The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

Today's sermon is called The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree.

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree.

Let's pray.

Father, we come into your presence and we thank you for your grace.

We thank you for your love.

We thank you for your patience with us because we fail you so often.

We sometimes just go days, weeks, years in kind of the mud where we just feel kind of stuck or we feel um unmotivated or we feel kind of despondent or hopeless.

But God, you you are not disappointed ever in those emotions when we're in that place.

You are there consistently.

You are there for everything that we need.

So as we look into your word today and we learn, God, I pray that you would comfort us and remind us that there is nothing we have to do to earn your love.

And yet your love transforms us so completely, so fully, that we can walk forward with hope and victory and everything that we need, Jesus.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Some families just have it in their DNA, right?

Uh, my favorite family in sports is the Mannings.

Right?

They're hilarious.

They have the Manning cast.

Do you watch that on Monday nights sometimes?

So funny.

And they have their dad, you know, Archie Manning, he played in the NFL.

And then Peyton and then Eli.

You know, Peyton won uh one Super Bowl with the Broncos and someone with someone else too.

Uh and then um Eli won a couple Super Bowls, but also lost a bunch of times with the Broncos.

And um yeah, Archie lost to the Broncos too.

I love the Broncos, if you didn't know.

But if you watch, you know, Archie with his kid, you you can kind of if you squint your eyes, you can kind of see the way Archie played quarterback in the way that his sons play quarterback.

It kind of you can see the resemblance.

You know, we have a we say the apple doesn't fall far far from the tree.

And so today in John chapter 5, we're gonna see that Jesus tells the religious leader something that sets them on fire with rage.

John 5 · chapter mention

Okay, and he basically says, if you want to know what my father is like, watch me.

Whatever he does, I do, the way he works, I work, the way he gives life, I give life.

The apple doesn't far fall far from the tree.

But here's the shocking part, okay?

That truth or hearing that message didn't make them worship him, it caused them to hate him.

They wanted to kill him.

Because if Jesus looks exactly like his father, then God looks nothing like their rules.

God looks nothing like their rules.

And that was something they could not accept, they couldn't receive, and so something has to be done with this preacher that they don't like.

So let's we're starting in chapter 5, verse 16, and it says, For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him because he had done these things on the Sabbath.

What things?

Well, remember, he had healed the guy who had been lame for 38 years, and he was sitting at the pool of Bethesda, and Jesus said, You want to be healed?

And the guy's like, I don't have anyone that can throw me into the pool when it is healing time, and Jesus says, It doesn't matter, be healed, right?

And he heals him, and it was on the Sabbath.

Okay, so what happens here now?

The Pharisees hear about it, the religious people hear about it, and they're trying to kill him.

So, what we're talking about a little bit more today is legalism.

So here's your legalism warning.

You will get, if you're if you're legalistic, what happens is you get so obsessed with your rules that it transforms into hate for anyone that breaks them.

So legalism always produces disdain for those people who fail.

Okay?

Where grace, here's your grace side of that.

Well, how does grace work?

Grace produces love and patience when someone doesn't measure up to the true standard of God.

Okay, so love is the response.

It doesn't ignore the failure, it addresses it, it forgives it, but then grace supplies a new source of life to live by.

So it doesn't just want to kill you, it wants to give life.

See the opposite kill versus life.

That's the difference between law and grace, or religion and Jesus.

Look at verse 17.

Jesus answered them and says, You know what?

My father has been working until now, and I have been working.

Do you remember what they were just super mad about?

That work was done on the Sabbath.

And Jesus is like, guess what?

My father has been working.

And uh a better translation from this, you can see it in other translations, is my father is always working and so am I.

It's in the perfect tense, which means my father is always working and he's never stopped, and so am I.

So what is happening is Jesus, is there chickens in here?

Are they right out there?

Okay.

I hear roosters.

No, there's not.

There's nothing.

Okay, that's someone's ringtone.

All right, what am I talking about?

Okay, these guys have been obsessed with work, they're super mad at anyone that works, and so Jesus says, you know what?

