[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas. [SPEAKER_00]: For more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry, please visit citizenschurch.com. [SPEAKER_00]: If you have a Bible, turn to Mark Twelfth and find verse twenty-eight that Bianca just read for us as you're turning there. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're visiting Citizen Church this morning, welcome. [SPEAKER_00]: We're honored that you're worshiping with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Jamen. [SPEAKER_00]: I am one of the pastors here. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you are here and you call citizens home, it's good to see you. [SPEAKER_00]: We are three weeks into a series called becoming like Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: And really, this series is about just naming and putting some language to what we believe our church is all about what we exist for.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe you've seen this already, but I just want to put in front of us what is the main content and message of the series. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's on a screen behind me right now. [SPEAKER_00]: Think like Jesus is cultivating knowledge of God and His Word. [SPEAKER_00]: Love like Jesus is cultivating affection for God and others. [SPEAKER_00]: Feel like Jesus is cultivating identity in Christ and act like Jesus is cultivating a life that bears witness to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what we believe it means to become like Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the categories through which our whole life is formed to look like Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no arrival until Jesus returns, but it's an ongoing process of conforming into the image of God's Son. [SPEAKER_00]: So much of the next several weeks is going to be us spending time on each one of those. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, we were supposed to start think like Jesus this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: But just felt candidly, just felt the need to slow down and spend one more week trying to orient our hearts around the need for the why this matters, why we need it as the people of God. [SPEAKER_00]: So we're already off schedule. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know exactly when the Lord saved me, but I was baptized when I was five years old with my big brother by my dad and we were baptized in a small church that he pasted around an hour, it was about an hour from here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I grew up in church. [SPEAKER_00]: I have been in and around Christianity, my entire life. [SPEAKER_00]: This is all I have known. [SPEAKER_00]: I was right in the car with my son last week, and we were listening to one of Forest Frank's new songs. [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, man, this guy just turns out great. [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus centered music, like once a week, it feels like it was like praise God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as you're asking me, Dad, who is the Forest Frank when you were my age? [SPEAKER_00]: He said, in the nineteen hundreds. [SPEAKER_00]: His question is, like, did you have good Christian music like this when you were growing up? [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, not exactly like this. [SPEAKER_00]: I said, let me just play some of it for you and you tell me if you think it's similar. [SPEAKER_00]: So we listen to a little Carmen. [SPEAKER_00]: And that didn't take.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was just kind of confused. [SPEAKER_00]: Then we tried DC talk. [SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, OK, and then try to few others. [SPEAKER_00]: And eventually he was like, hey, Dad, can we listen to Force Frank? [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, son, do not disrespect my childhood heroes. [SPEAKER_00]: Don't you dare. [SPEAKER_00]: That's a silly example. [SPEAKER_00]: This is all I've known. [SPEAKER_00]: It's all I've known.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, the church, everything that comes with it. [SPEAKER_00]: I've been following him since the nineteen hundreds. [SPEAKER_00]: And in my three decades of following Jesus, a few things have become really clear to me. [SPEAKER_00]: If I could summarize my testimony in these two truths, he've heard me say these things before. [SPEAKER_00]: The first is this, Jesus loves me way more than I think he does.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've spent seasons of my life in unrepentance and long seasons of life, hiding sins from everyone except for God. [SPEAKER_00]: I still, to this day, struggle with sins, I thought for sure I'd be done with by now. [SPEAKER_00]: And at the same time, I've lived a lot of my life as a very self-righteous person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking too highly of myself and too little of God, judgmental, hypocritical, falling short, not just of what God wants, but even falling short of what I expect of other people. [SPEAKER_00]: I can't even live up to my own standards. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's been a lot of my life. [SPEAKER_00]: And here's what I found. [SPEAKER_00]: Even in all of that, God's love for me in Christ has not changed. [SPEAKER_00]: It has not wavered. [SPEAKER_00]: He's been faithful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans eight, thirty-four, says things like this, who's the one who condemns Christ? [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the one who died, but even more has been raised. [SPEAKER_00]: He also is at the right hand of God and interseeds for us who can separate us from the love of Christ. [SPEAKER_00]: In John seventeen, Jesus prays, it's this window into his prayer life with the Father, and he says this, I have loved them as you have loved me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Father, Son, and Spirit have always existed. [SPEAKER_00]: He eternally existed in a relationship of Trinitarian love. [SPEAKER_00]: And when the Son prays to the Father, He says, we have welcomed them into that love. [SPEAKER_00]: The love that is always existed in God has been given to me. [SPEAKER_00]: He loves me way more than I think He does. [SPEAKER_00]: His steadfast love and doors forever. [SPEAKER_00]: He loves you way more than you think He does, Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second thing is this. [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus demands way more than I think he does. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's an extension of his love. [SPEAKER_00]: He demands to change all of us because he wants good for us. [SPEAKER_00]: But in my experience, when I think that maybe my discipleship is complete, there's another whole area of life that Jesus wants me to surrender to him. [SPEAKER_00]: The illustration that comes back over and again, you've heard this for me before.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you think about your home where you live, [SPEAKER_00]: And you think about who comes into your home and how they act in your home. [SPEAKER_00]: Different people are welcomed into different parts of your home depending on who they are to you. [SPEAKER_00]: So if the neighbors move in down the street and you invite them over for dinner, when they come into your home, they stay in the living room, they stay in the dining room, and that's about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't walk in and say, can I check out the master bathroom? [SPEAKER_00]: They don't walk in and say, hey, where's your attic? [SPEAKER_00]: That's just weird. [SPEAKER_00]: The people who own the home get to go pretty much wherever they want, but a guest is not. [SPEAKER_00]: A guest only goes where they're invited. [SPEAKER_00]: A guest in your home has different access to your home than the people who live there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we often treat Jesus like a guest in our life. [SPEAKER_00]: Here are the rooms of my life that are open to you and here are the ones that are closed. [SPEAKER_00]: Here are the things that I keep behind a closed door. [SPEAKER_00]: Here's where you're allowed. [SPEAKER_00]: Here's where you're not. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm open to change in these areas of my life. [SPEAKER_00]: but all these are fine just as they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the problem with that is when we read the words of Jesus in Scripture, we soon realize that He will not be a guest in our life. [SPEAKER_00]: He will not be a guest in our life. [SPEAKER_00]: He demands surrender in all of life. [SPEAKER_00]: And we see that in the passage in Mark twelve, maybe we have not read this passage this way, but this passage does articulate the degree of change that Jesus wants in our life as we follow Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse twenty eight says one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another and seeing that he answered them well asked him which commandment is the most important of all. [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus answered the most important is here O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second is this, she shall love your neighbor as yourself. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no other commitment greater than these. [SPEAKER_00]: And the scribes said to him, you're right, teacher. [SPEAKER_00]: You have truly said that he is one, and there's no other besides him, and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. [SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy six. [SPEAKER_00]: It's this condensed expression of Old Testament faith for the people of God. [SPEAKER_00]: You have all of the laws of God summarized in these two twin commands. [SPEAKER_00]: Love God and love others. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is given to those who are in relationship with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this isn't, here's what you do to earn God's love. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a people who are already loved by God live this way. [SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says that applies to those who follow Him. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the substance of those who are close to the kingdom who belong to the kingdom. [SPEAKER_00]: See this. [SPEAKER_00]: So much here, I want to direct our focus somewhere. [SPEAKER_00]: God does not as he's articulating this command that summarizes all the commands.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does not stack adjectives to describe the life. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not you shall really love God or you shall powerfully love God or with much effort you should love God. [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't stack adjectives. [SPEAKER_00]: He applies the commands to the different parts of what it means to be a human being. [SPEAKER_00]: You have a mind, but that's not all of you. [SPEAKER_00]: You have a heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not all of you, you have a soul, but that's not all of you, you have strength, you have power, the things you use to do things in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: Love God with all of it. [SPEAKER_00]: You have a scribe here talking to Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: Most of these guys, this is interesting. [SPEAKER_00]: Most of the time, when scribes come to Jesus, they leave being told they're far from the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus tells this scribe, you're close to the kingdom, because he makes this point to love God this way, mind-hard soul strength, is way more than burnt offering in sacrifices. [SPEAKER_00]: He's saying, God wants something deeper than all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He underneath the sacrifices, the offering, the church attendance, the religious participation, and according to Jesus, seeing that, [SPEAKER_00]: Seeing that God wants that all of life whole person below the surface devotion means that this guy is right on the cusp of the kingdom of God. [SPEAKER_00]: So let me try to make the point this way. [SPEAKER_00]: If you were to just imagine that this is a conversation between you and Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: And you're standing before Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're in covenant with him, he loves you. [SPEAKER_00]: You're covered in his righteousness, completely accepted. [SPEAKER_00]: And in that moment, maybe you have a palpable sense of his grace for you, all your sins are covered. [SPEAKER_00]: You're future with him is secure. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no threat to your life that can keep you from what God's promised you. [SPEAKER_00]: In other words, you're with him, and you're not there to prove yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And from that place of received grace, you ask him a question. [SPEAKER_00]: What do you want from me? [SPEAKER_00]: How should I live? [SPEAKER_00]: How can I honor you in my life? [SPEAKER_00]: And then you try. [SPEAKER_00]: You're like, I've got some talents. [SPEAKER_00]: You can have those. [SPEAKER_00]: I've got a Bible. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll read that. [SPEAKER_00]: I have some money. [SPEAKER_00]: You can have some of it. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll serve the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll confess sin. [SPEAKER_00]: And you look at him sincerely. [SPEAKER_00]: How does all that sound? [SPEAKER_00]: Is that what you want? [SPEAKER_00]: He would respond. [SPEAKER_00]: Gentle heart. [SPEAKER_00]: Kind eyes. [SPEAKER_00]: And he'd say, I want your mind. [SPEAKER_00]: And I want your heart. [SPEAKER_00]: And I want your soul. [SPEAKER_00]: I want your strength. [SPEAKER_00]: And you say, well, that's everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: Everything, everything above the surface of your life and below the surface of your life. [SPEAKER_00]: Your exterior life and your interior life. [SPEAKER_00]: What's visible to others and what's only visible to God, all of it. [SPEAKER_00]: Every room of your life, Jesus will not be a guest. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want your negotiated obedience. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't just want what you feel comfortable offering.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want your mind and your heart and your soul and your strength. [SPEAKER_00]: All of it needs to change. [SPEAKER_00]: All of it needs to change to the end that you think love, feel, and act like Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's different. [SPEAKER_00]: That's different than just here's my time or here are the rules I keep. [SPEAKER_00]: It goes way deeper than that. [SPEAKER_00]: Look, Jesus is way more demanding than we think He is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And without that kind of press, here's the risk. [SPEAKER_00]: Without that kind of press, we will, as Christians who love the Lord, we may become like Jesus in some areas of our life, but our discipleship will eventually be compartmentalized and fragmented. [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus wants more for you than that. [SPEAKER_00]: So if I could just go back to last week and repeat myself a bit. [SPEAKER_00]: This is the point of Christianity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ likeness is the will of God for the people of God. [SPEAKER_00]: Romans eight says those who forenew he predestined to be conformed to the image of God that he might be the first born among many brothers and sisters. [SPEAKER_00]: The eternal, predestining purpose of God for your life. [SPEAKER_00]: is to become like Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: So in Corinthians three, we are being transformed into his image by beholding him, and that's happening right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: The active work of God in your life and the present. [SPEAKER_00]: is conforming you to look like Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: First John three, we will be like him when we see him as he is. [SPEAKER_00]: Your discipleship one day will be complete when you see your Savior face to face. [SPEAKER_00]: So the past, present, and future plan of God for your life is to become like Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: This church exists for that purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't want to settle for anything less than that. [SPEAKER_00]: We want Christlike Christianity that forms Christlike disciples. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a few things that will rob us of that. [SPEAKER_00]: We name them last week. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just worth saying it again. [SPEAKER_00]: Spiritual complacency, complacent Christianity will rob us from becoming the kind of people God wants us to be. [SPEAKER_00]: AWS says complacency is the deadly foe of spiritual growth.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there is no desire for Christ, [SPEAKER_00]: There will be no presence of Christ. [SPEAKER_00]: He waits to be wanted. [SPEAKER_00]: Many Christians are bothered by the state of the world, but not bothered by the apathy of their own heart. [SPEAKER_00]: Of all the concerning things happening around us, none are as dangerous to the church as Christians who don't care. [SPEAKER_00]: He waits to be wanted. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying this is all that how you feel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying he should try and force emotions that aren't there. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying if you're in a hard season of life and it was all you could do to just be here today. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying fake it. [SPEAKER_00]: I just believe what C.S. [SPEAKER_00]: Lewis says when he says the Lord finds that our desires are not too strong but too weak, we exchange infinite joy for trivial pleasure. [SPEAKER_00]: We are far too easily pleased.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to want God more. [SPEAKER_00]: I too. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want my Christianity to be guilt driven obligation to a God that I'm bored with. [SPEAKER_00]: That sounds miserable. [SPEAKER_00]: I want to want God more. [SPEAKER_00]: And so we have to fight against complacency and confess apathy and ask God to increase our desire for Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to offer what little desire that I have to God, and trust that when I offer that little desire to God in the hands of Jesus, maybe he can multiply it like he did with the fish in the lobes. [SPEAKER_00]: And we have to fight against religious consumerism. [SPEAKER_00]: It would be so easy as a church to fail by succeeding at what doesn't matter. [SPEAKER_00]: The church is not her services, her programs, her preacher and her people, or her property.
