Latest / Andy Stanley Sermons / Andy Stanley - What Our World Needs Now The Ultimate Expression of Faithfulness

Transcript

Andy Stanley - What Our World Needs Now The Ultimate Expression of Faithfulness · Andy Stanley Sermons

0:00
I want to talk about you for a second, even though I don't know
0:02
you. One of the strangest things about you, and there are so many
0:08
strange things about you. I mean, I don't know, but you just
0:10
asked your closest friends. One of the strangest things about you is that,
0:15
while you know what's best for you, because you know yourself best, sometimes
0:20
maybe oftentimes you ignore your own good advice and me too, health advice,
0:29
financial advice, relationship advice, marriage advice, parenting advice. That you like
0:35
you have acted against your own best interests. And so here's what we all
0:38
have in common. This isn't a Christian thing. This is just a thing
0:40
thing. We have all been our own worst enemies at time. In fact,
0:44
your greatest regret, which I bring up all the time, I don't
0:47
know why, but your greatest regret, it's true, and this is true
0:50
for all of us. You're a greatest regret. When you were moving in
0:53
the direction of that greatest regret, you kind of knew it was a mistake.
0:57
You knew that. You know, I don't know if this is the
0:59
wisest thing to do, smart thing to do. Your mama warns you.
1:00
You know, people warned you, but you're like, you know, I
1:03
can figure this out. You kind of knew what you were getting into,
1:07
and then you act as surprised when it all fell apart. You're like,
1:11
I can't believe this is happening, and there's a part of your mind going,
1:15
yeah, you can, because you kinda knew. I mean, and
1:17
so why do we do this? It's like we can't help ourselves. We
1:21
promise ourselves over and over and never again, never again, never again,
1:23
and three hours later or the next day, whatever it might be, you
1:26
have broken promises you've made yourselves. Here's the bottom line to get us started
1:30
off, everybody on the same page on this happy, uplifting message. You've
1:36
been unfaithful to you and the good news it's not just you. In fact,
1:42
I don't know if you're a Bible reader or not, or read the
1:45
Bible every morning this season of my life, Sandra and I are such Bible
1:48
nerds because we have so much time in the morning because our kids are oh
1:51
to the house anyway, we love them, but they're out of the house,
1:55
and so we just love reading the Bible. But here here are some
1:57
verses from the Bible that regardless what you think about the Bible, you can
2:00
relate to. This is kind of a big wide endo the funnel all skate
2:06
and if it makes you feel any better, this is amazing. The man
2:08
who admitted this what we're about to read. The man who admitted this about
2:12
himself wrote about ten percent of the Bible and about twenty something percent of the
2:17
New Testament. So here's here's what he writes. He writes this, this
2:21
is in the Bible. I did not understand what I do. I thought
2:25
somebody would say amen, like yeah, you don't want to confess that,
2:29
I'll say amen for you. I do not understand what I do. For
2:30
what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate
2:35
I do, and I think it's worse. And if I do what I
2:39
do not want to do, I agree that there is somewhere out there,
2:44
somehow, there is like a good law. There's a code of conduct that's
2:47
out there that's beyond me. It's not in me, because if it is
2:51
in me, I would obey it. It's out there somewhere that it stands
2:53
over me and it calls out to me. And then when it calls out
2:59
to me and I know that law, then it calls me out and says,
3:02
what are you doing? And you have that internal conversation like I can't
3:06
believe I did that? What am I doing? What's wrong with me?
3:07
And it's like there's two of you. And then he he writes this.
3:12
He says, for I have I have the desire to do what is good,
3:15
but I cannot consistently carry it out. And then he then in English,
3:21
this kind of gets all fumbled up, but here's what he writes,
3:23
for I do not do I do not do the good I want to do,
3:27
but the evil I do not want to do. This I keep on
3:30
doing. Now he's he's dictating to somebody's trying to write this while he's saying
3:35
his life we let down. And then he's, you know, he's walking
3:38
back and forth, pacing back and forth, dictating this this letter. And
3:40
then he throws his hands up in the air and he says, write this
3:44
down, what a wretched man I am, and put an exclamation mark on
3:47
it. They didn't have punctuation in Greek, but put an extent. What
3:51
a wretched man I am? What a miserable, distressed person I am?
