Speaker 1: Luke, chapter 18 this morning.
Speaker 1: Luke, chapter 18.
Speaker 1: We're actually finishing up a mini series today entitled Transferring Trust, and this is a series about finances.
Speaker 1: And, guys, I gotta be honest, the rare times that we talk about finances here it's really hard for me.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you why in a really simple, straightforward way.
Speaker 1: I want you to like me and I want you to come back.
Speaker 1: And pastors don't win any popularity contest when they talk about this stuff.
Speaker 1: They just don't.
Speaker 1: But this is what I've learned.
Speaker 1: When you look at the scripture and if my role as a pastor is to teach scripture in a clear and understandable way, I have to do that, whether people will like me or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just do.
Speaker 1: And when you study what the scripture says about finances, it's pretty mind blowing In fact.
Speaker 1: Let me throw y'all a number.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll throw a number out to you guys 2000.
Speaker 1: 2000.
Speaker 1: That's the number of Bible passages that talk about finances.
Speaker 1: Jesus would tell these stories in they're called parables.
Speaker 1: He told 38 of them.
Speaker 1: 16 of them included finances.
Speaker 1: 25% of all of Jesus' teachings.
Speaker 1: They dealt with possessions in some way shape or form.
Speaker 1: The New Testament it talks more about finances than heaven and hell combined.
Speaker 1: But the biggest thing for me, the biggest stat for me that, honestly, is hard for me to believe, is that there are five times more verses on finances than prayer.
Speaker 1: Five times Am I the only one?
Speaker 1: That's like what.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: I would think that there would be way more verses on prayer than to finances.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Well, according to Jesus, it might be because the way we handle and steward our resources is deeply spiritual.
Speaker 1: According to him, it's not about money at all.
Speaker 1: It's about our hearts and it's about trust.
Speaker 1: Now, I don't know if you guys have ever heard a well-intentioned but misguided person say something like money is evil, money is bad.
Speaker 1: You ever heard somebody say that?
Speaker 1: Right, right, it's like the Bible says that money is evil.
Speaker 1: But you know what they actually misquote that verse.
Speaker 1: Does anyone know what that verse actually says?
Speaker 1: The love of money is.
Speaker 1: The love of money is the root of all evil.
Speaker 1: 1 Timothy 6.
Speaker 1: So, in other words, it's not money itself, it's our relationship with money that can kind of get out of whack a little bit, and when that happens, bad things happen.
Speaker 1: We can say this way Money is a great servant but a terrible master.
Speaker 1: It's a great servant but it is a terrible master.
Speaker 1: In fact.
Speaker 1: I want to show you guys a picture of somebody that really embodied this.
Speaker 1: Does anybody know who this is on the screen?
Speaker 1: Anybody know who this guy is?
Speaker 1: Anybody want to take a guess?
Speaker 1: Andrew Carnegie, that's right.
Speaker 1: Somebody all thought that was my grandpa.
Speaker 1: No, that was not my grandpa.
Speaker 1: Andrew Carnegie, anybody know what he's known for?
Speaker 1: Steel.
Speaker 1: That's right, he's known for steel.
Speaker 1: And Andrew Carnegie, at the age of 33 years old, was the richest man in all of America at 33.
Speaker 1: He would be equivalent his worth would be equivalent to billions and billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: When he was 33, he wrote something in his journal that people look back and read about, something that I think is really fascinating.
Speaker 1: He was 33, he wrote in his journal that he didn't want to earn more than $50,000 a year for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: He only wanted to earn $50,000 a year for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: Now this guy was equivalent to a billionaire today.
Speaker 1: Now he says some really interesting things that I want you to see, but you got to kind of lean in a little bit and focus, because this is from like the 1800s, so his words are really flowery and kind of not in our modern day vernacular.
Speaker 1: But look what he said about this.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: He says beyond this, $50,000, never earn.
Speaker 1: Make no effort to increase fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent purposes.
Speaker 1: Cast aside business except for others.
Speaker 1: Take part in public matters, especially those connected with education and improvement of poor classes.
Speaker 1: Man must have an idol.
Speaker 1: The amassing of wealth is one of the worst species in the world.
Speaker 1: No idol is more debasing than the worship of money.
Speaker 1: I must be careful to choose the life that will be the most elevating in my character, to continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts.
