SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: The Church of the Lookout is in the hold of Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with all-inspiring love.
SPEAKER_01: Visit us online at theLoOKout.ch.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, welcome, welcome if we haven't met yet.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Luke, and uh we're gonna open up the the word today.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you have your Bibles, you can open up to John chapter 14.
SPEAKER_01: If you've been with us the last several weeks, we've been um we've been in uh a teaching series on the I am statements of Jesus and in the in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: There's four biographies of Jesus we know as the Gospels, and one of them is the Gospel of John.
SPEAKER_01: And and and John had a way of uh capturing the truth and reality of Jesus and kind of documenting that in a different way than the other gospels.
SPEAKER_01: And so throughout the Gospel of John, there's seven I am statements, and and we've been kind of holding these front and center together, beholding Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: What does Jesus say about himself?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just telling you guys, there's nothing more important than us beholding the face of Jesus, both alone and together.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_01: We're holding Jesus front and center and saying, Jesus, show us who you are, show us more about you, take us into the depths of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna read from John chapter 14.
SPEAKER_01: Next week will be the last of the series.
SPEAKER_01: This week we're talking about the phrase, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_01: Uh next week we're gonna be talking about when Jesus says, I am the bread of life, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But together, if you have your Bible or Bible app or whatever you do these days, um, let's read this together.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 14, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, Let not let not your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Believe in God, believe also in me.
SPEAKER_01: In my father's house are many rooms.
SPEAKER_01: If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
SPEAKER_01: And if I go to prepare a place for you, uh a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may also be.
SPEAKER_01: And you know the way to where I'm going.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going.
SPEAKER_01: How can we know the way?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.
SPEAKER_01: No one comes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_01: If you had known me, you would know you you would have known my Father also.
SPEAKER_01: From now on, you do know him and have seen him.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, we do thank you today that you are the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That you are the perfect image of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: That you are the exact representation and likeness of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Everything we want to know about the Father, we see in you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So thank you, God.
SPEAKER_01: Speak to us today.
SPEAKER_01: Captivate us by your beauty.
SPEAKER_01: Ignite wonder in our hearts as we look at you, God.
SPEAKER_01: We invite you, Holy Spirit, meet us here, speak to our hearts in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever noticed that your home, you know, for homeowners, have you ever noticed that your home is never quite finished?
SPEAKER_01: Or the moment you think it's finished, all of a sudden a hail storm comes through.
SPEAKER_01: And just, okay, well, that's what we're doing for the next several weeks or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Or you walk up into your room and to your just utter disgust, you you open the door and there's 7,000 moths that nobody knows where they came from.
SPEAKER_01: And what are we doing about this?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now we got to deal with that in our home.
SPEAKER_01: In our home, um, you know, uh, we lived in our current home for about 10 years now.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, about a couple times a year, we're we're always doing something new to the home.
SPEAKER_01: We get a wild hare, usually that's the one I'm married to.
SPEAKER_01: She's got a lot of great ideas.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and we think, hey, what if we what if we moved this wall or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so we're like, okay, let's move that wall.
SPEAKER_01: We move the wall, and it turns out it's way more than the wall that we're doing, and it turns out this this huge project, and and then before the dust even settles from that project, we're already, you know, it's we're already thinking, we're already like months at, we're thinking about the next big thing, you know, and so and it's amazing how when you when you're living in a home, you're always kind of asking, how do I make this the kind of dwelling place that is gonna suit us and suit our family and suit our relationship and be the kind of place that we want to be, the kind of place that we want to live, right?
SPEAKER_01: So we do this with with our homes in our dwelling places.
SPEAKER_01: Um but we do this in a lot of parts of life because we're it's never quite there, right?
SPEAKER_01: You're never quite, you get, you get, you get what you think you want, you get that kitchen you think you want, or you you upgrade something to your life, to your home, and you're like, that's gonna be it, that's gonna do it for us, or maybe you moved into a new home, you're like, that's gonna be it, it's gonna settle it for us once and for all.
SPEAKER_01: This is the place, and then you you get there, and then the carrot kind of moves a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: You ever notice that?
SPEAKER_01: And so that happens in our homes, it happens in a lot of parts of life where we we we believe if I if if if I can just just get just a little further, just upgrade this little part of my life, that's gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01: That's gonna be it.
SPEAKER_01: And we won't have to do anything else uh beyond that.
SPEAKER_01: And so we do that with um our careers, we do that with places that we want to live.
SPEAKER_01: If I could just get back to this part of the country, if I could just spend more time over here, that's gonna do it for me, right?