My dad works and I'm working, and this work word triggers their performance-based religion because it's the first word out of his mouth.

He's like, Yeah, I worked.

What of it?

You want to fight?

It's kind of like what he says, right?

He, you know, Jesus can trigger anyone, really.

Uh, if you stick around here enough, Jesus will trigger you.

He will come after any part of your heart that needs to be confronted.

Why?

Because he loves you and he's not gonna just leave you in whatever condition you may be in or believing any lies that you may believe.

So he'll confront you, he'll trigger you, and um, it'll make you uncomfortable.

And you'll have to come to this decision where it's like, am I right or is Jesus right?

Well, you can, when you get to that point, you can either say, Well, I'm just gonna ignore Jesus for a little while and keep doing my thing, or eventually you'll be broken by his love and his persistence, that he doesn't leave you forever.

He won't leave you.

He'll he doesn't forsake you.

He keeps coming back to you saying, Listen, I love you.

That's not what's best for you.

Let's let's move forward.

Move forward with me because I truly love you.

I truly care about what is best for you.

So Jesus says his father's work, he never stops.

That means God always breaks the Sabbath.

What's up, bro?

He's always breaking the Sabbath, according to these Pharisees.

Um that means they must misunderstand the Sabbath.

If God is always breaking their rule, then they must have their rule is messed up.

Uh, but that's impossible for them because this rule is the biggest source of their pride.

So it messes up their entire religious structure because it's all built on the fact that we are the only people in the world, the only people in the entire planet that are keeping God's Sabbath.

That was the Jews' claim to fame.

The reason why God will protect us and eventually overthrow Rome and do whatever we ask of him is because we follow his rule, especially this rule.

We don't pick anything up on the Sabbath.

We don't, and so when Jesus says, you know what, that's not God, you don't even know God, and he's my dad, and you don't know me, he's confronting some.

He is, it's like a house of cards that he just knocks over and it just comes crashing down.

So, how will they respond?

With humility and brokenness, God help me to know you, Jesus, or with pride.

Obviously.

Because God is working and we are supposed to rest in him.

God is working, and we are supposed to rest in him.

We can get so stressed about the mission, about the work of building God's kingdom that we forget that he doesn't need us to do anything, he can do more in one second than we could accomplish in a billion years of trying and working and effort and programs and planning and sacrifice.

God could do more.

So, why do we do those things?

Well, we supply nothing.

Our father wants to deeply involve us in his work, though.

Because why?

Because we're his children and he loves us and he invites us to be a part of his mission.

So there's mission work going on all around the world.

You know, we support mission work in Nepal and Guatemala and India and Pakistan.

There's mission work going on in our state, in our neighborhood here.

There's mission work going on in our families.

This is all part of God's kingdom.

He is reaching lostness.

That's how that's the only way we can measure how great of a church we are or bad of a church we are.

How much do we impact lostness in our world?

That's the only way.

You cannot measure a church by how big they are or how many dogs they have.

What's up, dude?

Alright, go later.

Those are not the measure of a church.

You don't measure a church by how much money they have, you measure a church by how much lostness is impacted, how much darkness is defeated, and whether that's in your own private world or your family or your community or your larger community or the world, God can work in all those areas, but that's the measure of a church.

So God says he's working in all those areas and he's inviting us to participate.

Jesus says, I'm also working.

Jesus will always, he's like the link between God working and us resting, but also working for God.

Jesus is in the middle there.

And what he does in his work is he takes God's resources, we call them grace, and he delivers them into us so that when we live, it's God's grace that's empowering us to do everything that we do.

God does not want to give you one job.

Your job is to go to Africa and tell the people about me.

He does not give you one job like that.

That's not the way God works.

Some people have a specific calling, but that calling is laid on top of something much, much deeper.

God's main job for all of us, our one calling is to be intimate with your father, is to have a relationship of humble dependence with your father.

Where he works, you wait and rest, and then the life of Jesus indwells you and causes everything you do to be done by his spirit with his heart, with his energy, with his life, with his love.

And that is our all of our calling.

