Beautiful Music

God's vision is for your life to be "beautiful music"  as a result of listening and following the leadership of King Jesus. But what if the "piano" of your life was "missing keys?" How would the music sound then? Often, those "missing keys" are areas in our life that we are holding back or choosing not to place under Jesus' authority. In this message we unpack the importance of having the truth of our hearts be revealed by Jesus, and wrestling with the question of, "how will I respond to the truth?"

For more info about RPYA check us out on Instagram @rpyoungadults or at our landing page on rockypeak.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey, R P Y A, I'm back again. You guys dreams make me do all the things tonight. So um, if you want to turn there, it's Mark chapter 10, verse 17. And let me read this over you if you don't have a Bible. Let me read it over you. As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. Good teacher, he asked, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Why do you call me good? Jesus answered. No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. You shall not murder, you should not commit adultery, you should not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother. He declared, All these I have kept since I was a boy. And Jesus looked at him and loved him. Jesus looked at him and loved him. One thing you lack, he said. Go sell everything you have and give to the poor. And you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. At this, the man's face fell. He went away sad. Because he had great wealth.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Thank you, Megan. Hey, it's always honestly, it's always a delight to be together with you on these Sunday nights. Special welcome to those of you that are here for the first time, if we haven't had a chance to meet yet. My name is Jerry. I'm the young adult pastor here at Rocky Peak, and I'm excited that you're here. Especially special shout out to those of you that came by yourself this evening. It's not always easy to walk into an environment in which it seems like everybody else knows what they're doing and what's going on. So I'm glad you're here. And I want to take a few moments at the top to let you know what you've gotten yourself into. We are RPYA, that stands for Rocky Peak Young Adults. We are the Young Adult Ministry for 18 to 25-year-olds, and we meet every Sunday night in this building. But the reason why we exist is we believe wholeheartedly that Jesus wants to unleash your generation to change the world around you. The reason why we exist is we believe that Jesus wants to unleash a movement of passionate, Christ-following, 18 to 25 year olds that are learning what does it mean to pursue God? What does it mean to actually genuinely love people? What does it mean to serve other people well? And what does it mean to share the beauty of Christ with people already in your life? And one of the primary ways that we partner with Jesus in that unleashing is these Sunday nights. We design these Sunday nights to be a place for real people wherever you are on the spiritual spectrum. In a room this size, we're all over the place. Some of you would say that you're committed believers. Some of you would say that you're numb and burdened by life. Some of you would say, hey, I'm not a believer, but I'm curious and exploring. Some of you have no idea how you got here and you think we are all insane. Wherever you're at, I'm thankful that you're here. And my prayer is that you encounter Jesus as you are. My prayer is that tonight we can begin to answer a few questions you have. My prayer is that tonight we actually will give you some new questions to think about, to wrestle with, because questions are an incredible growth tool in our lives. And so we're gonna go into a time of teaching. What that means is as Megan started and read the scripture over us, we're gonna open up God's word, which is more than a book. In fact, some of you joined me yesterday for our Saturday seminar on the Bible. It's far more than a book, it's the living and active word of God. And we're gonna ask Jesus, what do you want to say to us this evening? And so as we go into just a prayer to just orient us, would you go ahead and take one or two deep breaths wherever you're at? And some of you that know me as a teacher, you know that I often say there's nothing magic or mystical, there's nothing Harry Potter involved with that. You're just breathing. But what I like about a deep breath is that we have to choose to do it. We have to choose to pause and take a deep breath. And it's often kind of calming and slows everything down. Go ahead and close your eyes. And then before I say anything further, just in this moment of prayer, just in your own heart, would you be willing to say, Jesus, I want to see you tonight? Jesus, that's our prayer. We want to see you. For some of us, I