WEBVTT 00:00:00.959 --> 00:00:07.440 So we are in the season of Lent, which is the 40 days leading up to Easter. 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:19.280 So during this season of Lent, we're studying different Jesus stories and Jesus conversations, preparing our hearts to contemplate and celebrate the gift of Christ come Easter. 00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:24.000 So our text this morning drops us into the final week of Jesus' life. 00:00:24.079 --> 00:00:32.880 And in this text, a group of Greek people, outsiders to the religious elite, they come to find Jesus. 00:00:33.200 --> 00:00:38.079 And the word that we'll see in verse 21, this word came, that they came. 00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:42.320 It signals that they were arriving in a lowly position. 00:00:42.399 --> 00:00:48.640 And it made me think back to just last week when we talked about Nicodemus coming to Jesus. 00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:56.479 So last week we had a religious elite show up seeking Jesus, and then this week we have an outsider show up. 00:00:56.560 --> 00:00:58.159 And isn't that great? 00:00:58.719 --> 00:01:01.200 Because isn't that how we feel, right? 00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:11.120 Like at times you feel like a religious elite, like you have your act together and you're holding it together, and you got everything together, and you got your little bit of status and you got through stuff together. 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:17.280 And then at times you just feel like an outsider, like you don't fit in, and everything's falling apart. 00:01:17.599 --> 00:01:32.879 And yet, on back-to-back weeks, we get through the lectionary passages, a religious elite and then an outsider both coming to Jesus in these lowly positions to say, I don't have anywhere else to go, but I've been hearing about you and I want to know about you. 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:36.799 So our text is John 12, verses 20 through 24. 00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:42.159 Now, among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:46.719 So these came to Philip, and there's the word, showing up in a lowly position. 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:52.640 They came to Philip, who was from Bathseda in Galilee, and asked him, Sir, we wish to see Jesus. 00:01:52.799 --> 00:02:01.120 Philip went and told Andrew, Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus, and Jesus answered them, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:04.719 Truly, truly, and we that word is amen, amen. 00:02:04.959 --> 00:02:11.360 I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. 00:02:11.439 --> 00:02:15.280 But if it dies, it bears much fruit. 00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:30.240 So Jesus is clearly alluding toward his own death and resurrection here, and at the same time, as we'll see where the passage takes us, he's talking to us, he's talking to people about how we need a death and a rebirth. 00:02:30.479 --> 00:02:34.960 And so our point number one is this: such an overarching principle for life. 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:41.280 You always find abundant life, and we say abundant and eternal life on the other side of death. 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:43.120 That's where it's found. 00:02:43.439 --> 00:02:49.199 These people would have heard this passage so clearly as an agricultural people. 00:02:49.439 --> 00:03:02.560 They knew the experience of walking into a field and putting a seed under the dirt and burying it in death to come back a few weeks later and to see new birth. 00:03:03.759 --> 00:03:17.039 See, the point here is that planting ourselves in the soil means for us to be buried in Christ, that we've died in Christ, to have a rebirth, to be born again is what that means. 00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:33.280 Our hearts are buried in the mercy and grace of God so that we might have sustainable worth, forgiveness, and righteousness in Him and not in our own ability to try to conjure it up. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:38.000 Christy was out of town at the beginning of this week and over last weekend. 00:03:38.080 --> 00:03:41.360 So what that meant was that I was waking up earlier than normal, right? 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:53.039 To get stuff together, to quarterback the schedule of the house and the girls, and then to drive them all over the place, which meant also in the evening I was more exhausted than normal. 00:03:53.199 --> 00:03:57.039 But you know the upside if you're married or you have a roommate or something. 00:03:57.120 --> 00:04:02.639 The upside is come evening, you don't have to talk to anybody else about what to watch, right? 00:04:02.719 --> 00:04:10.240 Like, I mean, your selfishness can just run for my meat free side could just go wild this past week with her gone. 00:04:10.319 --> 00:04:12.800 Like I could do all that without her saying anything. 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:15.680 And then at night, you know, there's no discussion. 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:17.759 It's just like laying on the couch. 00:04:17.839 --> 00:04:23.120 I watched Coldplay and Garth Brook documentaries back to back, of which I'd already seen both of them. 00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:24.160 That's how bad it was. 00:04:24.319 --> 00:04:27.920 I'd already seen both of them, and she didn't even have to say, you've already seen this. 00:04:28.079 --> 00:04:28.800 No, I love it. 00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:29.839 I'll watch it all the time. 00:04:29.920 --> 00:04:30.720 I might watch it this week. 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:32.959 I just got excited that I could watch it again this week. 