If you're a believer, that is your calling.

Connect with your father through Jesus and live your life because he is living it through you.

So Jesus says, My father's working, I've been working, verse 18.

Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but he also said God was his father, making himself equal with God.

So the Jews, the religious leaders, they respond with pride, which makes them hate God's plan, God's messenger, God's will.

They hate everything about this because it's contrary to their heart, which is full of pride.

Their heart is full of pride, so they can't even see how God's work or who God even is.

But now we get to the real deep issue.

Jesus claims to have the same power and authority and heart as God the Father, which means he is God.

Jesus is God.

Say for the people in the back, Jesus is God.

It's very clear in Scripture.

And they could not accept this because they could not fathom a world in which God would not help a slob next to a pool first and not come to them first as the leaders, as the real good Sabbath keepers.

God would come and reveal himself to us first.

So you're not God because you went to him first and he's a slob and he doesn't do anything right.

He's just a mess.

We are the religious people.

God would, and they can't accept that Jesus would come to him first and not them first.

Because they were obviously better and more worthy.

They tried their best to keep the law and they looked down on everyone else for not being as holy as they were.

And so some people in our world today, they're called higher critics of the Bible or uh, you know, modern skepticism.

They'll say, Jesus never claimed to be God.

Have you ever heard this?

Maybe you're scrolling your reels and someone says Jesus didn't ever claim to be God.

Well, that's stupid.

That's all I'm gonna say about that.

Um it's completely wrong.

It's completely false.

And he many, many times made himself totally equal with God to the point where all the Jews are like, We're gonna kill you because you're saying that you're God, because they knew what he was saying.

We can clearly see what he was saying.

He's saying, I am God.

I am God.

All right, verse 19.

Jesus answered and said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do.

For whatever he does, the Son also does in like manner.

The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

Verse 20, for the Father loves the Son and shows him all things that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these that you may marvel.

So in these two verses, verses 19 and 20, Jesus is not saying that he lacks some divine power or he's inferior to the Father.

He's actually not describing a difference in power or difference in authority.

He's describing a perfect unity that he has with his father.

They play different roles, one is a father, one is a son.

One is not better than the other or more powerful than the other.

They're both equal members of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, right?

So he's describing this perfect unity.

The Son does nothing independently or in opposition to his father, is what he's describing.

He's describing the life, the relationship that he has with his father.

They share one divine life, they share one purpose, they share one work, that they both have a role in doing that work.

The father sends, the sp the son accomplishes.

It's amazing.

So this is not weakness, what Jesus is describing.

He's not saying I have to do what my father does.

It is unity.

It says Jesus sees what his father does.

Well, how does he do that?

He does the same thing that his father does because he sees him.

He shares the same divine authority.

It says he can do nothing of himself because he is one life with God, and Jesus sees what the father is doing because his eyes are on him.

That's what it means.

What is Jesus looking at?

His father.

Why?

Because it's teaching you how to be a follower of God also.

Keep your eyes on your father.

You can have union with your father the exact same way.

Jesus is coming to bring the same relationship.

And so Jesus sees his father, he sees his father, loves him, and he loves him back.

And so we have this committed relationship based on love.

So Jesus' part of that is humble dependence.

I want my father's will to be done.

And God's role in it is faithfulness.

He will always be faithful to his son.

The father loves the son, he says.

This is not like a master and a slave.

If you were at our study on Wednesday morning, we talked all about the difference between a master and a slave and a son and a father.

There's a big difference.

It's completely opposite.

A master and a slave is united by contract, and they have to work for what they get, wages.

Where a son and a father are united by love and honor and relationship.

It's completely different.

So it says the father loves the son.

That word loves is in the continual tense in Greek.

That means the father has a continual, habitual love that never ceases for his son.

And then Jesus comes on the scene and he tells everyone, he looks you in the eye, and he says, the same way my father loves me, I have loved you.

We, my father, and I both love you the exact same way, with the same life that we share, you get it too.

And that's such a beautiful part of the gospel.

Okay, so my second favorite commercials on TV are the Dr.

