Speaker 1 0:35

[inaudible] check your sooner , bro . Come anymore.

Speaker 2 0:52

Well, good morning everybody. I'm Vanessa and I'm on staff here at North gate. And as you saw, we are having drive through communion next week and we would love if you're joining us online and you're not comfortable being in person, we would love for you to join us at drive through community next week. Even if you are here in person, if you want to join us for a fun drive through communion, that's fantastic. We would love to have you, but we will also be having communion in the room at the 9:00 AM service next week as well.

Speaker 1 1:23

So

Speaker 2 1:24

Do one or the other do both. It's totally up to you, but right now you guys, I want to tell you a story about something really cool. That happened last Sunday, a couple of weeks ago, we had the opportunity to help a family out of an abusive and safe situation. And they got to get into a home that was safe because of the dollar club, because of something that you guys contribute to each and every week. And because God is so good, he takes those dollars and he stretches them, but that's not the coolest part. The coolest part was this person got into a safe and healthy situation. They then had God on the tip of their tongue all the time, because they said we were here, but God, but God took us out of this and they have the good news all over themselves. And they got to then share that good news with their new landlord. So they shared that news with their new landlord. And then last weekend, when we were open for the very first time in person and months and months, guests who came walking through that door, the family we got to help and their new landlord, When you choose to live generously, you're not only changing someone's life. You are changing someone else's life and the snowball effects it has from there on out. And so we want to invite you into that with us. We would love for you to join us in that. And we do it through something that's really simple. It's called the dollar club and the dollar club is going to cost you one, $1. So what we do is we take a headcount each and every Sunday, online, the people in the room here at the Benicia campus and the people in the room at the San Francisco campus. And we take that number and we put dollars to it. So you participate or not. We've made this decision that this is something that we're going to do for our community. And God has blessed this ministry in such a cool way. And so what we do is we take that headcount and we put dollars to it. And then a family who has been nominated or a family who has reached out and asked for help themselves, we get to then bless them. And God does some incredible work through the dollar clips . So we'd love for you to join us in that today, cost you $1. What you do is if you're here as a family, one, you put $1 in as your hair, as a family of four, you put $4. And if you're at home and you're watching with 10 people put $10 in the dollar club, you can do that in so many different ways. So we want to invite you in that with us today as a step of living a lifestyle of generosity. And so there's a few ways that you get to partner with us in that. So along with your gifts and your tidings and your offerings, the dollar club is simple. You can do it online. You can do it through a North gate app. You could do it through Venmo. We're on Venmo. Now at North gate dash church, or you can do it the old fashioned way. You can mail it to us here at the building. You can put it in the boxes, in the back of the room, on your way out. And when you do it online, you get to choose whether you want to dollar club, your regular tithing, you're giving you guys get the picture. And so we want to invite you into that right now with us, you could do it from your phones . You can do it on your way out today, but we would love to have you join us in that. But right now let's pray for our service today. And we're going to get this thing started, Lord Jesus. I'm so thankful for this room of people, for everyone joining us online. And for everyone joining us in San Francisco today, we are so grateful that we get to be in community with you. Jesus. So thank you for today. We appreciate everything that you have done for us. And we pray that the message today would bless somebody's ears, who needs to hear it? So Lord, we thank you. We love you. And it's in your name. We pray. Amen. Amen. Check out the screen guys.

Speaker 3 5:12

[inaudible] well, Hey friends, welcome. If you're online with us, I'm so thankful that you are joining us today. I'm so glad to be a part of your Sunday, or if you're watching this during the week, whatever day that is. So just part of your day, we'll go with that. Um , as some of you guys can see, we have started regathering in person slowly. So it's exciting. We have some people in the room today. And so when you're ready, we're ready for you to be a part of what's happening here. And next March 7th, we have two cool things you saw that are coming up. One is drive through communion and communion in person at our campuses. And then also we are going to start our kids service and our family building for kindergarten through fifth grade, really excited about that. It's going to be more themed around like our summer Rama feels so big room worship stuff, really spread out. And the safest we can be when it comes to that. So if you have families and you're just like, I don't want to bring my kids into this room yet. And I'm just, you know , that's stressing me out .

Speaker 4 6:28

We've got an answer for you coming up. So we're going to walk through that as we go.

Speaker 3 6:32

Well, the other thing that we're walking through as we walk to Easter is we've been having a conversation that we started last week called the journey of stones, where we're grabbing some different stories throughout the scriptures that stones tell a story or rocks, tell a story, and then kind of ending all of that with Easter and how the tomb was rolled away. And we started that series last week and I had a really difficult one . It was bread stones to bread, and we unpack that. And the fun part was, I think I talked about

Speaker 4 7:07

Stones to bread for like three minutes of the entire message you guys are just waiting. You're like, when are you going to get there?