Speaker 1: What we're just thoughts on, wholly upon the way to get to make more money is the shortest in the shortest time must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery.
Speaker 1: I will resign business at 35, but during the ensuing two years I wish to spend the afternoons in securing instruction and reading systematically.
Speaker 1: Andrew Carnegie says I've spent so much of my life trying to accrue wealth and get more and more.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing it anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm only going to live off of $50,000 a year.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give all the rest away.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be benevolent and we're like oh man, that's such a great guy, but you know what's crazy?
Speaker 1: He didn't do it.
Speaker 1: He literally spent the rest of his life trying to get more money and get richer and richer and richer.
Speaker 1: Now what we can do is we can look at Andrew Carnegie and we could say that old greedy white guy he's the problem.
Speaker 1: But can I humbly say that it is completely possible that, though we may never have resources like that, we can have a similar unhealthy relationship with money, but at a much smaller scale.
Speaker 1: It is possible that we have a similar unhealthy relationship at a much smaller scale, but if you can have a right relationship with money, it can actually be an incredible tool for you.
Speaker 1: But, believe it or not, you may not believe this, but having a right relationship with money actually begins with having a right relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 1: And this actually takes us to Luke, chapter 18, where we see a young man had some power, had some authority, had a pretty full bank account.
Speaker 1: He had an unhealthy relationship with money and Jesus offered him something more than he could ever imagine.
Speaker 1: But this man had to be willing to surrender some things to Jesus and we're going to see if it happened or not In Luke, chapter 18, verse number 18,.
Speaker 1: If you are ready for the word would you say amen, amen, a ruler.
Speaker 1: We know, based on other other passages, that this is a.
Speaker 1: He's rich, he's young.
Speaker 1: He asked him him is Jesus Good teacher?
Speaker 1: What must I do to inherit eternal life?
Speaker 1: Now we know the answer.
Speaker 1: Remember John 3 16.
Speaker 1: Jesus says whoever believes in me, whoever trusted me, will not perish but have eternal life.
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 1: It's not by obeying all this stuff, it's not by doing all this, it's just, it's by simple belief.
Speaker 1: But Jesus is going to do something really interesting here.
Speaker 1: He's not going to go to belief, he's going to go to the thing in this man's heart that's standing in the way of belief.
Speaker 1: He's going to go to the very thing that is preventing him from following Jesus.
Speaker 1: He says in verse 19,.
Speaker 1: Jesus says why do you call me good?
Speaker 1: No one is good except God alone.
Speaker 1: Now this statement has troubled some people before because they say hey, man, it sounds like Jesus is saying he's not God.
Speaker 1: Now, if you look at all the New Testament, you get all the passages.
Speaker 1: There are times after times.
Speaker 1: At the time again, jesus shows himself to be God.
Speaker 1: But what Jesus and what Jesus is trying to do here is he's trying to challenge this guy's very superficial, low view of goodness on what is actually good.
Speaker 1: Like this young man had this opinion of like I'm a good guy, you're a good guy, she's a good guy.
Speaker 1: Like we're all good.
Speaker 1: And Jesus is about to try to show him that we're really not all good, like people are not good.
Speaker 1: In fact, this is how he does it in verse number 20.
Speaker 1: It's pretty fascinating, he says Jesus says you know the commands Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother.
Speaker 1: Now you guys know where are these from.
Speaker 1: You guys know Ten Commandments, okay, ten Commandments, in Exodus, chapter 20.
Speaker 1: The Ten Commandments are God's universal standard for righteousness and Jesus names a few of them.
Speaker 1: And what Jesus is basically asking this guy is hey man, how you doing with those?
Speaker 1: I never remember.
Speaker 1: Remember, remember, remember.
Speaker 1: According to Jesus, if you lust after somebody in your mind, you've committed adultery.
Speaker 1: If you have hate in your heart towards somebody, it's like murder, bearing false witness.
Speaker 1: That's lying and it's interesting.
Speaker 1: This is what James says later on the New Testament.
Speaker 1: He says if you've broken one command, you've broken all the commands.
Speaker 1: If you've broken one, you've broken all of them.
Speaker 1: This is why Paul writes in Romans that there's none righteous no, not one.
Speaker 1: In other words, before God, all of us are guilty, we're all guilty.
