That You May Believe Pt. 2: Truth and Lies

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hi, welcome to the Vine Life Church podcast. We're in Boulder, Colorado, and we're following Jesus by staying rooted in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission so that hearts are awakened with his awe-inspiring love. And if we can help you in any way, reach out to us at Vinelife.com. For now, here's a short sermon from last week in Vine Life. Again, thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

You guys ready to jump into the Word today? Alright, open with me to John chapter 8. We're going to be continuing in the Gospel of John. So we've been on this journey, kind of a rush-through, honestly. We've been in it since the beginning of the year, walking through some broad brush strokes of the New Testament and just staying on a journey together. Some of you have been able to hang with us on the Bible program. Some of you fell off the train at some point, or maybe got distracted, and that's okay. You can always jump back in. We're in the Gospel of John right now. And last week, Piper brought a fantastic word to kick us off in this walkthrough. John, were you guys here for that? It was a fantastic, fantastic message about what it means to be born again and to and to have firsthand experiences with Jesus. It's really easy to settle for secondhand experiences, what other people have experienced from Jesus, but the invitation is that we would believe. And that's why John wrote this particular biography, one of four biographies of Jesus captured in the scriptures. He says that these things are written so that you may believe. And we know, as we explored last week, this word belief is a substantial word. It's a substantive word. It's more than the way we use, we we talk about belief. Belief is in according to the writers of the New Testament, wasn't just about agreeing with, or do I agree in the concept of that? It's do have I entrusted my life to it. And it's I think a great example would be there's a difference between believing in modern aviation. Yeah, I believe planes can fly. So there's a huge difference between that and then buying a ticket, getting on a plane, on a capsule capsule that is going to fly 30,000 feet above the earth to a pilot you've never met. And you buckle your seatbelt and you smile. And maybe you white knuckle your seat, but there's a difference between believing in air in aviation and buying a ticket and flying across the country. And that's the thing is God invites us. Jesus came to evoke, to awaken us to a belief where we're actually trusting in the one. We're trusting in a new reality, the reality of the kingdom of heaven. It's something that we live into, not just in our minds, but in our whole lives. And so we're going to continue this journey today. Let's pray before we jump in. Help us to relax back into you. Help us to trust you, God. We thank you that your words have life. And we want to be not just hearers of the word, but doers of the word. We want these words to affect us from the inside out. So we welcome you, Holy Spirit, to speak to us across the room. Whether these passages are new to us, or whether we are very familiar, I thank you, Father, that all of us, that there would be a newness to your words to us again today. Awaken life among your people, Jesus. And it's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. So before I read the passage, one of the themes in the Gospel of John, besides this idea of belief, which is a major theme, is uh truth. About 19 times you will hear Jesus use this phrase, truly, truly, I say unto you. Other translations might say, verily, verily. I don't know last time you used the word verily in everyday speech. Try it. It's a great word, actually. Um but Jesus came as a teacher. It's one of his one of the ways that people knew him as. He came as a rabbi, as a teacher. A teacher comes to instruct, to introduce us to uh to realities that we were unaware of or had forgotten or need to be rebuilt and reconstructed. And so this word truly, truly, I say unto you, it's really interesting, uh, that word actually is amen. It's the Greek word is actually amen. So we use the word amen when we end prayers, and it's a word that actually means so be it, which means whatever I prayed, so be it. Well, the way Jesus used it, he would use it before he said something. So he'd start something off saying amen and not just once, he'd say it twice. And so R. C. Sprout said, you know, so Jesus would do this double amen before he said something really important. So anytime Jesus double amens something before he says it, you know that you need to listen. So he says, truly, truly, just stop what you're doing and you know, put up your antenna and listen in, because he's about to say something true, and then they're not just facts. What he comes is not to just give us more facts, but to bring us, to actually invite us into truth. And so over and over again he would say, Truly, truly, I say unto you, unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Or truly, truly, I say unto you, unless a grain of wheat uh falls and dies. Um it cannot uh it cannot produce life and multiply. And so we're gonna see that in today's passage, and we receive it from Jesus, our teacher, our rabbi. He's introducing us to how life is. Um, and so it's important that we take notice of that. And then the other thing about truth, too, which is interesting, is in our world, we're living in a moment, a time in history where we're told that truth is really just seen as very subjective. And in a secular age, many would argue that it really can't be known. So