Speaker 3 7:13

Today's going to be similar. So just hang with me really weird thing. I'm just going to tell you it was funny. And we thought it was this weird message. I don't usually share this stuff. Someone came

Speaker 4 7:24

Yes on Thursday night or something like that, or Saturday and Friday night. And they came here and someone dumped a bunch of stuff on, in front of our property. And it was this really weird setup and everything was filled with rocks. Like there was a suitcase full of rocks and like a bag

Speaker 3 7:40

Full of rocks. And then there was like different things strategically set up and then like a bowl of rocks.

Speaker 4 7:46

And like , this is weird, a turtle eating out of the rocks. Like

Speaker 3 7:49

It was the weirdest thing ever. When I found out about this, we were like trying to figure out , I was like, this is some sort of symbolism of like this stone thing we're talking about. And I think it was really just something

Speaker 4 8:00

Dumping their garbage. Um, and so

Speaker 3 8:03

That's, that's so interesting. Like people are really attaching themselves to this journey and they created their own symbolism journey. So if that's you out there, I would love to know

Speaker 4 8:12

One more just to give me some more information, let's have a conversation. So

Speaker 3 8:17

Today we are going to have a conversation and a discussion around a stone in Matthew chapter seven in Matthew chapter seven, there is a very common story that many of you have heard before that many of you have. If you've grown up in church, you sing a song about it. And the premise that we get to, or we're going to end with of the stone is that a wise builder builds his house on rock. Another builder builds his house on sand. And when the storm comes and the water raises up, you know , it blows away the one on sand and the one on rock and the firm foundation. And we like to think it's all cheery and good. Well, what we're going to see today as we walk to that is that this was actually at the end of a sermon. It's called the sermon on the Mount. This is Jesus. His first big sermon, he's up on a mountain. He's giving this entire sermon. And this is actually how he ends. He ends with that story. And what we do is oftentimes when we're reading scripture or in the Bible, we like break it up into chapters. And it was much later that people put, you know , like headings for sections. And what we do is we miss the opportunity to read through as it was, it was one continuous story. We've just kind of stopped. And we're like, Oh, now it's time for the wise builders. Let's hear about that. And we don't pay attention to what happened just before, because it's an entire, it's a connection. There's not really a break to it. So we're going to start with, what's adding up to this story. This is what Martin Lloyd Jones called, maybe the scariest, most solemn texts

Speaker 4 9:54

And the entire Bible scared yet. All right,

Speaker 3 9:57

We're gonna walk through and see if we can get you to sweat a little bit. As we work through this, this Texas , about a bunch of people here. It is that think there .

Speaker 4 10:06

And they're not all right,

Speaker 3 10:11

Here we go. He's going to , we're going to see what Jesus is going to come up. People who've grown up in the church and their whole life. They know the language, they know the vernacular, the lingo, they know the game. They know how things go, and he's going to destruct them right now. He's going to say that there's a problem. And if you look at the heading of this, it actually says the heading is the false disciples. And he's going to say that here's the problem with false disciples. People who think they're Christians, but they're actually not. That are deceiving themselves. And it's keeping them from the narrow gate and they're going to get in front of Jesus. And I'm Alaska day. He never actually knew them. We're going to find out that he says, I don't actually know you. And they didn't really love and treasure Jesus at the core of their heart in the dark. Like when no one was watching, right. When no one was paying attention, when they couldn't play the religious game and be like, Oh yeah, I go to church. Right? But then live life. However they want to, or, you know , say that they're affiliated like, yeah, you know, I know Jesus, but Jesus doesn't really

Speaker 4 11:13

No them when no one's watching.

Speaker 3 11:16

Uh , when they're trying to impress other people and put on a show where they can just pull this , you know , this arm of God and say like, just give me what I want. And what they did is they elevated the gift above giver. They elevated experiences above discipleship. And then in Jesus actually says depart from me. I never knew you. And they go to the place of destruction. And so this is how he ends the sermon on the Mount is we're going to read the entirety.