Speaker 1: And in 1 John, john writes if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.
Speaker 1: And the truth is not in us.
Speaker 1: And whenever we think that we're righteous and we're this and we're that, it's always in comparison to somebody that's less righteous than we are in our eyes.
Speaker 1: It's never a comparison to God's standard, to 10 commandments, and God did not give us the 10 commandments to measure our righteousness Like, oh, I'm really good about this.
Speaker 1: God gave us the 10 commandments to reveal our unrighteousness and show us how much we need Jesus.
Speaker 1: That's the purpose of the Ten Commandments.
Speaker 1: Jesus says hey, how are you doing with these commands?
Speaker 1: Now, the obvious answer is going to be like I'm not doing very good, right?
Speaker 1: I messed up on that one.
Speaker 1: I've committed adultery.
Speaker 1: I've been blessed quite a few times in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: I lied.
Speaker 1: That's what you would think.
Speaker 1: You would think he would be open and self-aware when he's talking to Jesus.
Speaker 1: You would think that, right?
Speaker 1: No, look what this young man says in verse 22.
Speaker 1: You ready?
Speaker 1: I've kept all these From my youth.
Speaker 1: Hmm, now, sometimes when I read scripture I ask myself questions about the passage.
Speaker 1: I imagine myself if I was sitting on a rock looking at this interaction and I was reading that this week and I just had this weird thought.
Speaker 1: I was like it's a good thing this dude's mom wasn't there.
Speaker 1: You kept all the commands.
Speaker 1: Really, remember that time?
Speaker 1: You remember that time when you told me that your room was clean so you could go hang out with your friend group?
Speaker 1: And you left and I checked your room and let me tell you, you just threw everything under the bed.
Speaker 1: Honor your father and your mother.
Speaker 1: It seems like every time I tell you to do anything, you have a little and yeah, that's you.
Speaker 1: This guy says that I'm all good, we need a mom.
Speaker 1: Check that one, because we know he ain't good.
Speaker 1: This is what Jesus does.
Speaker 1: He goes right for the jugular and the dexperse.
Speaker 1: He goes right for this dude's heart.
Speaker 1: This guy's got money.
Speaker 1: So this is what Jesus says.
Speaker 1: When Jesus heard this, what do you think was going through the mind of Jesus when he heard this man say I've kept all the commands, even though Jesus knew that he didn't keep all the commands?
Speaker 1: Do you think Jesus was internally rolling his eyes.
Speaker 1: What do you think was going through the mind?
Speaker 1: What's Jesus saying?
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to show you this thing in your heart.
Speaker 1: I know this is what Jesus said and went right to his heart and pierced him like a dagger.
Speaker 1: Okay, you still lack one thing Sell all you have.
Speaker 1: Distribute it to the poor.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to sell it and invest it so you can make more money.
Speaker 1: This is not a money-making operation.
Speaker 1: This is not a let's advance your 401k.
Speaker 1: This is not a let's add to your net worth.
Speaker 1: This is not a let's go get some new bends, let's go get the new Tesla.
Speaker 1: Listen, I want you to sell it and I want you to distribute it to the poor.
Speaker 1: Oh, give it away and you will have treasure in heaven and you will have to come follow after me.
Speaker 1: You see, his riches were in the way of him following Jesus.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 1: It was the money.
Speaker 1: It was in the way of him following Jesus.
Speaker 1: And can I humbly submit that for some of us it's money, but for some of us it's not, but a lot of us, there's some things in the way of us wholeheartedly following Jesus, and what Jesus is going to do is Jesus gets to that point he gets personal with us and some of us respond and have responded in a similar way that this man responded in verse 23.
Speaker 1: After he heard this, he became extremely sad because he was very rich, and we know from other passages what this man ended up doing he walked away, deuses Jesus.
Speaker 1: He just can't do it.
Speaker 1: And you know why?
Speaker 1: Because, number one, he had a misunderstanding of Christianity.
Speaker 1: This guy had a misunderstanding of Christianity.
Speaker 1: He didn't understand it.
Speaker 1: And I say it's really easy for us to misunderstand Christianity because we can just see religion and religion masquerades itself as Christianity when it's not.
Speaker 1: This man thought I just need to do something.
Speaker 1: Just tell me what I need to do.
