Called Out - Fake Jesus Fake People

Listen, I'm loving this new series that we're about to get into.

It's a series that we're entitled Called Out.

There's a moment here.

This message, if you want a specific title for this message in this series, it's called Fake Jesus, Fake People.

Here's what I know in my life.

Maybe you have some people like this, maybe you don't.

I have some people in my life that have permission to call me out when they see something in my life that shouldn't be there.

I don't know if you do.

If you're married, you have a built-in person who's gonna call you out no matter what.

And everybody said, Yeah.

And if you have kids in the house, you have a built-in system of somebody who's gonna call you out, whether you like it or not, too, right?

Y'all know because the moment you say, Hey, we're not having ice cream tonight, the kids go to bed and they hear that ball jingling out there.

They're like, hey, I thought we said no ice cream tonight, and you get called out, right?

There are moments for me, though, I've learned to appreciate the value of somebody in my life who will call me out when I need it.

Notice I said when I need it, not when I want it.

Because here's the other thing I found is most of the time when somebody calls me out, I'm not in the mood to want it at that moment, but I need it.

That there's something valuable when we give people the ability to call us out.

Because here's what I've learned when I trust those people in that space.

They call me out not because they're being mean, not because they're trying to hurt me.

They call me out because they want something better for me.

I get called out in moments where they say, Hey, I know that's not what you want to be, and I know you want to be something better.

So let me point that out so you can be better.

There are moments where I get called out where I've just got a straight up blind spot and I don't even see it, right?

Days where my wife is like, bro, you having a bad day, like you were just real punchy and snippy.

Anybody ever have one of those moments?

And then in the moment, what I want to do is just get a little bit punchier, but then I'm like, you're right.

I I needed to hear that as much as I don't want to hear that.

I've had friends call me out and say, hey man, I'm I'm seeing some things in your life that concerns me.

Maybe they're yellow flags.

And I just, can I say something here because I'm trying to protect you from something you might not realize?

That we need people to call us out.

And when people call us out, they're not being mean.

When the right people call us out, they're doing it because they love us.

That loving somebody actually would mean it's impossible for us to stay quiet in those moments.

And that being silent in a moment that somebody we love needs to be called out isn't loving at all.

I mean, we joked around this morning with some of the people here.

I said, if you ever see me with my fly down praise, God, just tell me.

Like, I know it's embarrassing.

Do not let me walk up on stage.

Call me out because you love me.

Yes, it's embarrassing.

I know it's gonna be worse when I get up here in front of y'all.

I promise.

I'm gonna have to fake a sneeze and turn around and hope I can hit the zipper fast enough.

And here's the thing: Jesus has moments where he calls people out too.

I think this is really important today.

I think this series is gonna be maybe a bit eye-opening for some people because I think the picture that we have of Jesus isn't always an accurate picture of the way Jesus revealed himself to us.

I think in our minds, the the picture that the world would like to sell us about Jesus is that he is this soft, fluffy, gentle, and and one word that we use Jesus is nice.

Can I can I tell you something?

There's nowhere in scripture where God says he's nice.

I know it's gonna mess somebody's theology up today, just a little bit.

God said he was good, God said he is loving and merciful and gracious, but he also said I'm holy and I'm righteous.

He never said I'm nice.

And I'm going to suggest something to you today that I believe the idea of God being nice is actually Satan's way of distracting us from who God really is.

Because if I need God to be nice, then I don't have a category to put some of the things that God does into.

And so Jesus is going to have a moment here today.

We're going to look at where he calls people out.

It's not going to feel nice, but why does he do it?

Because he's a God of love and he's a good God.

And I can't let people keep going down a path when I see they're heading towards danger.

So I have to do the hard thing and call somebody out because I love them.

And so we're going to have to wrestle with something we're uncomfortable with is this idea that God is not always nice, but he is kind, he is good and loving, and everything he does lives in those buckets, even if it doesn't feel nice to me.

And so Jesus calls us out when we get it wrong.