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:33.600 Both of them. 00:04:33.759 --> 00:04:34.879 I love them that much. 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:35.519 Right? 00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:37.439 In short, I got to be selfish. 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:38.959 I got to be selfish. 00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:44.319 Because to love anyone actively is filled with deaths. 00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:47.120 It's filled with a whole bunch of deaths. 00:04:47.519 --> 00:04:53.279 Because to experience the blessing of being loved or to love is to die. 00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:59.199 It's to die to pride, it's to die to your own way, it's to die to selfishness. 00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:01.040 I love this quote. 00:05:01.199 --> 00:05:03.600 I've read it before about this passage. 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:10.959 Watchman Ni, who was a church leader and an author in China, he wrote this about this passage. 00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:20.959 God's means of delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but by making us weaker and weaker. 00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:26.720 That is surely rather a peculiar way of victory, you say, but it is the divine way. 00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:39.680 God sets us free from the dominion of sin not by strengthening our old man, but by crucifying him, not by helping him to do anything, but by removing him from the scene of action. 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:42.319 Now, here's what I think that means, at least to me. 00:05:42.480 --> 00:05:51.360 It means to have affection for trying to self-assert into redemption or wholeness is actually self-defeating. 00:05:51.519 --> 00:06:00.959 Like the attempt to self-justify into worth or forgiveness or righteousness, the very attempt of it suffocates the desire that you want for those things. 00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:05.120 And so what we need, because that's true, what we need is a death. 00:06:05.519 --> 00:06:11.600 For that flesh, we say flesh, we can say old Adam, we can say false self if you want to become really current in your language. 00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:13.120 I mean, any of those things, same thing. 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:14.560 It's your flesh. 00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:16.480 Has to die. 00:06:17.839 --> 00:06:21.360 Has to die into Christ's sufficiency for you. 00:06:21.519 --> 00:06:25.279 And that's what we mean when we say God's grace is enough, or we say Jesus is enough. 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:26.720 That's what we mean. 00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:30.480 It's this position that we get to be in. 00:06:31.600 --> 00:06:39.439 To be both humble and completely beloved in the same moment, at the same time. 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:49.040 Verse 25 leads us to this well-known verse: whoever loves his life loses it. 00:06:49.199 --> 00:06:54.639 And whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 00:06:55.759 --> 00:06:58.720 This week I found myself thinking about our church. 00:06:58.879 --> 00:07:11.040 As I feel like we're sort of like entering into a new season or like a like a pivotal moment, at least for me, as being behind the scenes with other leaders making decisions and our staff making other decisions. 00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:18.639 I think back eight and a half years ago, six of us around a dining room table talking about a church. 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:33.360 And then a year after that, being a small group of 25 people in a dentist office, and then we were in somebody's home, and then a preschool, and then we were in the old sanctuary on that side, and then we're in this much nicer room over here. 00:07:34.720 --> 00:07:43.519 And along the way, there's probably like three different times where it was like significant steps were about to be made, and there wasn't enough money to make them. 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:45.519 And so we freak out behind the scenes. 00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:50.480 Like I'm real confident up here, but like behind the scenes, like really freak out and pray a little bit, to be honest. 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:56.319 A lot of freaking out, a little bit of prayer, and then God would do something, is sort of our rhythm. 00:07:56.800 --> 00:08:02.720 And then last year, this past year, I mean, the the room was empty. 00:08:02.879 --> 00:08:11.839 I mean, I love that this morning is Sam and Erica and myself, because last year at this time, for three months straight, it was us three. 00:08:12.079 --> 00:08:13.439 None, this was empty. 00:08:13.519 --> 00:08:18.639 We did this, we did this for three months to an empty room. 00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:28.480 And we would just come in and we'd be scared to touch stuff each other touched, but we didn't know what we didn't know, you know, and we just did it just like every single week. 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:42.480 And then now we get to be at this point, like in the email sent out this week, we get to be at this point of entering a sequence of steps in the coming months of just getting back to normal communal and worship patterns. 00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:55.840 And what I love to say when I always think back over the trajectory of our church, because maybe you just showed up, like this is your this is your first week, and you even know what I'm talking about with the dentist office, is here's what I'm saying is it was good back then. 