Flipside Christian Church

I appreciate you being here.

On this Sunday, as we go through parts

of the book of Matthew,
I titled this series Kingdom.

Now, and we're studying
through the book of Matthew,

chapter by chapter, section by section.

And this morning

we're going to make it through
chapter four.

We ended halfway through chapter
four last week.

We're going to finish chapter four.

And I want to introduce you

to a couple of different passages, one
in Matthew six and one in Matthew five.

So we're going to be on a little journey
this morning together.

As we go through this.

One of the things that we'll see.

We'll see crowds around Jesus

and we'll see disciples of Jesus.

And my hope this morning
is that we'll be able to identify

which of those two groups
that we've chosen to belong to.

And, let me

get into the chapter four, verse 12.

We're going to be introduced
to a well, introduced to it

to a, a a situation.

And not told a lot of details about it.

We'll study the details of it later.

But we're just kind of thrown
into a statement

about about something
that's happened in verse 12.

It says, now when he Jesus heard
that John had been arrested,

he withdrew into Galilee.

That's all it really says
about this event.

It doesn't tell us much about it.

Here in Matthew 14, Matthew will tell us
with this story that happened,

like why, John, this is John the Baptist,
why John the Baptist was arrested.

The result of that arrest.

He would actually
be beheaded because of that.

Through that arrest.

And right now, Matthew just says,
Jesus heard

John was arrested
through withdrew into Galilee.

Doesn't tell us many details.

We're not going to look at those details
this morning other than

to say those details are in Matthew
four 2400 ahead.

We'll get to it
whenever we get to Matthew chapter 14.

Maybe mid next year or so at this rate.

But I will say this,

that John the Baptist,
as the forerunner of Jesus to eat,

was here to prepare the way for Jesus's
public ministry.

He became the first New Testament martyr.

Now, he wasn't the first martyr
of the church that Stephen,

but the church had been established yet.

And so Stephen
be the first member of the church.

But John the Baptist is the first martyr
in the New Testament.

And John was martyred.

He was he was beheaded
not because he preached Christ

and the gospel, but simply
because he confronted immorality.

And he

confronted the immorality of the king.

He called out sin for what sin was.

He spoke the truth about sin,

and he spoke the truth
about immoral living.

And for that he was arrested and beheaded.

Friends, please understand

that in this day and day
and age in our culture, just like then,

you can be canceled for many,
many different reasons.

And if one chooses to speak out,

against sin and immorality,

this culture will revolt against you.

That's okay.

And it did against John.

He had been arrested.

He would eventually be beheaded.

And and I think, honestly,

I think John was okay
with how things went down.

And here's why.

Because John said of himself in John 330,

he Jesus must increase,
but I must decrease.

Now, I'm

sure John didn't have in mind
when he said those words.

His own beheading,

but he was very comfortable

with the idea that Jesus,

must increase,
and I have to get out of the way.

And so God took him out of the way.

He said, John, you've done your job.

I put you on earth

to prepare the way for my son

so that he could come into his public
ministry.

You've done a great job of that.

But your mission
and your purpose is complete.

And now I need to get you out of the way.

And so God did, by beheading.

And God said, John, I realize that,

by most people's accounts,
your life is going to be cut short.

It's not.

You've done exactly as I asked you to do.

And now I'm going to take you to be with
me and share in your master's happiness.

You don't have to get old.
You don't have to get decrepit.

You don't have to get seen.
I don't have to get sick.

I'm just going to take you right now
because you've completed your task.

I love that.

It reminds me of what the Bible says
in acts 1336.

David served God's purpose in his
generation, and then he died.

What a glorious statement.

That's what I want on my gravestone.

Carl served God's purposes a generation,
and then he died.

Who wants to be around here
longer than we have to?

And so God said, okay, John, you're done.

Now you will decrease, and I'm going to
take you to heaven so my son can increase.

And that's exactly how it went down.

Verse 13.

And leaving Nazareth, he, Jesus went
and lived in Capernaum by the sea,

in the territory of Zebulun.