3:54
I know what I'm supposed to do, and I can't pull it off.
3:57
And I know what I need to do consistently, and I can't pull it
3:59
off. And I believe there's the law in his case. You thought it
4:01
was the law of God saying here's what you should and shouldn't do, And
4:03
I know the law is correct, and I just can't pull it off.
4:06
To which, because I'm a Bible reader, I want to say time out
4:10
to the apostle Paul wrote this. I want to go who wha woa?
4:12
Paul? Hold on, hold on, look at Paul. You wrote the
4:16
Bible. Okay, what do you mean you can't do what you ought to
4:21
do? All these letters you wrote to these first century Christians that now are
4:26
part of our New Testament, And all of these letters you're telling us what
4:30
to do. And at the same time you're saying, hey, here's what
4:32
you ought to do, but I can't do it. So I mean,
4:36
what's going on? What do you mean here's how you ought to live your
4:40
life? But oh yeah, by the way, I keep falling short as
4:42
well. There's a tension there. And then he asked a question, an
4:46
important question. If you're a Christian, whoo, this is the way forward?
4:50
If you're not a Christian or not a Jesus follower, you should at
4:54
least consider this because I know you can relate with everything I just wrote I've
4:58
just read about, right. I mean, he's so honest. He says,
5:00
what a wretched man that I am? Who? Who who will rescue
5:09
me? Who will rescue me from me? Or let me just ask it
5:13
on all of our behalf? Okay, And if this isn't you, then
5:15
you're so lucky. But for the rest of us, mere mortals, who
5:18
will rescue us from us? Who's going to rescue me from me? Who's
5:26
going to rescue you from you? Who's going to rescue you from that habit,
5:29
from that thing, from that secret, from the thing that's not all
5:31
that bad, but you really don't want to do it anymore. You just
5:33
you believe in self control, and you got self control in this area,
5:36
but for some reason, this is like you've become a slave to some kind
5:40
of thing. Who's going to rescue you from that? That's what we're talking
5:45
about in this series, what our world needs now, and what we've decided
5:49
in this series. And I'll get back to what I just said in just
5:51
a minute. What we said in the series is what our world needs now
5:56
is for Christians to act christ Like. Now, if you're not a Christian,
6:01
you're like, finally a Christian acknowledges you guys don't always act very christ
6:08
like. You want me to become one of you, and you're not even
6:10
very good at what you're supposed to do, to which I just acknowledge exactly.
6:13
We're working on it. But what the world needs now is for more
6:16
Jesus followers to live their life as if they're actually following Jesus. And here's
6:20
why there are so many of us. If we would just act christ Like,
6:26
things would change. Things would change in our homes, things would change
6:28
in our communities, things would change in our nation. But let's be realistic,
6:35
you know, just to be honest. As Paul admits, this is
6:39
much easier said than done. Right. He tried, You've tried, But
6:45
again, let's be realistic. You can't dunk like Anthony Edwards, you can't
6:49
put like Jordan Speith, you can't dance like Bruno Mars, you can't sing
6:55
like Beyonce, and you're expected to live like Jesus. I mean, I
7:00
can't even live up to and measure up to other people at this how in
7:02
the world are I supposed to live my life like Jesus and act and react
7:06
like Jesus? And according to the apostle Paul, we can't not consistently anyway.
7:13
So in conclusion, what a wretched man I am? What a wretched
7:19
group of people you are? Who is going to rescue us from our inconsistency,
7:25
our inability to live out the kind of life we want to live and
7:27
even keep our own rules. It's closing prayer. I mean, that's kind
7:30
of I mean, honestly, that's kind of how he ends it, like
7:33
aver, at least for a second, what a wretched man I am?