Rick uh progressive insurance commercials where the new homeowners are becoming their parents.

Because I I'm at that younger side of that, right?

And I'm just starting to wear the new balance, you know, sneakers.

And, you know, so I I find both sides absolutely hilarious because my kids are not like me and I'm not like my parents.

There's like three generations that I can see.

Um, and so you have Dr.

Rick who's helping people, you know, from turning into their parents.

Uh things like narrating their own actions, you know, while they're doing things, talking about what they're doing, or clapping their hands when an airplane lands.

Yay! Captain did a great job.

Making awkward small talk with strangers at the gas station, you know, pump talk.

Anyone do that?

My wife hates when I start random conversations in random places.

But I guess I'm becoming that, right?

Or my favorite one is the throw pillows on the couch.

So there's just a bunch of throw pillows, and Dr.

Rick keeps taking the pillows off so people can sit down and they keep putting them back on the couch.

I love that one.

It's funny.

Um, giving unsolicited driving advice to your Uber driver.

Like, oh, I think if we take this, you know.

I love that.

Well, those are kind of the silly version.

Jesus is the good version, right?

Jesus is actually like his dad in a good way.

Jesus claims.

Now we're gonna see he claims two things in these next verses that only him and his father have.

And so that's what we're gonna look at now.

Um, they that it makes them uniquely.

God.

Okay.

So Jesus is not merely a messenger announcing God's decisions.

We're going to see that he is the Son who is God, the divine Son, who gives spiritual life.

So that's one of his talents, his abilities, is he can give spiritual life.

And he has the authority to judge all of humanity.

He will be the judge of all people in the world.

So let's see that in verse 21.

For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom he will.

Remember, this is like two years before Jesus dies and rises from the dead.

But here Jesus is already talking about resurrection.

So think about resurrection.

That is the only rule no one can break in this world.

Every single human who's ever born, guess what?

Died.

Or is going to die.

Except Enoch.

And who's the other guy in the Bible?

Elijah.

Right?

Elijah and Enoch, two guys.

But I think they're going to come back, so we'll see about that in the book of Revelation.

Anyway, it's the one rule: no matter how hard you try or what medicines you take, you will die.

Every single human being dies.

And so, but he says here, God can do anything.

So that's the one rule.

God's like showing off, like, how do you like them apples?

I'm gonna raise the dead.

And God does it all the time.

Just so you know that he's better than you, and that he has the power and the authority to raise the dead.

So it's like Jesus loves giving spiritual life.

It's never earned.

And so Jesus is referring in one sense to his own physical resurrection that he's gonna experience for us.

So he knows that he's gonna die and he's gonna trust in his father, that his father will give him Jesus, a new physical life, that he will raise him from the dead three days later.

And so that is resurrection life.

But that same resurrection life that raised Jesus from the dead, Jesus says he's gonna turn around and he's gonna look at you and he's gonna say, Here, I want to give you that same life for you to have a heavenly experience, a new life experience today.

So you don't have to die and rise physically.

You can just experience my resurrection life today in your life spiritually.

His death, when he died, it forgives us and makes us holy.

We can all understand that.

That's the easy part.

But his resurrection brings a joyful, connected experience between us and God.

That's his resurrection.

And that's what's so incredible about this gospel story is the death means something to me, but the life means something that I can so easily miss out on.

And I know many, many, many Christians who have gone years only understanding what the death of Jesus did for them, which is great.

It's great that my sin was forgiven and that I was washed clean and I was made holy, and we should all be happy about that.

But then I'm still a jerk, or I'm still struggling with every sin, or I'm still struggling with this, that, or the other.

I'm not living the resurrection life.

How is that supposed to happen?

Well, Jesus says, I can give it to you.

In fact, I've I've given it to you.

I share my resurrection life with you.

That's the joyful, connected experience that God has given to each and every one of you.

Every single one of us has the exact same grace, the exact same gift that you can live with your Father, a joyful, connected experience.

Well, what if I screw up or what if I'm living in a sin that I know I shouldn't be doing?

Do I ruin that for myself?

No.