If you haven't figured that out yet, we're going to look at a moment in scripture where Jesus calls out some people because they got it wrong.

Jesus will call you and me out when we get it wrong.

And that is a good thing.

Even if it doesn't feel good, even if it doesn't seem nice, it's a good thing because he loves us.

And so we're going to look at a scripture.

Matthew 23, if you want to click there, if you want to flip there in your Bibles on your phones, here's what I would encourage you to do is jot some notes down as we go.

Matthew 23, starting in verse 25, he says, This what sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and you Pharisees?

Hypocrites.

Actually, it's an exclamation point in my Bible.

Hypocrites! He's saying it with a little authority.

For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but you are filthy, full of greed and self-indulgence.

You blind Pharisee, first wash the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside will become clean too.

You guys are like, are you sure this is Jesus?

Red letter, man.

Red letter, I promise.

What sorrow awaits you, teachers of law, religious law, and you Pharisees, you hypocrites.

For you are like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity.

Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

What sorrow awaits you, teachers of religious law and you Pharisees, hypocrites?

For you build tombs to the prophets your ancestors killed, and you decorate the monuments of godly people your ancestors destroyed.

Then you say, if we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would have never joined them in killing the prophets.

But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.

Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started.

Woof.

Last line.

I mean, it just like he doesn't stop.

You snakes, you son of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of hell?

Now notice those aren't my words, those are Jesus' words.

And if we need Jesus to be nice, then suddenly Jesus has just turned our world upside down.

Because it doesn't feel very nice in that moment.

I mean, Jesus just publicly called out some religious people in front of everybody, and he wasn't soft about it.

You snakes, you brood of vipers, you're going to hell.

And this is where we have a core value of being uncomfortably real.

And why would we do that?

Because Jesus steps into uncomfortably real spaces just like this.

And we have to understand what to do with Jesus in these moments.

If we're going to follow the real Jesus and not a fake Jesus, then we have to understand there are some moments where Jesus is going to be very uncomfortably real.

He's going to do some things that don't fit in a bucket of nice that we need it to.

And we've got to understand that nice bucket never came from Jesus.

I'm convinced it came from Satan trying to lead us towards a fake Jesus and not the real one.

Most of us in here would be like, whoo, that's not me.

Hold on.

It actually is.

You're like, what do you mean?

Listen, Jesus is calling out the people who claim to represent his father.

So if we want to carry the title Christian, if we haven't figured out the first half of that name carries Jesus' name in it, Christ.

Throwing an I-A-N in there.

So anybody who wants to carry his name and claim to represent him, this is the standard that Jesus is saying I'm measuring you by.

In fact, if you would go into just a minute, you can look later on, you can jot this down.

1 Peter 2 9, when Peter's talking about who we are, he says, you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

You are.

Not just the guy that's standing on stage preaching.

The people who say I'm a Christian and I want to put that label on my life.

You are a royal priesthood.

And so there is a standard that has just been dropped here by Jesus.

That if you want to carry my name, if you want to claim to represent me, then there is a pattern that your life needs to represent to honor me and who I am.

And when it doesn't, Jesus is willing to send people into our life to call us out because he loves us too much to let us stay there.

That it would actually be unloving if Jesus let this keep happening because the way these people are living is pushing people away from God instead of drawing them into him.

I know it's uncomfortable, but we have to embrace.

One of the things as a pastor, I've had to learn.

I've had to learn to not alleviate the tension that scripture creates.

Because not all tension is bad.

And I think sometimes in the church world, we want to apologize for the hard parts of scripture and find a way to alleviate them when actually we just need to let the tension of those moments rest there and let the Holy Spirit deal with those moments.

And so Jesus starts pointing out some things for all of us that we've got to understand that if we are going to claim the title Christian, then our life needs to look the way Jesus wants it to look.

And for some of us, it's so easy to clean up the outside and never let anything change on the inside.

That's what Jesus is pointing out.

What that looks like in today's world.