Speaker 1: He looked at Christianity just like typical religion.
Speaker 1: Let me add this to my life as long as everything else, I mean Jesus.
Speaker 1: What can I do to have eternal life?
Speaker 1: What do I need to do?
Speaker 1: Because I really want fire insurance from hell.
Speaker 1: I know that's not a regular place.
Speaker 1: So what do I need to do?
Speaker 1: Like, give me one thing to do so I can add this to my current operating system of life.
Speaker 1: Let me put this in modern day vernacular.
Speaker 1: He wanted to add the app of Christianity into his current life operating system.
Speaker 1: That's what he wanted.
Speaker 1: You want to add the app of Christianity.
Speaker 1: Now, we all have apps on our phones, don't we?
Speaker 1: We have different apps on our phone.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 1: I have several different apps.
Speaker 1: In fact, are any of you guys like me?
Speaker 1: And I have way more apps than I even use, like sometimes?
Speaker 1: I'll go through and I'm like I didn't even realize I had that app.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I downloaded it three years ago, used it one time and forgot about it, right, I got all these different apps on my phone.
Speaker 1: I have a Nike Run Club app.
Speaker 1: I don't ever use this running app.
Speaker 1: I have a.
Speaker 1: What do I got on here.
Speaker 1: I got a John Maxwell leadership app on here.
Speaker 1: I got a workout app.
Speaker 1: I got a Facebook app.
Speaker 1: You guys got Facebook app right.
Speaker 1: Okay, I got Instagram, the Instagram app.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm on Facebook and Instagram way more than I want to admit.
Speaker 1: I got a mail app.
Speaker 1: I use that a lot.
Speaker 1: I use my Google Calendar a lot.
Speaker 1: In fact, what are some apps that you guys use?
Speaker 1: We're in a church service, just remember.
Speaker 1: Okay, what are some of your favorite apps?
Speaker 1: Some apps that you guys use regularly Daily Bible version right, bible version.
Speaker 1: I have a Bible app too.
Speaker 1: I love the Bible app.
Speaker 1: Bible versus day what do you got back there?
Speaker 1: Is there a shell?
Speaker 1: Apple Health app?
Speaker 1: Apple Health app Okay, anybody use the Apple Health app.
Speaker 1: Any of you guys use that one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, encounter, encounter okay, what's that an app?
Speaker 1: What's that about?
Speaker 1: It's like everybody here is so spiritual.
Speaker 1: My goodness, it's almost like yelling in church.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's pretend we're not in church, guys.
Speaker 1: Okay, I saw your hand.
Speaker 1: What's the app?
Speaker 1: That's my boy.
Speaker 1: I was on ESPN yesterday.
Speaker 1: I had to check on the college football scores.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go right, espn, anybody else?
Speaker 1: Bank apps Bank apps dude, I use BankTube.
Speaker 1: Youtube.
Speaker 1: I heard YouTube somewhere over here.
Speaker 1: Amazon, oh, my goodness, y'all are on Amazon all the time.
Speaker 1: Right, we got all these apps on our phone.
Speaker 1: Now, the thing about apps it's cool is you can add them or you can delete them.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I can add an app, delete an app.
Speaker 1: It's not a big deal.
Speaker 1: But have you ever tried to go from an iPhone to an Android phone or an Android phone to an iPhone?
Speaker 1: Somebody just said oh, yes, you guys ever tried that?
Speaker 1: So this is.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's probably five or six years ago now.
Speaker 1: I made the terrible decision.
Speaker 1: My iPhone went down and I was like I'm gonna borrow somebody's Android phone for a few weeks.
Speaker 1: And I borrowed somebody's Android phone and I'm telling you I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 1: I was like I don't get.
Speaker 1: It was a complete different operating system.
Speaker 1: How about this?
Speaker 1: Have you guys ever had maybe a Mac or a PC, laptop or desktop?
Speaker 1: And you switched to the other?
Speaker 1: Anybody ever done that before?
Speaker 1: And you're just like what is going on here?
Speaker 1: I don't understand how to do it.
Speaker 1: This is why it's so hard for us to get.
Speaker 1: It's a new operating system.
Speaker 1: It's not an app, it's a new operating system.
Speaker 1: And you know what Jesus was trying to tell this man.