SPEAKER_01: If I can upgrade this part of my life, or we look at a lot of different parts parts of our life that we think if this was just improved, that's gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01: And then we get there, and then it it we we still feel a little bit unsettled.
SPEAKER_01: We haven't quite arrived yet, right?
SPEAKER_01: And it's a it's a common experience for all of us.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but but it's really indicating something bigger that I believe that we're wired for.
SPEAKER_01: C.
SPEAKER_01: S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis said it like this He said, if I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a part of us that always just kind of keeps moving.
SPEAKER_01: And you you think you, you know, you think you found the perfect church or the perfect neighborhood or whatever, and you get there and you're just like, oh, this is great, but but but but but but that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01: No, certainly there's a part that God wants us to be settled wherever we are, but there's also a part that everything everything that we're invited into is is also should reveal to us that we're not actually made for this world.
SPEAKER_01: We're made for a different kind of world, we're made for a different kind of home.
SPEAKER_01: So in this particular passage that we're that we're uh working through today in John 14, you know, this is this is part of what Jesus is inviting his guys into.
SPEAKER_01: And this is a very, again, it's an intimate conversation.
SPEAKER_01: This is a few hours before he is about to be arrested and led to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: When he speaks these words that we just read, Judas has already left the room to go betray him.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Peter already knows that he's going to deny him.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is really summarizing over dinner the most important things he wants his disciples to know.
SPEAKER_01: Moments before everything would change.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why he starts in this passage, he starts with them and says, Guys, let not your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: He had just told them that he was going to leave.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, their hearts would be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: If you had spent your life, if you gave up everything to follow Jesus for three years, that's what you should feel, right?
SPEAKER_01: When he said, when the the very person that you gave yourself to says, I'm leaving, I'm out.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, but don't be afraid, don't be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: They're like, Yeah, we're feeling troubled, you know.
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm a little agitated right now.
SPEAKER_01: This is anxiety creating.
SPEAKER_01: What are we going to do?
SPEAKER_01: Where are we going to go?
SPEAKER_01: They're having a hard time understanding.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: What is the end game here?
SPEAKER_01: We were following you for three years.
SPEAKER_01: Where is if you're if you're leaving, where is this going?
SPEAKER_01: Because it seems like things are getting worse, not better.
SPEAKER_01: Where is all this going and where are you going, right?
SPEAKER_01: Do those questions ever sound familiar?
SPEAKER_01: We come before the God and say, I don't see where this is going.
SPEAKER_01: What is happening here?
SPEAKER_01: Where are you going?
SPEAKER_01: How do we follow you there?
SPEAKER_01: And so then Jesus continues, as he's comforting their troubled hearts, he continues by reminding them of his ultimate purpose.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, This he says, In my father's house, there are many rooms.
SPEAKER_01: If it were not so, would I have told you?
SPEAKER_01: I go to prepare a place for you.
SPEAKER_01: And he he starts to bring them out of troubled hearts into this reality that his ultimate purpose is to create a dwelling place with him, that they might be with him and he with them.
SPEAKER_01: His language here is very interesting because immediately when we see rooms like that, I'm leaving language like this, we see Jesus say, I'm leaving to go to go prepare a place for a home somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01: We automatically think of heaven, right?
SPEAKER_01: Of I'm going to heaven or another place somewhere else other than here that God is at.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna, I have some unfinished work to do.
SPEAKER_01: We got some demo to do in the house, right?
SPEAKER_01: We gotta, we gotta get the house in order before you guys get there.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a really another layer here because when Jesus uses this word father's house, um, he's not just referring to heaven as an ultimate dwelling place.
SPEAKER_01: It's like in John chapter 2 when he talks about zeal for his father's house, he's not referring to another place.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 2, he the father's house was the temple, right?
SPEAKER_01: It was the intersection of heaven and earth as what their entire life was organized around.
SPEAKER_01: And so when Jesus said father's house, he's talking about the destination, the dwelling place of God with man.
SPEAKER_01: The temple was the place where heaven and earth intersected.
SPEAKER_01: It was a physical representation of God's desire to dwell with his people, but it was very specific, and not everyone can just waltz in there.
SPEAKER_01: And so when Jesus says, My father's house has many rooms, what he's doing, he's opening up the picture to say that the father's house is much bigger and more spacious than you ever thought it was.
SPEAKER_01: You see the temple here, but the father's house, what God is doing, what my father is doing, what you're invited into, what I'm going to make a way for you to enter into, it's way bigger than you ever thought it was.
SPEAKER_01: And it's for everyone.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, I go to prepare a place for you.