It's so easy for me to come to church and check a box, but never let God actually work in my life and change me.

That's what he's saying.

And for some of us, like it would be easy to say, I'm gonna follow Jesus when it's convenient.

And so we attend once or twice a month when it fits our schedule, and when it doesn't, I just I can't.

My life's full and it's kind of inconvenient.

And here's the thing that I'm trying to learn in life comfort and convenience are my enemy.

But the problem is we seek it in every area of our life that I think we let it overflow into our relationship with Jesus as well.

And so I've tried really hard to actually do the inconvenient and uncomfortable things in my life.

I was just on a trip, I stayed in a hotel, I was on the third floor.

And so for three days, I climbed up and down three flights of stairs the whole time.

I did not ride the elevator on purpose.

Why?

Because it's inconvenient.

And so I'm just trying to teach, like if we don't do some inconvenient and uncomfortable things, it's easy to let that become the mode that we try to operate in everywhere.

And so it was silly.

I carried two sets of luggage up three flights of stairs to get to my room.

But I'm just so afraid for me that I'm going to just always pursue the easiest, most comfortable, most convenient thing that I'm trying to actually teach myself.

Because here's the reality: following Jesus is going to be unconvenient at some point in your life.

Following Jesus is going to be costly at some point in your life.

Because here's what I can tell you following Jesus has cost me relationships with people.

Because they didn't like who I was becoming.

I think deep down inside, for some people as a pastor, they don't like me because there's just a conviction that comes because I don't agree with their lifestyle.

And so it costs me relationships at times following Jesus.

Following Jesus has cost me financially at times because I've just chosen to trust him with my finances and write unreasonable amounts of checks sometimes because I felt like Jesus told me to, and I'm just trusting him.

It cost me to come plant this church.

It would have been much more comfortable to stay where I was at and have a six-figure income and just keep riding along.

I was working for an older pastor.

I mean, he's going to resign one day.

I could step right in and I just have the comfortable life.

I worked my way up the ladder.

Following Jesus is going to cost you at some point, if it hasn't already.

That's what Jesus is trying to prepare us for.

But in this moment, sometimes we just want to throw a scripture on.

We want to make a religious post every now and then.

Maybe if you're like me, you want to get that religious tattoo.

So at least people see that cross.

They're like, Jesus, team Jesus, you like to wear that gold necklace.

It's funny to me that we glorify Jesus with a cross when you think about what the instrument of the cross really was in the Roman world, but it's become this symbol of something that is once a terrible thing.

We'll throw on some GCC church merch.

But it's more than just getting the outside right, it's let Jesus change the inside.

That's the heart that he's challenging here.

And he points out four areas that I think are really important that we have to pay attention to.

I don't think scripture ever puts anything in there by accident.

The first thing Jesus said for these people that want to claim his name, but not let them be changed on the inside is he said, greed is one of the motivators that will mess you up if you don't deal with it in your life.

Greed, that word means to plunder other people or rob them.

Like I love what that means, that's what it literally means in the Greek.

To not just be greedy, but to the point that I would rather take care of myself at the expense of somebody else.

And that's what Jesus is saying.

Hey, if you're going to be one of my followers and carry my name, that can't have a space or place in your life.

And yet everything in this world is motivated by how can I get ahead?

And I'm even willing to get ahead at the expense of somebody else.

That's what Jesus is calling out in this moment.

That he's calling out self-indulgence.

This word to me here, it's it's a it's a word that means literally it's lustful or it's a lack of self-control.

That essentially what Jesus is saying in this moment is very much the spirit that is working today's world that would tell you just go follow whatever desire that you feel.

Because if God put that desire inside of you, then it must be from Him.

And so just follow the desires of your heart.

Hey, I don't know if you figured this out yet.

There's some desires you shouldn't act on.

If I acted on every desire I felt, I'd probably be calling somebody from jail to come bail me out because there's just some people I want to throw punch, man.

I mean, I'm just being honest.

Your pastor just said he wants to throw punch people.

