Being Disgusted With God
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Cam did a phenomenal job while we were gone. That's a good word. Okay, y' all forgot last week. I see. Okay.
All the Pentecostals went to youth class. Glad to know y' all are still asleep today. But Cam, originally, when we had looked at where we were gonna be at and the series, Cam had one week, and I was like, hey, ma', am, we're coming back in in the middle of the week. I'd really prefer to not have to try to cram in sermon prep. So he did a great job of recapping, finishing out Matthew chapter eight and then kind of recapping Matthew chapter eight.
And he did such a great job that he caused me to have to go back in my sermon notes and add this week's teaching, because he brought something out that I felt like we kind of gloss over in the Scriptures. And so before we transition, transition out of Matthew chapter eight and into Matthew chapter nine, I want to take a moment to revisit something that Cam had brought out a couple of weeks ago, something that I think should really continue to challenge our spirits. Cause we know that Jesus mission is clear. For the last couple of months, we have focused in on what was the mission of the king, what was the kingdom mission? He was sent to do the will of his Father.
In senting to be doing the will of his Father, he healed the sick, he cast out the demons, he calmed the storms. He taught with authority because he was here to reveal the kingdom action. So what when we decide, when we profess with our lips that Jesus is Lord, that we would help usher in the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. You know the famous prayer we just heard them say as a part of the liturgy of the service? Our Father who arts in heaven, who dwells in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your name is hallowed. Your kingdom come, your will be done on this earth as it is in heaven. Kind of a kingdom mission. Your kingdom come, your will be done. Not the kingdom of Donald Trump, not the kingdom of Benjamin Netanyahu, not the kingdom of Vladimir Putin, not the kingdom of all of the people who have come before, but God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
That's ultimately, if we consider ourselves to be king, kingdom citizens and a part of the mission that we would join with him to bring his kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. But in the midst of all of these divine activities, the casting out of demons, the healing, the peace, taking some rest on the Sabbath day, we see two kinds of responses continuously throughout the Scripture, we see one. There's a group of people who respond to what Jesus is doing. The kingdom authority, the kingdom mission, which with awe and wonder. They're amazed.
They're amazed. Every time Jesus does something, they're amazed. It says that they were amazed by how he taught. He taught with authority. They were amazed when they saw him cast out the demons.
They were amazed when he saw him heal the sick. And as we continue on in Matthew, you'll see there's a group of people who are amazed by the things that Jesus does.
And then there's the other group, that good old juxtaposition as Brent likes to talk about, there's the other group, and those are people who resented and resisted. They were constantly resenting the work that Jesus did, and they constantly resisted the mission of what Jesus was doing on this earth for you in your life. All of us have a different testimony and are a different spot of the journey. I think it would be fair to say that at some point in time, we have found ourselves maybe in one or both of the categories. Sometimes we find ourself in awe of what God does, and sometimes we find ourself resenting or resisting what God does.
That's not always necessarily bad because we see Jacob wrestle with the Lord, and ultimately through the wrestle with the Lord, he gets closer to the Lord and the Lord can manifest himself. So resisting or being in a wrestled state of mind with the Lord is not necessarily bad.
But if in the end the Lord beats you because he will, what do you do? Do you stay resentful? Do you stay resistant? Or do you find yourself making a shift to being in awe and wonder and amazement of him and his power? See, the ones who resented and resisted, they rejected him.
And not only did they reject him, they rejected the works he did. We've never experienced this in our life. Have we considered yourself a decent person? Hey, I'm a good guy. I try to do right by people.
And when the relationship with somebody tarnishes, when your season is up, they kind of go off and they're like, oh, you don't want anything to do with that man. That man's horrible. That man's done all these things, and it's like, I never did anything to that person. We've never experienced this. This was pretty much Jesus entire life.