God says he's not gonna abandon you, he's not gonna.

Now, you won't be able to rejoice in it as much because you know you're not walking in what God has made you if you're choosing a sinful life.

But God's not abandoning you, God's not upset with you, he's simply saying, Come back to me.

So Jesus shares his own life in the same way that he shares a life with his father.

That's what he's talking about here.

So, how can we experience the resurrection in our own life every day?

How do we do that?

I'm gonna read to you in 2 Corinthians chapter 1.

2 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

Um, Paul is talking to his Corinthian friends, and he says this I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, um, of our trouble which came to us in Asia.

So Paul's saying, Hey guys, I'm gonna tell you right at the beginning of this letter, chapter one, why you should listen to me and why I'm gonna show you how this whole gospel thing works.

When I was in Asia, something happened to him, and guess what?

We're not gonna find out what happened to him.

Paul never tells us the secret of what actually happened to him, and he does that for a reason, because he doesn't want you to focus on him and his experience.

He wants you to apply this to your life and the horrible, terrible, terrible, very bad things that happen in your life.

So he says this I don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, of the trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life.

Okay, so pause right there.

Does this sound familiar to you in your life?

Have you ever been burdened?

Like, oh, this is so heavy what I'm going through.

I'm sure you could say yes.

And I'm sure if if someone adds asked to measure how heavy is this burden, you would say, beyond measure, just like Paul.

And that's why Paul didn't tell you what was going on in his life.

He wants you to apply this to your life.

He's like, I know you have been gone through this.

I know you go through something where you're burdened beyond measure.

Man, if there was a measuring tape, no one could measure how painful this is, how heavy this is, how difficult this is.

I have I'm going through the mud here, guys.

He says, I know.

Then look, above strength.

That means no matter how hard Paul tried or worked out or did his best, he couldn't fix this situation.

It was the end.

It was above strength.

There is no muscles that could get you through this.

There is no trick to getting out of it, there's no escape, there is nothing.

You cannot get out of this with strength.

Then he says, so that we despaired even of life.

Have you ever had that thought?

You know, it'd be a lot easier to just die.

Yeah.

We've had we've been there.

Many, many, many of us have been there where we said it would be I despaired of life.

And guess what?

Paul says whatever happened to him in Asia, I don't know, maybe samurais were attacking him.

It wasn't that Asia, but that was a joke.

Whatever happened to him, he wanted to die.

It was so bad, he's like, I wish I could just die.

Now look at verse 9.

It says, Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, so that that, so this is the reason why all these bad things happened.

Have you ever had someone say, Why, if there's a God, why do bad things happen?

Guess what?

The Bible literally tells us right here.

Paul teaches us this is why.

Why do difficult things happen?

Why do painful things happen?

Why do things who are so bad that I want to die, why do these things happen?

That we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.

It is that clear.

God says all the difficulties we experience, all the pain, so that we can learn that your father loves you, he will not abandon you, he will fix the pain, he will fix the problem, he will take care of it at the right time.

And that fix is called resurrection life, and you can have all the joy and all the peace and all the comfort of the resurrection, you can have that now while you're waiting for the physical deliverance to happen, for the physical healing to happen, which may not happen in this lifetime, but that doesn't mean his love was any less powerful for you, because you we all have all the same access that Jesus did to the loving relationship with his father.

The comfort that your father saying, I love you and I'm here for you, and I'm not gonna ever leave you, I'm not gonna forsake you, and I've washed you clean, and I share my life with you.

All of that belongs to every single one of you, every single one of us.

Amen.

I like that.

John 5 22 says, For the Father judges no one but has committed all judgment to the Son.

So we see that we share his life, he wants to share his resurrection life.

Now Jesus says the second thing that's really unique about me and my father, and that's my job, is that I am gonna judge every single human being.

So Jesus claims that he decides who gets life.

He says, anyone who calls upon me will get life.

All who put their hope and trust in me will be forgiven and be saved.

He says, I am so incredibly loving, I will forgive anyone who calls upon me.

But also, I need you to know I will always do what's right.