7:35
And then he's pacing back and forth because he's dictating this. Somebody's writing all
7:39
this down. Then he stops and he says, get that, write this
7:43
down. Thanks be to God who delivers me. I wrote this part from
7:53
myself, because that's what he's talking about through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
8:00
Paul says, that's not the end of the story. That my inability and
8:05
your inability to be what we believe we need to be, what we ought
8:07
to be, and what God has called us to be. Our inability,
8:09
that is not the end of the story. There is a way forward to
8:13
which I immediately want to ask, and hopefully you want to ask as well.
8:16
Great, that's good news. How does that work? And how do
8:20
I work it? And Paul talks about this throughout his epistles. But the
8:24
one where the passage we're focused on in this series is found in a letter
8:28
he wrote to a group of churches in modern day Turkey, and in this
8:33
passage of scripture, in what we call the Book of Eligalatians. It was
8:35
a letter that was a letter that circulated around these little house churches in Turkey,
8:41
modern day Turkey. In this particular letter, he actually gives us a
8:45
list of what Christ like looks like. That's what This is a list of
8:50
what Christ like looks like. But it is not, and this is where
8:54
we get confused. It is not a to do list because we have all
9:00
tried, right and we have all two failed. This is different, he
9:03
says, No, this is a to do list because you can't do this
9:07
consistently. This is a fruit list. It's a he calls these the fruit
9:13
of the spirit. Now, a fruit is something that's produced through you,
9:16
not by you. It's a list of things and characteristics and honestly, they're
9:20
mostly just reactions that are produced through us, but not by us. And
9:26
he refers to these as as most of you know, the fruit of the
9:30
spirit. He says, the spirit of God, if you're a believer,
9:31
lives inside of you, and if you will allow the Spirit of God to
9:35
he will birth, and he will create in you and through you the fruit
9:39
of the Spirit. So I came up with my own definition. Then we're
9:41
going to look at one in particular. Basically, the fruit of the spirit
9:43
is this, it's reactions because again, most of these are reactions, reactions
9:48
produced through us as a result of our submission to God's spirit within us.
9:54
It is reactions produced through us, not by us. We run out of
9:58
goodness, as we talked about last time, pretty quick, well, we
10:01
run out of patience really quick, we run out of self control really quick.
10:05
That my ability to pull these things off is limited, and he says,
10:09
yes, but there is an unlimited God who has sent his spirit to
10:11
live inside of you, and if you will submit to his spirit, he
10:15
will produce these things through you. And here's how he sets it up in
10:20
Galatians. Here's what he writes this, and again he makes it so simple.
10:24
He says this, He writes this, since we live by the spirit,
10:26
that is, since God's spirit lives in you. And again, if
10:30
you've invited Jesus to be your savior, the Holy Spirit came to live inside
10:33
of you. But even if you have it, even if you're not a
10:35
Christian, did you know that you have been made in the image of God,
10:41
that there's a divine spark. There's a divine spirit within you, which
10:45
is why at times we look up and say, if there's anybody out there,
10:48
help me. There's just something in all of us that knows there's more
10:52
to this life than this life. And so he says that, since the
10:56
Holy Spirit lives inside of you, he says, I love the imagery,
11:00
let us keep in step or let us maybe your English translation says, let
11:05
us walk by or keep in step with that spirit. In other words,
11:09
since God's Spirit lives in you, you are to keep up with, keep
11:13
in step with, pay attention to let the spirit of God inside of you
11:18
animate you, influence you, and nudge you toward the fruit of the spirit.
