PRAY Week 3 - Rejoice

The disciples were stirred by what they saw when they saw Jesus pray. The disciples knew Jesus had something that they didn't. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to spend time with the Father just like He did. What does Jesus want us to know about this gift of prayer?

Transcript

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I think if we understood what we were saying when we say, God, your kingdom come, your will be done, we would not say it like this. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's how everybody says it. I don't think I've ever seen somebody be like, your kingdom come! Woohoo! I've never seen that. I would love to. Welcome in everyone. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the pastors at Highland Christian Church. And on behalf of our team, I just wanted to say thanks for taking some time to journey with us through the scripture. Our hope is that these words would cause you to think carefully about this Jesus we proclaim, and that you would choose to trust him in your day-to-day. And as always, if you're in the Asheville area, whether you live here or you're visiting, we'd love for you to come join us at the corner of Livingston and Depot Street in person at the Dr. Wesley Grant Senior South Side Center. Our prayer is that God's words would equip you for every good work that He's prepared for you to do today. So Matthew chapter six, starting in verse nine, pray like this. Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy, may your kingdom come soon, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us, and don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. Amen. You may have a seat. So today we're focusing in on rejoicing. And we're going to rejoice not because we've got what we want, but because Jesus actually said in verse 10, May your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He asked his disciples to pray this way when they pray. Last week we started with pausing. As we've been going through this series on prayer, we're looking at it from the pause, rejoice, ask, yield perspective. The P being the pause. Last week we paused to consider, hey, when we're approaching God with our requests, we get to actually call him Father and we get to say, hey, may your name be kept holy. We get to say these things to God. We're going, God, we are, we're recognizing you are in this place, you are in this room, you are with us when we are seeking you. You are an affectionate Father and you are a holy God. You are powerful. See, when we're not convinced of that, we won't ask. If we don't think that God is loving and that he will provide, that he wants to provide, we won't ask. When we're not convinced he's powerful, we won't ask. And so Jesus has everybody pause as they enter into this time of prayer because he said, when you pray, he just assumed we're going to pray. As his people, it's going to be a part of our life. And so we pause for a moment. This week, the idea is to rejoice that your kingdom come. This is an invitation. We're saying, God, please, not my castle, not my house, not my world, not my universe, but God, your kingdom come. And as best as I can summarize that, what I'm saying, what Jesus is saying is, God, fulfill all your promises here. Like, what if that was your heartbeat? Like you were driven by God fulfilling everything He said He's going to do. And to understand why Jesus would ask us to pray, May your kingdom come soon, you have to know the promises that God made. Like there are tons of songs out right now that are about the promises of God. I bet that if we were to sit down and go, what are the promises of God? Most people would be like, uh, good things.

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Right?

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You're like, yeah, that's good. That's a good thing. But I think if we understood what we were saying when we say, God, your kingdom come, your will be done, we would not say it like this. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And that's how everybody says it. I don't think I've ever seen somebody be like, Your kingdom come. Woohoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo! I've never seen that. I would love to. Your will be done! What? Yes! Right? I would love to see that. I have never seen it. Because we think the meat of our prayer is, give me my daily bread, Lord. Like when we get vocal, it's give me my bread. When we should be getting vocal, when it's like your kingdom, your will. It's gotta come. Because I'm tired of seeing what I see. I'm tired of people experiencing the burdens and the crushing and the the horrors of sinful decision making. Gotta see your kingdom. I gotta see your will. Not just in my life, but I want it to come all around so that others can know it too. If we were to look at the entirety of scripture, the story of the Bible, we would see that God is headed in a direction. Most of the time, when I when I'm kind of walking someone through the scripture, I walk through four portions of scripture, the chunks of scripture, if you will. The one we're least familiar with, I think, is creation. And this is where God establishes his kingdom. Like Genesis 1 and 2, it's tough because the first two chapters of the Bible are the most beautiful things you've ever seen. And then you have the rest of the story.

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Right?