mean seeing you for the first time when we ask questions, are you real? Are you actually out there? For some of you, it's seeing you for the first time in a while that we've seen you before, but maybe life, maybe we took some twists and turns. For some of you, for some of us, it's no, I've been seeing you, but I want more of you. I can't get enough. Wherever we're at, we just want to see you, King Jesus. And as I get up here and teach, this has nothing to do with me. I'm not up here because I'm perfect or I have this all down. Well, we're gonna be talking about I need as much as anybody else. And so thank you that I get to learn alongside these young adults. And I just want to pray the words of John the Baptist. May I, as the communicator, become less tonight. May you, King Jesus, become much, much more. And it's in your name. We all said, Amen. Amen, RPW. Hey, so over the over our time together, over the last several months a year that I've been a part of this ministry, I've often gone back to the fact that I love music. I love music in so many different ways, shapes, and forms. In fact, I was talking about at the Saturday seminar that I love every genre of music except for country western music. It just doesn't sit well with me. There's something evil about it. I just don't like it. But when I think about music that I love, one genre in particular, and I don't know that if there's an a better name for this genre, but I just love solo instrumental piano music. There is something to me so beautiful about just an expert, a master playing a piano. And this goes back to when I was a kid. Actually, when I was in elementary school, I got exposed to Mozart and Beethoven, got exposed to Poco Bell and Tchaikovsky. And I remember, because I'm older than you, getting CDs of classical music and really enjoying it. And hear me, I'm not an expert in their music in any way, shape, or form, but it's something that shaped my musical taste as I got older. In more modern time, more recently, I've really enjoyed an artist named John Baptiste. Jean Baptiste, if you've ever seen the Pixar movie Soul, he did all the piano work and the moo music for this. He is incredible. And actually, he over the last couple of years has been doing his own takes on Beethoven and most recently his own take on Mozart. And so this is one of his takes on Mozart, if you would play that. So familiar as some of us have maybe as we've heard that before. You can go to kill that before YouTube comes after us. What's amazing to me when you watch a video of somebody who knows what they're doing on a piano is like how their hands move in a way I can never imagine. They somehow just know how to work that keyboard, and that's what makes it so beautiful, is all the keys coming together. But I want you to imagine something to me. I want you to imagine a song like we were just listening to you trying to be played on a piano like this. Immediately you would be able to tell that something's wrong, wouldn't you? Because there's notes missing. There might be parts of it that sound good or even normal. There might be parts of it that sound okay, but the more that you're trying to play this song, the more you're it's gonna come to the surface. Hey, something's not right. In fact, let's keep going with this further. Imagine trying to play it on a piano like this, in which the majority is missing. Now, that's not only we're lacking the beauty, we're lacking music, but the piano is not able to do what it's designed to do. And the reason why I start with this illustration is that we are starting, we are talking about what does it mean to be Christ followers that give their whole life to the risen King Jesus? What does it mean to be a Christ follower who is giving their whole life? Because here's the invitation of Jesus for all of our lives, whether we've given our lives to him or not. Jesus is inviting us to follow his leadership so that our lives can experience what I would call beautiful music. A beautiful music of Jesus' presence and Jesus' authority in every area of our lives. And so if you think about your life as a piano, each one of those keys represents a different area. One represents school, one represents friends, one represents hopes, one represents hurts, one represents confusion, one represents pain. And the idea is that Jesus is a whole life king. He wants to come in and write beautiful music through the gift of his Holy Spirit in every aspect of our lives. But often what ends up happening is that we end up holding pieces of our lives back. We end up going, okay, no, no, Jesus, you can have my Sundays, maybe my mornings or my evenings. Jesus, maybe you can have kind of my calendar on these dates. Jesus, you can have this part of my life, but Jesus, you can't have my dating relationship. Jesus, you can't have my school or my future or the decisions I'm making. Jesus, you can't have my anger. Jesus, you can't have my fear. And