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:58.000 Like it was good in the dentist office. 00:08:58.559 --> 00:09:00.639 Like the Lord was good to us then. 00:09:01.039 --> 00:09:03.840 And when we were at the preschool, the Lord was good to us. 00:09:04.320 --> 00:09:17.120 And last year, when the room was empty, and you were at home, and you were just like finding resources online to just like feed yourself as best you could, the Lord was still good. 00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:23.600 Like we won't ever understand all of like why and how and how's he allowed that and all that, but we can know this. 00:09:23.759 --> 00:09:24.399 This is what we can know. 00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:25.840 This is what the passage gives us. 00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:29.919 He doesn't just meet us in our strength, right? 00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:32.000 He meets us in our weakness. 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:39.039 It is in our weakness that we are found in the lowly position that we arrive with. 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:43.360 That's such good news because we're not always strong. 00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:49.360 The passage makes me think about the difference between a theology of glory and a theology of the cross. 00:09:49.600 --> 00:09:52.960 So the theology of glory sort of works like this. 00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:55.039 It's kind of like consumerism in a way. 00:09:55.200 --> 00:10:00.159 If I get that, then I will be saved whole and fulfilled. 00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:02.000 It's also how the law works, by the way. 00:10:02.159 --> 00:10:10.639 The idea with the theology of glory is that the Christian faith would be a step-by-step increase of becoming better and better and better. 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:14.000 And that that's the way in which the Christian life works. 00:10:14.399 --> 00:10:24.000 The delusion of that, of course, is that the delusion is that life is at the top, and that maturing is always you getting better and better and better. 00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:26.879 And it does require a delusion. 00:10:27.679 --> 00:10:31.759 We've been wearing masks for about a year or so in different settings. 00:10:31.919 --> 00:10:35.279 You wear masks, you have to throw it on, you walk in somewhere in here while we sing. 00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:42.159 Now, the introvert part of me, if I'm honest, and some of you, just raise your hand if there's part you have loved some mask wearing. 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:48.399 Like, there's some moments, okay, Phil, me and the Enneagram fives, all the Enneagram fives, who raised your hand. 00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:56.480 I can put a hat on and a mask on and walk into the Kroger where you see 37 people you know. 00:10:56.799 --> 00:10:58.559 And I don't have to say hi to anybody. 00:10:58.639 --> 00:11:00.559 And I'm sorry, I walked right by you. 00:11:00.639 --> 00:11:10.639 Like I walked right by, I got my bananas, right, and my lar bars, straight up front, cut off an old lady, straight, nobody, you know, look what the pastor's doing, right? 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:14.799 Like, I could just, like, anonymous, amazing what a mask can do, right? 00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:16.080 Then that's what a mask does. 00:11:16.159 --> 00:11:20.879 It like allows us to behave a little differently than we would otherwise. 00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:33.200 Now, here's the problem with theology of glory: it creates masks for our identities and our hearts, because glory theology, it forces you to be dishonest as soon as you enter it. 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:35.440 Because you're not always getting better. 00:11:35.840 --> 00:11:39.360 So you will eventually become dishonest about yourself. 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:43.440 There'll be a pretending side to you, which is exhausting. 00:11:44.799 --> 00:11:51.840 But Jesus' way to say, no, no, no, no, no, like it's in your weakness you are found. 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:58.639 This theology of the cross, that you're not always perfectly getting better and better and better. 00:11:58.879 --> 00:12:06.879 This theology of the cross says this God provides salvation, wholeness, and fulfillment as I die into Christ. 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:08.960 Like that's what the Christian life is. 00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:17.440 It's more and more sacrifice and honestly facing your weakness and shame and guilt in increasing manners. 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:26.320 So you're losing the parts of yourself that's actually sabotaging yourself as to find your true beloved self in Jesus. 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:28.240 Now, let's say this. 00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:33.360 Theoretically, you might be getting better, but you'll never know it. 00:12:33.679 --> 00:12:35.600 Which is really good for us. 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:37.440 Like maybe you're getting better. 00:12:37.519 --> 00:12:41.360 Maybe some other people around you are going, like, wow, he's really maturing. 00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:42.559 She's really maturing. 00:12:42.639 --> 00:12:43.919 But you won't know it. 00:12:44.399 --> 00:12:50.000 That's what's so great about the theology of the cross, is it doesn't send you back into pride. 00:12:50.320 --> 00:12:51.519 Verse 26. 00:12:51.919 --> 00:12:57.600 If anyone serves me, he must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. 