And Naphtali, so that what was spoken
by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.

The land of Zebulun
and the land of Naphtali,

the way of the sea, beyond
the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people dwelling in darkness
have seen a great light.

And for those dwelling
in the region of the shadow of death

on them a light has dawned from that time
Jesus began

to preach, saying, repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Jesus moves now his home base,

into Galilee, in Capernaum by the sea.

Capernaum.

It's this whole area of Galilee,
but especially Capernaum.

It's a great little place.

It's beautiful.

And it's the place
where Jesus would make his home base.

And it's in this place, Capernaum,

that Jesus calls James and John,

Peter and Andrew and Matthew,
because they all lived in Capernaum.

And so Jesus is in where he lives.

He says, these are the guys basically in
my huddle, and I'm going to go after them.

And so James and John, Peter and Andrew,
Matthew, five of the disciples

of five of the 12 lived in Capernaum,
where Jesus is making his home base,

and he calls them

this.

I love the fact that that that Jesus

makes his, his, his,
his headquarters, Capernaum

in Galilee, because it's kind of a place
that's forgotten about.

It was a nice place. It's beautiful.

I've been there.

But it's
it's it's it's not along the beaten path.

It's the it's the little town
that that where the hicks live.

It's the little country place.

It's the place between Fresno Madera that
nobody stops and they all drive through.

And I love that.

I love that.

It's the hillbilly redneck place.

And, Jesus, like,
I think I'll start there.

And what the Bible says about this

place, the Galilee of the Gentiles.

And it says, for those dwelling
in the region of the shadow of death

on them a light has drawn
the reputation of this area

was just, as Isaiah said,
a region of the shadow of death.

And here's why.

Because when God's people were living
in the Promised Land,

in an Old Testament times,
Assyria from the north came down.

And this is the north of the land.

The galleries up in the north.

Assyria came down and invaded

the northern part of Israel,

and later years later,
the Babylonians came down through Assyria

and invaded Israel again and took the ten

northern tribes back into captivity
for 70 years into Babylon.

So this area had seen
a lot of destruction,

a lot of war, a lot of death,
a lot of difficulty.

And the by
and so it was known as the region

of the shadow of death because it had just
been decimated over and over and over.

And the
Bible says on them a light has dawned.

Here's here's
what I want us to glean from this.

Your life.

My life may have had many times
in the past

when things have been destroyed,

when things have been brutalized,

when there's been destruction,
when there's been difficulty and pain.

And even in those times
when Jesus shows up,

light dawns.

And so, friends, please don't get so

frustrated, discouraged.

Don't lose hope so much that you say it's
been this way for so long.

It will never get better
when Jesus arrives.

Okay?

Light appears

no matter how dark it might be.

If God has you here,
you're here for a reason, here

for a purpose.

The light will not.

And from that time on, verse 17,

Jesus says, what is repent?

For the kingdom of God is at hand.

When, when John the Baptist
was preparing the way for Jesus

before Jesus started his public ministry,
what was John's message that he preached

to remember?

We talked about it last week.

Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

It's the exact same message.

John came
preaching a message of repentance.

Get right with the Lord.

Change your life,

for the kingdom of heaven is here.

God said, John,
you were right when you said,

you must decrease, you must increase.

So I'm
going to get you out of the way now.

Jesus comes and preaches
the exact same message repent!

The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Repentance is the paramount message
all through the New Testament.

It's the message
John preach is the message Jesus preached.

It's the message the disciples preached.

It's the message
Jesus gave the church to preach.

Once he has it, it's the message Paul
preached.

Repent. Change your life.

To repent means to change direction.

Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And so then

in verse 18, we see Jesus call
his first disciples.

And I want to look at his
call of the disciples.

What? What it entailed.

And then I want to look at the crowd
that came to follow Jesus.

In verse 18, while walking by
the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers,

Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew,
his brother, casting

a net into the sea,
for they were fishermen.

And he said to them, follow me,
and I will make you fishers of men.