we live in this secular post-Christian society, and it's that has essentially relegated subjects like religion and ethics into the domain of belief, which which basically is nothing more than opinion, feeling, and wishful thinking. And so it's considered nice, but not necessarily essential. Um and so so in our day, in our culture, the teachings of Jesus are really more seen as a uh a great spiritual, often spiritual option in a buffet, at a buffet table of many other equally fantastic spiritual options, but all of these options really are for the purpose of private therapeutic self-improvement purposes. And you hear that in conversation. You get people don't always say it like that, but you hear it. Um, and and in other words, you know the way it works, it could be said that you know, in our culture, if you subscribe to a belief or a version of spirituality or version of truth, you know, uh our culture often, you know, there's still a tolerance that there's pockets that really believe that religion is actually super destructive, and we just need to do away with these primitive beliefs so we can advance as humankind, because they're just holding us back from actually becoming the amazing humans we're supposed to be. Um but others would say, you know, if if you're a Christian or whatever you are, if that works for you to feel like a better person, that's great, but don't bring your private opinions into the real world. And so truth is really seen as let's just rel just that's cute, but let's kind of just to kind of hold that up here. You do that to make yourself feel better. If you can feel your, you know, your whatever, your enlightenment through that way, um, then do that. And so it's truth is kind of not something that seems central in the context of the day that we live in. And yet, Jesus, the teachings of Jesus and every other writer of scripture saw it completely different. Um, not only does Jesus believe in truth, he claims that we can actually know truth and align our lives to it. And he actually warns us of what happens when we don't align with the reality of truth. So, according to Jesus, truth is truth actually exists and it can be known and lived into. Okay? So we just kind of need to set the benchmark there before we jump into this. Um, that truth is something that Jesus invites us into. Um, not as a self-righteous exercise that it would become another form of oppression in our world, but Jesus came to invite us and to unlock us into a flourishing life in God, a flourishing life into the kingdom of God. Truth is the reality of God. And Jesus came to teach us about God's realities. All right, you with me? Alright. So John 8, chapter uh, verse 30. This is kind of a lengthy one. Hang with me on this one. There's a few layers here. John 8, verse 30. And he was, as he was saying these things, many believed in him. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have heard from your father. They answered him, Abraham is our father. And Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did. They said to him, We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but He but He sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? I tell the truth. Why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. But the reason why you do not hear them is that you were not of God. So that's a that's a weighty passage, right? I mean, there's some stuff there. And it's important to know that this particular group of individuals he's talking about were the Judeans, the Jews, somewhere believing in him, but as Jesus would correct them, he would say, you know, they they had started to believe in him, but not so much that they would abide in his word. His words were not in them yet. He says, You can't even hear me. You're still trying to kill me because my word has not come into you yet. And these were the ones to just to throw back the beginning, the gospel of John, in John chapter 1, it says that Jesus came to the earth with the world, but some did not receive him. And this is the same group. John's kind of throwing it back. These are the guys who didn't receive him. Jesus came and brought truth and brought light. It was not received by everybody. And the way Jesus frames the sin is he's anchoring truth and what he sees his father doing. He came, he was sent by the father, not of his own accord, but he was sent by the father to speak what his father is doing and what he's hearing from the father. And he likens that. He kind of flips it on them and says, You know what? You do what your father's doing too. And they're like, What are you talking about? Our father is Abraham. And he's like, No. Your father is the devil. Because you only speak, you've been given over to lies. And when you've been given over to lies, you only have one father, and that father is the devil, and he's the father of lies. Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie because that's his very nature and very character. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he's trying to murder you right now. He's trying to murder everyone right now. And what Jesus is basically saying is from the Father is a revelation of truth that brings life and flourishing if we abide in it. But the father of lies, the devil, is intent on destruction, intent on killing and stealing and destroying. And it's a really interesting passage because you don't hear Jesus talking a whole lot about Satan himself. There's a few pockets where he talks about Satan, the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But this is really one of the clearest pictures of what he actually says about the enemy and the evil one. And there's a few different terms for Satan in the scriptures. He is the accuser of the brethren, right? He is the prince of darkness. And he's a liar. He's the father of lies. He's the enemy of our souls. He prowls around like a roaring lion. And so we do have to look at this little snapshot of this battleground between truth and lies, between the reality of the Father of light, which is the Father God, the eternal Father in heaven, and the Father who is the devil. Spiritual warfare is the name that we have for this. And there's themes through scripture, though the scripture doesn't really use that term spiritual warfare, we we see that there is such a thing as the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. Now, spiritual warfare is a really interesting topic in the church. Probably about 90% of us don't think about it enough in our day-to-day life. The other 10% think about it way too much. And so it makes it a really tricky topic sometimes because we want to hold it properly before the Lord. We're not actually not the enemy has been defeated. He was rendered defeated at the cross. On the cross, God triumphed over the rulers and principalities in the cross, making a public spectacle of them. That's what it says in Colossians. So we're not waging war against a defeated foe, but with the grip, he's the ruler of the world, with the grip that he still has, the way that he evokes his influence on us, on our world, on our societies, is it starts with the seeds of lies that he implants in a lot of different ways into our lives. And those lies, depending on how we respond to them, have the potential to develop and actually affect everything that we experience and live into. Now, for centuries, um uh theologians and in the church referred to really the three enemies of our soul in these ways, that the three enemies of our soul are the world, the flesh, and the devil, right? The world, the flesh, and the devil. We'll talk about that here in a second. But even talking about that in our context, in our day, when you even use those words, sometimes it's like hard to take it seriously. It feels, in our culture, those things feel kind of primitive or childish. It feels like, really, we're talking about the devil, and maybe you have that image of like the little dude in a red tights and a pitchfork or whatever, just sitting on each other's shoulders and poofing around, that kind of thing. Um and and and so it feels sometimes when we get into some of these topics, like, really, haven't we, haven't we evolved or advanced beyond this? And the the answer is no. The answer is we have not. The secular age has no answers for the deep brokenness that is in our world. It has no answers for it. But this the writers of scriptures, as they would, they would they would invite us into this reality of knowing the difference between truth and deception, we have to be able to know how the devil and the flesh and the world work together. When I say the flesh, I'm not talking about necessarily your physical body. Your body is good created by God. The flesh refers to this idea of carnality or the old man, we would say sometimes, or false self, the part of us that is is still, you know, that is still that God is still sanctifying into his likeness. And so here's here's here's one way. Uh author John Mark Comer, in his book Live No Lies, he puts this, he suggests this is how one way to think through this, and we'll put this image up here. This how lies work, that the devil, Satan, the enemy of our souls, the accuser, he seeds us with deceptive ideas. Those deceptive ideas come into our flesh oftentimes, the disordered desires of our flesh. We have desires of our flesh that if they're not properly ordered in God, they work against God. That's the carnal nature. That's what it is. It works against God. It's at war with God if it's not properly ordered. What I mean by that is some of you have heard this idea that, you know, in the beginning, the way that we are fashioned as human beings, we're fashioned with a desire for security and significance and belonging. They're core desires that God's given us, they're good desires. That we live our days to know that we are secure, to know that our lives are significant and know that we belong somewhere. We belong to somebody. The problem is, and if we're not finding those core desires in the Father and the Son and the Spirit, we will seek those things in other places. We will seek out significance in our career. We will seek out belonging through destructive relationships. We will seek out security through an addiction to hoarding or a poverty mindset. And so disordered desires are taking good desires, but if they're not properly ordered in God, then the devil can take a lie, uh, mess with that disordered desire. And when that happens enough in our society, what happens is it creates a world system and it creates this effect in the world, and the world has a way of operating, and that's why we're where sinful behaviors, uh, lies can turn into the normalization of things in our society. That's why in our society there are things that are now accepted that are atrocious to the heart of God, but they're normal for us because enough people have welcomed that into their life. And so we what so we contest with the world, our kids are facing unprecedented cultural pressures in their school, like you wouldn't believe. They're facing things because things have been normalized through deceived people that agreed with those deceptions, they made it a part of them, and now we have these world systems that are dark and that are they're broken.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Okay?