11:24
And to pause when you run out of goodness, and to pause when
11:28
you run out of patience, and to pause when you run out of self
11:31
control, and to pause when you run out of joy, and to pause
11:33
when you run out of kindness, and to say, Heavenly Father, I'm
11:39
at my limit. I need you to take it from here. I can't,
11:43
you can. I need you to do this through me. And that
11:48
is what you, as a Christian, I, as a Christian, are
11:50
invited to do and to experience them. He gives us a picture of what
11:56
these fruit look like. He listened them. He says that this is what
11:58
the Holy Spirit's gonna nudge you to. The fruit of the spirit is love,
12:01
which is kind of the banner piece that is a summary of all of
12:03
these love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. These are the things
12:07
we run out of eventually, especially with specific people in specific environments. Faithfulness,
12:13
gentleness, self control that I love this line. This is one of
12:16
my favorite lines in all the New Testament against such things. And I wish
12:20
I could just spend twenty minutes on this. There is no law. In
12:24
other words, you can max these out. There's no law against these,
12:31
and there's no law that can make you do these. This is the amazing
12:35
thing about the Christian life and following Jesus. There's no law against these things.
12:39
So for the next few minutes, I want to unpack faithfulness. In
12:43
this series, we've looked at love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
12:46
goodness. Today faithfulness that we're going to pick up gentleness. Don't miss
12:50
this one woo anyway. So but today I just want to talk for a
12:52
few minutes about faithfulness. Now, this one, this faithfulness should be easy
12:58
for us, because we are so disgusted when we hear about someone who's been
13:05
unfaithful, not just in a marriage, but somebody who's been unfaithful at work
13:11
or a corporation or a company was unfaithful to an employee or a two group
13:16
of employees, and you hear the story and you're like, I can't believe
13:20
they would treat people that way, or I can't believe he treated her that
13:22
way, or I can't believe she treated him that way. When you hear
13:26
stories of unfaithfulness, it's so it so immediately discussed us that certainly we shouldn't
13:33
struggle with faithfulness or if you've been on the receiving end of unfaithfulness. But
13:39
here's the thing, and this is why we're talking about it. Like all
13:41
the fruit of the spirit, like all the things on this not to do
13:45
list that the Apostle Paul gave us. Like all the rest of the fruit
13:48
of the spirit, faithfulness is easy when it benefits us. All these things
13:54
are easy when it benefits us. Right, faithfulness is easy when it benefits
13:58
us. But faithfulness because if your wife finds out, she'll kill you.
14:05
Or faithfulness that you know, because if your boss finds out, he's going
14:07
to fire you. Or faithfulness because if your husband found out, he's going
14:11
to be on his way out. That is not the fruit of the spirit.
14:15
We call that the fruit of self preservation. And we're all really,
14:20
really good at that. Right. This is different. This is again a
14:24
characteristic that when you run out of your gas, you run out of gas,
14:28
you run out of your juice, you run out of your ability.
14:30
You're at your wits, and your patience is out, your kindness is out.
14:33
You don't know that you can remain faithful. This is when we are
14:35
invited to pause and allow and ask the Holy Spirit to kick in on our
14:39
behalf to produce through us what we cannot produce on our own. So here's
14:45
the question. When it comes to faithfulness, what does spirit induced or spirit
14:48
produced faithfulness look like. And the short answer is it looks like Jesus,
14:56
specifically Jesus in the Gospels. This is why I tell you all the time.
15:01
Follow Jesus through the gospels. Follow Jesus through the gospels. Follow Jesus
15:05
through the gospels. You discover what God is like, and you discover what
15:09
following God looks and reacts like Jesus in the Gospels, faithful in spite of
15:18
reliable, regardless, someone who made and kept his promises. And that's what
15:24
the Holy Spirit will walk us and nudge us toward it. Here's the thing
15:28
about Jesus when you follow them through the gospels. Jesus was faithful to the
15:33
men and women and trusted to him. He was faithful to the men and
15:37
women and trusted to him out of devotion to his father in heaven. This
15:41
is the difference. He was not devoted and was not faithful to them on
15:46
just because he thought they were worth being faithful to. He was here to
15:48
explain what God is like, so he illustrated and demonstrated faithfulness when confronted with
15:56
unfaithfulness. Because if you've read the stories, the men and women in trusted
16:00
to him, especially the guys gave Jesus very little reason to remain faithful to
16:04
them. They were astonishingly they were embarrassingly unfaithful. Remember at the end,
16:12
in his final moment, right, he's arrested, and what do his faithful
16:17
followers do? They vanish? And then his most faithful followers, supposedly Peter,
16:22
his famous one, says, I don't even know the guy. I
16:23
don't even know the guy. And how did Jesus respond. After the resurrection,
16:29
he gathers them all together and says, this is amazing. Okay,
16:33
guys, you're in charge, you bunch of unfaithful and Peter, you know
16:38
what, I'm going to put you in charge of the guys who are in
16:41
charge because you have been unfaithful to me. But I will not return to
16:48
favor. He was faithful not because they deserved it, but because he came
16:52
to reveal the character and the faithfulness of God, our father. Now this
16:57
is where my story he intersects with this, because I grew up. I
17:02
mean, I've been at Christian since I was six. I'm a preacher's kid.