I did.

There's some people I want to run off the road sometimes.

That left lane is for fast drivers, not slow drivers.

Get out the way.

Praise God.

We live in a world that tells us that, though.

If you feel this desire, yeah, I've just I've got this attraction to somebody.

And so it must be from God because I have this attraction.

No, not every desire we feel is from God.

And yet that's the the, if you want to know the gospel in today's world, that's the gospel that some people believe.

That God has put this desire in me, so it must be okay, so I can live the way I want to live according to my desire and still be good with Jesus.

And Jesus is saying, nope, actually, you can't follow me and give in to every desire that you feel.

That's what Jesus just called out, not Jason.

So if you don't like that, you can go argue with him about it, okay?

That's what he's saying.

And so there's some desires in our life that we might have them, and we may have to crucify them and surrender them to Jesus rather than give in to them.

That's what Jesus is saying.

Otherwise, you can wash the outside all you want to, man, but you're still gonna be broken on the inside.

We want to talk about hypocrisy.

This word, like we kind of know, like hypocrite, we've thought it, you know, an actor.

But the reality is that word hypocrisy goes deeper.

It talks about an arrogance, a hard heart, a heart that's devoid of sincerity or genuineness.

That to be a hypocrite is not just to pretend to be something I'm not, but it's actually to try to pretend because my heart is so hardened that I want to give an appearance of something that's not true.

That Jesus is calling out something terribly uncomfortable here for all of us, if we're gonna be honest.

And he's warning in this moment the problem with hypocrisy.

In fact, it what goes on to later say Paul does to Timothy, one of the dangers of hypocrisy in this moment, Paul says, is these people are hypocrites and liars, their conscience are dead.

The problem with hypocrisy is it hardens our heart and our conscience towards God.

When we become comfortable playing and pretending to be something we're not, you're not just playing games, you're hardening your heart.

And this is the part that gets hard and uncomfortable in this moment.

That Jesus is trying to warn us because he loves us.

And what this means for us in today's world is there's some people that like to believe this that I can claim to be a Christian and never surrender my life to Jesus.

That is a false gospel.

There's nothing in scripture that supports that claim, just so we're super clear.

The whole point of salvation is surrender my entire life to Jesus.

And you can claim to be whatever you want.

Just ask anybody in this world today.

I don't have to say much more than that.

It's pretty self-explanatory if you watch the news.

But just because you claim it doesn't make it true.

That's what Jesus is saying.

And we have to be careful in those moments because as we try to pretend to be something we're not, we actually harden our hearts to the work of Jesus in our life.

And so, what you're never going to see here, hear me.

Anytime you ever feel like I'm being fake and somebody that's not authentic and transparent, I give you permission to call me out.

What you see is what you're always gonna get.

What you see here on a stage on a Sunday, you will see at my house on a Tuesday evening.

This isn't a play or an act when I get on stage.

I will be who I am, sometimes to the point some people don't like it because I'm too uncomfortably real.

But I'm okay with that.

And this church is always going to make space for people wherever they are at in life to come be a part and experience Jesus.

But what we're not going to do is preach a false false gospel to make people comfortable to be here.

You can come broken, but Jesus just doesn't want you to stay broken.

Because he loves you too much and he calls those things out that we're gonna call out the same things Jesus calls out.

Because I'm not going to stand before God one day and be held accountable for never being transparent and honest with people.

Why?

Because your blood would be on my hands.

If I preach a message to make you comfortable, I'm gonna stand before God one day and be held accountable for that.

And I love you too much, and I love him too much to tell you something that's not true.

And so in this moment, he talks about lawlessness.

He goes on to say, I like to call lawlessness essentially this.

It's another false gospel in today's world, but it's it's grace abusers.

It's people who want to say, because I'm under grace, I can live however I want to.

That's all that's all that he's saying, essentially.

And listen, if people will tell you that, that's not a true gospel, that is a lie and deception of the enemy.

