesus says, you know what?

Physically I'm hungry, but I have a deeper need.

And I don't live by bread alone.

I live by the very word of God.

Jesus is talking about his spirit.

He's talking about what sometimes we might call our soul, but it's our spirit.

And we've got to feed that.

Jesus was physically starving, but spiritually he was well fed.

And that made him strong enough to resist extreme temptation.

Scripture has this sort of compare and contrast a lot, especially in the New Testament, our spirit versus our flesh.

Our flesh would be like our human nature apart from God, that part of us that always craves the things that we know we ought not to crave, but we struggle with it.

And we all have flesh.

Even if you're a Jesus follower, you have flesh.

And I've spent so much of my life trying so hard to deny my flesh.

And there's a place for that.

We need to deny our flesh.

But maybe the best way to deny your flesh is to feed your spirit, is to make sure that you are so well fed when it comes to the truth of God.

That you spend so much time reading Scripture.

You spend so much time just thinking about it, praying, worshiping.

You just spend so much time with other people.

That's one of the reasons we have so many awesome ministries that you can jump into, whether it's a Bible study here at the church during the week or this new generations thing that we kick off tonight.

You spend so much time with other people who are following Jesus and you sort of just it rubs off.

It really does.

You get encouraged, it's great.

It feeds your spirit.

And if you have a well-fed spirit, it is much easier to deny your flesh.

Jesus teaches us to feed our spirit.

Because we need to live by more than bread.

Here's another one.

Jesus teaches us to think me first.

Think me first.

Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Jesus says, Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.

For you will be treated as you treat others.

The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.

That scares me.

Okay, moving on.

Why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?

How can you think of saying to your friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye when you can't see past the log in your own eye?

Hypocrite.

First get rid of the log in your own eye, and then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.

Jesus says, hey, think me first.

When you see stuff in people's lives and it bothers you, before you even think about talking to them about it, go like me first.

What do I need to deal with?

Like, what is wrong in my life?

Before I go talk to them about that or post about that or whatever.

Like maybe I should just deal with me.

This is the scripture that keeps me off of social media.

And I'm just gonna be honest.

Maybe some of you guys, you know, you open up social media, you scroll through your feed, and you're just like, wow, that's awesome.

I'm so happy for them, and you thumbs it up and you're like, wow, they're great.

Wow, I'm so glad they posted that.

Or you're like me.

Um, and you just judge everybody, right?

You're just like, why would you post that?

Like, you know, come on, get over yourself.

Like, I have these, I'm just being honest.

I have these thoughts.

And it's like I'll read through stuff and I'll just be like, man, that's that is so self-congratulatory.

You know, in the meanwhile, I'll post something like, look at what one of my kids did.

They're awesome.

But that's that's from a place of humility to celebrate my child, right?

But when someone else does it, I'm like, what is your stop, just stop.

Stop it.

This, especially for me, and maybe this is rooted in insecurities that I have, especially when it's like people that work out a lot, and it's like, I that's awesome.

I'm so happy for you.

It's it's so great.

I don't need to see you shirtless on a daily basis.

Like, your wife probably doesn't even need to see you shirtless on a daily basis.

Like, just stop, stop posting the pictures.

But that's just me judging someone.

And so every time I start thinking those thoughts, I'm like, I just need to get off this thing because I got plenty of stuff to deal with on my own.

Why am I spending any time engaging in something that beckons me to judge someone else?

What I've got, oh, I've got so much stuff, guys.

I have so much stuff to work on.

Like, so much.

I'm reminded of it daily.

Jesus says, hey, think me first.

Instead of worrying what other people say, what other people do.

This even applies, by the way, to churches.

It's so easy to get obsessed with like other churches that you know say something that you don't agree with or whatever, and it's like, fine.

But what if instead my thought was, hey, what can I do here that builds these people up?

Think me first.

That's a truth that Jesus teaches us.

All right, here's another one.

Only got a couple more.

Uh, forgiveness is freedom.

Forgiveness is freedom.

Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me?

Seven times.

And Peter's probably trying to impress Jesus because their culture said you should forgive someone three times.

And Peter's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna blow Jesus away.

I'm gonna double it and then add one.

And he's like, hey Jesus, what about like seven times?

And Jesus says, No.

Not seven times.

How about seventy times seven?

And Jesus uses it as a chance to teach and tells a parable.

He says, Therefore, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him.

In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars he couldn't pay.

So his master ordered, uh, so his master ordered him to be sold, sorry, I lost my place, along with his wife, his children, and everything that he owned to pay the debt.

But the man fell down before his master and begged him, please be patient with me, and I will pay it.

And then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him, and he forgave his debt.

But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.

He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.

His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little bit more time.

Be patient with me, I'll pay it.

He pleaded, but his creditor would not wait.

He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset.

They went to the king and told him everything that had happened, and the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, You evil servant, I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me.

Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?

Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.

That is what my heavenly father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.

Woo! I love how Jesus just ends that.

And that's what's gonna happen to you.

Um, like, this story is so powerful because this man refuses to forgive, even though he's been forgiven, and his lack of forgiveness ends up, it ends up resulting in him being in prison.