Most everybody he met, he did good. Or if he didn't necessarily need to do good to them, that is healing them or casting out demons or any of those types of things, he did it at least in their midst and yet we see as his ministry progresses in a very short period of time, the overwhelming testimony was, kill him, crucify him, give me Yeshua Barabbas the murderer, instead of Yeshua the Christ, the spotless lamb who was slain before the foundations of the world. Surely none of us would be in that position where we would. We would say, lord, give us that job over Jesus. Lord, give us that friendship over Jesus.
Lord, give us that relationship over Jesus. In the end, our culture and humanity as a whole has constantly kind of put Jesus second, God second, his kingdom second. How does that fit into the girl I want to date? How does that fit into the job I want? How does that fit into my life's plan?
How does that fit into my weight loss plan? How does that fit into. Just name it. How does the spiritual help me in the physical? We kind of use God.
And I've made this statement before. When you use God as if he's a genie, will you, God, I need some provision. Can you provide? God, I need some freedom. Can you provide?
And yet the freedom and the provision has always been there. It's always been within our reach as believers in Christ. But we act like when we're in that moment, we have to ask and we have to take. We, like many other people, find ourselves to not be fully surrendered to him. Doesn't matter which side you might be on, in this very moment, we find ourselves that both groups have not fully surrendered themselves.
When we're towards the end of Matthew chapter 8 and the start of Matthew chapter 9, admiration is not the same as discipleship. I admire this person. It's not the same as discipleship. I admire the amazement I saw of Jesus. It's not the same as discipleship.
And resistance, even quiet resistance, has consequences. You see, I think no matter whether you came from the Torah observant side of the world or you came from the charismatic side of Christianity, or all the things that happened in between because of how our culture is built, which we see a lot of similarities in the first century. When we look at the Gospel of Matthew, we look and we think that just because we come to Jesus or we ask Jesus to forgive us or Jesus to save us or Jesus to do this, that there's not consequences.
Everything you do has consequences. The difference is you might be saved from the eternal consequences because you've repented and you've professed Jesus as your salvation. But it still is not gonna change the fact that if I sit down and eat a pizza every single night and drink seven beers, I'm gonna end up with a beer belly. God didn't. God in his world did not promise me that I'm going to be skinny while I eat all kinds of horrible food.
God did not promise me a healthy marriage while I don't show up to participate in my marriage with my wife. God didn't promise that he was going to be a get out of jail free card. He invited us into an invitation of a relationship. The Gadarenes had a tragic response to what they witnessed Jesus do. Can you imagine just trying to get by pig farmers, agriculture, Some of us, it's America nowadays, we don't even mow our own lawn.
And yet these people, this was their culture. They were agricultural. They were constantly working. They were herding pigs, cattle. They were out in the heat.
They were working hard. It was their health plan with their employer is to actually get out in the ground and do things. Yet they had a tragic response to their encounter with Jesus. The last time I was here, and Cam kind of glossed over that middle and put that all together. We.
We talked about how ironic it would be that the Son of Man comes out and the demons immediately recognized who he was and spoke of who he was. He didn't go looking for a fight with the demons. He didn't even go after the demons. He just starts walking down the road. And upon seeing him, they interact and say, what do you want with us, Son of God?
He's like, actually, I'm not really sure I wanted anything to do with you. I was kind of just chewing my way over here. But the Gadarenes, when the demons are cast out into the pigs, and the pigs go hurl themselves in the sea and kill themselves, the Gadarenes had a negative response, kind of a tragic response. Matthew 8:28, 34, where Cam talked about Jesus had entered into this region. He performs an incredible miracle.
He had cast out demons and two men. He had set them free in a way that they weren't able to set themselves free. They had gone into the demons had gone into the pigs. They rushed into the sea and drowned. Those men are free.
It's dramatic. It's powerful. I think at some point in time, he said M. Night Shyamalan would make a movie called Shyamalama Lama. He's also Pentecostal. It's not the tongues we do here.
It's a joke. I saw you, Tim. You're already thinking like, well, do this. No, no, we're not. It was undeniably supernatural that Jesus would cast the demons out of them and into the herd of pigs.
Yet the people responded by coming out and begging Jesus to leave.