Yeah, but I've heard other pastors preach that, and I've heard other Christians make TikToks and reels and put them on social media.

That's cool.

I'm just telling you, it's not supported in scripture.

Are you under grace?

100%.

But grace does not exist so you can keep living in sin.

Grace exists to empower you to get out of your sin.

That is what it Means to be lawless.

And we live in a world where we don't want to submit to Jesus.

We live in a world where we don't want to submit to a pastor's teaching.

And so what we'll do is I'll come to a church, but I'll listen to a lot of other podcasts from other pastors because I don't really want to submit to the teaching here.

So I listen to Matt Chandler or Joby Martin or Take Your Pick, all of JP Pakluda, or all these other people that do these things.

And but I go to church here, but I listen to them because I just I don't know that I'm ready to submit to everything that's happening there.

It's a dangerous place that Jesus is calling out of.

He's pointing out some things that we need to work on here that are uncomfortable.

And in this moment, we have to understand Jesus just said some things that weren't nice.

And so what am I going to do with a Jesus that I thought was supposed to be nice, but it doesn't seem like he's being nice?

Well, then I got to figure out how to wrestle out some of this stuff.

And I got to learn how to trust that Jesus may say some things I'm uncomfortable with, but he does it because he loves me and because he loves you.

I'm going to say it again.

Jesus calls things out of you and me, not because he's trying to be mean, not because he's trying to be judgmental.

I know sometimes we believe, you know, what Tupac said when we say only God can judge me now.

But Tupac did read 1 Corinthians, where Paul said you should judge the people in the church.

Not those outside of the church, but those inside of the church.

So we got to take all of scripture and bring it together if we're going to do that, okay?

So so you're telling me people in the church can judge?

Listen, if you want to throw the title Christian onto your life, yes, 100%.

That's what I'm telling you.

Because that's what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5.

Don't judge people that are outside, but if you want to throw that label on your life, you are submitting your life to being judged by other people who follow Christ.

And it's scriptural.

Despite what Tupac said.

I know.

It'll be okay.

Some of you guys like, who's Tupac?

Like, I don't even know who that guy is.

It's okay.

You had to be born in the 1900s to know that one.

It's all right.

We got to understand something, man.

Jesus is not your self-help guru.

I'm gonna say it one more time.

Jesus is not a self-help guru to make you feel better about yourself or to just improve your life.

That's what we like to make Jesus about.

But that's not who Jesus is.

Jesus is the Lord and Savior of your life to surrender everything you are to Him and to follow Him.

Jesus didn't go say, go into all the world and be a Christian.

He didn't.

Jesus said, take up your cross, deny yourself, follow me.

You put whatever label you want on your life.

The bigger question I would ask you is, are you a Christian just by title, or are you a Christian because I'm following Jesus?

One is real, one is fake.

And that's what Jesus is challenging us with.

And it's the problem we live in today's world is I am concerned that so many people are following a false Jesus that's not real.

In fact, if you read on Matthew 23 and 24, one of the things Jesus said, He said, People will come in my name, proclaiming to be pointing people to Christ, but they are not with me.

He said people would show up to present a false gospel and a false version of who Jesus is.

And I'm telling you right now, the gospel in today's world that is a social justice gospel that just wants to help people without seeing them transformed is a false gospel.

It's not true.

It's a false Jesus.

Yeah, but Jesus wants us to help people 100%.

He does.

But that is a part of what it means to surrender our life to Jesus, not the part.

The affirming gospel that's out there is a false gospel.

You mean Jesus doesn't accept and affirm me?

He does you, but not all of the sin and baggage that you want to bring with you and keep in your life.

So we have to define what affirming means when we say affirming from a scriptural standpoint and not a worldly standpoint.

Jesus accepts you and he affirms you as a person made in his image.

What he does not accept and affirm are all the sins that you want to keep living in and try to put his name on your life.

And he can do both simultaneously, affirm you as a person without affirming the sin that you want to keep in your life.

He can love you enough to call those things out.