what happens when we begin to hold areas in our life back? We become that piano that's missing keys. And we miss out on the beauty that Jesus wants to do in our lives. And so I really do believe that tonight is an invitation for all of us to experience what does it mean to live in the beauty that God envisions for each and every one of our lives. And so last week, for those of you that weren't here, we started this new miniseries called More Than Words. And we explained a little bit last week, as well as over our uh on one of our reels on Instagram, that we weren't expecting to do this series. We were happily doing a series in the life of Peter going on, and God's like, yeah, about that. Let's take a left turn. And so we really believe that God wants to do something transformative by coming in and saying, well, it's time to do something different, especially when it comes to unleashing you to change the world around you. And so there on your note sheet, and that note sheet you sat down on is gonna be a great tool to follow along. I wanna recap two foundational words that we covered last week that are really the foundation for this whole series. So the first word I want to recap, it's the first fill-in, is the word disconnect. We talked last week in length that often as believers in Jesus, even unintentionally, but sometimes very willfully so, there is a disconnect between the words we say and the life we live. That often, as believers in Jesus, there is a disconnect between words we say like, yes, I trust Jesus. Yes, I'm gonna give Jesus this part of my life, yes, Jesus, I want your will in my life. Jesus, I want you to speak into my life. Jesus, I want to walk away from sin. Jesus, I want to get involved more. There is often a disconnect between our words and the way that we choose to live our everyday lives away from these walls. But the other key word we talked about is the word invitation. Because yes, it does not feel good to acknowledge the truth that there is a disconnect. But Jesus is inviting us into something more, what we're calling a more-than-words life, because words are good, words are important, but words alone are not enough. But Jesus is inviting us through his Holy Spirit to live a life that says good words and backs them up with our everyday decisions. Not perfection in any way, shape, or form, but intentionality. Now, again, we went deeper into this last week. Holden and Megan talked about it, but if you are not subscribed to our podcast, I would highly encourage you to do that because that way you don't miss out on anything that we're gonna be talking about. By the way, Spotify is really weird. There's like three different versions of our podcast. Get the one with that picture. That's the one that you want. Otherwise, it's not gonna be uh it's not gonna be uh updated correctly. But let's go back to the passage Megan read over us. Let's go back to Mark chapter 10. So if you've got your Bibles open, got your apps open on, let's go back to Mark chapter 10, and I'm gonna be looking at a couple of key scriptures. So, what do we have in this scene? We have a rich young man. The Bible doesn't give us his name, but it does give us that description. And in that culture, at the time of Jesus, that carried a lot of weight. If you were rich, you were considered as one of the elite. It's not much different from how we tend to view wealth in our culture today. So this young man, this rich man comes to Jesus. Now that's a very interesting detail. He comes to Jesus. And as we look at the first part of verse 17, he says, good teacher. We don't know if he means this or if he's just buttering Jesus up, but he still says, good teacher, he asks, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now that is a very unique question, isn't it? So let me paraphrase it for conversation today, as we are several hundreds, if not thousands of years after Jesus. Let's rephrase this question this way. What does it mean to be a quote good Christian? The question being asked in a paraphrase, what does it mean to quote be a good Christian? And I want you to pause. This is not pass or fail. I can't hear you, but just in your own head, how would you answer that? How would you answer? What does it mean to be a good Christian? If you're here tonight and you're not a believer in Jesus, how would you answer that? If you've been raised in this, how would you answer this? If you were a newer believer, how would you answer this? What does it mean to be a good Christian? And if I were to venture a guess, for a lot of us, our answers are gonna start in the category of behavior. I would venture to guess that for a lot of us, our answers tend to go to do's or don'ts. To be a good Christian means that you do X, Y, and Z. To be a good Christian means that you don't do A, B, and C. To be a good Christian means you're going to church, or it means you're reading your Bible. To be a good Christian means