And we can sit here thousands of years later and we can say, well, we've never asked Jesus to leave. We never begged Jesus to leave us. But have we? Why did they ask Jesus to leave? Because they were more upset about losing their financial economic status.
Their pigs, that was their currency. That's what they had. They would barter. And so then they were excited about two men being restored to life, a herd of pigs over the restoration of two men's life. And we could sit here and we can say, well, we would rejoice in the salvation of two men.
But I've been on social media long enough to know that survey says, eh, this person repents of false times throughout their ministries of teaching a false gospel or perpetuating inappropriate things that they would call the Holy Spirit. You know, some of them would involve jackets and power of Christ. And you know, we've had some large ministries who've repented over the years of, hey, look, I took it too far. It wasn't the Holy Spirit. This was theatrics.
These were things we did. And, and our response globally turns out to be, well, they're not really repentant. Well, they should have known better. Well, this is horrible. And we condemn them even though they've repented.
But we would never choose the pigs over the men that were set free. God is all about restoration. Every person in this room and every person you will ever meet needs to be restored, needs to be redeemed. We kind of get shocked. We kind of get shocked when we get together and we're like, oh, that person isn't as holy as I thought, or that person isn't as righteous as I thought.
Oh man, that person needs the same salvation, redemption and restoration I did or somebody else did. Maybe they need more.
Why? The Gospel of Matthew has shown us over and over and over again all men have fallen short of the glory of God. All men, all women need redemption, restoration and salvation. And yet somehow we're shocked when that actually happens.
They came out and they asked Jesus to leave. Their response was a tragic example of how the physical world, the comforts and the possessions of their routines had outweighed the spiritual reality of what their life actually was. Can you imagine putting yourself in this situation and Jesus comes in and performs a miraculous miracle in front of you and you being so frustrated with him that you ask him to leave?
Can you imagine?
I would like to think that I would never be in that situation. But then I also look at where these people were. These people were doing daily life. They were religious individuals. They lived in a culture that had more religion in general.
1st century Judaism was more permanent in the culture than even we see a lot of Christianity nowadays in the United States of America. And yet they were still mad that Jesus healed a person versus them having their pigs. They were so disturbed by the disruption of their economy and their lifestyle that they became disgusted with Jesus and asked him to leave.
And here's the terrifying part. Jesus left.
It's not necessarily terrifying that we would get something wrong, that maybe we would choose, we want our pigs or our house or our car or our cigars or our bourbon or our karate or whatever it is that is our economy, our lifestyle. It's not necessarily a shock that we would want that, that that would have a preferential area of our life. We would find joy with it. The scarier part of all of this is the fact when they asked Jesus to leave, he left.
It says he moved on. He got in the boat and he passed over to the other side of the lake. This is where we come to Matthew chapter 9. Jesus doesn't argue with them. He doesn't try to convince them why their theology or their doctrine or what they experienced is wrong.
He doesn't say, but wait, let me explain. He doesn't go out and throw some fireworks show or more healings or anything. They ask Jesus to leave and he simply leaves.
And in all of the information I could find while studying, we have no other written record that Jesus ever darkened the door of that city again.
And Matthew chapter nine begins with, and he got in the boat and he passed over. Jesus gave them exactly what they wanted.
And that scared me when I read that. That scared me when Cam brought that out. A lot of times we gloss over, okay, he healed some people and some people got mad about some pigs and Jesus just moved on. No, they asked him to leave because he disrupted what they found more valuable than him. And rather than trying to point out to them how important his kingdom was, how important his work was, how important this invitation was for them to engage with him, he simply leaves.
We find ourselves in the same danger today because the same spirit exists in the church. We say we want Jesus. We say we want freedom. We say we want healing. We say we want breakthrough.
We say we want clarity. We say we want discernment.
But almost always that means we want it on our terms and in our way.
All of us to some degree, have fallen in the hypnotic spell of boy bands because you'll say, jesus, Jesus, I need this. And then you'll turn around and say, but I want it that way. Doesn't work that way.
Some of us grew up at Burger King.