And we will too in this church.

I don't often use big words in this church because I don't like big words, but I'm going to use one big word because I think it's a thing in today's world that is creating a false gospel.

And if you were born in the late 90s or early 2000s, you're a product of this.

There's a word that theologians and smart church people will use that most people in today's world, when it comes to God, we believe in a thing.

We call it moralistic therapeutic deism.

You're like, what does that even mean?

I know.

I'm going to give you the simple sixth grade definition.

Are you ready?

So we're just going to call it MTD for now.

We're going to make it really easy, okay?

People who believe in this, believe in God in this way.

There's five things they would say.

That I believe creator God made everything and watches over all.

Most of us would say, cha-ching.

Yep, I believe that, right?

Okay, here's where we start going off.

All right.

I believe that God wants me to have moral behavior and God wants his people to be good and nice and fair.

Some of you are like, well, yeah, but I feel like it's a trick question.

I feel like I'm supposed to say no, and so I don't know what to do in this moment.

It's not true in any way, shape, or form, but there are people that would tell you right now that I believe God has just called me to adjust my behavior to follow him, because God has called me to be a moral person who's good and nice and fair.

It's not scriptural.

There's nothing about it that's true.

If you haven't figured out yet, God is not fair.

How do I know?

Because you're still alive right now.

Because if we got fair, we would all be dead because that's what we deserve.

And so when it comes to salvation, we're so thankful God's not fair.

If we want to be fair, then if one person's family has a child that dies from cancer, every person should have a child that dies from cancer.

Because if I'm gonna be fair with the good, I gotta be fair with the bad.

So we only want fair so much.

So we gotta understand God is not fair, and he's not always nice, but he's good and he's loving, and he's holy, and he's righteous at the same time.

So we gotta press against that.

Number two, that we believe that God exists for my personal happiness, that the goal of my life is to be happy and feel good about myself.

That's what moralistic therapeutic deism believes.

That I'm gonna believe in a God who makes me happy.

Again, there's nothing in Scripture where God ever says I'm concerned about your happiness.

He's concerned about your goodness.

He's concerned about what's great for you eternally, but he does not exist so that you can feel good about yourself.

And I would suggest every step you take to feel good about yourself will never be fulfilling until you can see that God has made you good.

And then when you can see that God loves you and he is good to you, you will find value in yourself once you see the value God has in you.

Fourth thing, that God is just a distant helper in my life, that he doesn't want to be involved in the everyday things that I just shout out a quick prayer when I need God's help.

Otherwise, I don't really have much to do with God the rest of the week.

I mean, nobody has to raise your hand, but if we were going to be honest as your pastor, I've had moments in my life where I've just treated God that way.

I could go a week or two, never have a conversation with him.

And then my car breaks down, and I got to take it in the shop.

It's like, oh God, help me.

That is not the way God wants us to follow him.

He's not just a distant helper that shows up when we have problems.

He wants us to walk with him and follow him every day.

Probably the the last one, the fifth one that scares me the most is that people that believe this believe good people go to heaven.

That one scares me the most as a pastor in today's world.

And so, what do we do in this moment?

I think there's four things I want to point out really quickly if you're taking notes.

God is not interested in your moral behavior, he's interested in a transform heart.

I need you to hear me.

I'm gonna say it again so we can be clear and I'm gonna explain it.

God is not interested in you adjusting your behavior so he can like you more or accept you better.

He is interested in transforming your heart because when he changes your heart, your actions always change.

So many times as Christians, we want to make a list of rules.

Right?

When I was growing up, it was, you know, boys don't go with girls who smoke and chew, right?

You know, I mean we just you guys ever met a girl that chews.

Yeah, I know.

You had to grow up in a small town for that one.

You're welcome.

Listen, we so many times what we want to do is we just want to fix behaviors in our life and think if I'll just behave the right way, then God will finally love me and bless me in my life.

That is not who God is.

God says, Come to me, surrender all those things to me, let me transform your heart, and I'll help you live in a way that you can't live on your own.