17:04
I know the Bible backwards and forwards. Like I said before, you
17:07
know, when I sin, I can go to the verse that goes talks
17:11
about my sin. It's terrible. Okay, it's wonderful and terrible and so
17:15
many times growing up and maybe you can relate to this. I have broken
17:18
my promises to God. The longer you are a Christian, the more promises
17:22
to God you break. Have you noticed that if you're a brand new Christian,
17:25
God bless you. You got to you know, you gotta short.
17:27
But I'm telling the rest of us God, never again. God, And
17:30
course you know in high school and college, God, if you will allow
17:33
no one to find out about this, I promise I will not. You
17:37
know. It's those kind of doing a deal with God and bargaining with God.
17:40
And I was so unfaithful to my promises to God, and God has
17:44
remained so faithful to forgive to show up in my life. This is the
17:51
picture of faithfulness. It's returning faithfulness for unfaithfulness, returning faithfulness for faithfulness.
17:57
That's easy, But faithfulness in the face of unfaithfulness is the ultimate expression of
18:07
the faithfulness of Christ. Now, I want to be really clear about something.
18:11
Okay, I am not suggesting and I'm not advocating for anybody remaining in
18:15
a toxic, dangerous relationship at home or at work. That's not the point.
18:21
In fact, Jesus wouldn't recommend that either. If you're taking notes,
18:23
just write down. Matthew ten twenty three. Matthew ten twenty three. That's
18:26
not the point. Here's the point. What I'm advocating for. In fact,
18:30
what we're talking about in this entire series is that when we run out
18:33
of one of what we would consider it Paul considers the fruit of the Spirit,
18:36
that we pause and we ask the Holy Spirit to empower us to be
18:41
like Christ, rather than becoming like someone we don't even like, rather than
18:47
returning the favor of unkindness or unfaithfulness to say, you know what, no,
18:52
that's the normal way, that's the way everybody else does it. This
18:55
is my opportunity. This is my opportunity, because who would remain faithful,
19:00
who would follow through, who would be reliable, who would keep a promise
19:03
to this person or this group, and light of how this person or this
19:06
group treated me, And that's our moment, that's our moment to shine.
19:11
That's when what Jesus said he did, let your light shine in such a
19:14
way that people see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Being
19:19
faithful when it's easy that doesn't give God any credit. It's when we're faithful
19:23
when it's difficult, when no mere mortal would do what we've decided we want
19:29
God to do through each of us, to respond like our savior when someone
19:34
has given you every excuse not to you. Now, it's not just me.