Speaker 4 11:43

Well , the story. And then we're going to kind of walk through it. This is in Matthew starts in chapter seven, verse 21,

Speaker 3 11:49

Not everyone who says to me, this is Jesus. Again, giving a sermon says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we prophesied in your name? And in your name, drive out demons. And in your name perform miracle , then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you away from me. You evil doers. It doesn't end there. This is where we have to continue. Right. Then it says, therefore, that's what the therefore is there for everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams Rose, the winds blew and beat against that house. Yet it did not fall because it had a foundation of the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who builds his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams Rose and the winds blew and beat against the house. And it fell with a great crash. So let's look back at verse 21. It says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. I just want to stop right here. And we could actually spin the entire conversation we're going to have today, just on that. But we're going to try to do a little bit more. There's a couple of problems with this. And so I'm gonna start with the first problem. The first problem that we have to stand about these people, and this is what's terrifying is the first problem is that they have good theology. They call Jesus Lord. They have good theology. They call Jesus Lord. These guys aren't heretics. They're not completely outside of the realm of orthodoxy or the pale . They have theology that says that Jesus is actually, you are divine and you are Lord, right? This, this word, Lord, that you're the son of God. I'm calling the Cristos. This is the word for Kairos . For Lord , that was given to Moses that they understood that this is who God was. God was a Lord. Jesus is now the Lord. And Moses is in this situation where he finds himself being called by God. And I was like this burning Bush moment. And he tells him, Hey, go see Pharaoh and save my people. And he was like, I don't even know who you are. And God responds. I am who I am. What we see throughout the new Testament where Jesus was actually saying, I am. I am just this as with Moses, I'm Kairos , this, this Lord, it's the Lord, this divine name that we see all throughout the Bible. And these people stand in front of Jesus with this good DLG understanding who they am. And they call him Lord, their theology is proper in regards to Jesus. So , so they don't have this messed up theology. And some of us, we get caught up in thinking if we just have right theology, then we'll avoid destruction at the end. Well going to hell and just going to work out our theology and that if we have better theology and you have this good systematic theology that you are good, that you just read the Bible more and it makes things better. And the problem is is that you don't do what Carl Brooks said. He's a famous old Swiss theologian. And people say some of the best theology that has ever been written down. He said, you have to know the word, but when you have, but then you have to know the word beyond the word. That there's a difference. You can read the Bible, but you have to understand what's underneath that, that you can have this bibliography or Bibliolatry of things where your life, where you say, Hey, I read the Bible and your heart. And then your heart just stops at the words that are written. And we don't actually see and push through with the texts are underneath that, to see that the big w of Jesus, the logos, which is who Jesus is. He's the word that John tells us about this. So the word behind the word, we just stopped at this written text . And some of us just think that theology is the answer that we can just walk through life and be like, yeah, no , I know who Jesus is. I , I believe in Jesus. That's good. And there's a problem with this is that we can have that theology to be like, yeah, I know Jesus is Lord. It's all great. So there's our first problem that we see with these people that often we find ourselves in the second problem that gives us this nervousness is that these people are invested. They're emotionally invested. So first of all, they have good theology. Then they're emotionally invested. They call him and they say to them , not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, right, this right here, this Lord Lord in the, the way that language works back then this Semitic language is that when you wanted to emphasize something, you'd say it twice. So if I was going to say to somebody who , who am I going to say to you right now? Let me look around. It's hard to see everything under here, Angie. And I was going to be like, Angie, no big deal. But if it was like Angie, Angie, right? Like then it's emphasized, like I'm emotionally invested. I'm either emotionally invested because I'm upset. You know, like the Martha, Martha, right. Or if it's just like Martha and it's not emotionally invested, right? So this was what they would say . They said, Lord, Lord, they're emotionally invested this. They said it twice. They're emotionally invested. They, they they're , they're people who, you know, really cry over their sin. They raise their hands and worship. They really made sure that they attended all the services. They make sure that that they're in. And the Bible says that, you know , they really care about this. That they're really jacked up about church and about Jesus. Cause it said that they did these things and they're sincere emotionally connected and invested to Jesus. They have zeal, right? Some of you are very zealous. You say, Hey, problems not theology. The problem. And the solution to bad discipleship is not the LG. It's just to have more zeal, I'm gonna have more zeal, more passionate about this and get more experiences under my belt. And then you realize that that's not exactly how it works. That you can be theology, Theo, theologically, astute. You can be emotionally invested in still not. This is the scary part

Speaker 4 18:15

Be known by Jesus.

Speaker 3 18:19

I'm going to ask you to lean in really hard right here. Cause this has been a convicting for me all week. It's frankly been scary as, as I've been talking about this, the third problem that we see here is that these people serve. So these people who showed up in front of God and said, Lord, Lord. And then he said, I never knew you

Speaker 4 18:39

Get away from me. They have good theology. They're emotionally invested. And they serve they're active in ministry.