that you're not cursing people out on the 118, which is hard sometimes. Or that you're not posting this, or you're not looking at that. And hear me, those are all good and can even be holy things. But when it comes to how does Jesus view a growing Christ follower, he does not start at behavior. When Jesus thinks of this question, what we see in scripture is he does not start at behavior. He does not start at do's and don'ts. Do you have the Jesus fish on the back of your car? Anything like that. He goes much deeper. And one thing we have to remember as we read this or any account in the Bible is Jesus is really smart. And I have to say that because the truth is a lot of us, I don't think we've ever pictured Jesus that way. Jesus is really smart. And so, especially when he's asked questions, often Jesus kind of holds back how smart he is, but very curiously and beautifully begins to ask questions back to reveal truth. And so what Jesus does is he then asks, well, what's written in the law? What is the word of God says? And this man answers the behaviors. Don't kill, don't sleep around, don't do this, do this. And Jesus, and the man goes on and goes, Teacher, he declared, all these I have kept since I was a boy. So in essence, Jesus is kind of challenging him a little bit to be like, Well, what do you think? Are you following the rules? And he's like, Yeah, I'm doing the rules. So let's let's continue to paraphrase and translate it for today. So this guy is like, wait a minute, yes, I'm saying the right things. And you know what? I'm even doing some of the right things. So let's now get a fuller picture of this young man if he were here in 2026. He would be somebody that is always at church. He would be somebody at worship that has their hands out outstretched. He would be somebody that knows correct theology and correct doctrine. He would be somebody that other people would follow. He would be somebody that maybe serves. He would be somebody that obeys. They're not murdering someone that knows the right thing to say. He would be on the surface, someone that other people would look at and go, man, that person is mature. But Jesus looks past the surface. Understand something. Jesus is not concerned with what you look at on the surface, what you look like on the surface. Jesus is concerned with the state of your heart. Because a really good surface can hide a really messed up heart. Can I give you kind of a silly example of this? A couple weeks ago I was in sprouts out in uh Simeon Valley, and especially being summertime, one of my favorite things to have is watermelon. I love just a good fresh watermelon. I add lime to it because I'm Spanish and I'm awesome. And so it's just an amazing gift. And there's a technique and a way to make sure you get a good watermelon. Are you aware of this? There's like a visual inspection that you need to give them. There is a type of tapping and pounding because you don't want something that's gross. Gross watermelon is gross as much as that is redundant, right? So I gave the visual inspection. I did the tapping. My kids are rolling their eyes as I'm holding it like a baby, kind of going around, being like, yeah, it's sound, I'm listening to it. I'm really proud of this watermelon. Megan comes home, I'm getting ready, I'm so excited, I cut into it, rotten. I know, right? Tragic, tragic. But it passed all the tests. It passed all the visual surface tests. It passed the sight test. It passed the touch test. It passed the smell test. It passed all the tests, but it wasn't until I opened it up that I saw what was really going on. In other words, Jesus cares about the below what's below the surface because what's below the surface is what's actually true. Hear me when I say this. I'm not trying to be snarky because I love expressions of worship, but I don't care how far your hands go if your heart is in the wrong place. Because no amount of this is gonna fix this. Only the Holy Spirit raising truth to the surface. So now we're gonna see this as Jesus continues this conversation with this young man. Because as we go into the first part of verse 21, what does he say? He says, one thing you lack. Now I gotta be honest, if this was me, I would be really surprised to hear this. Especially that word lack. Because I'd be sitting there going, wait a minute, wait a minute, no, no, I'm I'm following the rules. I'm doing the right things, I'm I'm saying the right things. What do you mean there's something I lack? And this is why we need Jesus' eyes in our lives, because Jesus sees what we often don't. He goes on to say, Go and sell everything that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come And follow me. Now, it would be wrong to take this passage and to say that Jesus is condemning universally wealth or having things or having worked hard. But he is raising a danger, not just in the temptation of wealth, but Jesus is actually raising a much bigger