SPEAKER_00: So when I was in my first semester at the University of Georgia, I had this huge economics class.
SPEAKER_00: So it was on the north campus of Georgia, and when I mean huge, there's probably 300 people in there.
SPEAKER_00: There's one of those huge auditoriums, and you know, it was very steep, you know, the roads are very steep, and the professor was down at the bottom, and I sat over, I can clearly remember, I sat over the top right, and I looked over and at 300 people, I recognized this one girl on the other side.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know her, but I I re I I wanted to know her.
SPEAKER_00: And so I was sitting over there and I spotted her, and then uh class ended.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and she was she was she was good looking.
SPEAKER_00: I just go ahead and just kind of let that be known.
SPEAKER_00: She was good looking.
SPEAKER_00: Um and class ended, and I noticed we walked this same route down the hill, down to the Tate Center to the bus stop.
SPEAKER_00: We we got on the same bus to the South Campus.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, we got off at the same stop.
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of stalking at this point.
SPEAKER_00: We get off, we walk to the same building on South Campus.
SPEAKER_00: This is a sign, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean I'm a sophomore in college, and I am I am getting pumped up about what the scenario.
SPEAKER_00: And so I I go I go home to my roommates, and I thought, oh man, there's a girl in economics class, and oh, she's beautiful, and it's the same route.
SPEAKER_00: Can you believe that?
SPEAKER_00: Can you believe we're in the same class, same walking route, same bus stop, same bus, you know, same walks to the to the next building, and so okay, you know, and so we're getting all the roommates are gathering, you know, what's your plan, what's your game plan gonna be?
SPEAKER_00: And so for for just you know, maybe a week and a half, I'm I just I just kind of watch her from a distance, and um, and she's becoming sort of a goddess at this point, you know, like she's perfect to me.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the the longer the time goes by, the more perfect she's getting because she is so kind, she's smart.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she I mean she she just I just know it.
SPEAKER_00: I just know she's funny, but not too funny because I don't want too much competition, and she's gonna laugh at my jokes, and she's not self-absorbed.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, she would be the perfect wife, and we have this house out in the country.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and just building this up.
SPEAKER_00: And so finally my roommates and I, we gather, we figure my my we decided on the bus is the best place to kind of approach her and say, Are you in economics?
SPEAKER_00: And that was gonna be the you know the line.
SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm pretty sure there's no way she'd noticed me out of everybody, just no possible way.
SPEAKER_00: But so so I we we start to sit together in economics, we start to walk together at the bus stop, ride the bus together, walk to the to the next building.
SPEAKER_00: Um if she she just we didn't get along.
SPEAKER_00: She wasn't a goddess, she was actually kind of annoying.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I won't say her name.
SPEAKER_00: Um maybe you've done this projected onto another person.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've done the reverse.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you see a beautiful girl, and you just know she's horrible.
SPEAKER_00: She's horrible.
SPEAKER_00: She's a brat.
SPEAKER_00: She's probably manipulative.
SPEAKER_00: She's probably from a rich family.
SPEAKER_00: She probably has eating disorder to be that skinny, right?
SPEAKER_00: And like you project on her all this negative, right?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We do this all the time.
SPEAKER_00: We project on people we don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I saw I saw this at the my firm former place of employment.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because there's a big church, a lot of people couldn't know the senior pastor.
SPEAKER_00: That happens.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody can't know him, you got 3,000 people.
SPEAKER_00: And so the people who didn't know him would project onto him what he was and was not.
SPEAKER_00: And you would hear stuff, you'd be like, well, I don't, no, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00: I know I know him.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think he's like that.
SPEAKER_00: But this projection occurs anytime you can't know somebody.
SPEAKER_00: We project, and so we we do this with beautiful girls, we do this with people we can't know, with bosses that are way above us.
SPEAKER_00: We do it with God.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So projection with God is the process of ascribing to God, so out of ourselves, we ascribe to God uh our own attitudes and our own feelings, and you know where they come from?