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But in creation, God gives purpose to Adam and Eve. He says, as you walk with me, I'll walk with you. We'll be in this relationship, and you will have all your needs met in me, and I am commissioning you, I am, I am inviting you to be fruitful and multiply. The first command God gives is not, don't do this. He's saying, Do this, be fruitful and multiply. And what he's saying by that is, cover the earth, my little image bearers. So when God's glory covers the earth, we're not talking about sparkles and sequins and some kind of an abstract fog or mist. He is legitimately covering the earth with people who reflect him. That's his goal. So that when Adam and Eve look at each other, they're like, whoa, you look like our creator. And then as they multiply and cover the earth, literally, the earth is being covered with his glory. That's creation. And it's good. But see, we're more familiar with Genesis chapter 3. The fall. Where Adam and Eve say, God, we refuse that partnership. And we'd like to go it on our own. And in the midst of the fall, you see this fracture. It's no longer a partnership where they are saying, God, we will work as we've heard your truth, as we've seen your goodness, as we've seen your beauty, as we've seen the community that you're forming, and the work that you're doing, the purpose that you're giving, we would like to do our own. We're good. And it spiraled and spiraled and spiraled. And unless God chose to step in, we would still be in that one. But because he didn't choose to keep us there, he acted in redemptive ways. And so as we're walking through the scripture, we not only acknowledge creation and the fall, but God did something to redeem these people who have chosen to rebel against him, to rescue, to buy back from the sin and death, to purchase us at a high price. Jesus enters the story. Redemption becomes real and possible, but redemption isn't the end. There is restoration. And you see Jesus entering into the world and the kingdom of God breaking in on the scene, and you see this building of something, this revealing of something, and the way Jesus interacts with people, there is a restoring of something. And we know that as we head towards revelation, we see essentially what we saw in the garden. We see an eternity. God's going to get what he wants from the very beginning. And no matter what we try and do, he is still going to be with his people. Some people call that restoration phase, the recreation. The understanding that what we see in Genesis 1 and 2, the paradise that essentially was lost, was never lost because God is the one who's over it all. And so as you're walking through the scripture, you begin to see this pattern in the journey from Genesis to Revelation. And through the story, in Genesis, when God created Adam and Eve, he had a plan. And that plan involves the covering of the earth in his glory. And as Adam and Eve stay in that relationship with God, they're going to be fruitful, they're going to be multiplied, they're going to image bear his face, his likeness all over the earth. Humanity is invited to partner with God in this. He could have just gone, you know what? I'm just going to create lots of you right now, totally covered in the earth. But he didn't. He invited Adam and Eve to be a part of this good work that he was going to do. And as long as they stay connected to him, they would have experience and represent his generous rule over the earth and reproduce and enjoy eternal life and blessings. But the promise had conditions, just don't eat that fruit. Because if we reject God's truth and choose to go our own way, death will be the result. And then Adam and Eve's first test, they fail. But God makes a promise to Eve. He says that from your family line, a rescuer will come, one day destroying all lies and death. But it wasn't that day. Not just yet. Instead of God's glory, when I say his glory, I'm speaking of his truth, his goodness, his beauty, his wholeness, his community, his purpose, all the things every human heart longs for. And there's a reason we all long for it. It was because we were made to experience those things in his presence. But instead of those things covering the earth, we see death covering the earth. The next several chapters after Adam and Eve, you see Cain and Abel, you see lying, you see jealousy, you see envy, and you see murder. In the following chapters, it's almost humorous how many people's lives are described and that they died. And so-and-so died, and so-and-so died, and so-and-so died, and so-and-so died, and so-and-so died. The theme is death. The theme is death covering the earth instead of the glory of God. By the time of Noah, it's not just death, but it's evil. Evil was every thought and every action on the earth. God initiates a relationship with Noah and invites Noah to bring rescue. Asks him to get on a boat and tells him that because evil has covered the earth, a flood is going to cover the earth. I've been asked multiple times why did God bother with Noah and why didn't he just start from scratch? This is why the promises of God matter. Because God made a promise to Eve that through her line would come the crusher of lies, death, and sin. And if he just said, you know what, we're gonna start over, he would have broken his promise. He promised, and he keeps his promises. He is a God of his word. Because humanity has covered the earth