The Other Simon

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I can't wait for her to do that.

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Let's go ahead and pray and then jump into what we're gonna talk about.

Jesus, thank you so much.

Thank you for giving us such an amazing place where we can come together, be who we are, and just hear from you and receive your spirit, receive your love.

I pray that you would speak through your word this morning, challenge us, encourage us, just give us what we need, and we ask all this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.

Well, since the last time I had a chance to talk with you guys, a big thing has happened, and that's that football season has started.

I'm not really a big football fan, but but it started.

I'm actually, I'm a big basketball fan, especially college basketball.

And even though I love basketball more than football, I'll just go ahead and claim defeat and say that basketball season is not as big of a deal as football season.

People start paying attention to it a little bit in March or when the playoffs happen with the pros.

But when when football season starts, there's something exciting about it.

Everyone's paying attention to it.

There's kind of a buzz around.

And I know this is sort of a weird way to start, but I'd like to kind of get a handle on the breakdown of football fans we have in the room.

I think this will make sense here in a few minutes.

But I'm just curious, and I'm gonna ask for a show of hands.

You don't have to participate, it's optional.

Uh, but help me out.

How many of us in the room are willing to admit that you don't care at all about football?

You just care none.

That's good.

That's good to see.

Um, now, just out of curiosity, those of you that just raised your hands, how many of you are married to someone that cares passionately about that same thing?

A few, only a few of you.

That's wow.

Well, sometimes them's the breaks.

Okay, so we'll say that's category number four, you don't care at all.

Category three, let's say you're not passionate about it, but you'll catch a game with friends and family and you'll you'll get into it a little bit if there's a good game on.

Who's in that category?

Yeah, okay, it's fun.

Tailgate Sunday's coming up in a few months, so that would be a great, a great day for all of us, because even if you hate football, there's chili.

And who doesn't love chili?

Um category two, we'll say category two is you are extremely passionate about a certain team.

Whether it's professional, college, European, no matter what it is, a certain team, and you follow it because of that team.

So it's not the sport so much as it's the team, okay?

And then finally, category number one would be you're just obsessed with football.

Just you'll say it, you'll admit it.

You count down the days.

Well, I'm gonna guess that a few of you in in those last two categories, and maybe some other people just for fun, at some point in time, have have at one point in time participated in fantasy football.

Has anyone participated with fantasy football before?

All right, okay.

I've never I've never done that myself.

I have a younger brother who is really into fantasy football.

My older brother and my dad used to do fantasy baseball, which is like having another full-time job.

Um but even though I've never done it myself, just having friends and family that you I've gotten to be a part of the selection process for fantasy teams a few times, where a bunch of people get together and they pick their team.

They've got their fantasy group that they're they're doing this with, and they're selecting their team.

And it's a really interesting experience because you learn a lot about people based on how they pick a team.

You learn if they're a risk taker.

Are they someone that's really calculated?

Do they have this all planned out ahead of time?

Or are they someone that's just kind of going with it?

They're just making picks, whatever they feel like.

Do they value youth?

Do they value experience?

You find out a lot of interesting things about people based on how they choose their teams.

And if you've ever been a part of that process, there's always someone in the room that makes some kind of curious picks.

That make a pick maybe early on that everyone sort of nods and goes, Oh, yeah, okay, that's that's one way to do it.

That's an interesting pick.

But deep down inside, they're all thinking, well, that was stupid.

What a waste of a pick.

And it's interesting, the reason I bring this up is because I've often wondered what what the people in Jesus' day thought about him based on how he picked his team.

Because if you look at the people that Jesus picked to be on his kind of first team, his 12 disciples, he has a few curious picks, about 12 of them.

They're just not the guys that you would imagine he would pick.

He doesn't seem to go for experience or obvious talent or knowledge or really any of the criteria you would go with for making such important decisions.

He has some curious picks, and you just have to wonder what people in his day thought.

You know, they're sitting there going, okay, another fisherman.

That's great.

How many fishermen do you need on that team?

There's like six fishermen.

That's awesome.

A tax collector, wow, a tax collector.

He's not even taking this seriously.

He's just goofing off at this point.

You know, what was going through his mind?

Matthew chapter 10 tells us the men that Jesus picked as his first team, you know, his disciples.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

It says, these are the names of the twelve apostles.

First Simon, who's called Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, James, son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who later betrayed him.

And can we just take a second?

I just a short aside.

I just want to appreciate the manliness of Jesus for a moment.