00:12:57.759 --> 00:13:00.960 If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. 00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:09.039 Point number two is this your resurrected life is characterized by following Jesus as to serve God. 00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:10.720 I kind of love that order there. 00:13:10.799 --> 00:13:16.399 I don't want to over like equation things because I love the relational nature of our relationship with God. 00:13:16.559 --> 00:13:23.919 But it's in a relationship with the Father that we understand that we are resting and following Jesus. 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:29.519 And resting and following Jesus means that our lives are being in service unto him. 00:13:30.480 --> 00:13:35.759 Thinking about that calling and then thinking about the point of like we're not always getting better and better and better and aware of that. 00:13:35.919 --> 00:13:37.919 It's sort of like hiking with a four-year-old. 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:40.559 Have you ever taken a four-year-old hiking? 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:44.879 Well, we learned early on, it's as much about a bag of lollipops as it is anything else. 00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:49.840 It's all about snacking the child through the process, is what it's about. 00:13:50.080 --> 00:13:51.200 In our family, we have a rule. 00:13:51.279 --> 00:13:56.080 If we go hiking, like the snack and candy rules and quotas and all that, that's gone. 00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:56.639 It's gone. 00:13:56.799 --> 00:14:03.840 We will shove Snickers, little Snicker bites, down their throats all the way down the trail to get them to the end. 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:08.399 Because hiking with a four-year-old is not linear. 00:14:08.559 --> 00:14:12.480 And it's definitely not like a like a steady step-by-step increase, right? 00:14:12.559 --> 00:14:13.600 Like you're all over the trail. 00:14:13.679 --> 00:14:17.519 You're off the trail, he's peeing behind the tree, he's going running backward. 00:14:17.600 --> 00:14:21.840 Like you're like, you are hiking three times as hard by all this crisscrossing. 00:14:21.919 --> 00:14:26.639 If we could just stay like directed, you would have so much energy for this hike. 00:14:26.720 --> 00:14:28.159 But it's all over, right? 00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:29.440 It's all over. 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:34.159 But it's still inside the hike, like it's still an ongoing direction. 00:14:34.639 --> 00:14:36.480 And that's such a good image. 00:14:36.639 --> 00:14:39.600 That's the image I return to for Christian life. 00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:43.200 Because it is ongoing direction toward godliness. 00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:50.639 But within that, inside the grace of God, like there's all this imperfection that we have because we're still sinners. 00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:59.200 It's not perfect, but inside the journey of grace, it is over time an ongoing direction. 00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:11.279 And this following Jesus, what this passage gives us, part of this following of Jesus within that construct of in the grace, and we're not perfect, is serving God, called to be in service to God. 00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:18.559 We were created to be in service to God, which turns out to be largely about loving other people. 00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:26.480 A few questions for growth and grace that surfaced for me contemplating this passage. 00:15:27.840 --> 00:15:34.639 What ways are you still living by a glory theology in your faith or purpose? 00:15:35.279 --> 00:15:44.080 In what ways is your spiritual life and your faith and your purpose still tied to a glory theology and thus sabotaging the very thing you desire? 00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:50.480 Number two, how could dying to self grant you a healthier and freer heart? 00:15:51.039 --> 00:16:02.399 Now that's not prosperity gospel because that question, dying to self, sends you into Christ Himself, where He has declared you free and you're still becoming freer than you could imagine. 00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:12.080 Third, what ways do I need to die to self and the key relationships God has called me to in my life? 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:18.559 About 600 years before Christ was born, there's this prophet named Jeremiah. 00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:20.879 He taught about the new covenant. 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:24.320 We just came out of the book of Hebrews, if you've been around here. 00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:37.360 And so as I read these words of Jeremiah, 600 years before Jesus, if you've been around, you can think back to all the teaching we had, breaking apart Hebrews, the old covenant and the new covenant. 00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:42.879 And here's Jeremiah 600 years before, Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34. 00:16:43.679 --> 00:17:06.640 Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. 00:17:06.799 --> 00:17:15.119 I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 00:17:15.440 --> 00:17:22.160 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me. 00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:31.759 From the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. 00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:38.640 So inside this new covenant, this Jesus life, there's an implication. 00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:41.039 And this last point is an implication point. 