SPEAKER_02 20:41

You guys with me? So the devil's primary stratagem to drive the soul and society into ruin is deceptive ideas that play into disordered desires, which are normalized in a sinful society. Okay. No, there's a lot of other layers here. I can only preach one sermon today for your sake. I I could be here all day if you want to, but I've been told I talk too long. So um the the the i the the the the the concept here is the ideas that we believe in our minds and then let into our bodies give shape to the trajectory of our souls. And it's it's similar to it's the grown man who is berated by his father and comes to believe that I am only as good as I am successful at my work. It's the teenage girl who compares herself to the barrage of photos on Instagram and believes I am ugly and unworthy of love. It's the middle-aged woman who was raised by a perfectionistic mother and believes I have to be perfect in order to deserve peace. It's the woman who is in a passionless marriage and has concluded that the only way to be loved at her court is to leave and search for a deeper love elsewhere. Uh Megan and I have these conversations all the time. With friends of ours, with neighbors, and that kind of thing. These are common things. You probably have heard similar things. Maybe you're in one of these boats too. And these are baseline everyday examples of the way lies get seated in. Lies are typically not uh lies are typically about 95% truth and about 5% untruth. That's why you believe them. It's usually just a turn, it's just a just a little shift of something that's true. The enemy wouldn't come to you and say, you know what, Elvis is still alive. You need to give the rest of your life to find him. You know, it's like, well, I'm not going for that one. Um, that's not what it is. It's like, no, you failed at that, and you're gonna fail at everything because that's all you've ever done, right? And it's it's simple like that. And so we receive it. Those are everyday examples, but we live in a weird time, a really bizarre time there where there is a war for our minds. Literally, there are Eastern European nations that work to sow seeds of disinformation into our news outlets and to play in order to play into deep-seated fears that will divide us. This is not an uncontested truth. This is actually happening. Even last week, um, there was a study that showed that 19 out of 20 Christian Facebook groups were actually started by Eastern European, what they call troll farms. And they're started in order to gain a platform through a specific group of people so that at some point they can begin to sow disinformation and little twists and turns that will play into deep-seated fears. And anytime that you have uh a group of people that is giving into and playing into the lies, what happens is it's the best way to conquer and control and divide the world. This is actually happening. This is happening in our day. Um, and I know that doesn't sound super encouraging this morning, so let's keep going. But when we enough a when we let enough lies in, it affects our entire worldview. History has shown us that oftentimes warfare, the major world wars, have been between nations, leaders, and tyrants, but we're entering into a day where our greatest battles are actually ideologies. So Winston Churchill said this back in the 50s in the Cold War era, he said, um he said the empires of the future are the empires of the mind. So the future is a war of ideas, not just bombs and nations attacking each other physically. It's a war of ideas, which is why some of the greatest challenges that we're in right now and will continue to be in are ideologies, and pretty much an ideology is anything that ends with an ism. So some of the greatest battles that we're fighting are these collective of ideas that started from lies. You know, you can go racism, you can go classism, you can go nationalism, you can go consumerism, just pick an ism. Liberalism, conservatism, whatever. Just pick an ism. And usually underneath an ism is a way of thinking, it's a way of the world, it's a way that things are happening, and what's happening is these things are increasing and increasing and increasing. And then there's clashes. And the internet is combining is unifying the world so you can have an ism and live in any country in the world and still be unified with other people with that same ism around the world. So it's just a different day that we're living in. So I know that's all kind of pretty heady up here, but the reason this is important is because what we're talking about is our mindsets. Mindsets are like viruses that affect the way we think. How do we overcome this? In Jesus' view, we abide in the word of truth. We abide in the word. Jesus came that that we may know the truth because the truth will do what? Set us free. And so there's a way in Jesus' mind of knowing the truth and abiding in the word of truth. And as we abide in the word of truth, it actually reframes the way that we think. Now, psychologists um call this idea a mental map, that we all have an actual mental map, that your that your brain, the way neurobiologically, we have mental maps through which we operate our day-to-day lives. And what I mean by that is it's it's it's a lot similar to the map that you use to get to church today. I left my house on 1431 Lombardy. Please don't show up to my house. I left my shirt, my house at 1431 Lombardy early this morning. I took a ride, went out to Kenosha, came down, hung around the curve, took a left onto lookout, went through a couple stoplights, arrived safely at 7845 Lookout Road today. I could probably do that unconsciously. I could probably do it blindfolded, though I'm not going to try, right? And you shouldn't either. But there's you have mental maps. You have you have routes that probably you take every day