Because, you know, he names the first Simon Peter, which means the rock, and later on we find out that he named, nicknamed rather James and John the Sons of Thunder.

So you have the Son of Man traveling around with the rock and the sons of thunder.

And this is like the WWF 2,000 years before it happened.

And I just want to appreciate that.

As a guy, I want to appreciate the manliness of Jesus.

These are not guys who would be your first pick if you were doing what Jesus was planning on doing.

And the fact that these men were able to successfully carry the message of Jesus to the ends of the earth at that time is the greatest underdog story in the history of the world.

Because it just should not have happened.

But Jesus saw something in them, he saw a potential in them, he had a hope in them that they could have never had for themselves.

And the great thing about these men is they're an incredible reminder to us of a few things.

Number one, you will never meet someone who has a higher opinion of you than Jesus does.

No matter what the rest of the world thinks, you will never meet someone that believes in you more and thinks as highly of you as Jesus Himself.

He has more hope for you than you may have ever realized or may have even had for your own self.

Jesus thinks highly of us.

That's encouraging to me.

Because I don't think I would have been on that list either.

The other thing it shows us, and this is what's really amazing, this is something we're going to focus on this morning.

It's a hope that we can cling to, it's a hope that we need, and that is that Jesus changes us.

When you start following Jesus, you will end up a different person.

When your days are done and you have gone your journey with Jesus, you will not be the same person that started following him.

You'll be changed.

And I don't know about you, but I feel a need to be changed pretty often.

I have weekly and sometimes daily reminders of how far left I have to go.

And so I need that hope.

I need something to cling to, and I need to know that God is going to and is in the process of changing me.

We could pick any of these 12 guys and focus on how God changed them.

Focused on how who they were when they started following Jesus is not who they became.

And this morning we're going to focus on one, and it's Simon.

But not Simon Peter.

He gets talked about enough.

Not Simon Peter.

We're going to focus on the other Simon, Simon the Zealot.

And Simon the Zealot is really interesting because we don't know a whole lot about him.

He doesn't get a lot of air time in the gospel narrative.

But his name alone tells us a lot about him.

See, what you have to understand is that in Israel at this time, you have four major kind of political groups in the Jewish community.

You have the Pharisees, and they're like the religious fundamentalists of their day.

They're extremely religious, they're dogmatic, they put huge burdens on people, they're constantly annoying Jesus.

They had a lot of power, right?

And Jesus loved them.

He just didn't seem to like them sometimes.

Then you have the Sadducees.

The Sadducees were extremely powerful politically, they were very wealthy, they had a lot of influence.

They believed in God, but they didn't believe in the miraculous.

So they were at odds with the Pharisees often, but they had a lot of control and a lot of power.

You have the Essenes, these guys don't really do much.

They love God, they're passionate, but they they totally pull themselves out of society.

And they focus on writing the scriptures and copying the scriptures.

And if you've ever heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, they're the reason we have those.

They sort of just completely withdrew themselves and focused on scripture and God.

And then finally, you have the zealots.

And if we're gonna find a modern day equivalent to the zealots, and I'm not exaggerating here, Al-Qaeda, maybe?

Seriously, the zealots, the zealots are a serious group of men.

They got their start in 86.

There was a man named Judas of Galilee that started the zealots, and their desire was really singularly focused.

It was to violently overthrow the Roman government.

That is what they lived for.

That is all they wanted.

And so they sought out violence.

They sought out attempts and opportunities to take out Roman officers and the Roman government in whatever means necessary.

They were notorious for their brutality, they were notorious, notorious for their willingness to sacrifice themselves, their family, their loved ones.

These were just incredibly violent militant men.

And their biggest contribution to Jewish history, actually, came not very long after Jesus had died and been resurrected.

One of the most scandalous things that Jesus ever said was that the temple would be destroyed in Jerusalem.

When he said that, it shocked the Pharisees, it shocked the religious people, and they couldn't understand how someone could claim that God's temple would be destroyed.

But that happened in AD 70 when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem.

And it actually all got started in AD 66 when the zealots got a big following in Galilee and they overthrew the Roman garrison that was there.

They completely wiped out a Roman garrison stationed in Galilee.

You have to understand that the Jewish people they had wanted freedom from Rome and freedom from their oppressors for generations.

Their whole idea of the Messiah was a man that was going to take political power and give control of Israel back to Israel.

That's what they wanted.

So once they have this victory over the Romans, everyone gets excited.

They become more popular, their numbers start to grow.