Immediately they left their nets
and followed him, and going on from there

he saw two other brothers, James,
a son of Zebedee, and John, his brother,

in the boat with Zebedee their father,
mending their nets.

And he called them immediately
they left the boat and their father,

and followed him.

This is not the first

time Jesus met these guys.

This is just the first time he personally
called them in Luke five three.

And in John 135 through 42, Jesus says,

the Bible tells us
that Jesus has already met these guys,

but this is the first time
Jesus calls them

to leave their possessions
and they become disciples and follow him.

I want to talk about this idea
of being a disciple

because

being a disciple of Jesus

means a change in our primary identity.

That's what being a disciple means.

The moment I say Jesus, I will follow you.

You're my leader.

What that entails
is a change of primary identity.

Jesus says of these guys,
the Bible says they were fishermen

and Jesus says,
I will make you fishers of men.

I'm going to change your identity.

I'm to change
who who you are at your core.

I'm going to change your purpose.

I'm going to change your title.

I'm going to change your life.

I'm going to change your primary identity.

I want you to notice two

that in changing their primary identity,

what was when Jesus said, come, follow me.

What was their response?

What was their response?

After they left their father,
they left their boats.

They left their nets.

They left their employment.

They left the guarantee of a secure future
financially.

They left everything. Why?

Because their primary identity
had changed.

God, you've called me.

I'm going to leave everything behind.

I'm going to change everything
about who I am.

I'm. I'm
going to submit to your leadership.

Holy.

In order to be a disciple, there has to be
a change of primary identity.

And there has to be
a leaving of things behind.

They could not be a disciple of Jesus.

They could not follow Jesus and say,
I'm still going to dot, dot, dot.

There had to

be this moment in their lives
where they say,

I am completely at your disposal

and whatever you deem appropriate,

I'm agreeable to.

That so vastly different. But.

Then what

we consider these days to be a Christian.

When we consider this day
to be a Christian goes along these lines.

God, I have problems and I have trouble.

And I know you love me.

I don't want to add you to my life to make
my problems better, to make them okay.

I need you to step into my life
and make my life better.

God, I have my dreams. I have my goals.

I have my agenda.

I have my desires.

And I want to add you to them.

So you'll help me accomplish my dreams,
accomplish my goals,

accomplish my desires. You understand?

That this is this is the

majority of our agenda.

And coming to God.

God, I have this plan
for how I want my life to go,

my business to go, my finances to go, how
I want you to work in my life

so I can get to the point of retiring
so I can be comfortable.

And I and I want to add you
to all of these things,

because I want you to make
all these things come to fruition.

And that's not a disciple.

A disciple of Jesus says,

I'm going to follow you and all of these

other things I put on the chopping block,

all of these other things.

And if you want to do something different
with them, I gladly leave them behind.

I am your slave.

You. I'm at your disposal.

You do with me whatever you want.

That's discipleship.

You understand the difference.

And when we look

at the disciples of Scripture,

it ought to stand in stark contrast.

To many Christians.

It's interesting to me
when Jesus calls these guys,

he called these guys

who were already working
and who were already industrious.

He doesn't call the idle.

He doesn't call the lazy.

When Jesus,

when God called Saul, Saul
was out looking for his father's donkeys.

When he called David,
David was tending his father's sheep

when he called the shepherds of the Christ
Christmas story.

They were guarding their flocks at night
when he called Amos the prophet.

He was busy farming.

Whether it was Matthew or Moses.

All through the pages of Scripture,
God called those who are already working,

who were already busy,
who were already industrious,

because

God calls those who have the propensity

and the character of work. Why?

Because that's what discipleship is.

Discipleship isn't just believing.

Discipleship means doing.

And if you want to add God to our lives

so we can relax and he'll make life easier
so we can retire and be happy.

God says, you're barking up the wrong tree
with the wrong person.

I have a task and a job,
and you will not be done

until you die.

I revolt against the idea of retirement.

I'm sorry if some of you retire,
but please hear me out

of pure retirement, as we think about in

our culture, is not a biblical concept.