And in reality, forgiveness is freedom.

Unforgiveness is a prison.

If you spend your life holding on to everything that someone has ever said to you or done to you, even if it was severe, you will live your life completely and totally bound.

Unable to enjoy life, unable to live the kind of freedom that God has for you.

The founding pastor here at his hand, Steve, who is one of the top two pastors we've ever had.

Um, Steve, that's like a dad joke that I say every time I mention Steve.

Some would say the best, some would say second best, you know, it just depends.

One of them's here now, but I mean, you know, where's Steve?

I'm just joking.

Steve and I are super close friends.

We talk all the time.

And he's super excited for how things are going here at his hands, by the way.

He talks about that a lot.

So if you've been a part of his hands since Steve was here, um he's so excited about what's what's going on here.

And Steve, he had this teaching, and it it was-I think about it a lot.

He talked about the fact that we get wounded by people.

And he said, Imagine it like someone shot an arrow inside of you.

We've we've all been shot with a lot of arrows, and so some of those arrows, they're maybe only skin deep.

Some of those arrows are, ooh, they are in there.

Like someone said something to you at a young age, and it just and it's been there ever since.

He said, eventually it's like we're walking around, we have arrows coming out of us like every which direction, and it affects our lives every time we try to sit down, we try to do something, it's just it's there.

Like certain moments, you feel it, you know?

And he said, the thing is, we we keep waiting for those people to come to us and be like, hey, I wounded you.

Would you please let me take the arrow out?

And that never happens.

And even if it did, half the time, we'd be like, No, you don't get to.

I would rather live with this arrow sticking out of me.

No, alright?

It's like it just doesn't happen.

People rarely do that.

Like people rarely go, oh, you know what?

I should ask that person for forgiveness.

It just doesn't happen that often.

And so we have a choice to make.

Either we we live our life and we're completely and totally affected by all the arrows, or we just work with the Lord and through prayer and faith and forgiveness, we pull them out and we experience freedom.

This story teaches us that forgiveness is freedom, but to live a life where you are holding on to everything that's ever been said or done against you, it is a prison.

And if if man, if that affects you, some of us, let's be honest though, some of us have had some pretty terrible things done to us.

Maybe things where it's like the idea of forgiving that person is crazy.

And that's true.

The kind of forgiveness that Jesus is asking us to give is immense, which is why he said to Peter, yeah, seven, not even close.

But we have to live recognizing that we have all been forgiven.

Like every single thing you have ever done wrong has been forgiven.

And your life isn't done yet.

There's more to come.

You've been forgiven of everything.

That's why Christians, by the way, should be like the hardest people to offend.

Like we should not be easily offended because if you actually believe that everything you've ever done wrong has been completely and totally forgiven by the God of the universe, even though he sees it all, you should be like, man, I'm like impossible to offend.

Come on.

Like that's that's crazy.

And we've all been forgiven much.

We have to forgive because forgiveness is freedom.

I got one more.

This is, I think, an important one.

Life is hard.

One of my favorite things about Jesus is that he just tells it like it is.

John 16, verse 33.

John 16:33

He says, I've told you all this so that you may have peace in me.

Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows, but take heart, because I have overcome the world.

Jesus says, Here on earth you're gonna have difficulty, you're gonna have trouble.

He said that also when he talked about building our lives on his teaching, he said, When the storm comes.

Not if, but when.

One of my favorite things Jesus ever said to his disciples, he said, Hey, by the way, when you get arrested because you follow me, don't worry about what to say.

Just it'll be fine.

The Holy Spirit will give you what you need.

It's like that's such a if you're hanging out with someone, they say, Hey, by the way, later when you get arrested because you're hanging out with me, like it's not even an if.

It's not a maybe, it's like it will happen.

Jesus is very up front, and he tells us that we'll actually experience persecution.

Because we follow him in Matthew chapter 5, he says, God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you're my followers.

Be happy about it.

Be very glad, for a great reward awaits you in heaven.

And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.

Hey, when people say that you're whatever because you're a Jesus follower and you have convictions and you live a certain way and they take that the wrong way, Jesus says, be like, yeah.

That's awesome.

That kind of makes me like one of the prophets.

In fact, Jesus later on would say, Hey, don't forget, I experienced the same thing.

Jesus got lied about all the time.

If I follow Jesus and he was persecuted for living right, then I should probably expect the same.

And in reality, that just it's like, wow, that's a nice one to end on, Justin.

Maybe I should have made that one the first one.

Um, no, I I love that.

Because the only thing I can really control in my life are my expectations.

That's just the truth.

The only thing I can control are my expectations.

I made this mistake last night with my oldest son.

We we went to this new restaurant, and it's a type of restaurant he had never been to, but I I had been several times, and I just I man, I hyped it up.

I was like, dude, this place is awesome.

You're gonna love it.

Oh my gosh, the kind of food that, oh, you're gonna love it, you're gonna love it, and I'm hyping it up, and he's getting he's getting excited.

And then I watch him as he puts the first bite in his mouth, and he's kind of like unimpressed.

And he goes, huh.

And as we talked, I realized he thought it was fine.