Rome sent some reinforcements by way of Syria, and the zealots defeated those reinforcements.

So now they have two major victories against the Romans.

King Agrippa, who was a Jewish king but was sympathetic with the Romans, fled Jerusalem.

And so it looks like they are winning.

It looks like they are gaining control of Israel once again.

But Rome decided to respond in force.

So Rome sends 60,000 troops that are led by two men, Vespasian and Titus, both of whom are going to end up becoming emperor one day.

So that just shows you how serious Rome is taking this.

To deal with the rebellion, to quell the rebellion.

And as soon as they arrive, the Romans wipe out over a hundred thousand Jewish troops.

And when this happens, chaos ensues.

And everyone flees to Jerusalem because Jerusalem is well fortified.

It has multiple outer walls.

Everyone thinks they're safe inside the walls of Jerusalem.

And once they're in Jerusalem, the Romans start to lay siege to the city, but this is going to take years for them to breach this city.

And while what was happening on the outside of the city was chaotic, as Rome was laying siege to it, what was happening on the inside was even more chaotic because you basically have civil war.

There's infighting.

All these different groups are fighting for control.

And the group that gained control was the zealots.

They gained control by executing anyone that stood in their way.

If there were Jewish leaders that wanted to negotiate with Rome, that wanted to surrender to Rome, the zealots took them out.

They wanted this war, they wanted the violence.

It's what they wanted.

And the most heinous thing that ever happened during this whole time from their end is that the Israelites had anticipated a siege from Rome.

This is something they saw coming.

And so they had stored multiple years' worth of dry food that could feed the entire city of Jerusalem.

They had stored this up.

It would last over two years, most likely.

And the zealots saw this as a security blanket that was keeping the people from taking the action they needed to take.

And so the zealots burned it.

They burned it all.

And you have to understand, you have to think about this.

There's children, elderly people, there's women that are pregnant, women that are nursing, and they destroy all of the food in the city.

And the Romans control the outside of the wall, so no new food's coming in.

And the result of that was years and years of starvation.

Four years later, in AD 70, when the Romans finally broke through, so many people had died of starvation and sickness that there wasn't a fight to be had.

They easily conquered the Jewish people.

They completely destroyed Jerusalem.

They completely destroyed the temple.

And the zealots were at the heart of that.

And I say all that just to give us an understanding of who they are and to understand that Jesus picks one of these guys to be his disciple.

And we don't know what level of involvement Simon had with the zealots.

We don't know if he'd ever killed someone, if he'd ever plotted to kill someone.

I'm not sure.

But we know that at one point in time he had been identified with them.

At one point in time, he'd at the very least been sympathetic with their methods.

So of all the curious picks that Jesus makes, of all the curious choices he makes for his disciples, I think we can understand that Simon might be the biggest head scratcher.

What is he thinking?

What's going on?

And all of this is gonna get really interesting in a moment later in Jesus' ministry, when things are very tense and there's gonna be a little bit of violence that happens.

Some Roman soldiers are gonna get involved, there's gonna be a little bit of an altercation, and hey, spoiler alert, guess who hates the Romans?

The zealots.

They hate the Romans.

There was actually a group of zealots called the Sicari, which literally translates dagger men, and they were known for that because they carried concealed daggers everywhere they went, and they would they would assassinate Roman officers on site.

I mean, these men are serious.

They were conditioned, trained, and just grew up hating Rome so much and desiring confrontation.

And we're about to see a confrontation between some Romans and the disciples, and someone's gonna get violent.

I don't know if you guys have ever been a part of a usual suspects type situation where something happens, and it's really not even a question who did it.

If you have kids, you've been in this position a lot.

So you conduct an investigation, but there's really no need.

Okay?

When I was in college, I had a friend named Farmer.

I don't think that's the name his parents gave him, that's what everyone called him.

And Farmer was an interesting guy, he was a really nice guy.

He was a part of a Bible study that me and some other guys were doing, and I got to know him through that.

Farmer, though, was the biggest guy on our college's football team.

And if you know anything about football, and a lot of you raise your hands, so I assume you do, football players tend to be big.

So if you're the biggest of the football players, you're a big guy.

Farmer was massive, probably about 6'4, 6'5, but 350 pounds.

I mean, this guy was huge.

And he was a really nice guy, but he had a reputation for getting a little rowdy, and when Farmer got rowdy, someone or something was gonna break.

It's just the way it was.

So this one night, no one no one saw this happen, or at least no one would admit it, because you know, we're all scared.