It's fine to retire from tasks.

That's great,
but you never retire from the call of God.

You never retire from ministry.

So God calls those who are industrious

because disciples are industrious.

Do you understand?

Neither.

You don't believe me
or it's a little too much.

In this next section,

we're going to contrast disciples
and crowds.

So the disciples are those
who are busy working.

God calls them.

They change their identity.

They leave everything behind.

They sacrifice it all.

And they say, God, we are yours.

You do it.

This whatever we please,
we are at your disposal.

That's disciples.

Look at verse 23.

And he, Jesus, went throughout
all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues

and proclaiming the good
the gospel of the kingdom

and healing every disease
and every affliction among the people.

So his fame spread throughout all Syria.

And they brought him all the sick,
those afflicted with various diseases

and pains, those oppressed by demons,
those having seizures and paralytic.

And he healed them.

And great crowds followed him from Galilee
and the Decapolis,

and from Jerusalem and Judea,
and from beyond the Jordan.

So Jesus

goes into, as was typical of the time
in their synagogues, proclaiming

the gospel, preaching and teaching,
and healing every disease and affliction,

so that as that word spread people
from all over the region, and it mentions

this thing called the Decapolis,
that's two Greek words deca and polis.

Ten cities, this area of ten cities,
ten gentile cities,

they're coming from all over the area,
up to 100 miles of traveling

just to be around Jesus. Why?

Because they're sick. They're possessed.

They're they're ill.

They need him to step in.

They need him to heal them.

And so they come.

And by God's mercy and grace, he does.

And when the Bible says that
that he healed

all the sicknesses, he's
his exerting his authority

over fallen humanity because of sin.

And then when it says that he cast out
demons, he's

exerting his authority
over all creation, physical and spiritual.

So he's showing them I have complete
authority over all creation,

everything in heaven, on earth
and under the earth.

I have authority over it all.

And these people who have great needs,

they hear about this and they're like,
we need some of that in our life.

And they come to him and say, please, will
you, please, will you step it, please?

We intervene, please will you change?

And by his grace, he does.

But none of these are disciples.

They're crowds.

And I want us to think right now

about the difference
between the crowd and the disciple.

The crowd realizes
I have a need that I cannot solve.

I can't meet my need.

God, would you please.

Would you please step into my world?

And would you change that which I need?

Change.

That's the crowd.

And by God's mercy and grace,
sometimes he does.

But that's the crowd.

That's not the disciple.

The disciple says, yes, God,
I acknowledge that I have need,

but my agenda
is secondary to your kingdom.

And so

I invite you in to change my identity.

I sacrifice my agenda, my plans,
my desires.

I even sacrifice you, meeting
my needs for whatever you discern.

That's what I'll submit to.

Do you see the difference
between the crowd and the disciple?

And so you and I have a beautiful future
here right now to decide

and to realize.

What have I been?

Have I been part of the crowd?

Or am I truly a disciple?

Jesus

didn't invite people
to be a part of the crowd.

They became part of the crowd

because he knew they had a need
that only he can meet,

and they wanted him to meet their need.

What he
invited people into was a disciple.

And they're vastly different.

Later, the crowd would fall away.

Because they get too difficult.

The disciples remain.

And to this point of discipleship,

I want to talk about what it means

to be a disciple.

The call to be a disciple.

We're going to jump over to Matthew 633.

Okay, there's a difference

between being a part of the crowd
and being a disciple and a disciple.

Jesus speaks about this in Matthew 630.

Most of you know this verse.

You might not know where it lives,
but you know the verse.

Matthew 633

but seek first

the kingdom of God and his righteousness,

and all these things will be added to you.

There's a difference between being
a part of the crowd and being a disciple.

And what Jesus says to disciples,

seek first what

you have.

Okay, well,

why is it that we stop after
we see the kingdom of God?

That's not what Jesus said.

The kingdom of God

and his righteousness.

That's what Jesus said.

And when he says, seek first.