that you don't actually have to think about anymore because they're so familiar to you. And that's how the brain is designed to work. And so the brain works on ideas that build upon ideas that build upon ideas. And there's things that we learned very early on or things that get seeded into us that become a mental map of sorts for how we are supposed to, what's what's true about reality and how we were supposed to conduct ourselves in the world. It's often unconscious. So that's how we navigate the world, though, is through mental maps. And so let's take a negative example, and then we're going to talk about some positive examples here. But let's say you pick up the lie that you are unlovable, maybe from your family of origin, some failures, uh, a broken relationship with your parents. There may be uh a breakup in a relationship, or maybe just you pick that up just simply from a demonic thought that got seeded into. There's a lot of ways to pick up a lie. But it's something you that you a thought that occurred to you at a certain point of time is I am unlovable. And so as that thought gets seeded in as it builds into your neurobiology, um over time you learn that if I'm unlovable, um, that you allow certain things to happen. You start to allow yourself to be treated in ways that are disrespectful and demeaning. You start to allow it, because if I'm unlovable, I don't deserve respect. I don't deserve honor. I don't deserve to be treated with dignity. And if you live in that light long enough, what starts out as false, actually, you both start to live it as if it were true. And you be in fact, over time you begin to live in ways that are unlovable because you're building upon that idea and that truth. And so it started out as a lie that you're unlovable, and you allow people to treat you that way, but then over time uh uh it becomes you start to live as it's true. You actually start to live as a person that is not worthy of love, and so you can start mistreating and disrespecting others because they're probably not lovable either. And so what happens is it builds this mental map that it starts with a lie, but then it seeds into the flesh and these carnal desires, and then what it can do is it creates a system. You get enough people who believe that they're unlovable at the core, crazy stuff starts happening. You get enough people that don't believe they are holy or sacred unto God that their life is worth anything, crazy stuff starts happening on a societal level. Ugly things. And we have these mental maps for every part of life. You have a mental map to the way you deal with money, you have a mental map for the way you deal with sexuality, you have a you have a mental map for the way you conduct yourself at work, the way your relationships play out, you have a mental map for your politics, right? And so there, and you can often see them, there's these patterns, and you think it's the same for everybody else. It's not. It's not the same for everybody else. They have different mental maps, and so we're bringing this conglomerate of all of these lived experiences and these realities and you know, some truths, some lies, and they end up blending into this life that we're now living, and it becomes kind of confusing, right? And so the some of these paradigms, these mental maps, um they they have to be deconstructed from time to time, but not for the purpose of deconstruction. It's the purpose of rebuilding. And this is what I believe Jesus is inviting us into in this place. He says, Listen, I want you to know the truth, the truth will set you free. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will have life. You will live a flourishing life. I'm gonna show you what a flourishing life looks like. Otherwise, there is another father, and you're you're already following him, he says to these Jews, he says, You're already following him. He's the father of lies, and you're trying to kill me because your father is the devil. And you're doing exactly what he did in the beginning. He was murdering from the beginning and he's murdering now. And so you need to, so Jesus is saying, enter into the truth of the Father, enter into this truth that I give you. Now, how do we do that? I believe, you know, as as we are, this is the work of discipleship. As we come into Jesus, this is the work he invites us into, is learn my ways, learn the way that I am loving you. Learn what I have done, learn who I am, learn who you are in me, and then out of the overflow of that, a new mental map will be created that that makes you into a people of my own possession, that you can do what I'm doing in the earth instead of just being torn apart by ideologies and isms. And so, and this is the gospel. This is why we have to proclaim the gospel. This is why we come in worship and we sing these things. Because do you know, as you're singing, um, as you're singing these songs mightier than the sound of many waters, it's you who stands firm. You're enthroned in majesty. You know that when you sing those words, you're actually creating a new mental map in your brain. When you're praying, like you actually look at studies about prayer, um, people do brain scans during prayer, and your brain starts lighting up all the colors of your brain, parts of your brain that are never being used, come alive in prayer. And I believe that prayer is a place that when we actually submit ourselves to the Lord and worship and in prayer, he's actually redesigning mental maps in our neurobiology. That we have new trust structures built into us, that we're that we're purified in the desires of our heart and the things that we're trusting, and we're learning to trust in the name of Jesus, in his way. And so this is why we rehearse our gospel identity. And this is why I am so thankful to be a follower of Jesus, because Jesus says in no such