Um, someone's door got just completely busted into in our dorm.

And what you have to understand when I say that is we're not talking about a little interior door like we would have in our house that a five-year-old could could beat through if they wanted to.

Um, my dorm was built in the 1920s.

And the phrase they don't build them like they used to definitely applied to this building.

I remember my freshman year of college, our hot water went out.

And this is Kansas City, Missouri, so it gets very cold.

It's in the middle of winter, we have no hot water.

We go to talk to the resident staff, and our resident staff says, Well, the boiler's out, so we gotta get that repaired.

I remember we're like, we have a boiler?

Those things blow up.

A boiler, what?

A boiler.

And that's just that's an illustration of when this dorm was built.

And so the doors, these are not wooden doors.

These doors were metal, they were huge, they were strong.

And I know this because people would leave their doors open and also their windows open sometimes.

It would create this vacuum, and so the doors would slam shut, and it sounded like a shotgun blast.

These doors were incredibly strong.

And this door hadn't just been broken into, it had been knocked off the hinges and off the frame.

And so our resident staff conducts an investigation because someone has done this, right?

And they're asking all of us, they're coming to our rooms, and it was really, it was a strangely in-depth investigation for a door.

But but they're asking us, you know, did you do it?

Did you see who did it?

We all had the same response.

We're like, look, I didn't do it.

I couldn't do it.

And I didn't see who did it, but I know who did it.

Because there is one person on this campus that could do that.

It's a usual suspect situation.

It turned out that it was farmer, it all got taken care of.

He's fine.

The door, not so much.

But but it was a usual suspect's moment, and we're about to see a situation that kind of has that to it.

All right, so it's when Jesus is in the garden, he's getting ready to go to the cross, he's already told the disciples what's about to happen.

They don't really understand it, but they have to know that the tension is at an all-time high.

Jesus is a hunted man, the Pharisees want him dead.

They can tell he's distressed, and so he goes to this garden to pray with his disciples and to pray with God.

And this is what happens.

It says, After saying these things, Jesus crossed the Kidron Valley with his disciples and entered a grove of olive trees.

Judas the betrayer knew this place because Jesus had gone there with his disciples.

He'd gone there often.

The leading priests and Pharisees had given Judas a contingent of Roman soldiers.

Remember who hates Roman soldiers?

And the temple guards to accompany him.

Now with blazing torches, lanterns, and weapons, they arrived at the olive grove.

Jesus fully realized all that was going to happen to him, so he stepped forward to meet them.

Again, I would like to just take a moment to appreciate the manliness of Jesus.

Because he fully realized everything that was going to happen to them.

So what does he do?

He steps forward to meet them.

I love Jesus.

Who are you looking for?

He asked.

Jesus the Nazarene, they replied.

I am he, Jesus said.

Judas who betrayed him was standing with them.

As Jesus said, I am he, they all drew back and fell to the ground.

I mean, this just gives you goosebumps and chills.

Once more, he asked them, Who are you looking for?

And again they replied, Jesus the Nazarene.

Now I like to read this and try to, I always try to imagine the tone of what's going on.

So I imagine that the first time they ask, you know, who they're looking for, they say that, they say it very boldly.

Jesus the Nazarene.

And then he says, I am he.

They all fall down, they're trembling, and he asked again.

And I'm guessing the second time it was something more like, Jesus, Jesus the Nazarene?

If that's okay with you.

That's what happens.

And he says it again.

I told you that I am he, Jesus said.

And since I am the one you want, let these others go.

He did this to fulfill his own statement.

I did not lose a single one of those you have given me.

So here we have this moment, you have to understand the tension is incredibly high.

And we're about to see an altercation.

In the book of Matthew, it tells us that then one of those standing near, one of the disciples, drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

So I wonder who it was.

It's Simon.

But not Simon the zealot.

It's Simon Peter.

It says, Then Simon Peter, this is from the book of John, then Simon Peter drew a sword and slashed off the right ear of Malchus, the high priest's slave.

But Jesus said to Peter, put your sword back into its sheath.

Shall I not drink from the cup of suffering the Father has given me?

It's not Simon the terrorist.

It's Simon the fisherman.

And this didn't happen, but you can only imagine a situation where these men get arrested and they're interviewing people who are witnesses and said, Hey, did you see who cut off Malchus's ear?

And they're like, Well, there was a lot of commotion.

I mean, Jesus was talking, people were falling down, it was kind of crazy.

I think it was one of the Simons, but I'm not sure.