Get it whatever way you want. That's not how the kingdom of God works. The kingdom of God and the kingdom mission doesn't work for Jesus to invite you into his kingdom, to manifest his spirit, as Paul calls it, in your midst, to empower you to co heir with him so that you can turn around, tell God, now that I've arrived, we need to talk about how you're doing things.
That's not the gospel. That's not the calling. If anything, because God comes and gets a hold of us, we should be looking at how we need to adjust to his way.
And I'm not trying to minimize the power of the gospel or the power of Jesus, but when you go to Jersey Mike's and you say, I want it Mike's way, you don't walk in and say, I want it Mike's way. And Mike's way this week is xyz. No, Mike's way is a specific way. You're going to get your sandwich, it's going to come that way. And yet we understand that and we can comprehend that if we order lunch.
But somehow, when we engage with Jesus in his kingdom, we think that somehow Jesus needs our input, or somehow Jesus needs to have our experience, or somehow Jesus needs to have our skill set. And we forget that Jesus was inviting us into his kingdom, his power, his glory, because he was the one who gave us the gift before we were born. And when we choose to walk in it, we're choosing to walk in a manner that we were called to before we were even born. Not to try to adjust Jesus into what we feel comfortable as our manner.
We say, jesus, take away my addiction, but don't touch my coping mechanisms. Jesus, fix my marriage. Don't ask me to be kind to my spouse. Jesus, heal me, but not if there's discomfort. Set me free, but please leave my preferences intact.
Have any of you ever worked in the hospitality industry? You know, I was a server at a steakhouse. And one of the hardest things that you would get is you would come in and there would be like a special. And so every day you would learn what the specials are. And you would walk in and somebody would sit down, you're like, hey, would you like to hear our specials?
And the kind people would say, sure, even if they had no interest in ordering it. And you would rattle off today's special. Is xyz. This is what we specialize in. And I always really struggled with the individuals who would come in and they would ask for the specials and they would say, well, that's great, but I don't want this.
I don't want this. Can you take this out? Can you substitute this? And by the time you're done, they basically just should have gone to Golden Corral and created their own buffet.
Yet because we have those options in our culture, we allow that to bleed into our relationship with Christ. I need you to understand that Christ's kingdom is never ending. Christ's authority in how his perfection reigns is never ending. He does not need any single one of us to tell him how to make it better or how he should amend something. We should probably turn our hearts and our focus to amending our lives to look more like what he's called and less time trying to play God.
One of my mentors used to say, God is smarter than we are.
We want a savior who will rescue us, but we don't want to allow him to rule us. But that's not who Jesus is, and that's not what his kingdom was. We cannot expect his freedom while rejecting his presence. And then we push him out, even quietly and even subtly, and then get mad and disgusted with God when he respects our request. Brent said something many sermons ago.
Stop praying that prayer. And I've been guilty of this, too. In fact, I think I was on vacation maybe when he said it or something. He said, stop praying for the people. You know the mom's prayer.
Lord, I pray you will just stop his car in the name of Jesus. You will pull him out, you will drag him to the dirt, and he will submit to your power, Lord, and might. Yes, God is not abusive. God does not disrespect free will. He gives us those things and then gives us the opportunity to make the choice, to serve him, to make the choice, to be with him.
And most of the time, we profess with our lips one thing, and we reject him with our actions. He will not force his will. He won't demand things of you. And he certainly is not going to stay where he is not welcome.
He leaves.
And what does that look like practically for us? Most of us are like, well, Chris, you know, I've never told God to leave. I did 18 to about 20. I got mad at God. Gone through some church splits, gone through some stuff like that.
Church hurt. And I got mad at God. And I just. I decided I was gonna be stoned from the moment I Woke up to the moment I went to bed. Cause that solved a lot of problems.
And I asked him, I said, leave. There's nothing for you in this life. You've done nothing for me. Go. He said, chris, I've never done that.
That's awesome. But how is that any different than living day to day in your life as if God is irrelevant to you? How is that any different to come to church or to go to a home study or a Bible study or whatever, to turn around and walk out the door and do the opposite of what the Bible has told you to do or the opposite of what you said you would do?