Speaker 1: Y'all ready and tell us?
Speaker 1: Christianity isn't an app you add to your life, it's a whole new operating system.
Speaker 1: Some of us think like nope, I'm just gonna download the Jesus app and I'm gonna hit on that when I want it and then I'm just gonna leave that and I'll come visit it whenever.
Speaker 1: That's not this whole thing of Christianity.
Speaker 1: Some of us think like Christianity is just oh man, well, I'm in a bad place.
Speaker 1: Jesus, come here, help me right now, like right now, in this moment.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll come back to you when I need you, go, sit on the bench and what Christianity does is it actually revolutionizes you from the inside out.
Speaker 1: And the rich dude, he won't ready for all that, bro.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm not doing that.
Speaker 1: I ain't about that life.
Speaker 1: Give me an app to help me so I can have eternal life.
Speaker 1: Get my get out of hell free card, like I want that.
Speaker 1: But give me the whole revolution I don't know about.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, guys Jesus offers us a deeply meaningful and satisfying life and he revolutionizes everything.
Speaker 1: And if you're in the room and maybe you're new and you're like, how does this even happen?
Speaker 1: Is when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, what he does is he begins by changing our identity.
Speaker 1: We're a new creature, we are a new creation in Christ.
Speaker 1: We are a child of God.
Speaker 1: Now, the word identity this is what really identity is.
Speaker 1: It's the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.
Speaker 1: That's what it is.
Speaker 1: It's the narrative that we live in and we all have a story we tell ourselves about ourselves, whether we're able to identify that or not.
Speaker 1: And there's a whole lot of things out there about identity right now and we're gonna do a series in a month or so.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about some of these things, but it's the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.
Speaker 1: And this is really important because our identity, it informs our thinking.
Speaker 1: So some of us for years have felt and thought that we're less than that we don't measure up, that we aren't enough.
Speaker 1: Maybe something happened to us in the past that maybe very few people know about, maybe nobody knows about, and you remember that and you say that's the story you tell yourself about yourself, because this happened to you, so you are a, and then that's the story you tell yourself.
Speaker 1: Or maybe what's happened is maybe you've done some things that you regret in your past and that's just the story you have assigned to yourself like this is who I am.
Speaker 1: And then what happens is we have this toxic shame that produces this debilitating story, this debilitating narrative in our life.
Speaker 1: And this is what Jesus does.
Speaker 1: He blows all this up.
Speaker 1: Jesus says when you come to me by faith, you have a new identity.
Speaker 1: Second Corinthians, chapter 517.
Speaker 1: You are a new creation in Christ.
Speaker 1: This is your identity, so I am enough.
Speaker 1: And when you came to me by faith, now you are enough, I am righteous, and when you came to me by faith, I mean you righteous, you righteous.
Speaker 1: I have forgiven you by what I've done on the cross.
Speaker 1: This is your identity.
Speaker 1: So now, because this is your new identity, let this inform your thinking and y'all know what happens when.
Speaker 1: You know what happens when we think about things.
Speaker 1: You know what our thinking informs.
Speaker 1: Our thinking always informs our behavior.
Speaker 1: It informs our behavior.
Speaker 1: So, if you live your life thinking that you're less than or you're not good enough, what's gonna happen?
Speaker 1: Because you're a human being, you're going to do things and act out in such a way where you can make yourself feel better about yourself.
Speaker 1: That's what you're gonna do, because we wanna feel better about ourselves.
Speaker 1: Now we can do that by I'm gonna gossip about this person because when I put them down, it makes me feel better about myself.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this, maybe by self-medicating, where that's drugs, alcohol, porn, netflix, food, gambling, you know matter.
Speaker 1: There's a whole list of them, and what it is is it's self-medicating because I wanna feel a certain way about myself, right, and so what happens is our identity informs our thinking and our thinking informs our behavior.
Speaker 1: And you know what our behavior ends up informing Our habits.
Speaker 1: So, because we do this behavior enough, this becomes part of us.
Speaker 1: We become these types of people.
Speaker 1: And it's just this ugly cycle, because it reinforces this faulty, non-gospel identity that says this is what you do, this is your habit, so this is who you are.
Speaker 1: And it gets even worse Cause you know what your habits inform your future and this is what Jesus does.
Speaker 1: He's so gracious and he's so loving.