Speaker 3 18:49

It's as many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesied in your name and in your name, drive out demons. And in your name perform many miracles. See they're saying we didn't do any of this in our name for ourselves. We did this all in your name for your name's sake. Now some theologians say they didn't actually do this. Go back real quick. Some theologians say that they didn't actually do these things. If they didn't prophesied that they didn't drive out demons, that they didn't perform many miracles, that they were just sort of lying. Right. They came to him and just said what he wanted

Speaker 4 19:21

To hear. Right? And

Speaker 3 19:23

Frankly, I think that they actually did this, but let's say that they didn't, that they were actually lying to Jesus. Then there's a lot of things that we can pull out of that because here's, here's the deal friends. The problem is that you and I, whether you believe it or not lie to God all the time, gorgeous like that. We lied to God all the time. How many times have you found your self saying like, God, I will never do that again. But you know, deep down inside you

Speaker 4 19:56

That you will and that you want to, right .

Speaker 3 20:00

We lie to God all the time. We say, I'm never going to do that again. You sit here maybe on a Sunday at home and church or here in person. And you say these services and you get convicted about something. And you're like, that's it this week, I'm going to go reconcile. I'm going to go have a conversation with this person. I'm going to, I'm going to turn away. I'm going to repent from this thing. And I'm going to go see that family member. And then the next week comes along and guess what? You never did. You said, God, I'm going to do this. And then you didn't do it. You haven't done it. You're a liar. And people lie. This is one of the dangers, honestly, of pushing so many of you into active ministry where you're serving all the time. Because what happens is , is people can tend to exchange or trade that for a deep, personal

Speaker 4 20:50

Relationship of faith.

Speaker 3 20:53

So you say, look, it I'm active in ministry. I'm serving kids or I'm on the production team. Or I'm making sure that I'm there for three services, three Sundays a month, like I'm all involved. And this is this tray that we make this tray that we actually make for actual faith in Jesus, where we know him and we love him. And we treasure him even in the dark when we come and we say to him, and he says, you didn't really even follow me. And we say, but look, I served at summer camp. Look, I came over and I worked in this area or I served in this spot or I was on the prayer team or I did some cafe stuff or I was a greeter or welcomer, or I did stuff with kids. That should be good. Right. I went and did a missions trip or I went to the community and I served food to the homeless. We say, that should be good. Right? And this is the problem. This is what we tend to do. We tend to put forward our service or our moral record. Right? In hope that at the end, God's going to say, okay, you can come in. You're good. But see, here's the scary part. And the problem is is that everything in the gospel actually pushes up against that. Everything in the gospel goes against that when you stand in front of Jesus at the end, and he says, why should I let you into heaven? Don't say it's because I did a bunch of really good things

Speaker 4 22:16

For you. That's not how it works. It ain't gonna work. You didn't do enough. You can't do enough.

Speaker 3 22:26

This is what you should say. So

Speaker 4 22:28

Remember this, when that day comes, why should I let you in? Because based on not my work, but your work, but what you did for me, when , when,

Speaker 3 22:44

And I found that I was just nothing and I was at my end and I couldn't do this anymore. And I needed to surrender everything. When I recognized that that's who I was, I came to you and you did this work for me. And I got to put on your righteousness because you're the one who can save me. That's going to be the answer, not what I did for you. But what

Speaker 4 23:03

Did God for me, my, a buddy that I coached football with , um, really great guy, a really smart guy. And we would have long conversations about this. And yeah ,

Speaker 3 23:16

He didn't really do the church thing. And he was kind of frustrated with the God thing. He was like, yeah, no , no, no. I believe in God. He says, I believe in God too. He said, I'm working through some of the spiritual stuff, but I really know that if you're a good person, then you're going to get to heaven when you die. And I just felt like I'm going to have a straight up conversation with you. So I basically said, yeah, it's kind of not that way at all.

Speaker 4 23:40

That's just actually not

Speaker 3 23:41

How it works because you can sit around all day and you can believe fundamentally flawed ideas. And we let people believe these fundamentally flawed ideas about humankind and God and salvation. If you could lose your salvation, I'm going to tell you that you could lose it. You'll fumble it. I know that if I wanted to, I could lose this thing. And so I explained to this guy, it's not based on being a good person. It's based on Jesus, being a good person for you. It's not based on you being a good person for someone else. It's based on Jesus , his death for you. It's based on Jesus has resurrection for you. The fundamental distinction, see Jesus as he preaches. He's, he's trying to get underneath right here and challenge this entire philosophy on what we do, because what really matters is not what you do, but what's

Speaker 4 24:39

Underneath. This is why he gives us this illustration about what's underneath in verse 24. And this is the stone story.

Speaker 3 24:47

Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house

Speaker 4 24:56

On the rock that's what's underneath the rain, came down, the streams, Rose the wind blew and beat against the house. Yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock.