SPEAKER_00: They come from our own defenses, our own inadequacies, and a lot of times our own sense of guilt.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was reading about this week in this book called The Glimpse of Jesus by Brendan Manning, great book.
SPEAKER_00: And he says a lot of times the distortion actually occurs as you're growing up.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're in a family and um and parents decide, well, the way that we'll discipline is just like use God for everything.
SPEAKER_00: We'll just, you know, God doesn't want you to do that, God wants you to do this.
SPEAKER_00: But it's never about the heart.
SPEAKER_00: God loves you, he's concerned for your heart, he's concerned for your wholeness, it's just all behavioral on how God wants you to behave this way and that way.
SPEAKER_00: And so God becomes sort of like this heavenly cop, you know, waiting to catch you and get you.
SPEAKER_00: And that's sort of it.
SPEAKER_00: Or you show up to church.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you had no idea God was so concerned with an attendance goal of 250 people, but apparently it was somewhere in the Bible, and you just didn't know it because God is getting played into it, and it is so heavily forced that you just you go, I I had no idea he was that concerned, or maybe fiscally, you had no idea that he was that concerned about this particular goal, right?
SPEAKER_00: And you and you leave, because there's been some projection and you leave some distortion about God and who he is and is not, and so there's some distortion, and so we as we grow up or we come out of certain experiences, we project, we project on God who he is, and and then that that reflects in how we live.
SPEAKER_00: So Bernard Bush, he has a PhD in theology and psychology, pretty good degrees to go with, to have a few things to say.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he says this Fortunately, Christ has revealed the real God to us in unmistakably human form, exposed projection for the idolatry it is, and given us the way to freedom from it.
SPEAKER_00: So let me read the text, John 15.
SPEAKER_00: Let me get into the text.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read the text, and then we're gonna come back to this idea of projection.
SPEAKER_00: So we're still at the Last Supper, we've been there a while, we're gonna be there even further.
SPEAKER_00: Um giving me a hard time how we get into certain passages, we just stay there for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a lot going on at this supper, pretty big supper.
SPEAKER_00: He's washed feet, he's dealt with Judas.
SPEAKER_00: I think maybe we've had three sermons there.
SPEAKER_00: There may be another three or four coming.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure, but there's a lot going on, and so we're still at the table in the upper room in Jerusalem before the Passover feast.
SPEAKER_00: John 14, 1 through 7.
SPEAKER_00: Do not let your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus talking to his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: You believe in God, believe also in me.
SPEAKER_00: My father's house is many rooms, that if if there were not so, what I've told you, I'm going there to prepare a place for you.
SPEAKER_00: And if I if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me?
SPEAKER_00: That you also may be where I am.
SPEAKER_00: You know the way to the place where I'm going.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is saying this I won't always be here.
SPEAKER_00: There's more life to come.
SPEAKER_00: There's another place after you pass away, there's another place.
SPEAKER_00: I'm creating that place for you, I'm creating the way for you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the way to it.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: And Thomas says in verse 5, Lord, we don't know where you're going.
SPEAKER_00: So how can we know the way?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answered, here's the way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the way.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And the life.
SPEAKER_00: No one comes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um hate to break your heart here.
SPEAKER_00: You're you're not the way.
SPEAKER_00: You're not.
SPEAKER_00: All your accumulation of good deeds, all your accumulation of Christian behavior, you're you're not the way.
SPEAKER_00: You can't handle it.
SPEAKER_00: You can't get there.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus lived the life we did not live.
SPEAKER_00: Perfect and righteous.
SPEAKER_00: When he dies on the cross, he takes our sin upon himself, gives us his righteousness, so he is the way.
SPEAKER_00: If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.
SPEAKER_00: From now on, you do know him.
SPEAKER_00: You've seen him.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of great kind of intellectual conversations that come out of 14.6 on the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Because we can see Jesus claiming to be the way, so it means all these other religions and possible ways.
SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like ruling out pluralism and plurality for spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: So what about these other ways?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal with these other ways.
SPEAKER_00: There are some great other ways to be moral.
SPEAKER_00: There are some fantastic other ways to be a dedicated person.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, we could probably go find more moral people.
SPEAKER_00: I can guarantee you, we can go find more moral people and more dedicated people than you and than me.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is the way to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He's the only way.
SPEAKER_00: He is the glimpse.
SPEAKER_00: And here's how he differs from every other way of spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: Here is how he differs because he doesn't just tell us to be righteous.
SPEAKER_00: He does.
SPEAKER_00: He does tell us to be righteous.
SPEAKER_00: So he is our example and our teacher in that way, but he's also our substitute.
SPEAKER_00: There's the difference.
SPEAKER_00: He came to die for us to do what we cannot do.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe you're here, and on some level you're going, Jesus is the way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in for that.
SPEAKER_00: But you're going to wake up tomorrow and you're living out, I'm the way.
SPEAKER_00: And you know how you know if you're doing this?
SPEAKER_00: You feel a sense of burden, of guilt, self-obsession.
SPEAKER_00: You got a record going, how you're doing, how you're not doing.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of a sense of gratitude and what Jesus did for you and relief.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, you don't have to be the way because I'm the way.
SPEAKER_00: The conversation continues, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: Philip says, Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.
SPEAKER_00: Philip's not catching on.
SPEAKER_00: He's not catching on to this.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answered, Don't you know me, Philip?
SPEAKER_00: Even after I have been among you such a long time.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' like, Are you not catching on?
SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
SPEAKER_00: How are you missing this?
SPEAKER_00: I've trying to be clear with you.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.
SPEAKER_00: How can you say, show us the Father?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me?
SPEAKER_00: The words I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, it is the Father living in me who is doing his work.
SPEAKER_00: Believe me when I say that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.
SPEAKER_00: So Philip's saying, Great, great, Jesus, great.
SPEAKER_00: Just show us, we show us the Father.
SPEAKER_00: For Philip, we show us Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: We show us this distant God.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is going, right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I've been doing.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm I'm Him for you to see.
SPEAKER_00: The guessing is over.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to continue to guess.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to continue to project.
SPEAKER_00: We can receive.
SPEAKER_00: So last Sunday after church, we rush home and we eat lunch and we pack the car and you know we have three little kids, so we're packing the roof.
SPEAKER_00: We're packing the hitchhall on the back.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we are packed up and we go to the, we're headed to the beach, so we we drive down 75 to Macon and then we head out 16.
SPEAKER_00: Have you been out 16 from Macon to Savannah?
SPEAKER_00: We stopped at a gas station.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not kidding you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh where the gas station, a four-wheeler pulled up and then a tractor.
SPEAKER_00: Why where are we?
SPEAKER_00: What is going on here?
SPEAKER_00: They're just driving up.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, all sorts of another gas station had a petting zoo.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I mean, I-16 is like a different world.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, and the time it's getting later.
SPEAKER_00: It's getting later in the day.
SPEAKER_00: We have little girls, and so, you know, you if if you had children that were younger, or you have children, you know you're the time you're doing timeline, like, you know, how late is it getting?
SPEAKER_00: We've got dinner, and they're getting fussy, and we got we got bed, and and so we're we're doing timeline.
SPEAKER_00: We cut up 95, as we're going to Hilton had to cut up 95, we're going, we're gonna have to do, we're gonna have to do dinner before we get there, and and you're you're doing all the time, you're doing the timeline.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to feed them so when we get there, they're not, you know, we're gonna have to feed them and do the bad thing at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: And and and here, here's the great relief in all of this.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the great relief in that we'd already been to this place before.
SPEAKER_00: We'd already been to this the condo that we were staying.
SPEAKER_00: We went the year before.