in evil, God does cover the earth in a flood, and he spares Noah and his family salvation in this ark, if you will. God enters into a promise with Noah to never destroy the earth again in that way. He hangs his rainbow in the sky as the sign. Now Noah is again invited in to be fruitful, multiply, cover the earth. Again, right? This time they'll get it right. Right? This time it'll happen. This time they'll stick with him. This time they'll do it the good way and goodness and truth and beauty and wholeness and community and work and purpose. It's gonna cover the earth. Wrong. Like you're sitting here going, you read through the scripture, you're going, I is this human experiment really worth saving? We just we cannot get this right. We just don't do it. God still initiates. He initiates with Abraham, a man who was a moon worshiper, and God picks him out and says, I want you to go to a land that I'll tell you about later. And then I'm gonna give you a giant family, and in that family, through that family, I'm gonna bless all the families of the earth. Covering the earth. Yet again, the bigger picture of the kingdom is coming clearer and clearer. Fast forward, and we see this family in slavery in Egypt. This family has grown to over two million, and God raises up a man named Moses to rescue this family out of slavery. And he does it through miracles and wonders and brings the people to Mount Sinai where God gives his new people his ways. God claims a people and then gives them what it means to reflect him to one another. Israel eventually just they can't take it anymore. Israel struggles hard to keep it all together. God promises to turn Israel into a kingdom of priests, a set-apart people that will, here we go, display his glory to the nations. If Israel will walk in this in his ways, blessings. If they refuse, curses. Again, we see God inviting people through his ways to cover the earth. Israel struggles hard and keeps tries to keep it all together. And God, through his redemptive plan, gives them sacrifice. The people of Israel go, man, your ways are tough. I don't keep them. God's like, I know I'm giving you sacrifice, and here goes the cycle. Your ways are great, I don't keep them, I need a spotless lamb. Your ways are great, I don't keep them, I need a spotless lamb. Your ways are great, I don't keep them, I need a spotless lamb. It's on repeat. It's on repeat. That's the way they live. God has provided redemption. The people don't die for their sins, something dies in their place. Are you seeing where God is taking all of this? Your ways are great, I don't keep them, I need a spotless lamb, right? Your ways are great, I don't keep them, I need a spotless lamb. So through redemption, God allows his people to stay in relationship with him. They want a king. Israel says, Hey, that's a great idea, but we want a king. Instead of spreading your glory to the earth, the other nations actually look pretty glorious to us. Oops. Wrong direction, guys. The glory's supposed to go that way, not other people's coming in. See, Israel wasn't meant to have a king because God was their king, but God was like, you know what? Because you're rejecting me, I'm gonna give you what you want. You can have it. You wanted it, you've got it, and it goes very poorly for Israel. Saul, picked by the people. Israel finds themselves in a lot of trouble. But God keeps this threat of redemption and restoration going. Even with Israel running rampant on their own, God raises up David to be a different kind of king. Not perfect, but one who would aim to honor God. And God enters into a promise with David and says, Your family line will come a king. From your line will come a king whose throne will endure forever. A kingdom, a king that will never end. Kingdom whose kingdom, a king's whose whose kingdom looks a lot like the justice, truth, beauty, goodness, community, purpose that we see in the garden. Then there seems to be a pause, and Israel waits. This cycle of disobedience and rebellion and being rescued, disobedience and rebellion and rescued, and then finally they are exiled. God raises up some men called prophets. Ezekiel was one of those men. In Ezekiel 36, this is what he says, therefore, give the people of Israel this message from the sovereign Lord. I am bringing you back, but not because you deserve it. I am doing it to protect my holy name, on which you brought shame while you were scattered among the nations. Remember, we were supposed to cover the earth, filled with his glory. Instead, we covered it with shame. And when I revealed my holiness through you before their very eyes, says the Sovereign Lord, the nations will know that I am the Lord, for I will gather you up from all the nations and bring you home again to your land. Verse 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean, your your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn hearts, and give you a tender, responsive heart, and I will put my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations. Jeremiah, another man that God raised up as a prophet, in verse in verse thirty-one of chapter thirty-one The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant, new promise with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I love them as a husband loves his wife, says the Lord. But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people, and they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, You