[SPEAKER_00]: to me, peace, eventually you just trip up on it. [SPEAKER_00]: The church is her disciples. [SPEAKER_00]: Christianity is not a transactional relationship with a religious institution where I get religious things and give two religious things. [SPEAKER_00]: Christianity is I once was lost and now I'm found. [SPEAKER_00]: I was dead and now I'm alive, and the God of the universe loved me before I even knew me, and he's changing me, and he's bringing his kingdom through me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Church, [SPEAKER_00]: You are the Church of Jesus Christ. [SPEAKER_00]: You are. [SPEAKER_00]: You're not a customer. [SPEAKER_00]: You are a bloodbought child of God forever loved by God and graciously invited into the mission of God. [SPEAKER_00]: You are the Church. [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's what we're doing. [SPEAKER_00]: Christ likenesses the will of God for the people of God. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't want complacent Christianity.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want consumer Christianity. [SPEAKER_00]: We want Christ like Christianity. [SPEAKER_00]: That was last week. [SPEAKER_00]: We're adding to that now. [SPEAKER_00]: There's something else to guard against, but I think is especially [SPEAKER_00]: dangerous in our part of the world, in cities, in our part of the world, and it's the danger of a Christianity that surrenders some of me, but not all of me, and so it's compartmentalized or incomplete.
[SPEAKER_00]: I look like Jesus in some areas, and he wants every room. [SPEAKER_00]: So think with me about how many times we see Jesus in the Gospels, he'll interact with someone, and in that interaction, they offer some part of their life to Jesus, and Jesus responds by asking for the part of their life that they're not offering. [SPEAKER_00]: It's something came to mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I've shared this before, but when my daughter was younger, she snuck a piece of candy from her mom's purse and I watched her do it. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I said, Addy, give me what's in your hand. [SPEAKER_00]: And so she closed her hand around the candy and put it behind her back. [SPEAKER_00]: And then she offered me her empty hand. [SPEAKER_00]: She said, here. [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, no, show me what's in the other hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she puts that behind her back and grabs the candy and then does this and shows me that empty hand. [SPEAKER_00]: And so then she got to keep the candy because that's what kind of parent I am. [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus wants the closed hand. [SPEAKER_00]: You see throughout Scripture, someone comes to him and does that kind of thing. [SPEAKER_00]: He says, here, here's this. [SPEAKER_00]: And he says, I want the hand behind your back.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Luke ten, a man came to Jesus and offered all of his knowledge. [SPEAKER_00]: He summarized the Old Testament law, passed the test. [SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says, you're right. [SPEAKER_00]: And then the man asked Jesus a question, who's my neighbor? [SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus told a story about this heroic Samaritan. [SPEAKER_00]: to expose the man's racism and failure to love people made in God's image.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he came to Jesus and he offered all of his right answers and Jesus went after what he wasn't offering and said, you need to love your enemies. [SPEAKER_00]: In Mark ten, a man came to Jesus and he offered all his obedience. [SPEAKER_00]: All of his kept commands. [SPEAKER_00]: He was wealthy. [SPEAKER_00]: He was young. [SPEAKER_00]: He had done a lot of good things. [SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus lists a few of the commands. [SPEAKER_00]: And the guy says, I've done it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says, one thing you lack, sell all you have, give to the poor, and follow me. [SPEAKER_00]: He offers his list of kept commands to Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus went after the treasure, the true treasure of his heart. [SPEAKER_00]: And he wasn't willing to offer that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know if either of those men came to follow Jesus, but we see this kind of thing even among Jesus' own disciples, like the people that we know for sure, followed him and were giving their life to him. [SPEAKER_00]: Luke chapter nine is this amazing roller coaster chapter for the disciples.