Luke 18:1-8

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Right in it. Verse 1. One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. There was a judge in a certain city said who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly saying, Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy. The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, I don't fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I'm going to see that she gets justice because she is wearing me out with her constant request exclamation point. Then the Lord said, Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don't you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly. But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on earth who have faith? Can we jump back to verse one? If you read this and you don't know context, you don't dive into it, you will read it from the context and the standpoint of uh comparison, right? You will in your mind kind of see God is comparing himself to the unjust judge, which doesn't quite make any sense. So already you start out with this doesn't jive with how I see God or my view of God. You'll kind of start out in a funky place with comparison. But we know as we've gone through Luke that Jesus uses the same techniques that other rabbis, other teachers in that time use of using parables to give lessons, right? So we're on the same page with that. So he's giving a parable to teach a lesson. And I love that Luke tells us immediately what it's about. We don't have to guess, we don't have to wonder. Verse 1 says, one day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should what? Always pray and never give up. Never give up. Never give up. This word wasn't about like mild discouragement. Like when you go out to your car on a cold morning and like it doesn't start, like click, click, click, you're like, well, stink. This is not the start I wanted, right? Or you get home from your Chipotle order and they gave you the wrong thing, right? Nobody. Okay, just me. Calling the line and you get a I want to talk to a person, right? Like this isn't talking mild discouragement. This is talking about like a season where the weight's been so heavy that you're not quite sure how you can keep going, and you're so frustrated with the current situation that you are just exhausted because no options look like good options, even if you can find an option to try to get out of the pressure that you're under. That don't lose heart, that don't be discouraged, that he's talking about isn't for like mild little things. He's talking about, man, he's listen, who's he talking to right now? His disciples. What's about to happen? Jesus is not long from being crucified. They're gonna see their rabbi taken, tortured, beaten, crucified. They're gonna witness this, and then not long after the resurrection, you have that celebration, but then he's going to ascend to heaven and send the Holy Spirit. But for them, there still has to be a grieving in their heart because the one they love and have walked day after day with is leaving, and they're about to endure trials and tribulations. And we know from history, 11 of the 12 are martyred. 11 of the 12 disciples, they don't have an easy life coming, right? And so we're not talking about like little soft weak stuff, like not that God doesn't care if your tire goes flat, or not that he doesn't care if your Chapulte order is wrong. But what he's not giving instruction of that, what he's saying is when you are exasperated with life, when you are tapped out at the end of your rope, the thread is getting freight in this stuff. Are you with me on that? Does it can anybody identify with that feeling? Okay, I know that I can. I know that I can identify with like, man, you just feel like something else happens in the news. You're like, something else happens in your life. A medical issue that you didn't see coming, a family member having trouble that you didn't know that that trouble was coming, right? Can we just like uh if we're gonna have church today? We it's been too long for us to be together not to come back and be honest. So I'm not, we're not gonna, we're just not gonna play games. I'm just gonna be honest with you. This last week, I I felt as a pastor, as a shepherd, I felt frustrated. And I'm gonna I'm gonna walk this line. Uh, and and listen, I know that you guys know me enough that you're just gonna have to give me grace if I can't get the words right. But but listen, we have a beautifully blessed church of different pigments and skin color and skin tone from different backgrounds from different races, right? And just because what you look around see this morning doesn't look like what you see every week, listen, I want to tell you, we are beautifully integrated, beautifully culture of different people that have come together, even faith backgrounds. But I love in my prayer from the start of ministry is that the church is not a segregated one, that it's one where all different colors are represented, and every single color represents a beautiful palette that God has brought forth for his church. The Imago Day is what we talk about. We talked about it earlier this year. The image of God. We are image bearers. God said what in the beginning, let us make man in our image. Our image. And so I have to shepherd moments when that image is attacked because there's people in our church of every single color. And this week, I don't know how you feel about it or how you feel about him, but on president's social media feed, there became a picture, a video where we had people that are of a previous administration, black people, put on the bodies of gorillas. And you're like, well, maybe