should know the Lord. For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already, says the Lord, and I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins. The whole time God has been saving people by faith, even in the Old Testament. It is not the Old Testament is all about law, and the New Testament is all about grace. Every single word that God speaks, the people had to take by faith. Abraham was counted righteous by faith. And so something about this covenant, though, is going to be different than the covenants that were established in the Old Testament. There would be something incredibly specific that God was going to bring into the world, and Israel waited. A final covenant was on its way, a final promise. Every single one of those promises, a promise to God with God to partner with his creation, to see his glory cover the earth, a promise never to destroy the world by flood again, a promise of a land, a family, a blessing, a promise of a set apart people with set apart ways, and a promise of a kingdom with a king that will never end. Jesus is born, Jesus grows up and begins to say things like this. Luke chapter 4, verse 17. He's walked into the synagogue. The synagogue leader hands him a scroll, and it's the prophet Isaiah's scroll. He unrolls the scroll and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord's favor has come. He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes were on him. Then he began to speak to them. The scripture you've just heard has been fulfilled this very day. In a day when Israel had all these thoughts of Has God abandoned us? Where is he? Where is he at? Is he at work on the earth? What is he up to? What is God trying to do? Is he even there? And then Jesus, Matthew 4, from then on, Jesus began to preach, Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is near. Luke 17, when the Pharisees were questioning Jesus, when will the kingdom of God come? Jesus replied, The kingdom of God can't be detected by visible signs. You won't be able to say, Here it is, or it's over there, for the kingdom of God is already among you. Some of you might have memorized this with the kingdom of God is within you. And again, here I believe the New Living gets it correct. A more accurate translation is among you. Among you. Many people have tried to over-spiritualize. The kingdom of God is just within you. It's a very super, it's a it's such a private thing. It's it's for me. It's my spirituality, and the kingdom of God is within me, and that's what we've become. We've become within me people. And we have forgotten that the kingdom of God, Jesus said, is among you. So, yes, does it come to our hearts? Yes. But you better believe it comes to our world too. There is a missing we have done. We have tried to privatize the Christian belief, the Christian faith. We've tried to say it's all about well, it's inside. It makes me feel good. The kingdom of God is among you. And Jesus is saying you're gonna see some stuff that's gonna reveal that God has been on his throne the whole time. Paul announces the good news of Jesus and what his life, death, and resurrection actually means for us. But when Jesus came proclaiming the good news, guess what? He wasn't going, it's the good news of Jesus. He said, It's the good news of the kingdom. That is what Jesus went around proclaiming and showing. This, it was the announcement of God's Spirit bringing good news to the poor, releasing the captives, helping the blind see, helping the oppressed go free, and revealing that God's favor is available to everyone. That's a big picture. And it's through Jesus that all of those promises break through into the world. And it starts with a meal. Luke 22, he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. Then he said, Take this to the disciples and share it among yourselves, for I will not drink wine again until the kingdom of God has come. He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. After supper, he took another cup of wine and said, This cup is the new covenant between God and his people, an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you. The new covenant does not void all the other ones, it completes them. It is the final one, no more need for another. The Hebrews, the author of Hebrews in chapter 7 says, Because of his this oath, Jesus is the one who guarantees this better covenant with God. There were many priests under the old system, for death prevented them from remaining in office. The writer is saying, look, the priests who were offering sacrifices for you because you needed it, because you saw how good God's law was and you kept disobeying it, they died. So when they performed it for you, it it doesn't count anymore. You got to keep coming back, you got to keep going, you got to keep going, you gotta keep going, you gotta keep going, because they died. But the writer in Hebrews continues, but because Jesus lives forever, his priesthood lasts forever. Therefore, he is able once and forever to save those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf. Now, why would Jesus tell us to make your kingdom come, your will be done, a part of our prayers when we pray? Because I believe we severely underestimate what we are saying when we recite those words. We say those words with such little passion. Because we don't even know what we're saying, but Jesus knows. Rod Matun, a commentary that he wrote on this, said, Prayer must never be an