Speaker 3 25:13

But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn't put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. Then

Speaker 4 25:21

Like the song says, the rain came down, the street

Speaker 3 25:24

Rose up and the winds blew and beat against that

Speaker 4 25:27

House . And it all fell with a great crash.

Speaker 3 25:30

There was this destruction for people who built their house on sand, but you couldn't tell what the foundation was from the outside.

Speaker 4 25:41

You drive around and you see houses that are built or

Speaker 3 25:43

Structures that are built. Do you know what the foundation looks like? You can't see it from nothing . It could be beautiful on the outside, but you can't see what's under neath. So we have to get underneath before we have a storm that hits before the storm actually reveals what we've actually built our life on. And here's the really tough part is it's not obvious. It's not obvious what's underneath. We really have to dig down and start to think to ourselves, is my faith. Just some theological doctrine. Is that what my face built on? Is it just some emotional investment? Is my faith just about serving and doing about serving and doing things and being active or here's the deal? Do I really trust

Speaker 4 26:36

Tim and know him? Do I really trust him and know him? And it's

Speaker 3 26:44

Not immediately obvious. And that's why it's so scary. And these people are false disciples and they haven't been deceived by others. Here's the deal friends they've been deceived by themselves. How many of us find that? We're actually the ones who are deceiving ourselves about who we are in the dark. What are

Speaker 4 27:06

They should really look like? Because it looks really nice. We've put a lot of investment into the outside of that house and why?

Speaker 3 27:17

Because we, because they are looking for wrong, the wrong things. They're looking for the external things. Only. They're thinking about how they look in some of you know, this, you were raised in a church where you were raised on these ideas of a relationship with God is simply about a list of things that you do do, or you don't do. How many have been there? That that's what you were raised on, or you have a family member that you knew you grew up in church. And their parents had a list of rules about things that they couldn't watch, or they couldn't do, or places that they couldn't go. And we all think, you know, because we don't have sex before we're married and we don't spend money like this. And we don't watch this.

Speaker 4 27:57

We don't say that word in front of other people that would

Speaker 3 28:02

Judge me. Right? And Jesus went, that's not how it works at all. Your faith is underneath. It's about who you are in the dark. And that begins when we see who we are and the darker, what is underneath. It begins to filter out what our sexuality looks like. He begins to filter out what we do with our money. It begins to filter out what we do with our time that these things are active, that your theology can be right, but the problem can be with what's underneath. And often we find the problem is, as you know, you'll get this, like, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. You know how many times I got in trouble growing up and I got dragged into somebody's office. And they were like, you don't do this. And you don't say that you don't joke about this and you respect this. Right. I will tell you a story. I was early in student ministry. I was working with students.

Speaker 4 28:56

I was in Northern Arizona. And , uh,

Speaker 3 28:59

It was at a church plant and it was really great. It was fine . We had a couple hundred people that came to our church and there was only a couple of schools in the area. My wife, Michelle, she was working at the high school as an athletic trainer. I was coaching some sports there. And then I did youth ministry in the area and it was killer. We blew up. It was like the thing to do. We ended up having to use the fairgrounds to meet. So on Sundays we had a couple hundred dollars. And then during the week we'd have like almost a thousand kids show up. And it was everything that it should have been. I mean, it was, it was like real. I mean, there was kids and they were doing donuts in the fairgrounds there and they were holding hands. They were trying to make out with a girlfriend in the corner and you know , all that stuff where they come up to you . I remember they come up to me and be like, Hey, Larry , we going to go pick up Emiliano. He's over with his buddy's house. They didn't want to come today. Cause they're going to smoke some weed. And I was like, well , hop in the truck. Let's go pick them up. Let me pull up and go get in the truck. Let's go. We're going to youth group. Right. And it was killer. Man. Kids were like figuring out their identity and they had a safe place to come where they could belong before they believed and understood as they're building this foundation, right. Building their foundation. We're working on what's underneath, but giving them a place, just like we do here to go through this process. And I, we had a moment and I'm going to slam it a little bit, but it's just this reality. We had a moment where , um , church became a list of do's and don'ts , uh, the, my, my pastor that I worked with , um, was really frustrated because kids were like French . Cause they were like trying to hold hands and they were making other girlfriends and you know, they were doing stupid, silly stuff and they were using language. And then they would come in and hear something about the word and get into these small groups. And so he just didn't like, that felt like it was district. You don't do that in church. You don't do that. You don't do that. Right. And so in the middle of a youth group meeting, he showed up and he didn't know. And he walked out and I said, Hey, let me talk to him real quick and what am I going to do? Oh, okay. So I did this and it came up and that's exactly what he did. He said, you let go of that. Girl's hand, I'll call the cops. Right. You can't do that. You're under age. You don't talk, you respect me. I'm a pastor. And this is a church. You don't, you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't. Right. Instead of having a conversation about these biblical principles of what's underneath and what we're building our life on and walking to . Right . And , and understanding why it's not a good idea to do that and why there's a better way to do these things. Why Jesus makes your life better and you better at life. Right. And so have you, you grew up in a place like that, where it was like, you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't. And this is you do. And it just kind of threw you off because you were like, I don't know what to build my life on it . It's a bunch of don'ts it's not principles that I can build my life on. And so my question to you is what's underneath you. What does your foundation look like right now? What does your foundation look like? Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesied in your name and dry out demons in your name perform many miracles. Then he says, I will tell them, plainly I never new . You Oh , away from me. You evil doers. He says to them, I never knew you it's about that. They, it wasn't about that . They had lost salvation or they're backsliding. He's saying I never actually knew you. Like I never actually knew you. I don't know you. It's not like I knew you at one time. And I just suddenly stopped knowing you. Right? Because of distance. That's a fascinating phrase. I never knew you recognize the distinction. He doesn't say you don't know me. They do know,