from your background, you're not familiar with that or how that could be offensive. But spend some time with somebody who's black and ask them. I'm not, listen, I'm not coming this morning to an attack an administration. I'm coming this morning to shepherd a people who have been hurt. My my listen, I I pray for every president we have. I prayed for this one, I prayed for the last one. They don't have to have a donkey or an elephant or whatever. Listen, my life is submitted to the lamb. So I'm accountable to the lamb. So when I have people in my church that we're following Jesus together, and the responsibility is on me to shepherd those people, I can't sidestep an issue because you might get uncomfortable in your politics because I'm accountable to the king, not the president. And so I just have to come and say, listen, we value the Imago Day, the image of God. And everybody from every color, from every tribe, is welcome in this place. We celebrate it, we bless it, and we are thankful for it. And we want to be able to bring voice to moments that can be harmful to people that we love and harmful to people that we don't even know. Listen, I'm I'm not I'm not here to try to bring context to the entire situation, but I know, listen, uh a perception is reality, and there were many, many people this week perceived it as very much one thing. And I have to say, it was evil to me, so I got to call evil evil and say, listen, anytime something comes against the Imago Day, we have to, as the church, say, man, that's not right. We we bless, we bless the diversity that God has blessed us with on this planet. Grateful for it. Man, I don't know if you feel funky about like I've never brought up president once in this church, in this, in these 10 in these, in these many years, but even today I woke up and I was I was getting ready, man. 4 30 comes early on a Sunday, right? And so I'm up at 4 30 and I'm getting ready. And I was like, man, like Joey, are you gonna be a shepherd or you are you not? Called to shepherd all kinds of situations, and I didn't see this one coming. But we value the Imago Day, the image of God. Lord, I pray over our church right now that this would be a place where the door is open. And Lord, that you would bless us with more color, more diversity. We thank you, God, for those in our congregation that I I'm thankful for every person, those that have melanin the same as mine, and those that don't. Lord, I thank you, God. And we pray right now, and and Lord, I don't know that the even the history of this place, but God, I say that right now and for here on out, Lord, we come as a people of God in the kingdom of God, and we thank you right now that we would be a people that say we honor what you've created. And Lord, we value what you value. Lord, so we thank you that in Jesus' name. Amen. Now we're gonna return to our regularly scheduled programming. Don't give up under prolonged pressure. There's different things that are gonna pop up in your life. You're like, man, I can't stand another thing. I can't have another thing go wrong. And then guess what? Bing! Another thing goes wrong. The dryer burns out, right? Like what's going, like whatever. But Jesus talking to his disciples that they should always pray and never give up. If it wasn't gonna be an issue for them, he wouldn't have brought it up. You with me on that? So can I just say really quick, if you are tired today, that's okay. I'm not talking about prayer. Sometimes I don't know if you've ever been in a place where a pastor brings up prayer and you're like, here comes the guilt trip. Right? Because I don't listen, I don't pray enough. And so when he's talking about prayer, when you start saying, like, okay, we're about to have a sermon about prayer, it's like the head goes down, like, oh man. But prayer wasn't given to be a guilt trip for you, for those of you that don't engage in it or don't engage in it as much as you would want to or think that you need to. Prayer is given as a gift that we can have conversation with our Father in heaven, that we can have regular conversation. It doesn't have to be like in the King James or nothing, right? That I can talk to him the way that I'm talking to you. I don't have to like get this pious, oh God. Right? Like, I don't have to be weird, like with a monocle trying to pray or something. I don't know why that came into my mind. But I don't have to do that. I don't have to be the little guy off of Monopoly trying to pray, right? Like uh uh I can have conversation with them. And listen, there's a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. So there was a certain judge in a certain city who neither feared God nor cared about people. I love the description that Jesus gives of this judge because um Jesus gives this description because there are two pillars in the Jewish ethics, right? Duty towards God and duty towards neighbor. There's these two pillars in the Jewish ethic, right? And when he says there's a judge that doesn't care about God and doesn't care about people, everybody that's listening, his disciples, like this guy is not who I want when I show up to traffic court, right? Like, this is not the guy. You walk in and he's just like this staunch, crusty, curmudgeon of a person who's got a face like some of you have when I said I was bringing veggie soup. I know I saw y'all's face through the computer screen last week when I was sharing on our live stream that I was bringing veggie soup, trying to be healthy for fitting 26 is what we say. I'm bringing veggie soup to help the congregation here. And the judge. This judge has the same face, just like somebody brought veggie soup or past gas or both. Cremudgeon of