I'll say it this way Jesus is the one who cleans the fish.

Not me.

Him.

I've had people say, Man, I don't know if you should baptize that person.

You know, I I have you seen some of the things they post on Facebook and the way they live.

Like, my question is, when is they purchased a person righteous enough to be baptized then?

That's it's not my job to determine.

I have parents that come to me sometimes.

My kid wants to get baptized, can I do it?

Let me tell you, if your kid understands salvation and you, as a parent are ready for your kid to be baptized, you are the main authority in your kid's life, not mine.

It's not my job to determine if your kid is ready, it's your job.

And I will honor that.

He's trying to transform our hearts.

And the way our hearts are transformed, if you haven't figured it out yet, you gotta surrender all of your life to Jesus.

We just want to give him parts.

He wants it all.

The sooner you give him all, the sooner you see your life change.

I gotta keep rolling.

Jesus is not interested in your personal happiness, he's interested in your eternal joy.

Two very different things.

We confuse joy and happiness all the time.

Eternal joy is what Jesus is after in your life.

So why would Jesus say some things that don't feel very nice and don't make you happy?

Because he's not interested in what makes you happy, he's interested in you having eternal joy.

And so he's going to point out those things because he's trying to build something eternal.

He's fighting for something eternal, and he calls out sin because sin leads to eternal destruction.

Jesus leads to eternal joy.

So he calls these things out because that's what he's interested in your life.

Third thing.

Jesus isn't interested in you carrying the title Christian, he's interested in you following him.

I know it's a mind-blowing thing.

Jesus never said, put my title on your life.

Jesus said, follow me.

The challenge is not doing the things that make me a Christian.

The challenge is to live my life in such a way where I'm following Jesus.

That's the challenge.

That's the as your pastor, that's the thing I try to push.

Every day he's calling this out of us.

It's not a once-a-week box to check, it's an everyday walk with Jesus.

And this is the last piece we got to get.

Jesus doesn't come for good people, he comes saves dead people.

Because there, listen, what we define as good, we're measuring against the wrong stick.

We we pick good people measured against other people in our world.

The measuring stick is never somebody else in this world.

The measuring stick is always Jesus and his perfection.

And there's not one of us that live up to that level.

And so he's not coming to make bad people good, he's coming to make dead people live.

And that's why I will push against this idea of moralistic therapeutic deism: that God is not a God who's trying to make you happy and only saves good people.

He's a God who invites you to follow him in every area of his life.

I believe there are going to be some people who call themselves Christians and they're never going to walk through the gates of heaven.

Why?

Because they never really surrendered their life to following Jesus.

They believed a fake Jesus and they became fake people.

The scariest verse in the Bible to me are those that say, Lord, Lord, I did all these things in your name, and Jesus says, I never knew you.

That verse scares me more than anything in the Bible.

You mean even more than hell?

A hundred percent.

To think there are people who are going to believe in a false Jesus and believe they have it right, and Jesus is going to look at them one day and say, I never knew you.

Because he's not looking for people to behave like Christians, he's not looking for people to be good people, he's not looking for somebody to get a cross tattoo or put a gold chain on your neck and call yourself a Christian.

He's invited people to follow him, and that's the call that he's given to all of us in this place.

And so, in this moment, man, I just I want to challenge you with this one thought because there's a version of Jesus that if we're not careful, we will entertain and he will lead us astray.

Why would I have this conversation today as comfortable as it is?

It's because I love you too much, and I don't want one person when it comes to the grand scheme of eternity to ever say, Why didn't you tell me?

Because I didn't want to hurt your feelings, because it didn't seem nice.

I have to tell you, because I love you too much to not call this stuff out.

We can't believe the Jesus of this world.

We have to believe the Jesus of the Bible and the way he has called us to live, which means it will always put us in the opposite direction for the most part of the world.

I mean, Jesus said the road to him is a very narrow road.