uncertain terms who the identity of God is. Jesus is God, and Jesus came to reveal what God is like, but he came to introduce us to the Father and then ultimately to send us the Holy Spirit. He says, I don't want you to. God is not unknown. That's what I love when Paul in Acts shows up to that city and he sees the statue to an unknown God. Because they were just like, they just want to make sure they didn't leave one out, right? They didn't even know who the God was. We just want to make sure we don't leave one out, so we're gonna make a statue in inscript to the unknown God. He says, Are you kidding me? We know who we know who God is. We know who he is, we see him in the face of Jesus, we see him revealed to us in the person of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And so for us, the reason all of this actually is good news for followers of the way of Jesus is because when we rehearse our gospel identity, it begins to reveal to us the truth from which we live out. And the truth does not start with what feels right to us, it starts with who God is. And I just want to give you four questions that if you just do this, you will rewire mental maps in your brain and in your heart. I'm not gonna have these on the screen. But the four questions are who is God? What has he done? And in light of that, who am I? And how should I live? Who is God? What has he done? Who am I? How should I then live? And so the gospel identity of God as a father, that means the God revealed in Scripture as a father has adopted us into his family so that I am not any longer an orphan or a slave. I am a son in the household of God, a son and a daughter. I am now knit together into a family, old, young, rich, poor, wise, weird, male, female, white, black, brown, you name it. And as a son, I walk in this world secure, safe, accepted, listening to the voice of the Father. What if you lived from that truth? What if we lived as safe, beloved sons and daughters, who were not worried about what the day will bring, because we know that the Lord will take care of us. He clothes the bird of the air, the flowers, he feeds the birds of the air, and he clothes the flowers of the field. How much more, you who are sons? That will read that'll design a new mental map for you. God is also a son, Jesus Christ, who came as a king, but as a servant king. He is the Messiah who came to fulfill the scriptures of the past, but he came to serve, unlike other kings and leaders, it wasn't for self-angradizement, it wasn't to just build a platform. He came to serve the least of these. In his footsteps, our greatest choice is surrender our lives to serve each other, to lay down our lives both for our neighbors and our enemies alike. That's not a truth that you hear. I mean, this is not, people aren't just decide to live into that. That's not that's not something we hear, but this is what this is what's revealed in the person of Jesus. He came as the servant king. So now we can follow in the footsteps of our rabbi and see the world as places how I can best serve and give my life to love those around me, even my enemies. I even pray and love, pray for and love my enemies. How absurd is that? Who wants to do that? Nobody. But Jesus is like, no, something is so significant going to happen in your heart when you when you start to believe in the truth that this is what I came to do. You will do the same. So God as a Father, God as a Son, God is also the Holy Spirit, given to us to remind us of the nearness of God, to lead us into all truth, to send us in power to do the works of Jesus, undoing the works of darkness in every place our feet tread. So we're sent as spirit-empowered missionaries. So that's what that's what the Holy Spirit that he came upon us with power, sealed us, the deposit of the Spirit has been given to us, and now we are sent. We are sent, empowered. What if we lived as if we're actually carrying the power of God every place our feet tread? It changes the way we live, it changes the way we think, it changes the way we move. These are, these are just this is just the start of our gospel identity. You take any name of God and you say, in light of that name, if I am hidden in Christ, what does this mean about the life we get to live and the life that we're called to live? And it just, what I'm saying is like this reality is so far above some of the ideologies we we we settle for. But our job is to be able to pay attention to we're living into lies and then be able to undergird it, to uproot the lies and live into the truth. I did this just this week. I we got back so earlier this week, I uh part of our team here um joined other, several other pastoral teams from churches in Boulder. This is really cool, guys, actually. Um it's called Agenda One, and we went up to Estus Park, and there's about five churches in the Boulder area, Boulder proper, and um uh we got together to worship and pray and to learn from each other and just to see what God's doing in each of the churches. It's a beautiful time. There's actually some really cool stuff that you're dreaming together and some stuff that uh for 2022 that the church of Boulder is gonna do together to bless the city. Um it's it's gonna be amazing. Um I'm really excited for it. Uh it's a fun day, actually. Um the the days of competition in churches and territorialism, those days are over. Um we are one church, we have one head. His name is Jesus. He only has one church. He only has one church. So we went up and spent a couple days together in Essus Park, and it was really good. It's powerful. Um I I started to notice I as I was leaving though, I started to notice new thoughts coming in. They were not good thoughts, they were thoughts about hey, who do you think you are? Do you think you can actually change anything out here? You think you can actually have an effect? You think