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are at the beginning of the chapter commissioned in the ministry and they preach the gospel and they heal and they're so effective that crowds follow them to get to Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus tries to get away [SPEAKER_00]: And instead, the people find him, he doesn't want them to starve, and so he feeds five thousand people, and the disciples are a part of that. [SPEAKER_00]: After that, Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, Peter James and John get to go up the mountain with Jesus, and they see him transfigured in front of them. [SPEAKER_00]: The unrestrained glory of Jesus, peeled back right in front of their eyes, and they were so overwhelmed they could even talk about it. [SPEAKER_00]: My point is this, these are people who have committed their life to Him. [SPEAKER_00]: They're in with Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: They're giving their time, their gifts, their life to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're healing people. [SPEAKER_00]: They're passing out miracle lunch. [SPEAKER_00]: They're confessing Christ. [SPEAKER_00]: They're seeing the divine glory of Jesus on the mountain. [SPEAKER_00]: They've offered a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: And this happens, Luke nine, forty, six. [SPEAKER_00]: An argument started among them about who is the greatest of them. [SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus knowing their inner thoughts, [SPEAKER_00]: That's terrifying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Took a little child and had him stand next to him. [SPEAKER_00]: He told them whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes him who sent me. [SPEAKER_00]: For whoever is least among you this one is great. [SPEAKER_00]: He sees all that they're offering. [SPEAKER_00]: They're having this argument out of your shot of Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: He knows their inner thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: He asks a little child to help him teach them a lesson as he goes after the hand behind their back. [SPEAKER_00]: He says, I need you. [SPEAKER_00]: Of all that you've given me, there's something you still haven't given me. [SPEAKER_00]: I need you to surrender your definition of greatness. [SPEAKER_00]: I need you to surrender what you think makes yourself significant. [SPEAKER_00]: You misunderstood. [SPEAKER_00]: This is not about you propping yourself up on the fame of my name.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is about you being dependent in humble like a child. [SPEAKER_00]: And what he's after, he's after what they think makes them significant in life where their very identity is found. [SPEAKER_00]: He's saying, I need to get behind that closed door in your life. [SPEAKER_00]: We see this with Martha. [SPEAKER_00]: One of Jesus' close friends. [SPEAKER_00]: This is Luke ten again. [SPEAKER_00]: Martha's hosting Jesus in her house.
[SPEAKER_00]: John tells us Jesus loves her and she loves him. [SPEAKER_00]: And so she offers her hospitality to him, her house, her gifts, her time, and she gets busy and bothered. [SPEAKER_00]: And storms in the room, mad at Mary, and mad at Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says you've been pulled away. [SPEAKER_00]: And then he goes after what she's not offering. [SPEAKER_00]: He does not want her busy service. [SPEAKER_00]: He wants her anxious soul satisfied in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants her to choose the better portion, which is to say he wants her to care more about enjoying his presence than hosting the meal. [SPEAKER_00]: In all of that, in all of that, if we were to try and summarize what is Jesus doing, he loves these people. [SPEAKER_00]: He loves all those people more than they think he does. [SPEAKER_00]: But if we're trying to understand what he's doing in their life, we go back to Mark twelve, the great command, the law summarized.