a man. Doesn't care about God, doesn't care about people. You're in the wrong profession, bro. So what does that assume? It assumes that he only values what he has to say and what he thinks. Right? This is not the guy you want when you show up to court. Verse 3 a widow of that city came to him. A widow. Jesus is being very, very um precise with the illustration that he's getting with this parable. Widows were the most legally vulnerable people in Jewish society. In the ancient world, widows usually had no husband to represent them legally, right? That's the essence of a widow. They don't have a husband. Their husbands died. No husband to represent them legally, no inheritance security unless, check this out, unless they had a son. If they didn't have a son, their inheritance was not secure. So no matter what their husband had, they weren't going to get it if they didn't have a son. And they had no economic leverage. These people, that so Jesus using this symbol, using this woman, a widow, they were a symbol in the Jewish scripture for the most defensive class, defenseless class, and oftentimes it was paired with either orphans or foreigners, the most defenseless class of people. Okay? So Jesus being very, very specific. They were hopeless because they were helpless to affect anything that could get them out of their situation. Now, let's think about when we feel exhausted with life. When hopelessness creeps in, our heart becomes sick. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. But a dream fulfills a tree of life, is what scripture says. And when hope starts getting deferred and the heart starts getting sick, you begin to look around and you say, I don't have whatever it takes to get out of this situation. But this widow of this city kept saying repeatedly, came to him repeatedly saying, What? Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy. I really just quickly say this. Justice for them meant legal vindication, not revenge. Justice for us many times means revenge. I want justice. I want you to feel the pain that you cause me. Right? I want to be avenged. That's not what justice meant for them. It meant for the situation that the wrong would be righted. That the incorrect would be made correct. That there'd be a public validation, that justice has come now. So this woman is in a situation where there's no justice, and she doesn't need vengeance upon her enemy. She needs her situation to be made right. You with me on that? And so check this out. Give me justice in dispute with my enemy. The judge ignored her for a while. But finally he said to himself, I don't fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. This is this is kind of the picture I get. Like she is low-key stalking him. Right? Comes out of the restaurant. Uh, Judge, have you thought any more about this case? I just wanted to check up, follow up on this, right? And he comes out of his house in the morning on his way to work, and the the the the sun's just barely starting to rise. It's still a little dark, and she's standing out front. I can't tap my foot good. I don't know. Whatever, right? Waiting for him to come out. Boom, he walks out the door. Judge, pardon me. Do you have a moment? Would like to talk about this injustice in my life. And over and over, as much as she needed to do, listen, she didn't have any real currency in her society, but she did have the currency of persistence. Can I just I want to just say this real quick? This is notable. Persistence is currency in the kingdom of heaven. If you do not give up, you will win. How do I know that? Persistency is currency in the kingdom of heaven. If you do not give up, you will win. The scales will eventually tip. Things will eventually shift. Not when you want them to, not when you would like them to, but when God says, okay, now it's time. And that time might not even happen here on earth. It might happen after the fact. But if you do not give up, you will have, for those who call Jesus Savior, eternity with him in heaven. You win if you don't give up. Persistency to say, I'm going to come to the king. I'm going to come to the king. I'm going to come to the king. I'm not going to stop. This is what this judge says. This woman is driving me crazy. I'm going to see to it that she gets justice because she is wearing me out with her constant requests. Now, if you think this is about comparison, you begin to think, well, I need to now go annoy God until he gives me what I want. I'm going to twist his arms so he's so frustrated with me that he finally gives us the soft serve machine at church. I, man, that feels anointed. Gosh, how awesome would that be? Yeah, yeah. Elizabeth knows a guy. Or, or in our circumstance, that God would bless us financially to pave everything in the back, that there's no grass, and we even have pretty lines. That would be incredible. I'm pushing towards that. We're going to put that on the list this year. Lord, bless us with the parking lot. But we're not trying to annoy him till we get what he we want. Like a little kid says, like, can I have some more ice cream? Can I have some more? Can I have some more? Or can I have some more? Dad, can I have some dad? Hey dad. If you don't stop, right? Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. But first, let me just ask you something. Hey, dad. Right? Take the ice cream. Like that's not what God's saying he wants our relationship to be like. But there's a persistence in this woman that she was not going to let go of justice. She was not going to let go. She was not going to give up hope. This is not about comparison. This is about contrast. This parable is about contrast. It was called the how much more method, is what we'll call it. It had a very cool Hebrew name, but my Hebrew ain't so good. How much more? So if this unjust judge gave this woman justice, how much more will a loving God give it to you? If this unjust judge who doesn't care about anybody will give justice, how much more will the God who created you, sees you, and loves you a covenant love that will not be broken? How much more will he bring justice for you? Anybody? How much like listen, this the contrast he's trying to make is clear. This judge is like the worst of the worst, and yet he still comes around. How much more? And Jesus is telling his disciples this God in heaven who loves you and has purposed you to be here on this world and this time, he sees you, he knows you. Don't stop going to him, don't stop trusting him. Because listen, prayer is trust in conversation. Prayer is trust in conversation form. When you stop trusting God, you'll stop praying with him. It's con prayer is conversational. So what is conversational? I talk, he listens, you talk, I listen. So God wants to speak to us, but a lot of times we make prayer uh uh what mono. Right? It's just one person. Hey, God, I need this. God, I'm thinking about this, God, I'm worried about this. Okay, we'll talk to you later. Right? He's not answering our prayer. Well, you never stop to listen. What does the voice of God sound like, Joey? How could he speak to me? Am I going to hear him audibly? You may, because it happened some in the Bible. You might hear him speak audibly, but how does God speak? Man, one time he used a donkey to speak. Remember Balaam? That would be trippy. You're like, what did I smoke today? This is crazy. There was something whack in the omelet, and this donkey is speaking now. God used a donkey to speak to a guy. God can speak to you however he wants to speak to you. He uses dreams, he uses visions, he'll use people. Can I just give you a glimpse into the life of Joey? The last time we had service here, the after service, I had an I had an encounter over the phone with somebody who was frustrated by an aspect of my ministry. And in fact, if you break it down, just spoke a curse over me. I read it, read the text, and I'm like, hmm, I do not like that. I told my wife, and I said, Hey Ashley, this is what so and so just said. I do not care for this. We're gonna pray right now because scripture says he'll turn every curse into God will turn every curse into a blessing. So we're gonna we're gonna stop we're gonna stop things right now. And we're gonna pray that God does his thing and that we're gonna walk into one of the most blessed seasons of our life, blessed seasons of our ministry, blessed seasons of our family, blessed seasons of our marriage. We stopped, we prayed, we broke that because we have authority to do that. If somebody's speaking bad over your life, God gives you authority to break that. So no, no, no, no. God, thank you for your love and for your blood that you poured out for me. I thank you that you would break whatever curse has been spoken over my life. Yeah? So we can talk about spiritual things. This is church, yeah? Okay, just making sure. So, so break that. I'm like, cool. And I I I'm I'm I'm now I'm fine. I'm I'm feeling I'm feeling fine. And um that's back when I first started about thinking about veggie soup for the church. And uh God didn't bring correction on me on that, so that's why I brought today. So, but that's I remember thinking about what are we gonna bring for soup? And I I was like, man, that was so weird. And then all of a sudden, bing, my phone dings again. And at this point, I'm like, I look down, it's a different person. And it's a person that says, Hey, I just sensed in my heart that God was wanting me to share this with you. And it was the opposite of everything the previous person had spoken about me God's love, his favor, his grace, his blessing, everything. Coincidental, probably, that within 15 minutes of getting a curse that shows up a blessing to come against everything that was just spoken, that he would turn every curse into a blessing. Right? And so I'm sitting there, I'm like, man, God, you you were you were so good. This I got I got a hype. It was crazy. I and listen, I was just so excited, and I'm thinking about this, like God brought justice in that moment within 15 minutes. But listen, there's gonna be times in your life where maybe you don't see the justice come that swiftly. So, what do you do? I want to say this really quickly. Delay does not equal indifference. Delay to a prayer that you're praying does not equal God is indifference toward indifferent towards you. Because what we will associate is the delay means God is indifferent to how he sees me or to my situation. He doesn't really care as much about my situation. No, no, no, no. God's timing is just perfect and it's different than mine. So I don't know why he answers prayers in certain moments and other prayers in other moments, but man, that's how he does it. But God can use people, I've got to shift back around to the prayer thing. God will use people to speak into your life when you pray. So he can use whatever he wants, he can speak to you directly, but can I tell you a primary, a primary way, a primary way that's primary that he'll speak to you is through scripture. Man, I'm telling you right now. 24,000 archaeological digs in the areas where the Bible's been written. Twenty-four thousand. And not one historical finding has ever disputed what's in scripture. Is that crazy? Can I tell you, like when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, they had two copies that they found of the book, the entire book of Isaiah. Two different copies. A thousand