It was either Simon the terrorist or Simon the fisherman, but you figure that out.

That's a pretty open and shut case.

And you may have heard this story before, you may have heard this growing up and be familiar with it.

And I I heard this in Sunday school as a kid, and I know this story, and I've always just thought about Peter who who did this, but I've never stopped to think about who didn't do it.

Who didn't draw his sword and attack.

And it was the one man that should have.

It's the one man that was trained, conditioned, and hungry at a time in his life to attack a Roman officer.

But he's not the one that does it.

And it really should have been Simon the Zealot.

It really should have been.

It's almost like it's a typo.

You got the wrong Simon.

It's not Simon the Zealot.

And why is that?

Was he afraid?

I don't think so.

You don't get the impression reading this that the disciples get afraid and run away until after Jesus is gone and he's been arrested.

And if any of them are going to be afraid, I think Simon the Zealot's the last one who would be scared of a few Roman soldiers.

But it's not Simon the Zealot.

Why?

It's because he's not Simon the Zealot anymore.

He's Simon the follower of Jesus.

He's not the same man that he was when he Started following Jesus.

He's been changed.

Now I don't know this, but I have to imagine that Jesus was proud of Simon.

I mean, it's an honorable thing to defend Jesus.

And I can only imagine in the same situation, I would like to believe that I would be like Simon Peter.

I'd do the same thing.

Jesus doesn't seem to really like what Simon Peter does, though.

Peter's always trying to keep Jesus from being Jesus, it's kind of like what he does.

But I have to imagine that he was proud of Simon the Zealot, because Simon is the one that should have been violent.

He's the one that everyone would have expected to be.

But he wasn't.

He'd been changed.

You know, this morning, the focus for us is that if you ever feel stuck, if you ever feel like you are in a rut, if you ever feel like you're just not the person that God wants you to be, do not be discouraged.

Do not be discouraged because God is changing you.

He may not do it at the pace that we want him to.

He may not zap us and just instantly make us this new person.

That's I think what we all want to happen is whatever problems we have, whatever issues, he just fixes them, he just changes us.

But Jesus seems to enjoy the process and the journey, and it's a day-by-day thing, but we can all take heart and believe that he is changing us.

He will change us.

He will.

And it's a beginning.

And it's gonna take time.

And there's gonna be times in your life that you feel like you're not getting anywhere.

There's gonna be times in life that you feel like you're stuck.

And all you need in that moment is the encouragement and the reminder that Jesus is changing you.

And he will finish what he started.

He will finish what he started.

We don't talk a lot about specific sins on Sunday mornings here.

And the answer is the reason is really simple.

Um, there might be a few of us that need reminded of the areas in life we're not good at.

But I'm gonna guess that all of us are very aware when we walk in here on a Sunday morning of what we need some help with.

We all know those things.

We all deal with that every single day.

And if anything, if you're like me, the frustration over the years has not been a lack of conviction for my sin, but a lack of trust and hope that I'm ever gonna get past it.

That's what I deal with.

And I've been in a lot of ruts.

I've dealt with addictions, I've dealt with whole phases of life where I seem to have no desire for a relationship with God, and I was just going through the motions.

And every single time I get into one of those things, I look at myself and go, God, something is wrong with me.

I don't know what to do.

I've tried everything.

I've tried to do it myself, I've tried to read my Bible every day, I've tried to pray more, I've tried self-control, I'm reading books, but I don't seem, it doesn't seem like anything's happening.

But it is happening.

It's just taking time, and it's happening at God's pace.

And I might be able to do some things to speed up the process, I might be able to do some things to help God out, but he is the agent of change, not me.

And I have to let him change me.

Simon was a terrorist.

That's pretty bad.

But Jesus changed him.

A few years ago, I was uh I was reading my Bible and I came across a verse in Ezekiel that I had never read before.

Maybe I had read it, I just hadn't noticed it.

But when I read it, it spoke to me in an extremely powerful way that I hadn't I never really had a verse speak to me about it.

It says, I will give you a new heart.

I will put a new spirit in you.

I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.

When I read that, it floored me because that was the desire of my heart.

That was my prayer.

I wanted to be different, I wanted to be changed.

I had issues and struggles and sins that I could not get past.

And I read this and I said, Jesus, that's what I need you to do in my life.

I need you to give me a new heart.

I need you to give me a new spirit because this one's not working right.

And I prayed that, and I prayed that.

And there were so many times over the next few years that I would read that again and feel a little bit discouraged because I felt like it just wasn't happening.