truth. Here's what Jesus has just called out that when it comes to this man's wealth, it is an idol in his life. His wealth is an idol, and Jesus just challenged that idol. Let me ask you to picture something. When you hear the word idol, what do you think of? Just picture. When you hear the word idol, where does your mind go? My mind goes to Indiana Jones. And as an illustration, my mind goes to statues. My mind goes to like when you were in high school studying like Greek and Roman history and the statues of the gods, right? My mind goes to those Buddha statues that are in my donut shop. My mind goes to like a statue of a like literal god, right? And so if we were to say, do you struggle with idolatry? I think many of us would go, no, I am not bending the knee or making an offering to a statue. So clearly I'm not struggling with idolatry. That is not what Jesus means when he's talking about idolatry. This isn't in your notes, but this is the definition of it. Idolatry is something or someone that we trust instead of Jesus for our value, worth, purpose, and identity. We are way past physical statues. Idolatry is a condition of the heart. It's something or someone that we trust instead of Jesus for our value, our worth, our purpose, and our identity. And here is the danger of idolatry is that it creates a divided heart. It means, Jesus, you get some of me. But I don't know that I fully trust you with the other parts of me. Idolatry is when we are in a dating relationship going, if I were to lose this person, I would lose my identity. I wouldn't know who I am. Idolatry is the pain of a breakup when we thought this person was my everything. Idolatry is if I don't go to the four-year, if I don't complete that degree, if I don't get that one perfect job, then my life is over. Idolatry is I need the following, whether I need people to see me as a leader, I need people to see me as wise, I need people to see me that I have all the answers, I need to have all of the followers on Instagram or TikTok. Idolatry is I am angry. I am angry at this person. I am angry at this group of people, and I don't want to let it go. Idolatry is my decisions are made from my fear and my insecurity, and I'm not trying to minimize that, but it becomes king in our life. And I'm saying, no, no, I'm making decisions, I'm even making good decisions, but the reason I'm making decisions is because I'm scared. Idolatry is I know what Jesus says about the sin in my life, but I don't want to let it go because I'm afraid of what life is like without it. And we could go on and on, but when we put it in those words, now we all realize idolatry is relatable. Jesus called out this man's idolatry. He challenged him. He said, Are you willing to leave your false God behind? And how we know it's an idol is how he responded to Jesus. At this, the man's face fell. So think about that. This was not what he wanted to hear. Have you ever been told truth that you did not like? Were you smiling? I wasn't. It sucks. So we can relate with him. His face fell. And what did he do with faced with real but hard truth? Remember what this passage said? Jesus loved him and loved him enough to tell him what was true, but what did he do when faced with truth? He went away. And if I'm honest with you, you know one of the things in this passage, every time I read it, that honestly kind of shakes me to my core, is that Jesus doesn't run after him. Jesus lets him go. And I told you that I love you. But I'm not gonna force you to believe it. So go. And knowing Jesus, knowing the heart of a creator, I don't believe for a second that it doesn't hurt him to say. But I also know that it wouldn't be genuine. He doesn't go, no, no, no, no, stop. Let me let me convince you. No, no, no, no, stop. What can I do? No, he's like, if this is what you want, and this is the truth about life, sometimes the worst thing that could ever happen to us is being given what we want. So Jesus lets him go. I don't think he knew that his wealth was an idol until Jesus called it out. I can't say that for sure. I don't think he knew. But again, he was faced with truth and he had to respond. And you know what kind of bothers me the most about this account is that I can relate with this guy. That bothers me the most. You know why? Because I've done that. Have you ever been in any situation in your life where you were convinced you were right? Have you ever been in any situation in your life where you were absolutely convinced, and no amount of people that love you, no wisdom, maybe not even Jesus Himself, could change your mind because you're like, no, no, no, I am right, my heart is right, my feeling is right. In fact, have you ever played the God card on that? No, this is what God wants for me. God is calling me into this. God wants me to do only to have it completely blow up in your face. Dude, I have. If you have, we are in good company. I can relate with this guy. And