years separated when they were when they were written. Word for word the same. Right? This is trustworthy. Don't have to like, listen, I can I can stake my life on that. So I'm gonna read the word. This is one of the ways it'll speak to me. How are we doing on time? We gotta speed it up. Thank you, baby. My wife said, I'm doing fine, so y'all just gotta sit there. Oh man. So if I can focus on getting on my notes here, I'm so excited to see you guys. The judge says, I'm gonna see that she gets justice because she's wearing me out with her constant requests. We're not trying to twist God's arm, but he he says, Man, even this unjust judge will bring justice. Man, I love you. I've got you. I'm gonna take care of you. Then the Lord said, Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Learn a lesson. In uh Matthew, there's a moment where Jesus is talking and he says, he uses this how much more moment again. If if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more, there it is, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him. So I want you to write this down when you're reading these parables. You need to make sure that you think about when you read a parable in Luke or any of the other gospels, that you think about is he making a comparison or contrast? Because most of the time it's a contrast. And when it's a contrast, it'll vastly affect the way that you read that. Cool? We good? Y'all, y'all hanging with me? I know y'all starting to smell the soup, but just hang on. The veggie soup will be there when we get out of here. I'll tell you what's crazy about that, just real quick, if I can just circle back around to that. I remember at Thanksgiving, I said, hey, y'all watch out, man. Uh Sienna made some collard greens and they're gonna be awesome. And you know what y'all did? Nobody, listen, Sheila had to wrestle away a plate from a kid or something. Because y'all all went for it and ate it all before I got there. And then I say something else is gonna be good that I made, and you're like, no, I'm gonna pass. So I'm not bitter about it anymore. I just needed to say one more thing. Verse eight. I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly. Let me back back up to verse seven. Uh actually, I want to go all the way to verse six. Where's that on screen? We got that. Sorry, I'm gonna make you switch screens. Then the Lord said, Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Verse 7. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don't you think that God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them. It says, What quickly. This quickly, uh, me and God have different ideas of quickly, but this quickly is referring to final judgment. This is when it's all said and done. I'm going to bring a final judgment to everything. People like last week we we we referenced at some when we talked about um when Jesus would return uh in chapter 17. It says the Son of Man's gonna come back and there'll be two people plowing and one will be taken and one will be left. Why? Because one had relationship with them and one didn't. There'll be two people laying in bed, one will be taken and one will be left. Why? Because one had relationship with them and one didn't, right? So there's a time coming, just saying, hey, there's a time coming where I'm gonna return. And I'm gonna return. And when I do, I'm making everything right. And we have to reconcile do I have relationship with them or not? Now listen, here's the sale that the church has done for a little while is that if you come to Jesus, everything's gonna be hunky-dory. When I tell you it will all work out, it doesn't mean that life's gonna be perfect. See, what we have failed to do is create a theology for suffering. Instead, we want to make every the end of every single little season of our life this fairy tale ending. That you could be at the start of February, but by the end of it, all of a sudden things are just castles and roses and everything's dandy. But no, no, no. Jesus says, if you want to follow me, you're gonna have to carry your cross. He said, join in with me with my suffering. Listen, in the middle of suffering, we we don't like to suffer. We like to try to find endways around it. But but in our suffering with God, as we follow him, as people text you up horrible things. Listen, I know this, I'm in good company because they said bad things about my Savior. Right? Who can identify with me? He can identify with me. I want him to remove me from the suffering. He says, no, no, no, no. Join me in it so you can know my love to a deeper way, to a deeper extent. Nobody prays, Lord, I want to suffer today. Right? I don't pray that. I don't want to pray that. But what I want to pray is no matter what this day brings me, may I recognize and find your presence in it. Because you love me, because you get me, because you see me, because you formed me. When scripture says he knows the number of every hair on your head, he's not playing games, he knows that. And then it says, and he knows every star in the sky, and he calls them by name. This is the divine nature of our God that he's so intimately in love with you, he would know the numbers of hair on your head while being so universally knowledgeable, like having all knowledge, all wisdom that he said, Man, every star, I have a name for each and every single one of them. And the grandeur and the holiness of who our God is, and he looks at you and he's like, I want to have relationship with you. But here's what I need you to do in this relationship: don't give up. I want to have a relationship with you. And listen, if you don't quit, there's eternity that we have together. I'm coming quickly. It said in