19:38
You've seen this as well, But when you do what I do it
19:41
for a living, as long as I've done it, maybe I've seen it
19:42
more than you. I've seen this play out both ways. I've watched men
19:49
and women walk through the valley of the shadow of abandonment and betrayal and show
19:56
no evidence of it. On the other side, you have to You've met
20:02
people who just seem so wrinkle free, Their life seems so easy and breezy,
20:04
and everything's just going their way, and then you hear their story of
20:08
the child the family they grew up in and mom was gone or dad was
20:12
gone, or you know, or they you know, somebody walked off and
20:15
left them during a first marriage. You hear these these extraordinary, painful stories
20:21
of abandonment, and you're like, you're shocked because you don't see any evidence
20:26
of it. They're not wearing it, they're not carrying it. It's like
20:30
they've somehow it's it happened and they weren't happy about it, but they somehow
20:37
it hasn't shaped who they are are. They are their identity. This is
20:40
the power of inviting God's spirit into those moments to say I can't, you
20:45
can. You got to do this through me. I do not want to
20:48
become like someone I don't like. I want to be christ Like, and
20:53
here is my opportunity. On the other side. I've seen abandonment and betrayal
21:00
define people. They wear it like a coat. It just defines everything about
21:07
them. Maybe that's you, And let me just be super honest. Okay,
21:10
if I heard your story, I would not guilt you. I wouldn't
21:14
shame you. I wouldn't say what's wrong with you? If I heard your
21:17
story of abandonment betrayal, I would say, goodness, gracious, my heart
21:21
breaks, just like your heavenly father's heart breaks. So nobody's gonna shame you
21:25
or criticize you, but your heavenly Father's gonna kneel down. I remember,
21:30
if you were here a few weeks ago when Joel preached, and he's gonna
21:33
write in the sand, and then he's gonna run off all the people who
21:38
condemn you. He's gonna invite you into a different way of life because unnatural
21:45
or supernatural faithfulness and response to unfaithfulness, that's how somebody emerges with what will
21:55
always be a painful memory, but not a debilitating entity. This is part
22:02
of the invitation to follow Jesus. It's doing for others precisely what they don't
22:10
deserve you to do for them, like your father in heaven. But there's
22:18
another angle when it comes to faithfulness, sort of turning things the other way.
22:23
There's another, I guess facet of holy spirit empowered faithfulness that's equally as
22:29
unnatural that will require maybe even more from you. Here's why I say that
22:38
you're the guilty party. You've been unfaithful, maybe at work that you know
22:45
what they expect, you're not doing it. Nobody knows, who cares.
22:48
Maybe in your marriage you've been unfaithful. Maybe in a previous marriage you were
22:52
unfaithful, Maybe with a fiance, maybe with a friend. I don't know.
22:56
You've been un faithful, and here's what you've done. I get it,
23:00
used it. It's not a big deal, it's over. You know
23:02
your kind of story. It's really their fault anyway. You know, you've
23:04
rationalized it, and you've done what we all try to do with our past.
23:10
You've buried it, or you've tried to. But it's a really shallow
23:15
grave. And for the next ten minutes, I'm brushing the dirt off.
23:21
And here's here's the problem. If you're a Christian, Okay, this is
23:23
so important. So if you're not, If you're not a Christian, I
23:26
don't have any right to tell you what to do. And please don't hear
23:29
me saying I'm some sort of authority. You got to do what I say.
23:30
No, no, no, no. If you're not, you're not
23:32
a Christian. You don't embrace our worldview. Just pick and choose any of
23:36
this that's helpful and apply it and come back next week for more. But
23:40
if you're a Christian, if you're a Jesus follower you claim to be,
23:45
when you bury and don't own, when you hide and conceal and don't confess
23:51
and reveal, do you know that you are resisting the Holy Spirit that lives
23:56
inside of you When those memories ding your conscience and you do nothing you're actually
24:06
actively resisting Christ in you, who wants to liberate you, who wants you
24:14
to own, acknowledge and take responsibility for the truth, and in doing so
24:19
will ultimately set you free. And you can take off this coat that you
24:23
don't even know you're wearing. But the people around you know something's up.
