Latest / truthunedited / The Hardest Teaching of Jesus He Said It 6 Times

Transcript

The Hardest Teaching of Jesus He Said It 6 Times · truthunedited

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: When you read the Gospels and you notice Jesus saying
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the same things over and over, the same handful of sentences,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: again and again, in town after town, I don't want
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: you to skim past it anymore, because that repetition is
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: a map. The things he said the most are the
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: things he wanted you to carry the most. He was
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: picking on purpose what would survive him. and he knew
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: you'd be sitting here two thousand years later, so he
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: said the important things enough times that they'd make it
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: all the way to your chair tonight. There are eight
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of them, eight things he came back to over and over,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and there's one, one, that he's said more than any
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: other single teaching in all four Gospels, six separate times,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and I'll tell you now, so you can be watching
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: for it, it happens to be the one nobody wants
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: to do. The hardest one. The one we skip. I'll
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: tell you which one when we get there. Don't leave
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: before I do. And I'll tell you one more thing
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: at the very end. The real reason he repeated himself
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: at all. It's not what you think. And once you
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: see it, you'll never read a red letter in your
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Bible the same way again. Let's start with the one
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: he said the most to the people he loved the most.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: He's asleep in the back of a boat, dead asleep
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: on a cushion, in the stern, while the lake turns
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: into a monster around him. And these are fishermen. This
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: is their lake. They've worked it their whole lives, and
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: they are screaming. The water's coming over the sides, and
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: they wake him up, and they say, Don't you care
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that we're drowning? And he stands up, and he speaks
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: to the storm, the way you'd speak to a dog
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: that's gotten out of the yard. And it stops. dead calm.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: And then he turns to them and he says the thing,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Why are you afraid? He says a version of it constantly.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Count it sometime, on the water, on the mountain, in
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: the upper room, on Easter morning, to the women at
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the tomb, to Jairus, whose little girl just died. Fear not,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: only believe. Over and over and over the same two words,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: fear not. Now here's what I need you to hear,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and it's in the grammar, so stay with me one second.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Fear not is not a suggestion. It's not him being sweet.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: In the Greek, it's a command. It's in the same
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: form as shut the door or sit down. He is
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: not saying, try to feel a little better. He is
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: ordering the fear to leave the way he ordered the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: storm to leave. And you can't command a feeling. You can't.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Nobody can just decide to stop being afraid. Unless the
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: person giving the order is also the one standing between
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you and the thing you're afraid of. That's why he
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: can say it. He's not telling you your fear isn't real.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: The storm was real. The little girl really died. He's
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: telling you that he is bigger than the thing in
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the water, and he is standing in the boat. And
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: look who he says it to. He almost never says
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: fear not to strangers. He says it to his own,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the ones closest to him, the ones who should have
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: known better and were terrified anyway. which means he's not
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: disappointed in you for being scared. He expects it. That's
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: the whole reason he said it so many times. He
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: knew fear would be the thing that came for you
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the most, so he left you the command that comes
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: for it the most. And some of you know exactly
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: what your storm is. You're 45, 55, 65, and the
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: fears have changed. It's not the fears you had at
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: 25 anymore. It's the diagnosis. It's the scan they want
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: to do again. It's outliving the people you love, or
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: being the one left behind. It's the fear of being
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: a burden. The fear that you waited too long, that
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: it's too late for you now. Fear not. He's not
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: asleep in the back of your boat because he doesn't care.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: He's asleep because he's not worried. and the same voice
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: that shut the storm up on that lake is in
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the boat with you right now. But here's the problem.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: He can say fear not a thousand times, and it
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: does you no good at all if you're not actually listening.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: And he knew that too, which is why he kept
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: saying the next one. Let me stop for one second,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: because I already know who's watching this. You didn't put
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: on a video about the teachings of Jesus by accident.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Something in you is hungry for the real thing. for
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: more than the same three verses you've heard your whole life.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: That's exactly who this channel is for. If this is
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: already feeding you, hit like and send it to one
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: person you know who's been running on empty. And if
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: you want to go further than any video can take you,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: that's what the founder's membership is. Inside, we don't do highlights.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: We go through the whole Bible, book by book, opened
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: up like never before. The words underneath the words, the culture,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: the history, the questions nobody answers on a Sunday morning.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: It's built for people who are done with the surface.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: The link is right in the description, deepbiblestories.com slash founding.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: We'd love to have you in there. Now, back to him.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Because the next thing he said, he said like a
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: man trying to wake somebody up. He that hath ears
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: to hear, let him hear. He says it after the
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: parable of the sower. He says it after the mustard seed.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: He says it in Matthew, in Mark, in Luke, seven times,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: eight times, tacked onto the end of his hardest teachings
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: like a stamp. He that hath ears, let him hear.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: And the first time you read it, it sounds like
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a strange thing to say. Everybody in that crowd had ears.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: They're standing right there. Of course they can hear him.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: But that's the whole point. He's not talking about the
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: ears on the sides of your head. Everybody in that
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: crowd could hear the sound of his voice. The words
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: went in. But he's saying something underneath that. There's a
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: difference between hearing a thing and receiving a thing. There's
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: a difference between the noise reaching your ear and the
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: truth reaching your heart. You already know this. You've sat
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: in a room while somebody told you something true, about
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: yourself maybe, something you needed, and you heard every word
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: and let not one of them in. You nodded. You said, Amen,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and you walked out exactly the same, and that's the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: thing he's warning about. He's saying it is entirely possible