chapter 17, people are gonna be going about their daily lives. Somebody's gonna be going to school, somebody's gonna be going to work, somebody's got the day off and they're hitting up Starbucks. People are gonna be in their daily life when he returns. No man knows the day or the hour when he's coming back, but he's coming back. And he's like, listen, when I come back, I want to make everything right, and I want our relationship to continue into eternity. So we have a decision to make, though, on the daily. Will I quit or will I press on? Can I just say something really quick, man? Like, there are days where I there were days where I quit. One day, one day Jesus told his disciples, Ashley, would you come for me? One day Jesus told his disciples for the show that they should always pray and never give up. All the way down to verse eight. I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly. Verse eight says, But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith? The call of the Christian is not to look pretty in the process, but to be persistent in the process. Man, I don't know when it kind of started, but it'd be like if you go to church, you gotta put on your church face. Like hell is breaking loose in life, and somebody says, Hey, how you doing this Sunday? I'm great. And everything is going wrong. And then you come in and you keep the face on long enough while you can sing a song, while you listen to the message, maybe even give in the offering, and then you leave and you step back into the hell all by yourself. Man, that's not that's not family. I want us to be a family. I don't want you to carry burdens alone. I don't want to carry burdens alone. Can I tell you something? Would you pray, be praying for me during the week? Like, I've got kids in my family getting sick. I'm like, what's this about? I don't know. Right? Like, would you be praying for me? I don't want to carry the burden alone. Listen, man, I love you guys, but this is this gets weighty. You're like, Joey, this church ain't even that big. Like, I, but I love you big. So it gets it gets weighty. Man, would you pray for me? I want to be praying for you. But here's, can we do this? Let's not have to. The call of the Christian is not to look pretty in the process. My call is not to look like I've got it all together and got it all figured out. Now I'm not living as a victim, but I'm also gonna live with integrity to tell you how things are going when you ask me. So I'm not trying to be pretty in the process. I'm trying to come before you and say, man, I want to be persistent in it. And when I'm tired, say, hey, I'm tired. I need a shoulder to lean on. Or to hear, man, Brian says he's tired. Come on, let me just walk with you today. Let me just pray with you today. Let me just, every day this week, I'm gonna send you a quick verse just to encourage you. This is this is us going in it together. Are you with me on that? We're not called to be pretty in this, we're called to be persistent in this. Because we said what? Persistence is currency in heaven. It moves the heavens and it moves the heart of the Father. And listen, he will bring justice. He will make things what? Right. He's not gonna, he's not gonna smack down whoever you want him to smack down on your behalf. He's not gonna give somebody just this crazy rash because you don't like them anymore and how they hurt you. Right? Like sometimes that's how we feel. It's like, God, they did me wrong. Give them cooties. Like, no, no, no, no. You just love me and trust me and forgive them so I can forgive you, because that's what the Bible says. If we don't forgive, we can't be forgiven. And so that's a choice we make to say, God, I choose to forgive, I choose to trust you. And listen, I'm gonna walk in prayer with you. Prayer is trust put into words. I don't tell you what's going on in my heart, and I want to hear what's on your heart. Matthew 11, 28 says, Come to me. This is for several of you in this place right now. I need you to hear me. Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Persistence is not about twisting God's arm or annoying him. It's the realization that there's no more trustworthy place to persist than in his arms. There's no more trustworthy place to keep going than in his arms. I just want to take a moment. Would you close your eyes for a second? Maybe you're not quite sure what his arms feel like, but you're curious. You're like, man, you feel something right now, and you're just like. What is a Christian? Christian means a Christ follower. Somebody who says, Man, I want to give my life to him. I want to trust him with my life. But in that relationship, there comes a redemption and a forgiveness of our sins where we confess, God, we're not perfect, but you are. We're not perfect, but Jesus, you were, and you paid a price. You died on the cross to pay the price for every time we got things wrong. The Bible reminds us everybody has gotten it wrong. Everybody has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Everybody. No matter how well somebody has it, like they've got it put together, everybody. And so to come to Jesus, we all have to come the same way. We confess with our mouth and we believe with our heart. We say, Jesus, I believe that you are who you say you are. I don't have everything figured out, but in my spirit, in my heart, there's something stirring, and I'm choosing right now. Maybe before I have it all intellectually figured out. I just know in my in my knower. I just know that this is what home feels like. This is what love feels like. I want to walk out of shame. I don't want to live waking up with shame every day. I don't want to live with guilt greeting me