He it was fine.

It's just that I had hyped it up so much, I had built up in his mind what it was going to be that no matter how good it tasted, like it just wasn't gonna live up to that.

Our expectations affect us so much.

The only thing you can fully control in your life are your expectations, and Jesus gives us appropriate expectations.

He says, Look, yeah, you follow me, there's gonna be trouble.

By the way, there's trouble for everybody.

And you'll survive the trouble because I have overcome the world.

If you build your life on the truth that I teach, you will survive the storm.

But you will have trouble.

There will be storms, there will be persecution, it's fine.

I love that Jesus is honest with us.

He tells us the truth.

He tells us the truth because he is the truth.

And that is just a small collection, a small collection of the truth that Jesus taught.

And we could talk for hours and hours about it.

And if you're not familiar with the teachings of Jesus, what I want to encourage you to do this week is become familiar.

Read the book of Matthew.

You could read it in an hour, two hours tops.

It's full of the teachings of Jesus.

Read it often.

I have a good friend that every day what his routine is, is he opens up the Bible to a proverb and he reads one proverb, which takes like five minutes, and then he reads one chapter from one of the gospels.

So he's always with Jesus.

And something simple like that is transformative because Jesus is the truth.

John chapter 8, verse 31 through 32.

John 8:31–32

Worship team, you can make your way out.

Jesus said to the people who believed in him, you are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings.

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Jesus is the way, he is the truth.

He's everything that he says that he is.

And in a world that is full of lies, in a world that's working so hard to convince us to deny our own common sense, left and right.

In a world where honestly we look at situations and things, we go, that doesn't seem like that's gonna work.

It's like, no, just go along with it.

Stop.

Jesus offers us something totally different.

He's not like the world.

That's what makes him relevant, by the way.

We have a tendency to think that being relevant means to be like the world.

No, no, Jesus is relevant because he's nothing like the world.

It's like if you're really hot, what do you crave?

Something cold to drink.

Jesus is like that.

He's totally different because in a world full of lies, he is the truth.

And if we put our trust and our faith in him, the truth sets us free.

So whatever you're dealing with right now, whatever you're going through in life, I pray that the truth of Jesus shines, that you recognize it, that you see it, and that you make that the lens that you look at life through and nothing else.

And as we wrap up, we're gonna take Lord's Supper.

If you're new, by the way, we do this every week.

You don't have to, you're not forced.

Uh, but at the back, there's tables, they have little cups with bread and juice.

This is just something we do really simply because Jesus says, when you get together, do this to remember me.

When you get together, do this to remember me.

And if you didn't grab one, feel free.

Jesus says, I am the truth.

And I want to take a moment and think about what that really means.

Going back to John chapter 5 that I read earlier, Jesus says, in fact, I'll I don't expect the screens to put it back up again, but John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention John 5 · chapter mention

Jesus says, I tell you the truth.

Those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life.

They will never be condemned for their sins, for they have already passed from death into life.

This meal represents the death of Jesus.

The bread is his body, the juice is his blood.

He makes us a promise.

He says, I tell you the truth.

Because of what he has done for us, because of the sacrifice that he made on our behalf, we have had every sin in our lives forgiven, all the junk, all the baggage, all the issues, it's taken care of.

The mess, it's it's it's done, it's complete.

He's fixed it.

We're still a work in progress.

We still have a lot of work to do, but he's gentle, and that's a long, that's a long journey we take with the Lord.

But as far as the consequences or the worries we might have, that how does God see me, does God love me, does God accept me, that's been taken care of completely because of this moment.

And what we've been offered in return for our faith in Jesus is eternal life.

And that doesn't just mean we get to go to heaven one day when we die, it means that right now, right here, we can experience the life that God has for us.

We're gonna talk more about that next week as we examine what it means that Jesus is the life.

But right now we have access to a kind of life that you cannot have apart from Jesus.

And all it requires is our faith.

What he says is true, who he is is true, and if it's true, this meal means that you are part of the family of God, that you have been completely forgiven, that you are totally accepted, and you will spend eternity experiencing the love that God has for you.

That is powerful, that is truth worth building your life on.

And so, with that said, let's take this bread, let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for this bread and what it represents.

Your body broken on the cross.

You tell us the truth, and you promise us that by putting our trust and our faith in you, by believing in you and accepting this gift that you've given us as a sacrifice on our behalf, Lord, that we have eternal life.

That's amazing, Jesus.

Thank you.

And I believe it's true because you said it and you're the truth.

Let's take the bread.

Let's pray for the juice.

Father, we thank you for this juice.

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

Your blood spilled on our behalf.

There's a scripture in the Old Testament that says that without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sins, that there has to be a price paid, and you paid the price yourself.

Jesus, we thank you for that.

Help us hold tightly to the truth of who you are and what you teach.

And Lord, I pray that the truth that we refuse to let go of the most is the truth that we belong to you.

That through faith in you we have been made part of the family of God.

And even when we stumble and we struggle and we fail, nothing can change that.

Help us hold on tight to that truth.

Because you purchased that with your blood.

We thank you, Lord.

Let's take the juice.