SPEAKER_01: And what he meant, what what he's talking about, preparing a place, is I'm going to the cross, I'm going to do what needs to be done in order for you to enter into this dwelling place, which meant going to the cross, offering himself as a final sacrifice that would in turn rend the veil that separated the presence of God from the people.
SPEAKER_01: His death was a demolition of the walls in his father's house, the walls that kept out.
SPEAKER_01: He was opening up a space for the world to come in and know him.
SPEAKER_01: And so by entering into death and resurrection, he created for himself a new temple by taking up residence in his very people.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is what he's been about from the very beginning, is inviting us home with him.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Peter 2.5 says, You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So Peter caught the vision.
SPEAKER_01: Peter understands what's going on that the temple used to be this location that you would go to, but now, because God's vision for us is to be at home with us and in us to be at home with Him, that now we are the temple of God.
SPEAKER_01: Can you just say that I am the home of God?
SPEAKER_01: God wants to be home with you.
SPEAKER_01: And this is what he's doing for all of time.
SPEAKER_01: This is where everything is leading.
SPEAKER_01: Even in Revelation 21, when we look at the climactic scene of all of the scriptures, it starts as it starts in a garden where God is at home with his people, just unencumbered, unhindered relationship in a garden.
SPEAKER_01: And it moves into a temple.
SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, when we get to Revelation 21, the very end of the book, the vision says, I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
SPEAKER_01: He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself, and God himself will be with them as their God.
SPEAKER_01: He will be, his dwelling place will be with us for all of time, and our dwelling place will be with him.
SPEAKER_01: So, in essence, everything Jesus is doing, everything he's saying, is about bringing us back home with him.
SPEAKER_01: And can we just pause there for a moment?
SPEAKER_01: Because if you've been, if if you're a person of faith, if you're a Christian, you've been walking with God for any length of time, it's easy for the faith to become about a lot of different things.
SPEAKER_01: It can be about behavior, it can be about doing the right things, praying enough, going to church.
SPEAKER_01: Am I sharing the gospel enough with people?
SPEAKER_01: Am I doing the stuff, so to speak, that we read about in the scriptures, which is all good.
SPEAKER_01: But at the at the end, all of those things, they're good.
SPEAKER_01: But all of this really is about us being at home with God, God being at home with us, which means us knowing him intimately.
SPEAKER_01: Even Jesus would say in different parts of the scriptures that there's coming a time where we'll stand in front of him and we're gonna be trying to bring before him all of the things that we've done in his name, and all of the prophetic words, and all of the things, and the people that we prayed for to heal, and the the amount of things we've got to do with our life, and and he's gonna, and some are gonna stand before him and he's gonna say, I don't know who you are.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what Jesus is trying to pull his guys, you know, as they're troubled, they're trying to make sense of everything, he's trying to pull them back into the reality of like, guys, now listen, I'm preparing a place for you because all of this is about coming home.
SPEAKER_01: It's about finally coming to the resting place that you were made for and that he designed the world for.
SPEAKER_01: It's about being at home with God and then for us partnering with him to build a home for others.
SPEAKER_01: And so after this brilliant word picture that Jesus brings, he finishes and he kind of finishes with this statement.
SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, like you know where I'm going, right?
SPEAKER_01: So he finishes this whole thing about going to prepare a place, and he says, and and you know where I'm going.
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's funny because then Thomas immediately responds, We actually don't, we have actually no idea where you're going.
SPEAKER_01: Did you guys catch that?
SPEAKER_01: I find Thomas's confusion strangely comforting.
SPEAKER_01: He's always trying to catch up a little bit because I'm always thinking, Am I the only one who doesn't quite know what's going on in this scene right here?
SPEAKER_01: And Thomas is right after Jesus says, You know where I'm going.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas says, Actually, we have no idea what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: How are we gonna go where you're going?
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's a funny thing because all these people try to make this case that the early church doctored up the scriptures and you know and edited it.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, listen, if you're gonna edit the Bible, you take out parts like that.
SPEAKER_01: Um, where like immediately the disciples are like, We don't get it.
SPEAKER_01: So Thomas said to them, Lord, we do not know where you're going.
SPEAKER_01: How can we know the way?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.
SPEAKER_01: No one comes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas is wanting to know the way.
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's a question I think we're all asking, we all ask all the time.
SPEAKER_01: When I when I people ask me to pray for them, I feel like more often than not, it's about clarity for wisdom and direction.
SPEAKER_01: And God, just tell me what you're doing in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I hear that almost all the time.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, God, can you just show me the way?
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus responds to him, I am the way, I am the truth.