the most important thing when it comes to this account is I need to remember to learn from his story. I need to remember to learn from the truth of God's love, from the truth that God says, but also the warning that idolatry comes with consequences. And here's the thing: if we want to live a more than words life, we are not always gonna be given an explanation that makes sense or an explanation that adequately satisfied our heart. We are limited beings. But the way that we grow is that Jesus doesn't say trust in the circumstance, trust in the outcome. Jesus says, trust in me, trust in my character, trust in my love for you, even when it's hard, trust how I see you, trust that I am for your greatest good. And you know why that is beautiful? Because that is the heart of a perfect father. Let me speak as a father myself, that my kids are not always going to agree or trust my decisions for them. But ever since they were young, the thing that I've tried to remind them over and over again is that you are not gonna agree, you are gonna passionately disagree with me at times, you are not always gonna understand, even if I try to explain. But I want you to believe is that I am for you. And even when it's hard, these decisions are for your greatest good. So trust me, not the circumstance or the understanding. Let me illustrate it. I've got a series of really silly analogies today, but have you ever babysat a toddler? It feels like toddlers just want to kill themselves, right? Like they don't fear anything, but in that case, you're afraid constantly because they're gonna kill themselves. And one of the scariest moments, especially if you happen to be uh a babysitting toddler in somebody else's house, is a toddler without fail is going to find the one outlet that's not babyproofed. And so, what are they gonna do? They're gonna run after that thing with something metal, they're gonna run after that thing with a fork or a spoon or a bobby pin or anything like that. So put yourself in that situation. If you see that toddler bolting for that electrical outlet with a fork, what are you gonna do? It's not a trick question. What are you gonna do? Tackle him, stop him, karate chop him, move him down. Why? Because what's the alternative? Death. Right? If you don't stop this kid, he is going to die. And you have to explain that to their parents. All of us in this room, because we're no longer toddler age, we understand the good of that, right? Does the toddler? No. What does he think? You just took away their greatest joy. You just took away the highlight of their life. You have ruined their lives, and they're crying and now spitting up and completely upset with you. Now, what would happen if you sat down and tried to explain what would happen to this crying toddler? Would they understand it? No. Would any type of reason work? No. Would any type of communication work? No. You have to let it be. You're just saying, trust me. When it comes to following Jesus, Jesus wants our whole heart, our whole identity. And so wow, Jesus is gonna do is he's gonna enter into our lives, much like he did with this rich young man. And Jesus is gonna call out areas in our hearts that are divided, but hear me and hear me clearly on this RPYA. Jesus does not call out our divided heart because he aims for you to live in guilt and shame. Jesus calls out our divided heart because he wants to invite you to live in freedom and live in power. Because the way we were designed to live, less like a piano was designed to be played with all its keys present, is we were designed to follow Jesus wholeheartedly. That Jesus is a king of our whole lives, not just 60, 70, even 80%, but of every area we get to do life as the Apostle Paul talks about in the New Testament, in Christ. And so as we've talked this whole evening about this illustration of beautiful music, this is there in your note sheet, a neon light statement, meaning if you don't remember anything else, remember this that a wholehearted commitment is how we live in the beautiful music of Jesus. A wholehearted commitment is how we live in the beautiful music of Jesus. Man, there's some areas in which we've experienced the beauty of Jesus in our lives. There's some areas where it almost sounds confusing, but we can experience the beauty of mu of Jesus in our hurt, in our pain, in our suffering. We can experience the beauty of music, of Jesus' music in our failure, in the areas of shame and guilt, in our insecurities, in our confusion, in our doubt. We can experience the beauty of Jesus in all areas. And so that's why Jesus is not only inviting us into this bigger life, this more than words life, but that what Jesus is going to do as the great father is he's going to speak where our heart is divided. And so what do we learn from this account? They're in your notion. We've got two more essential words. We started our time together with the foundational words for this whole