Speaker 4 32:58

Okay , gosh, this is scary.

Speaker 3 33:02

He didn't say you don't know me. You can know him. And he can say to you, I never knew you. They knew him in the sense where they could use his name. They could prophesize , his name has demons out in his name and the problem wasn't they didn't know them. It was what the, he didn't know them. And that's the direction. That's where the distinction in the Bible and see here's,

Speaker 4 33:29

Here's the goal of life ready for this? You've always thought this. I know what's the goal of life. The goal of life is not simply that, you know, God, here's the goal. It's that God knows you, that he knows you. And before you think I'm crazy for saying that, let me tell you what Galatians nine says, this is Paul writing. He says, but now that you know, God, or rather you are known by God,

Speaker 3 34:01

How is it that you keep turning back to

Speaker 4 34:03

Those weak and miserable principles? The , the , the things that doesn't build a strong foundation, do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? His distinction is you gotta be known by God.

Speaker 3 34:17

You gotta let God know

Speaker 4 34:19

You. You know, we say like, I want to know you more and yeah, I'm going to give you my life. But, but when have we sat there and says, I want to be, I want to be known when you didn't know all of me. I want you to know the deepest parts of me. I want you to know what it looks like in the dark. I want you to come alongside of me.

Speaker 3 34:41

It's not whether you simply use his name and it's beneficial for you.

Speaker 4 34:45

And you started like loving the gifts that he gave you. And the blessings that he gave it's this motive of the heart towards these surface level distinctions is, does God really know who you are? Here's the scary part of the text. It's not obvious if these people are in or out, it's obvious on the outside, what they look like. Uh, an illustration that can give you is , I dunno . I mean , you guys grew up listening to like screamo music or you heard it, right? Some of you older folks were mad about the screamo music. Screamo music sounds like this.

Speaker 3 35:18

Right ? Right. And you're like, Oh, that's the devil music. What are you doing? Where my grandma used to be like that music's from the devil. That's like Metallica and all these things. And in right. That's devil music. Well, here's, here's the deal on the outside. We say it on the outside that they have owned music. Right. But then we come walking inside, we throw on a television show, you know, they've been doing, they did just recently re throw a friends. A lot of you guys did friends. Yeah . Friends. And we'll go in there and we'll like, yuck it up. Right. And we'll like, be there like this. Isn't the devil. So this is funny. Right? Well , postman said our culture is amusing ourselves to death. We're doing literally the same thing. The principles that we're laughing about and are part of, but we're like, that's like the outside devil stuff. But then outside, you know, like the things that we're watching or listening to, or pudding into us where , where we create this problem, we can, we can like literally laugh ourselves into a state of soul death because the worldview that's being pummeled by friends to our culture is just as destructive as screen , maybe more. And we laugh our way through it. These things aren't obvious. That's the scary part. You have to look underneath and holistically at what that is. So here's the problem with these guys. These guys are emotionally into it. They love this stuff, right? They're like having experiences there . They're loving the retreats where they get this mile high mountain top. And they went to this special group in this meeting. And they love how it makes them feel. Right. I feel really good. They love being a part of a community. They love hanging out with people. They love having traditions. They love these things, but they don't know him. That is like doing those things that feed him. They don't know him in the end. And that is the terrifying part. Here's the scariest part is he's not right now. Jesus is not contrasting Christians versus non-Christians. We get this loss all the times . This isn't people who are close to God and far from God, Christians versus non-Christians, he's actually contrasting Christians versus real Christians. People who follow Jesus in are known by him and people who just say that they know him, but he doesn't know them. And the question is, this is the hard one hard one. Which category are you in? What's underneath. I mean, I've been digging at it all week. I was laying there in bed last night, going, Oh my gosh, I'm about to have this conversation. I'm sitting here like scared , like what's underneath. Like, what am I, what am I building? What am I doing in the dark? What's underneath two issues. I see. For those of you still sweating right now saying like, give me the answer. Like, what do I do about that ? It's like, how do we know? Like know me, God, I'm right here. My name is Larry, right? I'm gonna walk out of here some quiet time. This is how verse 24, everyone. He says, therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and what does it say, puts them into practice, puts them into practice. Therefore, anyone who hears these words of mine, this is what you need to do. This is what you need to underline. Here's the distinction of real Christians versus Christians, right? Just people would say like, yeah, I know Jesus. I know God. Right? They put them into practice. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, this is it. We jump back to verse 21.