Speaker 1: Jesus doesn't just go after your habits, jesus doesn't go after your behavior, he doesn't go after your thinking.
Speaker 1: He doesn't even say you have to earn an identity.
Speaker 1: He says this I'm giving you this identity, this is who you are, and all you have to do is understand it and embrace it, and that will inform your thinking and that will inform your behavior, and that will inform your habits and that will inform your future.
Speaker 1: And Jesus wants to give you a satisfying, meaningful life.
Speaker 1: And he goes back to the very beginning of our identity.
Speaker 1: And when we know who's we are, we will know who we are.
Speaker 1: But there's a challenge, guys, because we want to experience this satisfying, meaningful life, but it requires something, something painful, something hard, something that this young man wasn't willing to do.
Speaker 1: It requires surrender.
Speaker 1: You see, jesus demands more than we think and he offers more than we could ever imagine Some of us think that Jesus just says, hey, let me just get a little this, a little bit of that, and Jesus is good with me.
Speaker 1: No, guys, can I be honest?
Speaker 1: Jesus wants you to lay everything down at His feet, so he is Lord over your life.
Speaker 1: But in turn, jesus offers more than you could ever imagine.
Speaker 1: The ways of Jesus isn't just about I need to do these three or four things.
Speaker 1: No, the ways of Jesus is about a life that's being informed and transformed by this new identity that begins when you come to Jesus Christ by faith.
Speaker 1: But, guys, we have to surrender, and the dude in this story did not experience this life because, well, the same reasons.
Speaker 1: Some of us aren't willing to experience it.
Speaker 1: Because, number two, jesus gets way too personal for him.
Speaker 1: We don't like if people get personal, do we?
Speaker 1: I don't like it.
Speaker 1: Like why you ask so many questions?
Speaker 1: You ever think that?
Speaker 1: Like why you get, why you ask so many questions about me?
Speaker 1: That's what Jesus did.
Speaker 1: Jesus got super personal, like he looked into his heart and he sees the bondage that money has on him and Jesus says go sell it, because that's the very thing that's in your life that's preventing you from experiencing life.
Speaker 1: That's the very thing that's preventing you from experiencing a meaningful relationship with me.
Speaker 1: It's the money he goes through that he gets really, really personal.
Speaker 1: He wasn't ready for that.
Speaker 1: And whenever Jesus goes after things in our heart, things that are above him, things that are in the place of him, things will use the word idols.
Speaker 1: It's always painful and it always hurts.
Speaker 1: In fact, one man said this about our hearts.
Speaker 1: He says our hearts are idol-making factories and it's the human condition to put things in front of God.
Speaker 1: But there are things that we just we put in front of God, things we just put in front of God and we don't even realize it.
Speaker 1: But we do Things like our career, things like relationships, our life dreams.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's power, maybe it's our looks, I don't know what it is, but we all have a tendency to put things in front of God.
Speaker 1: And what he does is he gets personal in our lives because he loves us enough to do it.
Speaker 1: And you know, what's ironic about Jesus getting personal with us Is that a lot of us we talk about.
Speaker 1: We have a personal relationship with Jesus and, by the way, isn't it amazing that we have a personal relationship with Jesus?
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: But then we get frustrated when the person that we say we have a personal relationship with gets personal with us.
Speaker 1: You guys see the disconnect there.
Speaker 1: And Jesus, what he does is he gets personal with us.
Speaker 1: But sometimes what we got to understand is when he gets personal, it's not even because he wants that thing, that's standing in the way.
Speaker 1: He just wants to be more important than that thing and he wants that thing to be in its proper place.
Speaker 1: So you guys remember there's a story in Genesis it's really, it's one of those mind boggling stories where God told Abraham I want you to go and sacrifice your son Isaac on Mount Moriah.
Speaker 1: And he said sacrifice your son Isaac.
Speaker 1: Abraham's like sacrifice my son, my one and only son.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they get up to the mountain, mount Moriah.
Speaker 1: They're walking up the mountain, abraham's son Isaac looks over and is like hey, hey, dad, here's the wood.
Speaker 1: Where's the sacrifice?
Speaker 1: Isaac was the sacrifice Dad says God will provide.
Speaker 1: They get up to the mountain, they climb to the top.