series, which were disconnect and invitation. But from this passage, we have two more words that we want to be able to unpack in our time together as we wrap things up. The first word is reveal. I believe many of you are, as I ask this question, but are you willing to allow Jesus to reveal where the keys are missing in your life? Are you truly willing to allow Jesus to reveal where the keys are missing in your life? Whether that is your future, your school, your job, whether that is your fears, your insecurity, whether that is your health, your physical, your mental, your emotional health, whether that is a relationship or a breakup, whether that is who you are online, on social media, on YouTube, or in the digital world, whether that's your friendships, what you are with certain friends, what you aren't with other friends, whether that's your priorities, whether that's your hurt, whether what you whether it's what you think is going to lead you to success in life. And again, not all of that is bad or wrong. It's not meant to be like everything is a cataclysm, but are you willing for Jesus to reveal, much like for this young man, what we don't see? And it comes from saying a beautiful prayer. Jesus, show me. Jesus, show me. What do you want to say in this area in my life? Jesus, I've been wrestling with what am I gonna do with my future? Am I gonna go to this school? Am I gonna join this? Am I gonna stay at this job? Am I gonna get a new one? Jesus, I don't know what to do. Am I gonna go away? Am I gonna stay? Am I gonna study this? Jesus, am I am I playing sports? Am I doing this? Jesus, I don't know. Show me. Jesus, when it comes to these people that I spend the majority of my time with, show me, is there anything you want to say? Jesus, when it comes to the way I treat my body or the way I treat my mind or the way I treat my heart, is there anything you want to say? Jesus, show me. Speak. What don't I see? And the second word is response. So the whole series is called More Than Words, right? So the word part is us saying, Jesus, show me. But the more than words part is how do you respond to truth? I can ask you a rhetorical question. That means you don't answer for those of you that barely pass high school. How do you tend to respond emotionally when somebody calls out the idols in your life? Can I be honest with you? I tend not to respond well. There's a temptation, isn't there? It's funny, sometimes when people call out the very true idols in our life, have you noticed that you become the greatest lawyer on earth? Where all of a sudden you are justifying like your life depended on it. All of a sudden you are quoting scriptures you didn't even know to be able to justify your decisions. All of a sudden you're saying things like, no, no, no, it's okay. It's okay. I said I was sorry. It's okay, I repented, I told God, and I moved on. Or sometimes it's not defense, it's shame. It's spiral. As we now think, oh, I'm the worst, I'm the absolute worst. I can't, I you're right, I'm terrible, I'm a horrible person. Sometimes when idols get called out in our life, we try to just ignore it. No, no, no, no, no, it's it's okay. Think about it. How do you respond, or how would you respond, if somebody is like, I don't think this relationship is a good idea at all. Hey, I don't think you're capable of keeping your commitment because of the pattern you've shown already. I don't think going away is a good idea for you to get away from our community. Hey, what you're doing online, the people you're direct messaging and communicating with, that's a really unwise decision. Hey, the way that you're going about this, the way that you're talking about this, it just sounds like there's a lot of anger and bitterness. I that's not wise. That's that's that's not good. Hey, hey, you said you were gonna follow through with this, and this is the second or the third time you've said that, but but you but you haven't. Hey, the way you talk about that person, it sounds like there's something there. You know, so I've been a pastor here at Rocky Peak for 24 years now. And in that time, people will come to me and ask for wisdom, let's say, pastoral counsel. And one of the main reasons that people will often come and ask for wisdom is in something like conflict. I'm in a fight with these people, I'm in a disagreement with these people, I don't know how I feel. Hey, I'm I'm I'm curious about this. And I've said this before in RPY that I part of a big part of my job, I'm not here to fix anything, but I'm here to listen and point you to Jesus. But with that, I tend to ask one particular question. Have you talked with the person? Have you actually talked with that person? And 90-ish percent of the time the answer is no. And maybe there's wisdom in that of getting ready, but then my next charge is, well, are you going to? Because I really think you do. And usually it's in that moment that just by looking at their