I heard somebody say it's why I try to stay in shape because I'm afraid the gate's gonna be really narrow on that road and I might not squeeze through.

If you're like, yeah, everybody's going this way, then this should probably cause us to question whether we're heading in the right direction.

I think the question we have to consider in this moment is am I a Christian by name only?

Or have I completely surrendered my life to Jesus?

That's what Jesus is calling out in this moment.

I listen, I love that you're here.

I love that you'll buy our church merch.

I love that you'll share some scriptures and some Jesus stuff on social media.

I think all those things are great and we should do them so other people can come experience him.

Hear me.

But don't do those things to make yourself feel saved.

We do those things because we're saved.

Because I'm saved, I invite you to serve because life is bigger than me and the purpose isn't to make me happy, it's to reach other people and help them experience him and grow.

I invite you to give, not because I want your money or God wants your money, because God wants to bless you in your life.

And there's something that happens when we prioritize his kingdom in our finances, and God does amazing things.

And so are you a Christian by title only, or are you following Jesus?

Why does it matter?

Because here's the picture I think most of us have.

In this life, I think most of us picture ourselves out in the middle of an ocean and we're like doggy paddling to just stay afloat.

And we think that's that's when Jesus came in to rescue us.

Like, like I'm doing okay, I'm just trying to keep my head afloat, but I need some help.

Jesus, come get me.

The real picture, you're laying at the bottom of the ocean dead.

And if you understand the way the ocean works, there ain't anybody that can get down there and get you.

The pressure is too great.

There's not a human, there's not a machine out there that can get down there to save you.

So, what are you telling me?

I'm telling you that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection from the grave became the one thing, and he became the one person who could do what no other person could do.

And he swam to the bottom of the ocean and he picked Jason up and he put me on ground and he breathed his life into me before I could ever do anything to deserve it, before I could ever do anything to earn it, because he loves me and he's good, and there are gonna be some good people, and there are gonna be some good Christians that are not going to make it into heaven because they've never really surrendered their life to Jesus, and there's going to be a murdering drugged addict that's going to walk right by everybody through those pearly gates.

Because he's not looking for your standard or my standard, he's looking for those that have surrendered to his grace and said, I'm gonna surrender all to you and follow you.

That's the invitation, that's what Jesus is calling out in this moment.

So if we could, let's stand all across this place.

I promise.

I'm about to wind down.

You give me a week off, and this is what happens.

I'm sorry.

Maybe you're here in this place, and man, I like I am not trying to create a fear inside of you to question whether or not you're saved.

Hear my heart.

That is not what I'm doing here in this moment.

I'm trying to give you a confidence and an uncertainty of your eternal salvation in Jesus Christ because I'm not following a false Jesus, I'm following the right one.

That's my heart and prayer for you today.

And so if you are here in this place, maybe you have never really surrendered your life to Jesus before.

And maybe today is the day where you say, I'm I'm ready to surrender to Him.

If that's you and you're here today, would you just slip your hand up so that we can pray with you?

Okay.

Well then as your pastor, I'm gonna trust.

Every person in this room is gonna be with us when we get heaven.

Listen, if you're getting baptized and you haven't already, you can make your way back that way.

I'm so excited.

We're gonna celebrate baptisms here in a minute, but I'm gonna invite our prayer team to come forward.

And here would be my challenge as we get ready to go into a time of worship.

Listen, if you're here in this place, and there's just part of this message that you're wrestling with, that you're uncomfortable with, that maybe there's an area in your life that you're just struggling through and you want somebody to pray with you.

Here's what I can promise you about these people that are down front.

Here's my hope and promise for everybody in this room is that we love you, we care for you, and we don't want you to go out carrying the same weight that you brought in.

And so as we sing this song together, if you got anything at all in your life where you're like, man, I just I can really use some prayer right now.

Come down.

Find one of these guys.

They love you, they care for you, they want to pray with you, they want to encourage you, they want to help you.

As we sing, if you need prayer, come down and give them an opportunity.