Speaker 1: Altar's built.
Speaker 1: Dad says Isaac, get on the altar.
Speaker 1: Okay, god, I'm really doing this.
Speaker 1: Abraham takes a knife in his hand, he lifts it up.
Speaker 1: He's going to do this.
Speaker 1: You guys remember there's no.
Speaker 1: What happened.
Speaker 1: God says no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to sacrifice Abraham, I don't want to sacrifice Isaac.
Speaker 1: There's a ram over here that that rams.
Speaker 1: You know what God wanted?
Speaker 1: God didn't want Isaac, he wanted Abraham's heart.
Speaker 1: God wanted to know if there was something that was standing in the way of Abraham's heart.
Speaker 1: Did you guys know this?
Speaker 1: That God is a personal God.
Speaker 1: Jesus is going to go after us because he wants our hearts and, believe it or not, he does this number three because he loves us.
Speaker 1: He loves us too much to not speak into the real places of our hearts.
Speaker 1: In another passage in Mark, same story, when Jesus looked at him you know what it says he looked at him with Love.
Speaker 1: Looking at him, jesus loved him In the moment.
Speaker 1: Do you think that young ruler thought that Jesus was being very loving?
Speaker 1: Jesus, you're telling me to sell everything and follow you.
Speaker 1: That's not very loving, but Jesus knew it is.
Speaker 1: Heart needed and sometimes we don't realize what our heart needs and sometimes we don't realize what we really need and sometimes that thing that we're holding onto, that we're holding so tightly to that we're looking for life and meaning and we think is going to give us all these things.
Speaker 1: But what we don't realize is that if we can open up our palms and we open up our hands and say, god, I'm going to give this to you, god, this is yours, god, he may not even want that, but what he wants to do is he wants to see if he can have the right place in your life.
Speaker 1: But we have to be willing to open our hands and sometimes we get really upset and we get really mad.
Speaker 1: When God gets personal, right.
Speaker 1: When sometimes, like y'all, I hear a message and I'll say something, you'll be like I don't like that, nate, I don't like you.
Speaker 1: You guys never say that, but you think that all the time.
Speaker 1: No, I'm just kidding, right, maybe you'll read a passage of scripture.
Speaker 1: I do it.
Speaker 1: Guys, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I wasn't planning on saying this.
Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't say this, but it's just us.
Speaker 1: I'm keeping it real.
Speaker 1: I was reading Romans was it Romans 13?
Speaker 1: The other day.
Speaker 1: It talks about like it talks about giving to Caesar what Caesar?
Speaker 1: And paying your taxes and all that, and I didn't like it.
Speaker 1: I was like.
Speaker 1: I was like why.
Speaker 1: I was like you weren't living in the common day America, like the way they're robbing us.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm just sorry, just keeping it real.
Speaker 1: And honestly, I didn't like it.
Speaker 1: Like I read that and I was like I don't know if I want to read anymore, but in that moment I was like, if I feel this way, maybe I really should lean into this right now.
Speaker 1: Hey, maybe I should.
Speaker 1: And sometimes, guys, what we do in our lives is we build certain walls up and we say, jesus, you can't have this, you can't touch this.
Speaker 1: You can have this over here.
Speaker 1: Please help me over here.
Speaker 1: I really want help here.
Speaker 1: Please comfort me here.
Speaker 1: I want your comfort right now.
Speaker 1: But this over here, here's a wall, and we're really good at building these walls too, aren't we?
Speaker 1: We build a wall and the wall gets kind of thicker and thicker and thicker and thicker and we have it perfectly designed.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's pretty much impenetrable, right?
Speaker 1: And then what'll happen is we'll feel a nudge, that's like touching that place and like, ooh.
Speaker 1: We feel Jesus saying like I need to let that go.
Speaker 1: We feel Jesus saying you need to forgive, I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: We feel Jesus saying probably should give and obey God with my finances, and we build this wall.
Speaker 1: But Jesus loves you too much to not penetrate that wall and he loves you too much to not get personal with you because he has a personal relationship with you.
Speaker 1: But this is what we need to do, guys, let down the wall and say here you go, because if you're the place of life and joy, he resurrected from the dead.
Speaker 1: You're the place of life and joy.
Speaker 1: I want you more than this.
Speaker 1: I want to end with this story.