24:27
They don't know what, but they know something's up. And to say yes
24:32
to the God who's whispering to you, confess, come clean, acknowledge,
24:37
now, confess to God. He knows, and God is fine. The
24:40
only thing that makes God unfine about your sin is that it's eroding your confidence
24:45
in Him and possibly eroding other relationships you're not even aware of. Because when
24:51
we carry things that we don't confess, when we try to keep things in
24:55
the dark, they don't get weaker, they get stronger, and they crawl
24:59
out into all of our other most important relationships. To confess to the person
25:06
of the people affected by your unfaithfulness, and until you do. Until you
25:10
do, you'll never ultimately be at peace with you or others, because secrets
25:15
leak or summarize it. This way, faithfulness acknowledges unfaithfulness. Faithfulness holy spirit
25:27
produced induced faithfulness acknowledges unfaithfulness. That's what faithfulness does. It takes full responsibility
25:37
for its actions and its reactions. Faithfulness makes things right by bringing those secrets.
25:45
I'm not trying to be cute. Faithful makes things. Faithfulness makes things
25:49
right by bringing those secrets into the light. And yet, yeah, there's
25:55
oftentimes a consequence when you do that. But can I just push a little
25:57
bit. Already paying a price for keeping it a secret. You're already paying
26:03
a price for the fact that nobody knows and nobody's ever going to find out.
26:07
That's just yours to carry, even though there are people out there somewhere
26:11
whose lives would be better and who would be set free if you were to
26:14
acknowledge your unfaithfulness. Most of us are familiar with the name Zakias. If
26:21
you grew up in church, you know a little song about that. I'm
26:22
not going to see it. We don't can't even say some of those words
26:26
anymore. But anyway, Zacchius was a short little man, and a short
26:29
little man was he anyway? Almost sang the song. So Zachias was a
26:33
tax farmer in the first century, which meant he was very, very wealthy,
26:36
and he made his money off of really robbing other citizens in his village
26:41
and in his area. And Zacchias was a tax farmer, which meant he
26:44
had other tax collectors working for him. And he was an Israelite. He
26:48
was a person of supposed faith Judean or Galilean. And if you know the
26:52
story, Jesus comes through his village. He's heard Jesus is coming. He
26:56
does not want to mix with the crowd. It is not safe for him.
26:59
He probably has to curity and he can't see over the people in front
27:02
of him, so he climbs up a tree. Jesus passes by, Jesus
27:04
stops, if you know the story, He looks up in the tree,
27:07
and this made the crowd so upset Zachias. He said, I want you
27:11
to come down and take me to lunch at your house. And everybody in
27:14
the crowd is like, of all the people in our village are in our
27:17
town, he is the most unworthy for you to have lunch with. That
27:19
is not fair. He gets one on one time with this famous rabbi.
27:23
The rest of us just have to watch him walk by. You know the
27:26
story. Most of us know that part of the story. And then Jesus
27:29
goes and has lunch with Zachias. That's the part most of us know.
27:33
The aftermath isn't as well known, and the aftermath is incredible, and I
27:38
kind of think, I'm guessing that Jesus set this up for us so we
27:44
would discover something that maybe we won't discover any other way. After lunch,
27:48
Zachias comes out and there are people around me. These villages are not very
27:52
large, and people know Jesus is in there, so they're, you know,
27:55
keeping their distance, but they want to see him again. And Zachias
27:57
comes out and he says the ft. He says, here and now I
28:03
give half my possessions to the poor half. And if I have cheated anybody
28:10
in the crowd kind of murmurs like if really. But here's the thing,
28:14
and Zachieus's mind, what he was doing was absolutely legal. It was absolutely
28:18
legal. But if you're on the other side of that kind of legality,
28:22
you feel like you've been cheated and taken advantage of. So what he's saying
28:25
is this, if I discover that what I've done legally has hurt other people
28:30
unnecessarily, if I've cheated anybody out of anything, I'm going to pay back
28:36
the law says two times. I'm going to pay back four times that amount.
28:41
And Jesus doesn't say, oh, zach he is you don't have to
28:44
do that. That's between you and God. Just ask forgiveness and move on.