That word first is a Greek word, Protoss,
and it means literally not first

in a series of events, not first
and then second and third.

It means priority,

but seek as the only priority

the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

I'm I'm noticing,

that we don't talk about

righteousness very much.

And even church people don't.

We talk about being loving

and kind and merciful and gracious.

We don't talk about being righteous.

There are many of us that matter.

How many?

How many of us,

you know, woke up this morning thought,
Lord, I just I just

would you just increase my righteousness?

Even when I ask what Jesus said,

we stop, seek first kingdom of God.

There's something about us
that just pushes back on this whole idea

of righteous living.

Why is that?

What Jesus said here
is that for the disciple,

the priority for the disciple

is to be a righteous
man is to be a righteous woman.

The priority for the disciple is a life

of righteousness.

You follow,

you think you do.

Go back a chapter to chapter five.

This talk about righteousness.

Now just listen to this

without any prejudging
of where it's going.

Matthew chapter five, verse 20

Jesus says, for I tell you,

unless your righteousness
exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,

you will never enter
the kingdom of heaven.

Oh, disciple, your my primary

agenda item

is to be righteous

and dear friend, unless our righteousness

exceeds that of the Pharisees,
we will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

That's what Jesus said.

That is in unless a

B doesn't happen.

That's what Jesus said.

Unless our righteousness exceeds that

of the righteous people. Now,

how many of you heard about how it's now,

how the bad rap that Pharisees
get in the Bible anyway?

I mean, Jesus is always on them, right?

And so, I mean, how righteous
can they really be?

Right?

Our problem is

we don't understand
who the Pharisees were.

So just keep this in mind.

Just unless your righteousness

exceeds the Pharisees,
you'll never enter the kingdom of God.

It's your primary and sole

agenda item is to be a righteous man
and a righteous woman

as a disciple, here's
the Pharisees, the Pharisees.

You will not read about the Pharisees
in the Old Testament

because they didn't
exist in the Old Testament.

After the

Babylonian captivity, people come back.

God's people have been so intermixed

with the people of Babylon,
with the with with the, the other,

gentile groups had kind of infiltrated
the land that you really couldn't tell

the Hebrews, the Israelites,

you couldn't tell them as any different
from the rest of the culture around them.

They looked exactly the same.
They acted the same. They taught the same.

You can look any different.

They didn't behave any different.

And so this group of people
in the second century BC says,

we have to call our people back

to righteous living.

We gotta call our people
back to the study of Scripture.

We gotta call our people
back to the worship of God Almighty.

We gotta call our people back
to pure living.

A life of that is pure before
God and pure before people.

We gotta call people back.

We gotta call people back to this.

And so this group was created.

They called the Pharisees.

The Pharisees
means literally separated. Once

they were the separated ones,
they're like, look,

we're looking
just like the rest of the culture.

There's no difference between us.

Let's get back to Scripture.

Let's get back to worship.

Let's get back to devotion.

That's not a bad scenario, right?

When we say the same thing about us today,

Yes, this is who the Pharisees were.

Such great, impure motives.

A call to return

to God and return to Scripture.

So how righteous were they?

Unless our righteousness
exceeds that of Pharisees,

we will never enter the kingdom of God.

Let's talk about how righteous they were.

They were a group of people
that diligently studied,

memorized, and read Scripture.

Jesus will say of them,

you study the scriptures because in them
you think you have eternal life.

So they studied diligently
the Word of God.

They read it, they memorized it.

It was their focus.

Unless your righteousness exceeds theirs.

It's last verse you memorized.

But what's the last in-depth study

you've done on your own?

The righteousness the Pharisees.

Let's talk about. They're righteous.

They were.

They were a group of people
that had a very disciplined

and orderly prayer life

consistently, regularly,

and practiced deep
and abiding spiritual disciplines.

Jesus talks about in Matthew six
said, you all love to pray.

Good for you, but you do it in a way
that you get attention to yourself like.

But, but you have that desire to pray

this incredibly deep

spiritual discipline life.