face, I can tell if they're gonna do it or not. But most of them don't say they're not gonna do it. Most of them just kind of like, okay. Yeah. Okay. And I'm sitting there going, whoo. We got a rich young ruler situation here. And it makes me think of those people in my life that saw that in me, that called out truth, that said hard things, but they loved me in it, and encouraged me to take steps, and my response was like, okay, sure. I remember a specific example back when I was in high school. I was dating this girl, and we were dating for about a year, which in high school was like 15. And I had this incredible life group leader, and he was driving me home after life group, that's our small groups here at Rocky Peak one night. And I was talking to him about her, and he said something, and I don't remember the specific words, but I remember the hard, and so I'm gonna give you a paraphrase. He said to me, Hey, I'm concerned that she's becoming an idol in your life. And I remember vividly my response was, that hurts, and that sucks. Like, don't you know me? Don't you know my character? I'm sold out, I'm I'm committed to Jesus. There's no way that's going on. In fact, in my head, I'm just sitting there, you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know me, you don't know us, you don't know that we're gonna make good decisions. That's exactly what I was thinking, but that was not what I was saying. What I was saying was, okay, okay, okay. But in my heart, I'm like, no, no, absolutely not. And sure enough, a couple months later, it blew up and it hurts. And that emotional unhealth that my wiser older saint tried to warn me of came to the surface. And hear me, this is a little bit of a sidebar. Sometimes, even with the right teaching, God has to invite us into failures to get through upright. God's not done with us, but sometimes the only way we're actually gonna hear truth is by failing, is by experiencing that. But when I think back to that time, I responded poorly. How I should have responded was I don't agree with you, but I also don't know how to do what you're talking about. Can you help me? See, that's what maturity is all about. We have this image of maturity. The maturity is I have all the answers, I'm perfect, I don't struggle, I know everything, people follow me, I'm seen as a leader amongst that's not maturity at all. That can all be surface level. Maturity is saying, Jesus, teach me. Jesus, show me, Jesus help me, Jesus carry me. Maturity is saying, Jesus, I don't know how to do remove these idols. You are not gonna remove the idols out of your own heart. The only person that can is Jesus. So we don't jump jump into be like, okay, this is an idol, I gotta do something, I gotta outwork my idol, I gotta knock my idol down, I gotta replace it with other things. No, no, no, no. It starts by going, Jesus, you are calling out this idol in my life. And so, Jesus, you're the only one that can do it. So can you show me? Can you lead me? Can you help me? And in fact, the very first step is confession. It's just acknowledging, you're right, this is an idol. You're absolutely right. This is an idol. This is a place where my heart is divided. And so, Jesus, show me. And hear me, the best work of the heart is slow work, especially in idols and deep sin issues. It takes time. It is slow. Too many times I've seen good-hearted Christ followers tripped up by the fact that they have been embedded in deep sin and then go, it's okay, I confessed it and I moved on, only for that route to have never been dealt with. It takes time, but that slow work is good. Johnny, our middle school pastor, talked about it this way: it's the difference between fast food and a crock pot. And if you think about it, McDonald's is terrible in every way, shape, or form. In and out rules all. McDonald's is not worth it, especially for the price. But I would much rather, even when it comes to something else, you heard me core, even when it comes to something else, even when it comes to something else, if you think of how a crock pot works when it's used properly, the reason why the food turns out so good is because it cooked slowly over a long period of time. If you think about somebody who knows how to smoke and barbecue, somebody who knows how to cook an epic Thanksgiving dinner, it is never gonna be rushed. It is slow, one intentional step at a time. For many of us, especially us guys, what we are often trying to do in our Christian life is we're trying to find what's the one step, the one confession, the one person I need to talk to, and then it's done, and we miss out, and all of a sudden our speed and our fear becomes an idol. Instead of saying, okay, Jesus, I'm gonna do this at your pace. I'm gonna do this in your leadership. I'm gonna do this your way. And so for all of us, are are you willing not only for God to reveal the truth, but are you ready through the Holy Spirit to respond to it?