Speaker 1: Let's say we were on a sinking ship.
Speaker 1: We'll say we were on the Titanic.
Speaker 1: Right, we're on the Titanic.
Speaker 1: You know it's all cold.
Speaker 1: You got the art to go.
Speaker 1: Y'all seen the movie.
Speaker 1: You guys have seen the documentary.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're on the Titanic and the captain's going around and he's giving out life preservers.
Speaker 1: And you got a dude over here.
Speaker 1: He's holding on to all of his money, like he brought a bunch of money on the Titanic.
Speaker 1: I mean this dude's got stacks Like this dude's just holding on to his money.
Speaker 1: He's got holding on to his gold.
Speaker 1: You know he was like first class in the Titanic.
Speaker 1: Like he's holding on to it Like this.
Speaker 1: This is going with me and got this dude over here.
Speaker 1: This guy's like the entrepreneur, this guy's like the dreamer.
Speaker 1: This guy's got like visions for his life and he has all of his life dreams and like two really nice notebooks, like all of his life dreams.
Speaker 1: I mean he's got a one year plan, a three year plan, a seven year plan, a 10 year plan, a revised one year plan, a revised.
Speaker 1: You got this other guy over here.
Speaker 1: This guy's a sports fan, which is a beautiful opportunity for me to say football starts next Sunday.
Speaker 1: Guys.
Speaker 1: This guy's a sports fan.
Speaker 1: I mean he's holding on to his memorabilia.
Speaker 1: He's got his like Joe Montana autograph jersey.
Speaker 1: He's not letting this thing go.
Speaker 1: He's got his season tickets to the Warriors.
Speaker 1: I mean he's got all I mean sports.
Speaker 1: This is everything to him.
Speaker 1: He's got his NFL Sunday package and he's got.
Speaker 1: He's holding on to it.
Speaker 1: Now you have the captain.
Speaker 1: The captain knows that the ship is going down and the captain knows that they're going to be floating in some water for a couple hours before the other ship is coming to rescue them and the only way that you're going to possibly survive is if you hold on to the light preserve.
Speaker 1: And if you grab the light preserve, captain goes to do number one like hey man, grab the light preserver.
Speaker 1: He's like no, no, I'm holding on to my gold, I'm holding on to this captain goes.
Speaker 1: It's not about what you got in your hand, dude, you need to grab the life preserver.
Speaker 1: He goes to person number two.
Speaker 1: He's like hey, man, you need to grab the life preserver.
Speaker 1: These are my life dreams.
Speaker 1: You realize.
Speaker 1: I've spent the last three and a half years of my life putting these together.
Speaker 1: I hired a professional consultant, I took an online class, I watched 17 hours of YouTube videos.
Speaker 1: I have a life mission statement.
Speaker 1: I have a life purpose.
Speaker 1: I have a one year plan.
Speaker 1: Three year plan Let go of the journal.
Speaker 1: Here's a life preserver.
Speaker 1: He goes to guy number three Life preserver, if you want to survive, what bull season starting?
Speaker 1: I can't let go, dude, survive and let go have this life preserver, or you're going to die.
Speaker 1: And the captain would try to get them to understand.
Speaker 1: It's not about what you're holding in your hand, but it's about what you're missing if you don't let it go.
Speaker 1: And some of us are not in a place in our life where all we can think about is what's in our hand and we don't even realize the splendor and glory and power and majesty of Jesus.
Speaker 1: But we can never experience that until we let this go right here.
Speaker 1: And some of you right now, like the spirit of God is speaking to your heart.
Speaker 1: The spirit of God is speaking clearly, like you know what God's doing in your heart, like you feel things coming up.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're uncomfortable, maybe an idol has come to the surface.
Speaker 1: You're like I can't let go of this.
Speaker 1: It is not about that, it's about Jesus.
Speaker 1: And maybe Jesus doesn't even want that thing.
Speaker 1: He just wants it to be in its proper place with him first.
Speaker 1: But you have to surrender.
Speaker 1: You have to surrender and Jesus, remember, he demands more than we think, but he offers more than we could ever imagine.
Speaker 1: So this morning would you take what's in your hand, maybe that idol, that thing you're holding so tightly to, and say here you go, because a life might be on the other side of you, having those hands open.
Speaker 1: Let me pray.