SPEAKER_01: And what he's saying is, I'm the way back home.
SPEAKER_01: And this this particular statement, I am the way, the truth, and the life, it it's it's come to be one of the most controversial sayings in the entire Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just imagine the audacity of Jesus to suggest that he's not just one of many ways, but he is the way to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: In our culture, that's offensive, it's intolerant, it's preposterous to us to modern enlightened listeners.
SPEAKER_01: And it really rubs us the wrong way in a culture where you know we our spirituality has become a DIY spirituality.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_01: Like an a la carte spirituality.
SPEAKER_01: And what we do in our culture is oftentimes we we find, we cherry-pick, we find what we like about all of the different philosophies and world religions, and we kind of add it to do what works for us, quote unquote.
SPEAKER_01: And and and really what it is, it's it's uh we want to design our own way to God.
SPEAKER_01: We want to, we we want to design our own way home.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna design my own pathway to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: The problem is you can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, there's things that we can learn and even appreciate from other faiths, right?
SPEAKER_01: And other philosophies.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Um, in fact, I believe every person that we meet has the power to teach you something.
SPEAKER_01: Every single person you can learn from.
SPEAKER_01: Every single you can become a student of every person you meet.
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's that's a that's a good way to live.
SPEAKER_01: I believe it's a way of living in humility, and it's a it's a way of honoring every single person.
SPEAKER_01: Every person is worthy of dignity, honor, and respect.
SPEAKER_01: Even a few years ago, my wife and I got to go locally to uh the house of some Muslims during Ramadan.
SPEAKER_01: They invited us over for dinner, and uh and we got to go share a conversation with them.
SPEAKER_01: And I noticed that even during dinner, they would kind of there came a point where they cut the conversation short and they went in the other room and they bowed down and they prayed because there was a very specific, kind of very regimented devotion to God.
SPEAKER_01: And they didn't apologize to us, there was no fear of man.
SPEAKER_01: I remember walking away thinking about that.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, wow, I love that they have no fear of what we are going to think if they stay devoted to Allah.
SPEAKER_01: I remember walking away like God, may that be true in my life that I am devoted to you without making people uncomfortable around me.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm willing to do things that cause people to wonder and be curious.
SPEAKER_01: So we can learn something, we can posture ourselves to learn, but that's different than the idea that all religions are basically equal, they're all pathways to the same general God.
SPEAKER_01: That the idea it's well-meaning, but can we just be honest it's short-sighted, and that's being kind.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually stupid.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the same.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's actually disrespectful of every faith to say that they're all basically the same and leading to the same way, and it's it's disrespectful to Jesus because that's not what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: We're softening what he's saying, that's not what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, I am the way, the truth, and life.
SPEAKER_01: And every major world religion has vastly different claims about the reality of God, the reality of our, the reality of the human condition, and the nature of what it means to enter into union with God.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the same.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus was not offering himself as a pathway to God.
SPEAKER_01: He was saying, you can only know the Father by looking at me.
SPEAKER_01: That's the only way you can know the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And so we live in a day where we don't want that.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want Jesus to say things like that.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, you're so attractive, but you can you stop saying things like that?
SPEAKER_01: I want to live your kind of life.
SPEAKER_01: I want to love people like you.
SPEAKER_01: But when you say things like that, you make yourself sound like a bigot.
SPEAKER_01: You're intolerant.
SPEAKER_01: But it's important that we dig into that because Jesus is not a religion to subscribe to or a philosophy to be analyzed.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we want him to be, but that's not what he's offering.
SPEAKER_01: So we want to study him, we want to find answers, and if he can convince us enough, then we'll follow him.
SPEAKER_01: But that's not what he's at, that's not what he's offering.
SPEAKER_01: He's first of all a person to be known.
SPEAKER_01: He's not a religion to subscribe to, he's not a philosophy to be analyzed, to find the pros and cons.
SPEAKER_01: He's a person to know.
SPEAKER_01: He never he never offered anything but that.
SPEAKER_01: So it frustrates a lot of non believing people because they want Jesus to make sense.
SPEAKER_01: First, and answer their questions about life before they get to know him.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what he's offering.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Come and get to know me.
SPEAKER_01: And then maybe the answers and the questions that you're holding will make more sense once you get to know me.
SPEAKER_01: It's what he's offering.
SPEAKER_01: It's frustrating, but it's the only way to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: It's the only way to life is to be with him and let him reinterpret reality in a way that actually leads to life.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what he does for us.
SPEAKER_01: And he's not offering anything else there.