that this this ragtag tribe at Vine Life can do anything? And I I just started to pay attention. I was like, oh my gosh, I felt this tremendous, like it almost sucked the air out of my out of my lungs. I just I just didn't feel like I was as as I came away, I was like, oh my gosh. Um there's these lies. And I I woke up in the morning and just I just one by one just started right writing writing down all of my thoughts. I did one column on the left, lies. And I just knew it. I just started writing down these are my thoughts, and then on the right column, Jesus, what do you have to say? What is your reality? Just one by one, let's pluck that one out. Let's pluck that one out, let's pluck that one out. Okay, let's plant this new thought that this is who Jesus is. This is God's city, this is God's church. It doesn't matter if I'm good enough. I never feel good enough. That's the thing, as a leader, it's like you just it's it's for me. I never feel good enough. I always feel like I'm just not good enough to do this. And Jesus has to constantly remind me, I know you're not good enough. I'm good enough. I'm good enough for you. This is my church, this is my city. This is this is my the my the knowledge of my glory is gonna cover the earth like the water covers the sea. And so, even for me, guys, like there's these insecurities that come up, and they're the same for you. I we're all I think we're the same in that boat. We have fears, we have things that come up, and I'm just thinking, oh my gosh, what are we gonna do about this? What about this? What about that? And Jesus is saying, listen, there is a if you will, if you will let my word abide in you, let my word abide in you, and there's gonna be life there. But we have to have the ability in this time to know when we're listening to the father of lies or the father of truth, and be willing to participate in it and let the Lord speak to us. We need our kingdom identity to trump other identities. This is why we're in a time, it's more important than ever, that we understand what the kingdom of God is. We're already part of a nation called the kingdom of God. It's our first and primary citizenship. It has its own values, it has its own ways, it has its own king. And we are called to participate in it, and it starts with what do we think about God? What do we believe? What does that mean about us? And how do we live into this world? Jesus is apprentice apprenticing us into his new way. And as we know the truth, it will lead to freedom. The way of Jesus leads to freedom. Every now and then the social sciences will catch up with this. You'll read an article and they said, Hey, it turns out generosity actually leads to happiness in people. Thank you. Thank you, scientific study, for telling us what Jesus has been saying forever. You know, that generosity laying down your life actually leads to a better, more fulfilled life. You know, a study will come out. Hey, this it sounds it sound we're we're finding that if you actually take one day out of every seven days and rest, you'll actually be healthier and be a better person to be around. Thank you. Thank you, news article. It's called the Sabbath. The people of God have been doing this forever. Every now and then the world catches up to see that Jesus was actually a genius. And it doesn't always make sense. But if we're willing to let his words abide in us to have an effect, guys, I'm telling you. He's reframing it. He's reframing it from the inside out, he's rewiring us from the inside out to become a people that look just like him. Don't you want that? Don't you want to look just like Jesus? So let's do this today. I want to respond through receiving communion today together. And this is part of how we practice living into reality. So Jesus came and says, you know, this is the blood of my covenant that I poured out for you. This is the my my body broken for you. Do this to remember me. Do this to remind yourself of what is true. That the Son of God, the Son of Glory came. And he ultimately laid down his life at the hands of sinners. And he he let himself be taken. By the way of the world to render it defeated. And as we partake of his body and blood today, it actually, it's not just an idea. There's something that happens, actually heals us from the inside out as we receive the body and the blood of Jesus. So there's two tables up front. I'm hoping that we have enough. If you could just come forward, grab a cup, and then bring it back to your seat, we'll receive communion together. So let's stand together. And feel free just to come up to the tables. Do we have one in the back too? Okay, we just want in the back as well. Okay, thank you. So in John six, verse fifty-three, Jesus was speaking, and this particular sermon didn't go so well. A lot of people left him for this one. But he offers another truly, truly, uh, verse 53. So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. So today, Jesus, as we are responding to your word, we thank you, God, we've all tasted a lot of food and a lot of drink, but your body and your blood are true food and true drink. And as we receive your body and blood, I thank you, Father, to nourish us from the inside out. God, we confess our weakness before you. I confess that I live into lies. I fall for lies. I'm deceived. I have my own fears, my own insecurities, my own failures. I have places in my life that need healing. And what we acknowledge today is Jesus, you're the one. Your words introduce us to real life, to true life. So as we receive your body and blood today, I thank you, Father, to heal our minds, to silence the enemy, to silence the evil one, to bring clarity and truth, God. In places where we can't do that for ourselves, we need you to show us.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

Amen. Let's receive the bread and the cup today.