You see, sometimes telling God to leave is not you saying get out of here. It is you living in a manner where he is not welcome in your life. See, a lot of times we put a lot of emphasis on the words we speak.
Jesus not only sp spoke perfection, he did perfection. And when our words don't match our lifestyle, what do you expect Jesus to do? God, I love you.
I love you with everything I am. And the next thing I do with my feet and the next thing I do with my mind and the next thing I do with my hands is opposite of the kingdom of God. I am telling God I do not love him by interacting in a way that spits on the nature and the character of who he is. Now again, we all fall short. I'm not saying you have to be perfect.
Don't set a bar that the Bible doesn't set for you.
But we cannot say that we love Jesus with our lips and live in a manner that says Jesus is irrelevant in our life, then one thing is true and they're opposed to each other. So which one is it? When we pray for our breakthrough, but we continue to live in our disobedience. When we ask for peace, but we make decisions in our life that brings nothing but chaos. God, can you just provide peace in this life?
And the next thing you do creates utter chaos in your life. You're working against God. You're asking him to do something in your midst. God, will you please heal me? And then you go and you do exactly the thing that caused you the ailment.
You're working against God. When we say, God, will you please lead me? But then we immediately take charge of our own destiny and our own life.
It's the same as asking him to leave.
Jesus justice isn't always loud. This was a hard one for me to really, you know, when somebody's wronged, you can be fully transparent.
When Jesus tells You to love somebody. Love them hard. Love them. Love your haters. Love your haters.
I want to wring your neck.
I understand. None of you are like me. That's okay. I'll just. I'll confess my sins.
Because he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. So I'm the only one with that sin, and that's fine. But when somebody wrongs me or somebody does something, like the way I love them is, I want God to judge you and I want God to punish you. That's my love for you.
Yet what is Jesus response to the justice and the judgment of the people who chose the pigs over him? Jesus response to the rejection was he didn't rain down judgment. There was no fire in brimstone. He didn't level it. He didn't go.
He didn't be like, hey, y', all remember. You remember Lot's wife, Pillar of salt time? Hmm? Now, he didn't. He didn't mock their ignorance.
Do you not know who stands in front of you?
He didn't even punish them for their unbelief. His justice was that he left.
He let them keep their brokenness, and he gave them exactly what they wanted, even though I'm not sure they understood what they were asking him. He gave them a life without him.
That's the most sobering kind of judgment. It's not wrath. It's not some brutal punishment. It's the absence of the presence of God.
Worship team. You can come back.
A lot of times we think of, like, the worst thing that can happen to us is, like, we could be really, really sick or we could have a demon. Like, nobody. Nobody's signing up for that. Like, you know, I don't want that. But one of the worst possible things that can happen throughout Scripture is for you to have the absence of the presence of God in your midst.
And that happens, I think, in our life a lot more than we tend to let on.
It's where we'll say, God, I want you to be in my midst. And we'll immediately walk in a place that he's not welcome. We see this we of all people from where our origin story is the most holy of places was the temple. It started as the tabernacle. It was to dwell originally in the center of all of God's people.
And how did they know? Because the pillar of fire came down in the cloud. The presence of God came and dwelt. Fast forward to the first temple time in the holy of Holies, the presence of God came and dwelt within the midst of his people.
And what we see in Matthew's testimony, and we're going to see the next couple of weeks, is that the people who should have and thought they were the holiest and closest to God. They were the most Torah observant, they were the most prophetic utterances of individuals. It was woven into the families when they sat and they ate. It was a part of who they were. They did not realize that Jesus had left.
This entire culture would come to the temple and they would bring sacrifices, they would bring offerings. No different than when you go to the table with your spouses.
No different than when you go to the table with other people. You bring offerings of food, you bring offerings of fellowship for table fellowship, covenant meals with each other. They would do that in the temple on a regular basis.