attempt to bend the will of God to our desires. Prayer ought always to be an attempt to submit our wills to the will of God. And the reality is God's kingdom and God's will are to be the Christ's followers' desire. If your top priority, if your main desire is building your castle and your things and your stuff, and you're here to get your blessing, and you're gonna be the blessing clog, and the blessing of God's gonna go no further than right here. You're gonna get backed up, and it's not gonna go well for you. The kingdom of God, the will of God is to be our desire. And so Jesus knows that we are confronted with selfishness in our so in our flesh, in our sin nature. So we have to stop before we run to asking for all our things to let God refocus our mind, our heart, our hands, and our feet. Your kingdom, your will, God. We are talking about worship here. We are talking about rejoicing in what God has planned and what God is going to accomplish in our lives and on the earth. And he delivered an author said it this way when we were talking about the goodness of God, the blessings of God, the kingdom of God. She said it's madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church. We should all be wearing crash helmets. You ever thought about that? Like when we're saying, God's a kingdom, your kingdom come, bring it on, bring it to earth. Like, I had the hilarious vision of everyone sitting here with crash helmets on. What y'all here for? Well, we're just waiting for him to crash, collide the kingdom of heaven with earth, baby. That's what we're here for. That's what we want to see. I'm not coming with a baseball hat on, I'm coming in with crash helmets on because we're expecting a collision. I love that picture of expectation. And oh, what if we were to say, your kingdom come, your will be done, and really want it. To really desire it over our own personal preferences. What would God do through us? When we engage in prayer, we're centering on God's name and God's kingdom, we are pushing off the worship of self and things and stuff. We want you, Lord. This is the confession that we need to make regularly because our idols cannot sustain the kind of kingdom living that God wants us to live in the day-to-day. Your idols are too weak, your preferences are too weak, your flesh is too weak to carry out the basic love your neighbor. We need his kingdom, we need his will. Augustine in his book, City of God, said, God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them. We don't even have the bandwidth in our lives to receive his kingdom and will. We just have all this stuff. I'm like, I'm gonna hold it on to it all. And God, I don't think I have enough room for your kingdom. Sorry. This is how we tend to walk. And if that's the case, the question is, how do you begin putting down the stuff? I do believe that for you and for me, thanksgiving plays a huge role in this. This is why rejoicing is a part of this prayer time. Thanksgiving, that his kingdom is good. I don't know if you've known the promises of God through the scripture, but it's time. Here's the deal: you're gonna wake up tomorrow morning and you are not gonna feel like praising God. Just aren't. Just not gonna feel it. That's why you have to start spitting facts before you start letting feelings take control. That's why you wake up in the morning and you go, Wake up, wake up, soul, wake up, heart. I don't feel like praising God. But here's some things that I know are true. Thank you that you created us for good purposes. Thank you that you've given us community. Thank you that you are true. Thank you that and you just start saying thank you, and you start stirring those affections because look, it is a sacrifice of praise. It is. It is a sacrifice of praise to start saying truth when you're not feeling it. You're not gonna feel it. Can I just tell you that your flesh will never encourage you in the worship of God? Ever. The flesh wants to be worshiped. Makes sense, right? I want the glory. I don't want to cover the earth in your glory. I want the glory. But the Spirit of God in us, oh, he's ready. He is ready to give praise and honor and adoration to our Father in heaven. Maybe you need to read a psalm before running to ask. One of the easiest ways to build adoration or rejoicing in your prayer time is to open those Psalms, walk around your house, bust open Psalm 130, start reading out loud. Let all that I am praise the Lord with my whole heart. I will praise his holy name. Let all that I am praise the Lord. May I never forget the good things he does for me. Maybe you just need to walk around your house and read that out loud. Let all that I am praise the Lord. What is that, Dad? Nothing. I'm talking to the Lord. This is what it means to wake up your heart. Let all that I am praise the Lord. He forgives all my sins and he heals all my diseases. Yes, he does. Praise the Lord that he does. Praise him for doing these things. He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercy. He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagles, but my knees still hurt. The Lord gives righteousness and justice to all who are treated unfairly. This is the kingdom of God coming. Why would we not say, God, your kingdom come, your will be done with more energy than anything we can give our lives to? Why would we not want to see this come in the lives of the people that we walk next to who are still living the life of castle