[SPEAKER_00]: And see Jesus saying to each of them, I want your mind and your heart and your soul and your strength. [SPEAKER_00]: Not some of you, all of you, not compartmentalized obedience that keeps commands and hides racism in your heart. [SPEAKER_00]: not compartmentalized obedience that can prepare a meal, but not communit my feet, not fragmented faith, all of life conforming to my image. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what our Savior does. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the kind of change he wants to bring.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what he did then. [SPEAKER_00]: It's what he will do in our lives now. [SPEAKER_00]: Love us and demand all of us, goodness. [SPEAKER_00]: We need this. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if this is true, because I've only lived in this area of the world. [SPEAKER_00]: But I think there is a thing about this part of the world that has a tendency to form compartmentalized disciples. [SPEAKER_00]: I think for many of us our discipleship is more compartmentalized than we think it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me try and name what that could look like in our room. [SPEAKER_00]: Some of us have a one day a week relationship with God. [SPEAKER_00]: Sunday is for God. [SPEAKER_00]: The rest of our days are for something else. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's this secular sacred divide in our life. [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe we come by it honestly. [SPEAKER_00]: And we just don't know how to connect our faith with the rest of our life. [SPEAKER_00]: And we need to help.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's okay, don't you? [SPEAKER_00]: But the starting place is to see this. [SPEAKER_00]: A Sunday only Christianity is a compartmentalized Christianity. [SPEAKER_00]: Some of us think Jesus only wants us to get the information right. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the extent of our discipleship. [SPEAKER_00]: It's about believing the right things and not believing the wrong things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You ever met someone who knows a lot of Bible, a lot of theology, and they're really awful to be around. [SPEAKER_00]: Like they're good with information, but they're bad at relationships. [SPEAKER_00]: They win arguments, but lose people. [SPEAKER_00]: They have a lot of good theology and torch people they claim to love all at the same time. [SPEAKER_00]: Something's missing. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the extreme version of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the more tame version is we just have a cerebral Christianity. [SPEAKER_00]: that knows right answers but doesn't come in with God. [SPEAKER_00]: Quick to share my opinions with other Christians never share the gospel with unbelievers. [SPEAKER_00]: A Christianity that is growing in information but not growing in love for others is compartmentalized Christianity. [SPEAKER_00]: Some of us think Jesus only wants us to get the actions right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, we think that knowing the deep things of God is for really smart people who care about that kind of thing. [SPEAKER_00]: And so maybe we do godly things, but my view of God is not fully shaped by the God, the Bible reveals because I haven't put the time and understand that. [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we like to chase the feeling that comes with spiritual things, but not the substance that comes only with the study of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Gene Wilkins says, the heart can't love what the mind doesn't know. [SPEAKER_00]: a Christianity that is hyper spiritual and anti-intellectual is a compartmentalized Christianity. [SPEAKER_00]: Some of us think Jesus only cares about what we know and what we do, all the visible things, just the stuff that's above the surface. [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I can draw it out this way. [SPEAKER_00]: You know what a lot of us are bad at?
[SPEAKER_00]: Rest. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't mean binge watching a show. [SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of us are probably pretty good at that actually. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean we're bad. [SPEAKER_00]: at being unbusy, non-anxious, undistracted, and all alone in the presence of God. [SPEAKER_00]: That's rest. [SPEAKER_00]: And few things expose the undiscipled parts of our life like the inability to rest in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because when you can't busy yourself with all the thinking and doing, you realize that some of this right-sinking and right-acting has been a way to ignore what's actually going on in my soul. [SPEAKER_00]: And if I stop, I have to confront who I think I am underneath all the activity and who I think God is to me when I'm not producing anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that place, you realize how much of your identity is tied to your doing and how deep the lie is that God does not love me because He's merciful. [SPEAKER_00]: God loves me because I'm useful. [SPEAKER_00]: And confronting that lie will take me to the deepest places of hurt and idolatry and shame and false identity. [SPEAKER_00]: And I close those doors a long time ago. [SPEAKER_00]: and what's easier than that, just staying busy or show.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if all those examples that you've heard as I explain them, if you thought about other people and not yourself, Jesus wants that too, a Christianity that cares more about seeing change in other people than seeing change in me is compartmentalized Christianity. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there are examples I miss. [SPEAKER_00]: Hear me beloved. [SPEAKER_00]: He demands more than we think. [SPEAKER_00]: He wants every room. [SPEAKER_00]: He goes after even what we don't offer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants the hand behind the back. [SPEAKER_00]: Forgive all the metaphors. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just trying to contend there's more change needed in our life than we think there is. [SPEAKER_00]: And here's what I hope is happening. [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you're beginning to ask a question. [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you're returning to a question you stopped asking, or I hope you're continuing to ask this question, what have I kept from him? [SPEAKER_00]: What have I not offered?