Pretty righteous right?

Unless your righteous exceeds
that of them.

How are we doing?

The righteousness.

They were men who had an incredible
evangelistic zeal,

incredible evangelistic zeal.

We talk about reaching a huddle
all the time.

They actually did.

Matthew 2315

Jesus says, you will seal the seas

to make one convert.

How's your evangelistic zeal

compared to theirs?

Whose last personality Jesus.

You want to leave your home

to go tell people about Christ?

See, the Pharisees get a bad rap,

but apparently they're pretty righteous.

And Jesus says,
unless your righteousness exceeds theirs,

you don't get into heaven.

How righteous were these people?

Well, they were so righteous

they tithed 10% off the top of everything.

So righteous were they
that if they walked outside their house

and found a mint leaf, a mint plant,
they would pick the plant

and take a 10th of that mint
and give it to the offering,

because that was
the Old Testament command.

If they found a dollar on the street,

they would go cash in ten dimes
and give one dime to the offering.

They were so righteous at 10th

or right off the top of everything.

Unless your righteousness

exceeds that of them.

So how are you doing, disciple?

Does your righteousness

exceeds that of the Pharisees?

And Jesus said,

this is the primary agenda

item, not for the crowd

before the disciple.

The righteousness of God

that exceeds that of the Pharisees.

How are you and I doing?

Do we get a pass?

Do you want me to relieve

the pressure for you?

Yeah.

I can't,

there should be some pressure.

But let me let me put it.

Let me introduce the gospel.

Our righteousness,

in other words, are works
of righteousness cannot surpass theirs.

And what

Jesus says, it has to surpass it in kind,

not in degree.

The kind of righteousness

has to surpass that of the Pharisees,

because the Pharisees
were doing these acts of righteousness

as their way of being made right with God.

Disciples do these acts of righteousness

in response to being made right with God.

In other words, Philippians three.

The apostle Paul says this

for his sake I have suffered the loss
of all things, and count them as rubbish

in order that I'm a gain Christ
and be found in him here it is

not having a righteousness of my own
that comes from the law.

That's
where the Pharisees made the mistake.

They thought that by their righteousness
they were made right with God.

And Paul says, my righteousness.

It doesn't come from the law,
but my righteousness comes through faith

in Christ.

The righteousness
from God that depends on faith.

So my righteousness does exceed
that of the Pharisees,

not in degree, but in kind,

because it's through faith
in what Jesus did on the cross that I am

made right with God,
not that I have earned rightness with him.

Do you understand that?

Now I hope

that relieves the pressure a little bit.

But let me push the pressure on you again,
because

we cannot separate

the righteousness of God

from being right with him

and showing that right
the rightness in our lifestyle.

You can't separate the two.

James 218

someone will say, you have faith.

I have works fine.

Show me your faith apart from your works,
and I'll show you my faith by my works.

See, so many of us want

want an excuse to not.

And we

gravitate to the truth that I am made
right by God, by faith.

Absolutely. And be.
And here's the here's our problem.

Because we know that we're made
right by God, by faith.

Now, I have an excuse to not.

I don't have to study my Bible every day
and memorize scripture,

because I'm already made right with God
by faith.

I don't have to evangelize
and tell people in my head about Christ,

because I'm already made right
by God, by faith.

I don't have to tithe because I'm already
made right by God, by faith.

And we use the truth of being made right
by God, by faith and his excuse

to be unrighteous in our living.

And James says, you can't do that.

You can't separate these two.

Yes, we're made right by God, by faith,

and we're called to righteous living. Now,

let me put this, James two way

in, in, in, in clear, understanding.

Let me let me just rework
the words a little bit.

Someone will say,

you have faith.

I have works fine.

Show me your faith by not tithing,

and I'll show you my faith by tithing.

Do you understand?

How can you prove your faith by not doing?

It's like saying.

I'll show you
how fast I am by not running.

Does that make any sense?

Yet that's what we do with faith.

And Jesus says righteousness

is the primary agenda for the disciple.