That was what kept them having hope, is that they would screw up. They would bring a sacrifice and an offering to this place. They would offer it before the Lord, and the Lord would absolve them during Yom Kippur, we're coming into the Fall feast, that they would take a scapegoat and the priest would lay his hand and they would signify in the physical that all of the sins and the shortcomings of all humanity had been laid upon that goat and that coat was scattered off into the wilderness, that God would remove and cleanse them. And yet this interaction in Matthew is the fact that God had left the holy of holies. And God is walking in their midst and he's talking, he's casting out demons, he's going to raise people from the dead, he's going to have banquets, he's going to do all of these things.
And they didn't even recognize it because they thought he was there. And not only did they not understand that he had left there, they didn't see him here.
And sometimes we just flippantly go about our life like, I'm good with God, I'm holy, I'm righteous. And we haven't recognized, just like the first century believers didn't recognize his presence and left the temple. And now he's leaving in front of us. And the scripture says no record that he went back. No, I believe looking at the gospels now that his spirit, now that he's resurrected and ascended, that his spirit manifests and he's gracious and he's compassionate, and it's not, oh, I screwed up one time and now I'm going to hell.
But we should be a Little bit more reverent in how we live our life when we make statements of what we do. Because if we say we love Jesus and yet we're living in a manner that has asked Jesus to leave, then we really don't love Jesus. And while we're scared about being possessed or foreclosed or arguing or disliked, I understand my personality is different from a lot of people also. All of you do too. This is not a secret.
But I don't ever worry at night whether you like me or not. I do worry if I have asked the presence of the Lord to leave me knowingly or unknowingly. Because if you are going to live your life out of the power of your own presence and your own will, it says that that's going to come to an end at some point in time. And there is a cap on what that can create, but there is no cap on the currency, the system, or the power of God. And when God manifests in your life in the presence of God is with you at all points of time, you will accomplish things that you never thought you could accomplish.
Not so that you can get the glory, because God doesn't share his glory with anything, but because God's glory wants to radiate out, radiate throughout all creation.
What happens when humanity lives like God is to leave? He's got to come back down and throw a flood down on us because this is his creation. We act like it's ours. We were entrusted to be the ones who did what he asked us to do. Bring his kingdom here, treat the animals like he did, treat the creation like he did, treat each other like he did, and treat him.
There is zero physical freedom without spiritual surrender. There is no physical freedom without spiritual surrender. And you can't ask Jesus to heal your body while ignoring the health of your soul. You can't ask him to bless your life while you make no room for his leadership.
So a lot of people will say, like, oh, I want to live a great life. I want to be healed. I want to be free. I want to all these things.
But the only way that you get the healing, the only way that you get your freedom is if Jesus is invited into your life and Jesus stays in your life. Scripture says that when you cast out a demon and it isn't filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, that more legions come back and it's harder to get them out. So everybody in this room, I believe, loves Jesus. You've asked Jesus into your heart. You've asked Jesus to be the Lord of your life, you asked Jesus to be your salvation and you're trying to the best of your capability to live a lifestyle that would bring honor and glory to him in his kingdom.
We have good days and we have bad days.
But there isn't power in asking Jesus in your life on a Monday and then asking him to leave on the day Tuesday.
The power comes with Jesus being present in your midst every day of your life and for you to create new mental markers and new habits to be transformed with the renewing of your mind and the renewing of your heart, which you don't have the capability of doing. Only Jesus does. So if you ask Jesus to leave, don't expect to be Torah observant. You're not observing nothing because the lawgiver is the one who fulfilled the law. Well, I'm not living in the prophetic because the one who gave the apocalyptic moments to the prophets is the one who fulfills all.
All prophecies are Jesus prophecies. That's the hope. That's the kingdom. That's the power. It's not Tim, it's not trolling.
It's not Christmas Chris, it's not my Nikes, it's not my 90s baggy sheens. It's nothing but Jesus. It's that simple. In the end, it's like, what's the answer, Jesus?
That's the answer.
But what happens when the love of Jesus and the presence of Jesus is made to leave in our life? What happens when we say, jesus, heal me from my addiction and we go right back to the same website?