I will always do what's right.

I will do the just thing, I will always do the just thing.

Well, what about kids that die?

Kids that get cancer and die.

What about pain?

What about suffering and the problem of evil in the world?

What about when God feels hidden and I feel like I can't see him, I can't hear him?

What about hell?

Is hell real?

Is it is it a how can a loving God send people to hell?

These are real questions.

And Jesus says, I'm telling you one thing that is your answer to all of them.

I am the judge, and I love you, and I will always do what's right.

So he doesn't have to answer every single question.

He says, That book would be too big, that book would be too long, and just knowing the answer to the question of why doesn't really do anything to your heart.

You may know why, but I'm gonna give you the thing that fixes everything I love you, and I will do what I will do, and you will see that in the end it was the right thing.

I promise you.

I will always do the right thing.

He may not answer every question in this life, but he will always do what's right, he will always do what's perfect.

Back to our text in John 5 23, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father.

He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

Because Jesus always does what's right, he deserves all the glory.

It says the son is to receive the same honor given to the father, and that it would be blasphemous if Jesus was merely a created being, because Jesus is fully divine.

So to reject Jesus is to reject God who sent him.

And yes, Jesus will judge all men.

What does that mean that Jesus will judge all people?

Well, first it means he will judge believers and unbelievers, both groups of people.

That's you can divide the world into two groups, believers in Jesus and unbelievers.

So, first let's talk about us, the believers.

How is Jesus gonna judge us?

Well, in the Bible, in the book of Revelation, there's something called the Bima seat.

So it's a seat, and bima means in the Olympics, when people are on their pillar and they get a reward.

Used to be a crown, now it's a medal.

That's a bima or a reward seat.

So all Christians, all believers, will be judged by the works, the life that we lived, for a reward.

Okay?

Well, what about every person has to be judged for our works too, our bad works.

So what about you and me?

When does your bad works get judged?

Your bad works also get judged, but that already happened for us.

Our bad works were judged on the cross 2,000 years ago.

So all our bad works are gathered up, put in Jesus, nailed to the cross with Jesus, and Jesus took care of them and God judged them there.

What about the good work?

What about the bad things I haven't done yet that I'm gonna do tomorrow?

They're still there.

They're already there, you're already forgiven.

If you're in Christ, your judgment for your bad deeds is already done.

But your good deeds, you can live this life in a good way, in a selfless way, building God's kingdom, or you can be a waste of time, according to God's kingdom and economy.

Which one are you gonna do?

Does it matter if I'm smart or rich or talented?

No, Jesus tells us all kinds of stories that it doesn't matter what kind what uh gifts you have, it just matters whether you are gonna trust God in the moments that you get, whether you're going to care about other people, be generous, give to their what's best for them with the same heart that Jesus has, Jesus has for them.

Okay, your lives matter is what this means.

And Jesus will judge us in that way.

Now, that judgment has nothing to do with salvation, like we said, because we are eternally secure in Jesus.

It's at the Bima seat, no one, Jesus is not bringing up all the bad things you did in life.

Guess what?

All the bad things you did in life are not brought up in heaven.

We don't sit there and watch the 35 millimeter videotape of your life, and everyone be like, ooh, look at all the bad stuff they did.

No, that stuff is washed away by the blood of Jesus.

Never, we don't dwell on it anymore.

And Jesus is glorified by that in some way.

But we do watch our life, and God says, look at this wonderful thing you did.

Here's a reward for you.

Here's a reward for you.

What are those rewards?

I don't know.

Don't ask me.

I'm not the giver of it.

But it's there, it's real.

I don't know what it is.

Okay, now the last, the group of people that we haven't talked about yet, unbelievers.

What happens at their judgment?

Yes, Jesus will judge every single human being that's ever been born.

And the other judgment is called the Great White Throne Judgment from Revelation chapter 20.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

And what we see there is Jesus is on his great white throne, and everyone who did not believe in him, their lives are judged.

Everything they've ever done is put on display, and every single person who is judged at the great white throne is cast into the lake of fire or the bottomless pit, one of the two.