Not so. You'll be right with God.

You're made right with God,
but because you're made right with God.

Now your agenda
is the righteousness of God.

That's discipleship.

Second

Corinthians 521 I didn't put it up here,
but I want you to write it down.

I want you to memorize this.

So Corinthians 521 so says he who knew
no sin became sin for us,

so that we might become
the righteousness of God.

So Jesus took all of my sin

and imputed to me
all of his righteousness.

So I am right with God,
not because of what I've done,

but because of the righteousness
that's been imputed to me.

I'm made righteous before God by faith
in Jesus, and it's work on the cross.

So now, because I've been made righteous,
now I choose get this.

Now I choose to live righteously.

It's not an excuse

to not live righteously.

Now that's my primary agenda.

We cannot accept the righteousness
of Christ and live righteously.

Can't do it.

See, my dear friends, faith
that doesn't obey shows

that it was a faith that never believed.

And faith

that won't follow is a faith
that will not last.

Please understand

that obedience and righteousness is not
the proof of salvation, or is not the.

It is not the price of salvation.

It's the proof of it.

And what Jesus is going to do
in these next three chapters,

chapter five, six and seven, is
give us a model of the kingdom

of of a life lived in the kingdom,
and it will be unattainable.

Everything that he says in Matthew
five six and seven, like there's no way

we can't live up to this.

It's a great standard.

It's the high watermark,

but we're going to fall far short.

We just can't live up to it.

And in response

to what we're called to
and the realize realization

of what we're capable of,
we say, God, I can't,

I can't,

and so do for me
what I can't do for myself.

I accept the work of Jesus on the cross,

and I, by faith,

I stand before you declared righteous.

And because of that grace,

I will spend the rest of my life

sacrificing my agenda for your kingdom

and living a lifestyle of righteousness.

I will study scripture and memorize it,

and I will evangelize those around me
who don't know Jesus.

And I will tithe,

and I will practice spiritual discernment

not so that I'll be right with you, but
because you've declared me right with you.

And this is my response as a disciple.

You understand?

To understand.

And so, dear friends,
we get to choose now, crowd

or disciple.

I invite you to pray with me, father.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The standard you have is

is unattainable for us in ourselves. God.

And I thank you
that we don't have to try to get to

you based on our own ability
and behavior in obedience.

Thank you. You knew we couldn't.

So, father, I thank you
that in the midst of that sin,

you loved us so much
that you sent your son.

To be our way.

To be made right with you.

Friends, if you've never given your life
to Jesus yet, if you've tried

to be righteous of your own doing
and you realize you just can't,

would you just sacrifice that right now

and come to God based on his terms,
not yours?

I invite you in this moment to say, God,
I'm sorry for my sin.

I can't be good enough.

I've tried. I just keep failing.

Jesus, I accept what you did

on the cross to make me right.

I accept your death for me.

I believe in your resurrection

and I give myself to you.

Friends, if you've prayed that prayer,
would you go a step further?

Maybe this morning.

And say, God, God, because you've made me
right with you through your son.

I want to live a righteous life

not because I have to,
but because you've done so much for me.

It's my natural response.

Would you give me
a desire to live righteously

as an expression of my love for you?

Thank you for your mercy.

Thank you for your grace.

When I'm unrighteous,

that you've given me your righteousness.

But in response to that, father,

oh, God.

Would you increase my desire

to live righteously?

Your agenda above mine.

You must increase.

I must decrease.

Father, thank you for your love.

Help us to love you more.

In your name I pray.

Amen.

I love you.

Good job.

Hang in with me through that one.

This week.

Read Matthew five.

There's enough there.

You could just stay in Matthew five
this whole week.

It's lofty.

It's difficult.

And we'll try to unpack some of it
next week.

Deal I love you
if you have people in your world

in your huddle that don't have a church
home, invite them next week.

You understand that?

It's pretty clear you understand that.

Yes. Okay, listen, I'm not

afraid to start this all over again.

Let's sing.