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's me in the story with Jesus, what unsurrendered part of me is he asking for right now? [SPEAKER_00]: And are you willing to do that? [SPEAKER_00]: Are you willing to consider the closed rooms and hidden hands of your life? [SPEAKER_00]: Are you willing to examine your life and confess areas unchanged by Christ and then surrender those things to him? [SPEAKER_00]: If what he wants, beloved is just a little negotiated obedience, then there's nothing left to do, we're fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if he demands our mind and our heart and our soul and our strength, then there is more of Christ needed in our life. [SPEAKER_00]: So our hope in the series is to behold Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: to see him in God's word, to see his mind. [SPEAKER_00]: He fulfilled this command, lived it, successful, righteous, faithful in all the ways that we've fallen short. [SPEAKER_00]: So we want to see his mind and his heart and his soul and his strengths.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it'll expose all the areas of our life that still need to be changed so that we would think and love and feel and act like him. [SPEAKER_00]: Our hope is to use the category scripture, gives us that it would help us see a deeper vision of Jesus, so that we'd be changed more deeply. [SPEAKER_00]: That's where we're going. [SPEAKER_00]: This is the part of the sermon where I historically would ease up a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if it's been heavy, create some space to breathe a little. [SPEAKER_00]: And instead of that, I want to press a little more and then give a space to pray. [SPEAKER_00]: Here's the press. [SPEAKER_00]: As a pastor in New York named John Tyson, he says this, many Christians have radical standards for every part of our life and lukewarm standards for our faith. [SPEAKER_00]: This part of the world, what would be so easy to do is get caught up and to hear this to shrug at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This part of the world has radical standards for so much of our life. [SPEAKER_00]: We have radical standards for our physical appearance and career success. [SPEAKER_00]: We have radical standards for our children, their school, their sports. [SPEAKER_00]: We have high standards to what people around us should and shouldn't do and look warm standards for our faith. [SPEAKER_00]: Reminds me of another quote we've read before this is John Orberg.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says for many of us, the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. [SPEAKER_00]: It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. [SPEAKER_00]: We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them. [SPEAKER_00]: Luke warm, mediocre faith, and a life that could experience deep change and deep joy, but we just skim the surface. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's not settle for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's not settle for that. [SPEAKER_00]: Here's the press. [SPEAKER_00]: Take this seriously. [SPEAKER_00]: Take this seriously. [SPEAKER_00]: Have high standards for the gospel change you want to see in your life and don't settle for less. [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus loves you way more than you think he does. [SPEAKER_00]: And in his love, he demands more than what you've already offered. [SPEAKER_00]: Christ likenesses the will of God for the people of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your church is committed to that. [SPEAKER_00]: And we're giving this fall to focus just on that. [SPEAKER_00]: Don't miss it. [SPEAKER_00]: and don't justify the parts of you left unchanged. [SPEAKER_00]: What if, what if, becoming like Jesus became the most important thing in your life?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what if we've repented of lukewarm faith in compartmentalized Christianity, and we sought the risen Christ in such a way that this season of our life became a milestone of God's transformative grace in us? [SPEAKER_00]: Please, Lord, would you pray with me to that end? [SPEAKER_00]: Father, we love you. [SPEAKER_00]: We need you. [SPEAKER_00]: Beloved, would you just use this space?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know exactly what to ask other than that we would be open to confessing and repenting before the Lord together. [SPEAKER_00]: And so Jesus is asking us as His people, His loved, redeemed, forgiven, or righteous people. [SPEAKER_00]: He's asking for all of us, everything we've got, our mind and our heart and our soul and our strength. [SPEAKER_00]: Would you just confess what you've kept from him? [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe there's a specific thing you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've held on to this. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm hiding this. [SPEAKER_00]: I've closed that door in a spirit of God and his love for you has made that known to you and you can confess that before God and before others. [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe there's just a general humble sincere confession that my standards for my relationship with Jesus have fallen far short of my standards for less important things. [SPEAKER_00]: Forgive us.
[SPEAKER_00]: In your word, God, it says we proclaim Him warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone mature and Christ. [SPEAKER_00]: We want to be mature and you Jesus complete. [SPEAKER_00]: There is no arrival until you return, but we want to be faithful. [SPEAKER_00]: We want to be faithful to offer open hands to you, to offer every part of our life to you. [SPEAKER_00]: in Lord would you protect us from hearing something like this?
[SPEAKER_00]: In responding with this overwhelmed sense of guilt and shame that things that we have to work our way back into your acceptance, but also protect us, protect us. [SPEAKER_00]: From a lack of urgency and sensitivity that would lead to just a mediocre life with you and you want so much more for us than that. [SPEAKER_00]: Forgive me, God, forgive me. [SPEAKER_00]: I need more of you in my life. [SPEAKER_00]: So many more places in need of change. [SPEAKER_00]: I trust you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need you. [SPEAKER_00]: And we, your church, are asking you, or Jesus, are asking you to do the things in us that only you can do. [SPEAKER_00]: We love you. [SPEAKER_00]: Amen.