SPEAKER_00: So Christy and I are talking, we're going, okay, so um, all right, so I'm gonna move that the top bunk, I'm gonna move that mattress to the floor on that far side of the room, and then Josie can sleep on the bottom bunk over there, and then we'll put some pillows down.
SPEAKER_00: She's gonna fall out of that bed, so we'll put some pillows down there, and then Greta May, we're gonna open the pack and play and put it in the master bath, and then we'll figure out where we're gonna sleep after all this is done.
SPEAKER_00: So we're we but we've we've been there before.
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't a guessing game.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this brought so much sort of relief as that timeline toward bedtime and breaking down was coming and coming and coming.
SPEAKER_00: Just the fact that we've been there, we've seen it.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen it.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: You've seen the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Don't have to project, no guessing game left.
SPEAKER_00: You want to see the Father?
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: You want to know God?
SPEAKER_00: Read the New Testament, read all about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna know God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: So, what do we see when we see Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: So, John 14, he's at the table last few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about it.
SPEAKER_00: He washed feet, dealt with Judas graciously, the guy who's gonna betray him.
SPEAKER_00: Starts to teach his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: What we see, we see so much of Jesus' interaction with people at tables, at meals.
SPEAKER_00: So for the Jewish people, the table was all about your commitment to the Torah.
SPEAKER_00: This is where you lived out your commitment, your dedication.
SPEAKER_00: You showed it.
SPEAKER_00: What you ate, what you didn't eat, who you ate with.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the Jewish people get so upset.
SPEAKER_00: They get so upset at Jesus when he goes and eats with sinners and prostitutes and drunkards and tax collectors.
SPEAKER_00: We go, tax collectors, you know, we don't like the IRS, but we don't feel too bad about the IRS.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is like somebody who betrayed you and is sending your money to an enemy.
SPEAKER_00: You know, so all these people that are sort of segmented off and hated, Jesus is eating with them, he's going to their tables.
SPEAKER_00: And so the table for Jewish people, this is all about you were saying, I want to know you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be associated with you.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus comes along and he's eaten with all sorts of people, and he's saying over and over again, I want to know you, I want to be associated with you.
SPEAKER_00: So see in Luke 5, he eats with a tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody gets fuming mad.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 30, why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's dining with these people.
SPEAKER_00: He's breaking all this, the rules of how you live out your spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 7, I love this.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just eat with the lowly, he goes and he eats with the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just that he's just eating with these lowly people in society, he eats with people higher up in society because they're people.
SPEAKER_00: To Jesus, they're people.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 19 might be one of the most well-known meals.
SPEAKER_00: This is when Zacchaeus, who's a tax collector, a short little guy.
SPEAKER_00: So he was hated.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Bible goes out of his way to say short, so we've got to think he's pretty short compared to everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: And so he comes into a crowd, and Jesus is coming in, and everybody wants to see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And they're crowded in.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't know, maybe, you know, I mean, the Bible, when he talks about it, it says probably because of his height, he couldn't see over the crowd, but you've got to think this crowd also doesn't like him.
SPEAKER_00: So he's kind of getting rejected and pushed out.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've got to wonder what's going on inside of Zacchaeus to be rejected over and over and over and over again by a crowd of people.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a certain hunger in him, a neediness, and so he climbs a tree.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 5, you know, Jesus sees Zacchaeus and he says, you know, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 7, because the people can't believe this, he has gone, Jesus has gone to be the guest of a man who's a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna go sh eat at a table with them.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying to that guy, I want to know you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be associated with you.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what God's like?
SPEAKER_00: People just can't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the glimpse.
SPEAKER_00: This is the glimpse of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: A willingness to come into our lives when they're a mess, when they're put together, when they're somewhere between.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying, You've seen you've seen God.
SPEAKER_00: Because you've seen me.
SPEAKER_00: You've been, you've been to that condo before.
SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to project onto me.
SPEAKER_00: And you just gotta wonder what's going on in Philip in that John 14, where he Philip says, Show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.