when I open my eyes. Because there's no shame in Christ Jesus, there's no condemnation, there's no guilt trips. That's not a part of the kingdom. There's freedom. The Bible says who the Son is set free is free indeed. And I don't want to assume that everybody in this room has a relationship with Jesus. Maybe you've been learning about him, maybe you've been wanting to get to know him better, trying to figure out what this is all about. But even in this moment, I believe there's some that just in your heart, there's like a stirring, you almost even feel it physically. And that's the work of the Holy Spirit. Say, man, this this is right. It's time to come home. To a home like you've never known. To a love that's undescribable. If you've never prayed a prayer like that, but you would like to, I would ask you to be courageous and bold, that you would just slip your hand up and you say, Yeah, that's me. I want to have a relationship with Jesus. That you'd say, Yeah, I just, I want to make today the day that I step into it. You don't have to have it all sorted, you don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to worry about anybody that's around you. Everybody has to come the same way. It's not an embarrassment thing, it's a beauty thing. In fact, Scripture says all of heaven rejoices, even when just one gives their heart. Even when just one says, Yeah, I'm going to confess in my mouth and believe with my heart. I just want to give them another moment right now. If that's you, I just want you just to be just to be bold and say, Yeah, man, just slip your hand up and say, That's me. I just want an outward sign of an inward act, and I'm responding right now. If you need to kind of have a uh a moment where you turn the ship and say, I've been I've been doing it my way. I I walked with Jesus for a while, but I really I lost I lost hope. I quit. I've been doing it my way, my own way, and I've strayed away. But I want to return into the relationship again. I I want to I want to come back home. You're not gonna be turned away. Can you just hear me? You're not gonna be turned away. There's open arms of the Father saying, Come home. Return back. You want to rededicate your life. If that's you, I just want you to slip your hand up right now. You don't need to wait till tomorrow. You don't need to worry about anybody else's listening. It's something I did myself in my life. Cool. Now I want to pray over all that are exhausted. I want to do this really quick. Man, I feel like there was somebody that you like got nervous to raise your hand, but you are really in your heart saying, I want to pray this prayer, and I don't know how to. So we're gonna pray as a family together. I'm just gonna go on this, and if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. But if I'm right, then praise God, somebody's about to step into the kingdom. So, church family, would you just join in with me in this prayer? Dear Jesus, I choose to believe that you are the Son of God, that you died for my sins, and you forgive me of my sins. And I ask you to be the Lord of my life, to forgive me for every time I've missed the mark. I ask you to be my Savior, my King, and the Lord of my life. In Jesus' name. Amen. Family, I want you to stand up real quick and just keep a posture of prayer. But man, coming into this, I know there were exhausted people, that there are exhausted people. The burden, the weight, the pressure of life has been heavy. So Lord, I pray right now, encourage the weary, encourage the exhausted, encourage those that are just like, man, God, do you even see me right now? Lord, encourage those that just feel like, man, that they're equating delay, they're equating delay. To just a dismissiveness or an indifference. But I pray, God, that we would, as your sons and daughters, we would never associate delay with indifference. But that we would know that your eyes are turned towards us. And that even now you call us to take just one more step. Just keep praying. Don't give up. Keep praying. Keep having conversations where you talk and I'll listen. And then I'll talk and you listen. Keep praying. Keep reading your word. Keep listening to those that would come in your life with words of encouragement that jive and align with Scripture. Lord, I want to pray just those carrying burden right now, even right now for this moment, I pray a lifting, a weight come off their shoulders in Jesus' name. They just feel a peace. There's some of you right now that you wake up and your house is not peace. Your family is not peace. Your day is not peace. It's anxiety, it's stress, it's anxiety, it's more stress, it's anxiety, and then guilt trip. And Lord, I pray that they would feel your peace right now, fall on them like a blanket, realer than like anything they've known. That it would refresh and refill them. Even as we're about to join in, just celebrating and eating together, God, I pray that they would just feel in their spirit like a fullness come right now. Where there's been a gap and this emptiness, Lord, I thank you. Your peace come in Jesus' name. Lord, I pray your face shine upon these, your sons and daughters. Bless them, and they're coming and they're going, they're lying down, and they're rising up. Be their front and their rear guard. Give them the mind of Christ and wisdom of God. And I pray that everything their hands touched that would prosper. And finally, Lord, I just want to thank you that you are so good. And we celebrate in advance the return. And so, Lord, in the days in between then and now, that we would live with intentionality, keeping our focus, our eyes, and our heart on you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right.