But over time, I can I can look back now, and now it was five years ago, and I can say, What there is change.

In some areas it's been large, in some areas it's it's not even noticeable.

But I have faith and trust that there is change happening, and God is gonna change what needs to be changed.

I have to cling to that hope.

All of us have to cling to that hope.

He's gonna change us.

That verse actually goes on to say that when he does this, we're able to obey his commands.

Being obedient to Jesus is not a matter of sheer willpower.

It's not trying harder, it's letting his spirit guide us and change us.

It's a process, it's a relationship.

I will put a new spirit in you.

I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart, a heart that can receive love.

That's what Jesus wants for you.

So if you are discouraged this morning and you feel like you're not changing, or if you have someone in your life that you're looking at and saying, God, why aren't you changing this person?

I feel like they need to be changed.

If God has started a relationship with them, if they know Jesus, he will change them.

And whatever doesn't get changed in this life will be changed in the life that we have to come.

But he will change us, and that should excite us, that should get us enthused and joyous about our future because we are not the people that we're going to be.

When I read this verse, and this has never really happened to me before, uh, this really distinct picture came into my mind.

A really distinct picture.

That's part of the reason that this verse stuck out to me so much, because I didn't just see words, I had this image.

And in this image I saw in my mind, it was the Holy Spirit, and it was a dove.

A lot of times the Holy Spirit in art is depicted as a dove.

That's how it came upon Jesus.

And in front of the Holy Spirit is this heart, this human heart, but it's it's made of stone.

It's a rock.

But wherever the Holy Spirit was touching the heart, the rock was peeling away, and what was left was flesh.

I have a sister-in-law who's an incredible artist.

And so, probably four years ago, I asked her, I was like, Brittany, can you draw this for me?

I explained it, I described it, and she's like, Yes, I can.

And I knew she could.

It was just a matter of what she had time to because she was really busy.

And so, for about the next two years, every time I'd see Brittany, I'd be like, Hey Brittany, how's that?

How's that coming?

You know, at the time I thought I was gonna get a tattoo of it because I thought I was cool enough to pull that off.

I think that time has passed, but but I kept asking her, Brittany, and it's always become time for my birthday, and I'd say, Hey Brittany, I have a great idea of what you could get me from a birthday.

It's this picture.

And this goes on for a few years, and Britney was really busy.

But one day, Christmas Day, a couple years ago, I get this gift from Britney, and it's this envelope.

And I open it up, and it's this picture.

It's this picture that I've been talking about.

And this is what it is it's the Holy Spirit, and wherever he's interacting with, wherever he's touching this heart, the stone is falling away, and what's left is a heart as it should be.

She's a decent artist.

It's powerful, isn't it?

And I don't know about you, but I look at that and that's what I want for my life.

I want to be changed.

I need to be changed.

And God promises to do it.

If the worship team wants to come back up, we'll we'll finish with one last song.

God will change you.

And he'll change you at his pace.

And you're gonna have moments, I have these all the time, where you're reminded of how little you think you've changed, but then you're gonna have these other moments like Simon had, where something happens and you realize I'm not the same person I was.

I wonder if Simon sat there when they took Jesus away with his sword, wondering why he hadn't pulled it, wondering why he hadn't attacked.

Thinking to himself, I don't get it.

You know, I've lusted after violence, I've craved it, and here I have this perfect opportunity, a justified opportunity, and I didn't take it.

Why?

If we follow Jesus, he changes us.

And our prayer can just be give me a new heart.

Put your spirit inside of me, because that's what I want.

And I say this a lot with our younger students because this is something that God has just made me really passionate about.

But if you want the same thing that God wants, that's a really good thing.

And if your heart's desire is for the things that he wants for you, if your heart's desire is for him to change you, to give you a new heart and a new spirit, he is going to do that.

Because that's what he already wants to do.

So if that's your heart this morning, then you can just pray and trust that it's going to happen.

Because God is going to do it.

So let's pray together and let's ask for that.

Jesus, thank you so much for changing us.

Remind us, help us celebrate whatever small victories or large victories we have that remind us of the process that you're bringing us on, that you are changing us.

Keep us encouraged, keep us full of hope, Jesus, that you're gonna finish what you start with us.

And keep us from losing hope in other people, and remind us that you're gonna finish what you start with them as well.

Bless us this week.

Help us have an incredible week of fellowship and just time and love with you.

And forgive me for using the word fellowship because that's churching.

We love you so much, Jesus.

Amen.