SPEAKER_01: I am the way to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: So he offers us relationship through him so we can know him and know the Father.
SPEAKER_01: So I've been married about just over 17 years now.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: I met my wife, my beautiful wife, down by this baptismal over here.
SPEAKER_01: It's a hot baptismal over there.
SPEAKER_01: Kid you not.
SPEAKER_01: We met over here.
SPEAKER_01: Been married 17 years.
SPEAKER_01: And it's been we fall in love with each other more every year.
SPEAKER_01: But if I was starting over, what's interesting is if I was just getting to know her for the first time.
SPEAKER_01: And if I want to learn about her, there's a lot I could learn about her without knowing her.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So I could ask other people that know her.
SPEAKER_01: I could ask family members to tell me about Megan.
SPEAKER_01: And they could tell me about everything.
SPEAKER_01: They could tell me about how she likes to redo every part of the house every two months.
SPEAKER_01: They could tell me about her love for pets.
SPEAKER_01: They could tell me that she's an amazing cook.
SPEAKER_01: They could tell me that she brings life wherever she goes.
SPEAKER_01: They could tell me those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01: I could get on Facebook.
SPEAKER_01: I could look at photos.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, she likes to go to Hawaii or she likes to go to the zoo or the pool or whatever that is.
SPEAKER_01: I could learn a lot about her.
SPEAKER_01: But you guys know that knowing about somebody is not the same as knowing somebody.
SPEAKER_01: I could I could even write a paper about her based on what everybody else says and based on what I learned on social media, but that's not the same as knowing her.
SPEAKER_01: But to gain access to her heart, to know her with a deep understanding requires an intentional pursuit of her.
SPEAKER_01: I can't do that through somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: And so she's not an idea to be studied, she's a person to know.
SPEAKER_01: So I could know all about her.
SPEAKER_01: But if I want to be at home with her, I can't do that through somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: I can't, there's no other access.
SPEAKER_01: There's no other, she's not offering anything else.
SPEAKER_01: She's not offering me, hey, build a life with me by understanding me from the outside.
SPEAKER_01: The part of marriage is to a life dedicated and covenant to intimately know one another, not keeping our options open, because the only way to intimately know each other is to eliminate all other options until we can get to the depths of each other's hearts.
SPEAKER_01: And it you can't get to that kind of knowing until you pursue the person and not just information about the person.
SPEAKER_01: So we love to study Jesus, but his invitation was not to be studied, to put him under a microscope.
SPEAKER_01: We do submit our lives, we we do read and enter into the life of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So yes, we can learn, but ultimately the invitation for us to Jesus is the way and the truth and the life is a knowing like we've never known.
SPEAKER_01: And so this passage, this the saying of Jesus, I am the way, the truth, and the life, what has made this difficult is that Christians has often have often weaponized the saying.
SPEAKER_01: And so, unfortunately, we do have to kind of own this one that over the years, I am the way, the truth, and the life, we've weaponized it, we've used that to posture ourselves against people to basically say, hey, your way is inferior, your way is stupid, your way is dumb, that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And that is not, that's not the way of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The way of Jesus actually never leads to arrogance, it never leads to pride.
SPEAKER_01: It does lead to confidence and boldness, but never pride and arrogance and conceit.
SPEAKER_01: The way of Jesus never makes somebody feel small and diminishes others.
SPEAKER_01: The way of Jesus is about washing the feet of those around you.
SPEAKER_01: It's about bringing dignity to the outcasts and the sinners.
SPEAKER_01: It's about partying with the tax collectors, it's about bearing the burdens of the world, it's about calling the little children to you, it's about weeping at the tomb of a friend.
SPEAKER_01: It's about things that the way of Jesus is unlike any other way.
SPEAKER_01: And if Christians ever follow the way of Jesus and it leads to this arrogance, it's not the way of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's not Jesus you're following.
SPEAKER_01: It's not.
SPEAKER_01: It's your idea of dominance.
SPEAKER_01: And that's and that's not gonna work.
SPEAKER_01: That's not gonna work in the days ahead.
SPEAKER_01: We are to be a people of conviction, we're not to be pushovers, we're not to be timid, we're not to be cowardly.
SPEAKER_01: But we're called to walk in the way of Jesus, in the way of fierce, unending love towards one another, dedicated to the truth and dedicated to life.
SPEAKER_01: So we can't get home though without knowing Jesus, saturating ourselves in his word, saturating ourselves in his life.
SPEAKER_01: So, how do you know Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: It's the it's it's really not complicated.
SPEAKER_01: It's spending time with him, which what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: It's it's uh letting the scriptures actually permeate you.