Be amazed how many people don't want to set their cell phones in a public place in their house.
What happens when you say, Jesus? I don't want to listen to that type of music anymore. I want to listen to something that's uplifting. And the first thing you do is you get in your car and you go back.
Many of you I would agree with, you like me, are not sitting in your room, not sitting in your patio, not driving your car and saying, you, Jesus, leave my truck. Jesus, leave my business.
But when Jesus isn't welcome at the table, he's not going to fight for a seat. When Jesus isn't welcome in your marriage, he's not going to fight for communication between you and your spouse. When Jesus isn't welcome in your home, he's not going to fight to stay there. When Jesus isn't welcome in your church, guess what? He isn't going to fight to stay there.
Just like he did in 12 in the temple, and that should scare the daylights out of us.
What happens in your life and what area of your life have you asked Jesus to leave and you're still holding on to? Because as we continue through Matthew chapter nine, over the next couple of weeks, we're going to see Jesus continues shaking up the ground and the sound mind that every one of the religious leaders had. The experts remind you they were experts. Pharisees get a lot of bad raps, but they were intelligent, they knew the scripture, so did the Sadducees.
But they continue in everything that Jesus does. And they're like, why is he doing that? Why is he doing that? Why is he doing that? Why is he doing that?
And rather than submitting themselves into a life where they recognize that, hey, maybe he's right, maybe we're wrong, they ended up doubling down.
A sound mind, a sound heart, and a sound life will never be found. If you ask Jesus to leave, you cannot accomplish it. Because of the wickedness of our heart, because of the wickedness of this culture.
A daily life with Jesus is where healing begins. It's not a perfect life. I want to make sure you understand that. It's not a perfect life. You are not perfection.
Jesus is. It's not a flawless life. I don't want to fool you. I don't want you to think, like, oh, never. I'll never have, like, a misstep with my spouse or my friends.
Sarah and I have missteps in conversations all the time. But what happens when Jesus is present in the relationship? It's a welcoming relationship that allows Jesus to take over in our shortcomings and teach and restore and disciple us and mold us. You're being discipled into something every single day of your life, whether you like it or not. You're either being discipled into a culture and a lifestyle that's welcoming to the power and the presence of Jesus, or not.
You can come to church every day of your life. You can sing every day of your life. But don't be fooled. Just because you sing and just because you. You listen to worship music doesn't mean the Holy Spirit is active in your life.
There's this Hebrew phrase I love called Hineni.
Here I am, Lord. When you come to worship, when you come to read the Scripture, when you come to partake in your life with Christ, you have to be open for God to utterly destroy your economic economy in your life, if he wants to send your herd of pigs into the sea, He's God and you are not. Guess What? He can take care of that. Why are we worried?
Oh, my marriage is done. Yeah. With that, that attitude, you're right. You know, the economy of your marriage is done. The political landscape is just like the Republicans and Democrats right now.
Ain't nobody getting along. They all need to watch some bluey or something to learn how to hold hands.
Jesus is the person who creates that in our life, even when maybe we are struggling and we have to be a people who practice a lifestyle that doesn't ask Jesus to leave. Because the moment Jesus leaves your life, you have nothing. I don't care what your, what your bank account says, I don't care what your 401k says. I don't how I care how chiseled your jawline is. I don't care how beautiful your spouse is or how nice your car is.
The moment Jesus leaves, you have no geopolitical, economical or spiritual power of anything. It's all dying. It's all fake.
And what we've continued to see throughout the Kingdom in Action series is that Jesus takes issue with the fake. Jesus takes issue with the thing that has no real value. Jesus takes issue with the idols of this world. Jesus takes issues with the self righteousness of the world. And the only way to overcome that is to make, make sure that when we operate in our life, operating with Jesus, with us, not like the gadarenes who were frustrated with how Jesus did what he did and asked him to leave.
Because in the end, when you ask Jesus to leave, whether it's verbally or with your lifestyle, he's not going to fight you, not going to argue with you. He's going to leave if you will stand. Let's worship.