building? Personal, private, mine. Maybe, maybe you need to join in singing songs of the faith beyond Sunday mornings. You know, it's funny, I just Googled the fastest chart-topping songs in America this week. Four songs. Okay? Flowers, made you look, I'm good, and unholy. Have you read the lyrics to any of those songs? I don't even need to talk about unholy. But flowers says, I can love me better than you love me. It's all about me. Made you look, all about me. I'm good, all about me. Your ears, your head, your heart are constantly being bombarded with my castle, me, me, me. So you need to change it up so that you are singing out loud, God, you, you, you. Ben posts stuff on our Facebook page, songs that you can just listen to and let kind of flow over you, and you can begin to sing out loud to combat the self-centered castle building that we live in. You need it. And then what we did here this morning when we sang songs of the faith together, to know that there's a people who say, God, your kingdom, your will. We have to have it. We can't move forward without it. This is a practice of the faith. But this prayer for God's kingdom and God's will is not just about a heart change, it will change your hands and your feet too. William Carey was a missionary Bible translator to India who transformed cultures. And he said this a reformer's primary duty, and he's not talking about the reformers when it comes to theology and the Calvin guys, he's saying a reformer, someone who works towards the reform of a community, a transformation person. A reformer's first duty is to pray fervent and united prayer. He's like, if you think you're going to change anything, you have got to be praying. And then he says this the transforming of mankind is the work of God. Prayer doesn't just make a difference in our minds, but also in our history. In Jesus, the Messiah, the sovereign Lord, entered human history as the light of the world. The kingdom doesn't just change our hearts, it changes history. Reality is impacted by this prayer. Our heart change moves to a desire for our feet and our hands to change. And we work with God as God works in us. As we close this morning, for those of you that are sitting in this room wondering if this kingdom is for you, and how do I enter into this kingdom? The shocking truth is that entrance into the kingdom is not through an exam. You're not going to have to take a test at the end of life, testing your knowledge. The entrance into this kingdom is not through a skills competition where you are able to show off your abilities or through worthy feats of strength where you're impressing or earning something from God. The qualifier is simply this to recognize you need the king. Jesus said it in Matthew 5: God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for Him. Guess what? For the kingdom of heaven is theirs. The qualifier is recognizing I need the King. When Jesus told the religious leaders of the day that the tax collectors and prostitutes were entering into the kingdom before they were, it didn't go over well. Shouldn't have. But C.S. Lewis said this after he read that prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God. The proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous are in that danger. As the band is playing, and as before we move into communion, I'd love for you all to just close your eyes for a second. I know some of you have a hard time using your imagination, but I'd love for you to attempt to. Maybe you need to revisit Jesus' simple words this morning. Maybe you need to see yourself standing before this vast kingdom of truth, of beauty, of goodness, of community, of purpose. You're just standing before that kingdom and you see it. You just see it. It's right there. Maybe you just need to take that all in for a second. Maybe you see off to the right, maybe you see a little a humble king. Not a knight in shining armor, no shields, no swords, but a king clothed in humility, and you can tell it's a humble king. And this humble king is waving towards you. And you can tell this humble king is calling you to step into this kingdom. You can tell he's motioning, and but but yet there's a tension. There's a real tension in your heart. Why would there be a tension? You hesitate. Because now you're looking behind you. Take a minute to look behind you. Take a look at your castle. Do you see it? You're not looking at the kingdom in front of you anymore, but what you're looking at is what you have built. Can you see your castle? What does it look like? Take a second to walk around that castle. Are you impressed by your building skills? By what you're looking at? Are you so impressed by what you have done on your own that you're actually considering rejecting the king's offer? Or as you walk around the grounds, and you see the cracks in the foundation. So much of that shed together. What's super glued and barely holding on? And you're seeing that right before your eyes. If you're content in your castle, can you see yourself walking away from them and saying, God, I really need you. Because the kingdom of heaven is yours. We just wanted to say thank you for listening to the Highland Christian Church podcast today. And if you ever want to connect with us, send prayer requests, ask questions, or for any other reason, you can visit our website, www.highlandchristian.com, or you can send us an email at info at highlandchristian.com. God bless you guys.