SPEAKER_01: It's eating the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk more about that next week, but it's actually letting God be more than idea, but entering into the scriptures with Jesus and asking him, Where, where, what, what are you revealing to me about yourself?
SPEAKER_01: What are you revealing to me about the Father?
SPEAKER_01: And as Jesus would later say, allowing the Holy Spirit to call to remembrance everything that he said, to remind us of all these things so that we can always have before us a clear vision.
SPEAKER_01: This is why we say our vision is Jesus, because there is no other vision that is going to lead us to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: There is no other vision that's going to lead us to truth and to life.
SPEAKER_01: It's only through the way of Jesus and a complete, permeated, um, all in, eliminating all the options, burning all of the ships.
SPEAKER_01: I am after you because you're the only you you only have you have the words.
SPEAKER_01: You're the only one who has words that lead to life.
SPEAKER_01: So we saturate ourselves because Jesus is the way.
SPEAKER_01: He's the way to the deepest questions of our life.
SPEAKER_01: He's the way home when we feel unsettled and we don't know why.
SPEAKER_01: So some of you guys know much of our heritage, especially in the gospel music world, comes from the African American, the Negro spirituals that were developed in the South during um during slavery in the in the South in the 1800s, 1700, 1700s, 1800s.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the interesting things, as I read recently, was when the Africans were enslaved and brought over, one of the things that stood out about the African slaves to all the white slave owners is the white Europeans, they were very, their music, let's just put it this way, their music sucked.
SPEAKER_01: It was bad, it was monotone, they just didn't have good, they didn't have harmonies.
SPEAKER_01: It was just, it was very lifeless.
SPEAKER_01: In a lot of the Puritan culture back in those days, the music was just not good.
SPEAKER_01: And so as the Africans would come over, they'd hear the Africans singing, and all of a sudden they're like, oh my gosh, the rhythm, the harmonies.
SPEAKER_01: It was just like, whoa! And so the the the slave owners actually required the Africans to sing while they worked.
SPEAKER_01: They're like, you're gonna work all day and you're gonna sing while you work, because it was for entertainment purposes.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted to be entertained, they liked it, it was pleasant to them.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted to hear them sing, and so the Africans started to sing, and songs started to develop as they were working in the fields.
SPEAKER_01: You know, and obviously they were they were um uh reminding themselves of uh the stories of Exodus and the liberation out of slavery.
SPEAKER_01: And so they're singing Bible stories, but they started to develop other other kinds of songs as well.
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, some of the songs like Follow the Drinking Gourd and Wade in the Water, Sweet Home, Sweet Chariot.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you know these songs if you've actually listened to Wade in the Water, Wade in the Water, Wade in the Water, children.
SPEAKER_01: So it's this whole thing, and this swing, swing low, sweet chariot.
SPEAKER_01: This is gonna cue up all of your like vocal band, like Gaither vocal band, all the you know, all the classics, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Swing low, sweet chariot.
SPEAKER_01: It's coming forth, carries you home.
SPEAKER_01: Swing low, sweet.
SPEAKER_01: And then the harmony, sweet chariot.
SPEAKER_01: And so they they they'd be singing these songs just all day.
SPEAKER_01: They'd have a song leader and be call and response, and they sing for 12, 14, 16 hours a day, sometimes even longer, as they're working in the fields and they'd sing and they'd sing and they sing.
SPEAKER_01: What this what the plantation owners didn't know though, was that these slaves were singing songs and baked into the songs were actually instructions to the underground railroad.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't know that all of these, like kind of biblical imagery, it actually had to do it, they were actually singing a map to themselves all day on how to get to freedom.
SPEAKER_01: And so when they would say, Swing low, sweet chariot, it was a code word that Harriet Tubman's on her way back, and we need to get ready because any day now is gonna be the time and we're gonna we're gonna leave.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a road that goes back out of slavery and goes back home, right?
SPEAKER_01: They would sing uh the songs like Wade in the Water, and it was a song that was baked into an instruction of like as we go, we're actually gonna travel through the rivers because the dogs can cannot smell us in the river, it can't smell our body scent.
SPEAKER_01: So we're actually gonna travel through the rivers on how to get back up to the north.
SPEAKER_01: And they would sing songs like follow the drinking gourd.
SPEAKER_01: The follow drinking gourd was a the drinking gourd, was not a gourd, it was a picture, it was another word for the Big Dipper.
SPEAKER_01: They all knew that when they said drinking gourd, it was when you get to this place, follow the Big Dipper, and you're gonna head this way.