And that is their final place.

And there is a difference in the amount of suffering based on what bad things were done by the person.

How is it decided?

Jesus knows, Jesus does the right thing.

It is that is Jesus' job.

Someone has to judge, and that is Jesus.

Notably, all the people who are at the white throne are thrown into the lake of fire because their names are not written in the book of life of people who believed in Jesus.

Because why?

Simply they rejected the free gift of salvation that Jesus offered during this life.

All people everywhere are invited to just receive the free gift of forgiveness through Jesus.

And he knows every single person who in their heart says, Yes, I want that, I receive it.

And it's just so sad that for the majority of most Christians' lives, we don't tell anybody.

We live our lives just with our own mission.

But I'm praying that we get a revival happening starting in this bar worshiping to you two.

Every one of you in this room, that we would share it with everyone that we have an opportunity to speak to.

Because it's that real.

So I want to go back to the Mannings for just one second.

Peyton and Eli didn't become great quarterbacks by memorizing the rule book or the playbook.

They grew up in Archie's house, right?

They watched him.

They were around him.

He rubbed off on them.

They looked at their father because they were close to their father and they were loved by their father.

And that's exactly what Jesus describes when he says the Son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father do.

Jesus' eyes were on his father, not out of pressure, but everything was built on love.

He was loved by his father, and so he's like, give me more.

I want to know you.

The father loves the son.

Now here's the good news of the new covenant.

Jesus didn't come just to show us what his father looks like.

He came to bring us into that family.

When I was describing how much Jesus was loved by his father, was there any part of you that yearned for that type of love from your father?

Jesus says I know.

And I'm here to give it to you.

You are loved.

The religious leaders in this chapter were working so hard to look holy.

They kept all the rules, they guarded the Sabbath, and they ended up looking nothing like God, and they even wanted to kill God.

But grace works the opposite way.

You don't become like Jesus by working harder, you become like Jesus by receiving his life and keeping your eyes on him.

It says, we're transformed from glory to glory as we behold his glory.

That's at the end of 2 Corinthians.

We are conformed into the image of the Son because He was the firstborn amongst many brothers, Romans 8 says.

So that's crazy.

Jesus says, I'm gonna make you like me in all the good ways.

So think about it.

The same resurrection that raised Jesus from the dead, and the same life he shares with his father, he shares it with you.

You're not an employee on the job site trying to earn a paycheck.

You're a son, you're a daughter, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Some of you come in today tired, and you've been working for God instead of resting in him.

Stop.

Your father is always working, so just look to him.

He is always willing to give you what you're trying so hard to get.

Some of you come in carrying failure, and you've been afraid of judgment.

Hear this.

The one that the Father appointed as judge is the same one who died for you.

And he's the only judge you ever want.

And he gives life to all who call upon him.

So don't run away from Jesus if you're sinning.

Run to him.

And some of you maybe never have come home to your Father.

And Jesus said, look at me.

And you'll see him come to me, and you'll have life.

So maybe we all run to Jesus with every fiber of our being.

Amen.

Jesus, we worship you.

We trust you.

Your word is a light to our feet.

And a lamp to our path.

And our hearts are humbled as we see how incredibly you have received us.

And you have chosen us.

And we are beloved by you.

Jesus, we stand in awe and we receive your grace.

And I pray that our life would be marked by bold proclamation of your love.

And that we would say, I am like my Father in heaven.

I love you as as God has loved me.

I pray that that would be how we live this life.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

The sun comes up to New Jay John.

It's time to sing your song again.

Whatever may pass, whatever lies before me.

Then maybe singing with me in another.

Oh my soul.

Worship is all before all my soul.

Your name is great, and your heart is kind.

For all your goodness I will keep on singing.

Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.

Oh my soul.

Oh my song, my version, your gold.

My strength is faint.

Still my soul was in your brains unending ten thousand years in the forever.

Oh my song.

Oh my song.

Oh my song.

See thy never before.

Oh my soul.

We have someone.

May you find life in his word and in his promises this week.

May God bless you.

Bless you.