28:48
Jesus said to him, this is amazing today today, not until today,
28:56
regardless of how many times Zachius has gone to the temple, regardless of
28:59
how many sacrifices he's made for a sin, regardless of how many prayers that
29:03
he's prayed, he says, today, salvation has come to this household.
29:11
Zachie has brought his unfaithfulness into the light, and then he began to make
29:18
things right. Jesus makes this incredible statement the Sermon on the Mountain. I'll
29:22
wrap up. He says, blessed or blessed are the pure in heart,
29:30
for they will see God. The opposite is true as well. Those who
29:37
have not cleansed their heart and owned their stuff will have a difficult time recognizing
29:42
the work of God, the presence of God, or the activity of God
29:47
even in their own life. But blessed are the pure, so Jesus was
29:51
saying, Zacheus, today salvation has come to this house because you have been
29:56
faithful, You have seen clearly and you have acted on that thing that dinged
30:02
your conscience. You are making things right and now you stand and write relationship
30:08
with your heavenly Father. So I hate to ask a question like this,
30:12
have you been unfaithful? And is there somebody out there somewhere who assumes and
30:21
I know this is a little harsh, that you'll never have the courage and
30:26
you'll never have the personal security to own what you've done. Is there somebody
30:34
out there somewhere whose life would be instantly better just to know you're owning it.
30:41
Somebody who would say, now I know what's been going on, and
30:44
now I understand because I knew something was up or dropping back to the first
30:48
part of the message, is there a relationship or an environment that you're where
30:52
you're justifying currently justifying unfaithfulness because of how you've been treated? Understandable? Everybody
30:56
does that. Only Father who loves you says, come on, come on,
31:04
I came because there's better sense. Come on, he says, Since
31:10
since you live by the spirit, since God's spirit lives inside of you,
31:14
keeping step, keep up, keeping step, keep up, pause, submit,
31:19
take a step toward freedom and take a big giant step away from For
31:26
what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I
31:33
do. You don't have to live this way. This is what Paul said,
31:36
Here's what he discovered. Here's what some people around you have discovered.
31:37
Jesus came to rescue you from that, if you will submit. So when
31:44
tempted to be like to people you don't even like, instead of like your
31:47
father in heaven, when you run out of Jews, you run out of
31:49
patience, you run out of self control. You've run out. You run
31:52
out of goodness, you've run out of kindness. This is as far as
31:55
I can go, This is as far as that you know my strength can
31:57
take me. When tempted to unf faithfulness, even in the small things,
32:00
that's your cue. That's when you say, or pray out loud, you
32:06
say, Holy Spirit, I need you, Holy Spirit. I'm out.
32:10
I'm out. I'm out. You're sitting in the driveway about to go in.
32:14
I'm out. You hear the car pull up, i'm out. You
32:15
hear there's somebody coming up the stairs. I'm out. You pull in front
32:19
of the school, and here she comes, here he comes, and you
32:22
know, here comes the excuses and I'm out. Holy Spirit. I need
32:24
you, I can't. You can do this for me through me. Do
32:36
this for me through me. In fact, I would like for all of
32:39
us, if you're comfortable to read this out loud together. This is this
32:45
is an invitation. This is what it means to position your heart and your
32:50
mind to walk in the spirit. Let's read this out loud. Ready,
32:53
Holy Spirit, I need you. I can't. You can do this for
33:00
me through me. One more time? Ready, all together, Ready,
33:02
Holy Spirit, I need you, I can't. You can do this for
33:09
me through me. What our world needs now is faithfulness. Let's cover up,
33:19
more owning up, less just like and more christ Like. What our
33:25
world needs now is for Christians to keep in step with the Spirit of God,
33:31
to walk in the spirit, to keep in step with those nudges and
33:35
those promptings of the Holy Spirit, that when He dings our conscience we act
33:38
instead of cover up and barry. And what your world needs now, what
33:44
your family needs now, what your company needs now, what your group of
33:46
friendships need now, what your world needs now is for you to lead the
33:53
way and we'll pick it up right there next time. In Part eight of
33:59
What a World Needs Now