SPEAKER_01: And so all of these songs had these nuanced um uh maps that they would sing, and they would sing start to finish every day.
SPEAKER_01: And um, and as you can imagine, when when you sing the same thing and your kids are singing the same thing every day, over time, the way home, it just gets baked inside of you because what they knew and what they needed their kids to know was there's gonna come a time where you actually need to go somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01: You need to leave where you're at and go somewhere now.
SPEAKER_01: And when that time comes, you can't be guessing what to do.
SPEAKER_01: The instructions have to be so saturated and so so so baked into your conscious and your lived experience that as soon as it's time to go, you know exactly where home is and the direction and the compass to which you're supposed to head.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we read in the scriptures, even in the Psalms about songs of deliverance, and David would sing songs of deliverance, and we gather week after week to sing these songs.
SPEAKER_01: We're not singing these songs just because they make us feel good.
SPEAKER_01: We don't open the same scriptures week after week and year after year just because they encourage us and just give us a little pep for the day.
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome if it does that.
SPEAKER_01: But what we're doing is we're rehearsing the story of God.
SPEAKER_01: We're holding before us the face of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So, and the prayer is, God, let this get so deep inside of me.
SPEAKER_01: Let this get in my bones.
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna sing this song over and over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: For in the day of trouble, in the day of the storm, in the day of darkness, I'm not gonna have to guess where home is.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna know where home is.
SPEAKER_01: I am indexing my life towards you and your voice.
SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna be foreign to me at that point in time.
SPEAKER_01: I'll know exactly where to go.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going towards the face of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's where home is.
SPEAKER_01: So when we sing, guys, and we're gonna do this in a second, when we sing, when we open the scriptures, when we say, get in, get in front of Jesus and let your life, let him read you.
SPEAKER_01: Don't just read the scriptures, let the scriptures read you.
SPEAKER_01: What we're saying to each other is let this, let's let's rehearse it, let's get into it, let it permeate every fiber of our beings because home is only one place.
SPEAKER_01: Home, the home that we were made for, is to be at home with God, the dwelling place that God made through for us through his death on the cross is the dwelling place that we are moving towards for all of time with him.
SPEAKER_01: And until then, we get to be at home with him even today.
SPEAKER_01: And note, Jesus doesn't answer all of our questions about what to do tomorrow at work, or if you should take that job or not, or if you should marry that person or not.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes he does, sometimes he's clear about that, but sometimes not.
SPEAKER_01: But but I believe the invitation for us in the times of I don't know where or where you are going, where what should we be doing, what we should be looking for, I believe the invitation is to look in the eyes of Jesus and say, just keep your eyes on me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to make sure that whatever you do, you will be at home.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I want to let's stand together.
SPEAKER_01: I do want to pray for us before we sing our way out of here.
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna sing the songs that anchor us into Him.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna sing songs so that we can be reminded of what is true, of reality, right?
SPEAKER_01: But across the room today, maybe there's some there's some of us here that you came in and it just it just things have felt very confused, confusing.
SPEAKER_01: You've been praying that clarity, you've been praying for God, give me your light, give me your direction.
SPEAKER_01: And I just believe that the invitation of the Lord's here today is even as you hold those questions, he's saying, I want to know you, I want you to know me, I want you to know my heart.
SPEAKER_01: He's inviting us beyond the questions back into his heart.
SPEAKER_01: We often want directions and he gives us himself.
SPEAKER_01: And for some of us, even that has been a little frustrating because it's like, God, I want to know you, and I'm not sure how to do that, and it's it's turned into judgment against God.
SPEAKER_01: But I just believe uh here today that God has a better way for us as we set aside some of the questions we have for him and say, God, I want to know, I want to know your heart, and I don't know the answers to all of the things, all the questions I'm asking in life, but I want to trust that you you are going to show me your mind and your heart, and the spirit of God is gonna show me the thoughts of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that's gonna be liberating, and and for some here today, that is the invitation is is to is to press and to know the Father deeper than you ever have.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna wait here for a second and see what else the Lord has here.
SPEAKER_01: I hear Jesus going around to different individuals and just calling you by name.
SPEAKER_01: Calling you by name.
SPEAKER_01: Just imagine Jesus looking in the face and calling your name.
SPEAKER_01: Saying you can trust me.
SPEAKER_01: You can trust me.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you need to know that there's there's some here that you need to know that Jesus knows your name.
SPEAKER_01: That you're not an idea to him, you're not just one of the masses.
SPEAKER_01: He knows your name.
SPEAKER_01: And he's calling you to trust him.