Speaker 4 38:52

I think. Yeah, go one more.

Speaker 3 38:56

Yeah. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. But only the one who does the will of my father puts it into practice. Does the will. This is a Lordship issue. Here's the question. Any question I keep saying, here's the, it's a question. There's a lot of questions in this one. Have you made Jesus? Not just your saver savior, not just your treasure , but the Lord over your will. Like, do you sit there and say like, God, is this your will that I do this? How should I have this conversation? What does this mean? This has meaning, like, have you put the Lord? Not, not just as your savior and understands your treasure, but the Lord over your will. That means over your dating life, your sex life, your money, the way that you do your job, the way that you hang out with your spouse, the way that you raise your kids. Often with those things, we say, well, those things are mine. Like I'm gonna deal with those. But everything in like the spiritual sphere, the faith spear, Jesus, you can have that. Like you can deal with that. But all of those other things are mine. This is about our will being submitted to his will. And this is when things get really hard. This is when the Bible starts pushing up against us. The difference between people who he says depart from get away from me and the ones who have submitted their will to him. When he says, come on in, are you the kind of person who's naturally going to go down, go around on your own productivity all the time. Like, it's your thing. Like, it's going to be all about you. The whole point of life friends

Speaker 4 40:37

Is that it's not okay .

Speaker 3 40:40

The first major issue, like I said, is that it's a Lordship issue. The other issue is an issue of motive. A lot of times we tend to applaud those who show up and are interested in Jesus at all. Like we're like, that's awesome. You're interested in G

Speaker 4 41:00

Jesus' friends. Yeah .

Speaker 3 41:03

The Bible pushes hard against this and says interest in Jesus is not enough just because you're interested. It's not enough. So I would ask someone that says like, Oh, I'm interested in Jesus. I would ask why? Like, why are you, why are you even interested? You read Mark 10. And there's a story in there in Mark 10, where two of Jesus's really close friends is James and John they're these brothers, they have this proximity to Jesus and walking along and they talk to Jesus . And they're like, Hey, when you get into the kingdom, when you're here at your kingdom, can we sit at your right and left? And he looked at him and said , you don't get it. Like, you're just intro . It sounds like you're just interested in me .

Speaker 4 41:47

And your motives are wrong because what's , you're interested is in power. And they , the gifts that you receive

Speaker 3 41:56

And there's people in this room right now, there's people at home right now and you have a great interest.

Speaker 4 42:02

And Jesus, the problem is, is your motive is wrong. We just want to get stuff. We want to look good with. We want to call on him. Like when things are different, difficult, the gospel comes and says, it's really plainly that you get God, like, that's just the end of it. And if that's not enough for you, then what he's going to say, his department for me, you get God , it'll get all these other things. And we really struggle with that. We really, really struggled. I really, really struggled with that because I just want to get things from God. I want people to get better when people would be back around. I went every prayer on that prayer wall, out in the lobby to be answered. He doesn't say we get that. That's a really, really difficult. Um, even today I'm struggling with a good friend of mine. She's been here before. She's communicated. She's done a couple of our women's conferences and um, she's , uh, come here and done some Sunday services. Megan fate. Marshman good friend of mine. I've known her for, I don't know, 12, 14 years. And uh, the last time she was here , um, just before COVID , uh, her and her husband and her two young kids came and we got to hang out for the weekend. She was here all the weekend and just last week , um, her husband suddenly died, passed away and you know, it was like mid thirties. Their youngest just turned two a month ago. And uh, I have to sit there and wrestle with that and be like, that's not the gifts that you're supposed to give God.

Speaker 3 43:44

That's why I'm in this. I'm in this because you're supposed to do what I want you to do. You're supposed to give me what I need and what I want. This is a need one wish thing.

Speaker 4 43:57

Right?