00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:42.400 Point number three. 00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:54.079 In Christ, our motivation shifts from have to and try harder to already finished and empowered by. 00:17:55.119 --> 00:17:57.200 Now, this doesn't mean we do nothing. 00:17:57.440 --> 00:18:03.119 It means that the presence and activity of our faith is our dying into Christ. 00:18:03.279 --> 00:18:04.640 It's in Christ. 00:18:05.759 --> 00:18:10.079 Verse 31, it starts with that beautiful word that we've looked at before. 00:18:10.319 --> 00:18:11.039 Behold. 00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:14.079 Keeps popping up in Scripture, and I love when it pops up. 00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:18.079 We talked about it about a year, year and a half ago in 1 John when it popped up. 00:18:18.160 --> 00:18:19.119 1 John 3, 1. 00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:26.319 Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. 00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:29.200 Behold is this rich word. 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:31.039 We don't use it, right? 00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:34.000 Like we say, look, look over there, go see that. 00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:36.240 But behold is so much more than that. 00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:43.599 It's like it registers in us and it brings up the imagery of something that's so magnificent that you look at it, but you don't like look at it and move on. 00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:46.000 Like you look at it and you are stopping. 00:18:46.079 --> 00:18:47.359 You have to stop. 00:18:48.319 --> 00:18:57.839 Years ago, with my old job, the job I had before this one, I pastored a group of single adults and I took them to the beach on a beach retreat. 00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:05.039 And I learned when I got down there that one of my friends, Tim, he had not seen the ocean in like 15 years. 00:19:05.519 --> 00:19:09.359 So he was like 30 years old, and he had not seen the ocean since he was 15 years old. 00:19:09.440 --> 00:19:11.359 And it's like, well, I'm gonna walk with you. 00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:14.559 Like I want to I want to behold that while you behold that. 00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:16.160 Like I'm gonna watch that. 00:19:16.319 --> 00:19:19.839 And we walk the block to Grayton Beach, and you've seen this beach. 00:19:19.920 --> 00:19:21.039 Here's an image of that beach. 00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:29.519 We walk about a block to the beach and we come up over the dunes on one of those walkways, just like that, and we get up and over. 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:30.960 You know the moment, right? 00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:32.559 When you've been to the beach. 00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:33.119 Right? 00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:38.400 When you can hear it, you hear it before you get there, and you can smell it, and then you come up and over. 00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:43.680 And as soon as we got up and over where he could see it, he just stopped. 00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:45.839 Right? 00:19:46.240 --> 00:19:49.680 I mean, it wasn't like, I'm good, let's go, we're grilling hot dogs, let's head back. 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.079 No, it was like he was really like, he was beholding this. 00:19:55.279 --> 00:19:57.359 I mean, he stood there for a while. 00:19:58.880 --> 00:20:06.799 Have you ever seen something that is so magnificent that you just don't move on because there's just nowhere else to go? 00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:09.039 And think about Nicodemus. 00:20:09.519 --> 00:20:19.359 Think about these Greek people, and they're seeing something so magnificent that it forces them into a humility, a lowly approach. 00:20:19.759 --> 00:20:20.720 They don't have anywhere else to go. 00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:21.920 There's nowhere else to go. 00:20:22.160 --> 00:20:24.319 Where else will they take their heart? 00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:29.759 Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant. 00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:35.200 Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. 00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:45.519 And in this gospel, both the religious elite and the outsider are called, which is so good because we're both of these things at different times in our lives. 00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:48.000 There's nothing to move on to. 00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:59.039 And in that lowly and beloved place, we get the implication that's so good for us that all the half-tos and the try-harders we've been white knuckling trying to get our worth and forgiveness and righteousness. 00:20:59.759 --> 00:21:06.480 All those transform in Christ into already finished and empowered by. 00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:35.599 Thank you that our calling is in your love. 00:21:37.119 --> 00:21:55.359 And that the way that that is lived out is not by us endlessly becoming better and us becoming aware of that, and thus back into the cycle of pride and self-saving, but into just a constant humility and lowly position before you, for you are the magnificent Savior, not ourselves. 00:21:55.680 --> 00:22:10.079 How freeing it is to stop self justifying, to stop the endlessness of self righteousness, to find a death to the old self and a new birth in you. 00:22:10.319 --> 00:22:11.759 In Jesus' name we pray. 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:12.480 Amen.