SPEAKER_01: So if that if that lifts you, if that brings healing to you, may it be so, if that liberates a pressure off your shoulders, or hits a part of your heart that needs to know that you're loved, may it be so.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you, Jesus, in this place.
SPEAKER_01: That this room is full of those who want to know you.
SPEAKER_01: Take us beyond knowing about you.
SPEAKER_01: Take us beyond familiarity.
SPEAKER_01: Take us beyond the surface, Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: Take us into the depths of your heart, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Lead us on God.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: I'm no longer a slave fear.
SPEAKER_03: It's got I'm no longer a slave fear.
SPEAKER_03: It's a lot of people.
SPEAKER_03: I'm no longer a slave defeat I am the child.
SPEAKER_00: So in pre-service, I just had this sense of David like in Ziglag where not only was the enemy pursuing and coming against him, but then his friends, the mighty man that he'd raised up, also turned and wanted to stone him.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think there's another just aspect of this.
SPEAKER_00: That where we know God, where we lived and we know him, and our circumstances have fallen apart, and everything is turning against us.
SPEAKER_00: That we take a moment and we review the track record of who we know God to be, and we encourage ourselves in the Lord with who we know him to be in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: And if that's you this morning, I just pray the courage, the courage to stand in who you are before the Lord and encourage yourself before him in who you are and who he is to you.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, come on.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: Just that's that's really good.
SPEAKER_01: Who here could use strength?
SPEAKER_01: Who needs to be strengthened in the Lord this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, look at that across the room.
SPEAKER_01: If you're standing around somebody that needs strength in the Lord, let's just do this.
SPEAKER_01: If you're around that person, a lot of people just raise their hand.
SPEAKER_01: Just find somebody to put your hand up.
SPEAKER_01: Put your hand back up.
SPEAKER_01: If you need strength in the Lord, we're just gonna minister to each other.
SPEAKER_01: Strength in the Lord, just across the room.
SPEAKER_01: Find somebody with their hand up.
SPEAKER_01: And here's one of the things we do.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not used to this, it's totally fine.
SPEAKER_01: We pray for each other.
SPEAKER_01: We lay hands on each other.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to do this, but if you would like to participate, you can do this.
SPEAKER_01: We got some hands up around the room.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, one over here.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're all right, sweet.
SPEAKER_01: All right, just begin to pray for the strength of God.
SPEAKER_01: Pray that Jesus reveals Himself just using your own words.
SPEAKER_01: It's totally fine.
SPEAKER_01: Just begin to use your own words.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna let the life of God flow through this body.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, God.
SPEAKER_05: Thank you, God.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Strength, God, let strength rise.
SPEAKER_01: Let strength rise in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Even when I don't see it, you workin'.
SPEAKER_02: Even when I don't feel it you work in.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, God, never stop working.
SPEAKER_02: Never stop, never stop working.
SPEAKER_02: Even when I don't see it, you workin'.
SPEAKER_02: Even when I don't feel it you workin'.
SPEAKER_02: Never stop, never stop working.
SPEAKER_02: Never stop, make you stop working.
SPEAKER_02: Even when I don't see it you work.
SPEAKER_01: Even when I don't feel it to work, make it God, give us the straight god work, give us straight price, feel it to work, even when I don't feel it you work, yes god, thank you, but you are the way, God, you are the way that is to you are that is to you are that is who you are That is to you the way that is to you That is who you are That is who you are That is who you are Can we just give a shout of praise to Jesus dear today The way the truth to life We thank you Jesus We thank you God We thank you God We know exactly where to go We know exactly where to go We know exactly where to turn We know exactly where to run We know exactly where to point our lives We're moving towards you God We're moving towards your faith and your voice You have not left us alone God We are sons and daughters of the Most God Most High God You have not left us alone and you're calling us to you and you're calling us to Home Lord Jesus Thank you, Father, for the glorious inheritance of the sons and daughters of God in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: We say amen.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, come on, come on.
SPEAKER_01: So good.
SPEAKER_01: Well, listen, this morning, we want to encourage you to hang out, be here, pray for one another, get in conversations, minister the life of God to each other.
SPEAKER_01: As we end our time here, parents, you can go get your kids immediately and just bring them back up here for a time as we're as as we're kind of ending everything.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to go visit our prayer room, just go look for signs out there.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna take you to the third floor.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of moths up there, but you can close your eyes.
SPEAKER_01: Pretend like they're not there.
SPEAKER_01: Just you and Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And for the rest of us, may the Lord bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you.
SPEAKER_01: May He be gracious to you and give you rest.
SPEAKER_01: Go in the name of Jesus.