SPEAKER_00: And you wonder what's the weight behind Philip's question?
SPEAKER_00: Like what's his idea of the Father?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Like and what kind of distortion and projections going on inside of Philip.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you wish he just knew all this?
SPEAKER_00: I would love it just, you know, if you got all this information.
SPEAKER_00: But you just wonder about it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just like we come in with projection and distortion.
SPEAKER_00: Philip's coming into this question with projection and distortion, and who knows how he grew up and what his dad was like or was not like, and how strong-handed his dad was, or how gentle his father was or wasn't, or horrible.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But what Philip's been seeing is that this is Jesus, he's the Messiah, and he's dining with people that we're not supposed to dine with.
SPEAKER_00: And he's trying to reconcile this.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you hear and you feel like God's that heavenly cop waiting to get you, catch you.
SPEAKER_00: He's out there counting all your screw-ups, keeping a list.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand that the list was put on Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: And they're leaving.
SPEAKER_00: You go, I don't say that too much.
SPEAKER_00: We can go do whatever they want to do.
SPEAKER_00: No, actually, that's not what happens.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart's relieved.
SPEAKER_00: You want to live out of gratitude for him.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're here and you just go, man, I just feel like he's disappointed with me.
SPEAKER_00: Like if I if I really got honest.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times I just covered up with television busyness, but if I really got honest, I just sort of feel like just disappointed.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand that disappointment from any lacking that you are to put on Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: That when he sees you, he takes great pleasure in you.
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday our five-year-old had her first ballet recital.
SPEAKER_00: She gets all fancied up and it's tutu and pink with white polka dots.
SPEAKER_00: She comes out of her bedroom, and Christy had been back there getting her all fixed up, and she comes out of her bedroom and she looks so pretty.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you look so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: And I took such great pleasure in her.
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: Take just as much pleasure in her when she's all messy in the backyard.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because she's my child.
SPEAKER_00: So it's easy to project on God.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he must be a disappointed father.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: If you want the father, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: When we look at Jesus, we don't see that.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see a disappointed father.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see a heavenly cop.
SPEAKER_00: We see a God who says, even though you won't come to me, I will come toward you.
SPEAKER_00: I will pursue you.
SPEAKER_00: You can't use your feelings of guilt or fear or restlessness as a gauge of who God is or how he feels about you unless you love yourselves without reservation.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
SPEAKER_00: I am grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: I'm your righteousness when you're not righteous.
SPEAKER_00: I am rest for your souls.
SPEAKER_00: Come to me.
SPEAKER_00: All you are weary and burdened.
SPEAKER_00: I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_00: I I I'm willing to take a towel and wrap it around my waist and fill the basin.
SPEAKER_00: I'm willing to come wash your feet.
SPEAKER_00: I'm willing to come into your into your mess.
SPEAKER_00: I want to come to your home and dine with you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be associated with you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to serve you and I want to love you.
SPEAKER_00: This is the glimpse we get of God through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to project anymore.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to guess.
SPEAKER_00: If you start projecting, start guessing.
SPEAKER_00: Just read read the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: What was Jesus like?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: God loves me.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: God, thank you that you didn't leave it up to a guessing game.
SPEAKER_00: Our inadequacy builds and creates horrible, horrible God.
SPEAKER_00: One that can be a dictator.
SPEAKER_00: One that can be disappointed.
SPEAKER_00: One that can care more about behaviors in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: One that can license sin, even.
SPEAKER_00: But we can look to Jesus and how he lived.
SPEAKER_00: The things he taught of how we should live, and at the same time, him continuing to say, I am what you are not.
SPEAKER_00: And that you came to serve and to die and to relieve us.
SPEAKER_00: And that you we don't have to project anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Help to free us from this.
SPEAKER_00: And help us to rest in the glimpse you gave us.
SPEAKER_00: That you you love us.
SPEAKER_00: And that out of that you're gonna bear much fruit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.