Speaker 3 43:59

And Jesus is just sitting here and the gospel just comes in and says, you know what? You get,

Speaker 4 44:05

You get, God, that's not enough for you. Then . I never knew you, you, you must've been in this game for something else for secondary or a third issue. Maybe, maybe the applause of people, these guys, what

Speaker 3 44:24

They love is they're like, look at us. We cast out demons. We prophesied, look at us. These are the, all the things, external

Speaker 4 44:32

Things. Or they could get applause for. Oh, there's that guy look at how religious he is. Look how good he looks on the outside. Right ? Some of you, that's why we're here. We want applause. Look, mom , I went to church, look, I'm better than you brother. Look at you neighbor. Like I'm doing the Jesus thing. That's for this applause to show like I've got all my stuff together. And Jesus goes, the only thing you should be worried about is that I get applause that I get glory and you humble yourself under me. And my will. You submit to me, says, and then he said to them, plainly, I never knew you away from me. You evil doers. You know what? The greatest nightmare is that you don't get Jesus Christ. Now that that will keep you awake at night. The greatest nightmare and eternity, even for those who sit here and go, I'm not even interested in Jesus. This is a nightmare. Here's what he said. There will come a day where you're going to recognize that every grace that you have in this life, theologians call this common grace that every grace that you have in life, every grace, that you had, everything that you enjoy about your life, the gift of sex music, good wine art. It was all from him to point to him. It was pointing towards him and he missed it and he rejected it. And hell is the place where it all gets taken away. He says away from me a nightmare that you don't get that we don't get Jesus. So whether you recognize it or not, there's gonna come a day. There's gonna come a day. When we're going to come to this moment where we have to decide, we're going to submit our will underneath everything about us, to his will, and believe in what he's done for you and me. What have we built our life on? You have to look underneath. Is it the, the sand and the emotion and the proximity of Jesus that motivates us to be close to him because there's going to be a storm that comes and it's going to reveal what's underneath. Whether that's in this life or death itself, when a prayer does get answered on that wall, it will reveal what your foundation is. What's under me . So let me give you these questions to, to sit on because you're like, Oh man, I really need more of today's message. And you're like, this is awesome, right? So here's, here's some discussion questions. Grab your phone and take a picture of this. Have a conversation about this

Speaker 3 47:30

Today, throughout this week, kind of next steps. What'd you like really sit there and ask yourself maybe a quiet space and ask, what am I building my life on? Like, what is the, what is , what does my house look like? What's underneath. And what's underneath that. I need to tear up and start putting some stones and some rocks on. Or what about your life needs to be surrendered to his will. What about your life needs to be surrendered to his? Will, are you , uh, are you allowing God to really know you? What things do you need to surrender? You're going to ask yourself that this week you can ask. If you want to be really brave, you can ask the person that you're around the most. Hey, what do you think it is that I need to surrender?

Speaker 5 48:15

And they'll tell you if you let them, they'll be like,

Speaker 3 48:17

Yeah, you re you , this is, you really need to give this

Speaker 5 48:20

Up. You really need to let this one go. And are you allowing God to really know you? Not just God. I want to know you more. We're going to sing a song in just a minute and response to worship that, to set a fire that can't contain that I can't control. I want more of you, God. Right? I want more of you God, but ask yourself, are you allowing God to really know you? That even in the midst of, I want more of you. God is God. I want you to know more of me. All of me. I don't want to , I don't want to sit here in a season where, you know, I'm just, I'm just faking it to make it. I want to build a foundation. So when the storms come, when the prayers don't get answered, when there's an epidemic that rocks my world, or there's a sudden loss that I just do not understand at all that, that God can know that you're like hurting an angry cause you allow him. But you're like, I want you to know all of me so I can build my life on this rock and this firm foundation. So when the storm comes, there's a place to rebuild. You see , uh , you know, when places get hit by hurricanes or tornadoes, they don't just take a , I mean, they clear up on the debris, but it's not like they just pick up and move somewhere else. They rebuild on top of that. Sturdy, strong foundation has left. You see it, you'll see it wiped out. You'll see foundations everywhere. There's a place to rebuild. Think that's where community comes in. And that's where the Lord comes in and gives us the strength when we're weak and the support when we need it to build on that foundation. So are you really allowing God to know you? What are you building your life on? What do you need to surrender and give up? So you can do that work. It's going to ask all of you right now in this room. If you would stand at those of you at home, if you would just prepare your heart and maybe this is going to be sung over you, maybe this is going to be a crime. Is it just going to be intimate moment of response to what God says through his word? Cause that's what we just heard this isn't Larry talking. This is scripture. This is his word out to you. So as you take this, respond in worship, and then I'm gonna come back up here and I'm gonna give you a blessing and some next steps .