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to sit under the greatest teaching in the history of
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the world and get nothing. To hear the Son of
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: God say, in person, with your own two ears, and
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: go home unchanged. And here's why it should stop you cold.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: He said it the most right after the parables, the stories.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Because a story slips past your defenses. You think you're
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: just listening to a nice tale about a farmer and
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: some seeds, and by the time you realize he's talking
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: about you, it's already in. That's what the stories were for.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And that's why he kept ringing that little bell at
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the end. If you've got ears, use them. Don't just
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: let this wash over you. Let it in. So let
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: me ask you, honestly, how many sermons have you heard
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: in your life? Hundreds? Thousands? Fifty years of Sundays? And
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: how many of them changed anything? That's not to shame you.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: It's his warning, not mine. Hearing is not the same
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: as having ears. and he said it enough times that
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: you can't pretend you weren't told. So if it's going
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: in tonight, if any of this is actually landing, then
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: you have the ears he's talking about. Don't waste them.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And the first thing those ears ought to hear is
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the very first thing he ever preached. Do you know
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: what his opening line was, the first thing out of
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: his mouth when he started? Repent, for the kingdom of
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: heaven is at hand. That's it, that's the first sermon,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: one sentence, and then he said it everywhere he went,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: and he sent his men out to say the exact
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: same thing, and it stayed his theme from the first
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: day to the last. Now that word repent, we've ruined it.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: When you hear it, you probably picture a man on
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: a street corner with a sign. Or you feel a
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: knot in your stomach, like it means feel bad about yourself. Grovel.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Beat yourself up. But that's not the word. The word
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: is metanoia, and it doesn't mean feel sorry. It means
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: change your mind. Turn around. It's the word you'd use
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: for an army marching one direction that stops and turns
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: and marches the other way. It's not about your feelings.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: It's about your feet. He's not asking you to feel worse.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: He's asking you to turn around. And then the other half,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: the kingdom of heaven is at hand, at hand, within reach,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: close enough to touch. He's not saying, someday when you die,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: there's a kingdom far away. He's saying, it's right here.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: It has come near. It's standing in front of you
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: in the person of the man saying it. So put
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the two halves together and hear what he actually said
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: over and over his whole ministry. Turn around, because everything
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: you've been looking for is right behind you. That's the message.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: He couldn't stop preaching. And here's the part we get wrong.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: We treat repentance like a door you walk through one time.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: You went forward at a service in 1974. You turned
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: around once. And that was that. Filed away. Done. But
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: he didn't preach it like a door. He preached it
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: like a director. Turning around isn't a thing you did once.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: It's the thing you do every morning. Because every one
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: of us drifts. You don't have to do anything to drift.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: A boat with nobody at the oars doesn't stay still.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: It drifts quietly a little every day, until one morning
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: you look up and you're nowhere near where you meant
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: to be, and he's not standing there furious about it.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: He's standing there saying, Turn around, not because he's angry,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: but because the kingdom is close, and you've got your
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: back to it. Which brings me to something about his tone.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: because there's a phrase he used, a little rebuke, that
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: everybody reads as him being frustrated, and it's the exact opposite.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Let me show you. O ye of little faith! He
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: says it a lot, five times at least, when they
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: worry about food and clothes, when Peter starts to sink
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: in the water, when they panic in the boat, when
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: they forget the bread. Five times, O you of little faith!
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and we read it like he's exasperated, like a tired parent. Oh,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: you people, when are you going to get it? We
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: hear disappointment in it. Now watch this, because it's going
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: to change how you hear it forever. That phrase, little faith,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: in the Greek it's one word, oligopistos, little faith. And
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: here is the thing nobody tells you. He never once
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: said it to somebody who had no faith. Go look.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: He never said it to a Pharisee. He never said
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: it to the crowd. He never said it to a
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: stranger or an enemy or somebody who'd walked away. Not once.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: He only ever said it to his own, to the
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: ones who'd left everything to follow him, to Peter. while
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Peter was walking on water. Now think about that. Peter
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: is the only man in history besides Jesus to walk
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: on water, and the moment he starts to sink, Jesus
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: grabs him and says, O you of little faith, and
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: we hear a scolding. But look at what's actually happening.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: His hand is already on him. He caught him first.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: The words come after the rescue, not instead of it.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Little faith is not no faith. Little faith is faith
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: that's real but small. It's faith that got out of
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: the boat and then got scared halfway. It's faith that
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: believes on Sunday and forgets by Wednesday. It's faith that
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: prays and then lies awake worrying anyway. That's the faith
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: he's talking to. And he's not saying you failed. He's
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: saying you have some. It's just small. And small is
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: enough to start with. Look, I've got you. If you've
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: spent your Christian life feeling like your faith is too
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: small to count, like the real Christians have this mountain-moving
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: thing and you've just got a flicker that keeps going out,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: then hear him say it to you the way he
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: actually said it, not as an insult, as a diagnosis
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: from a doctor who's already reaching out his hand. Oh,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: you of little faith, you of some faith, you of
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: just enough faith to be standing on the water in
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: the first place. He never said it to the people
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: who had none. He said it to the ones he
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: was holding, and the ones he holds are usually not
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the ones the world was holding. In fact, he said
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: something about that too, over and over, and it's the
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: most upside-down thing he ever taught. Resource 20 seconds. I
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: want to pause here because I can feel that some
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: of you are pulling out a pen. That one word, oligopistos,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: cracked open a whole sentence you'd read a hundred times.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: That's exactly what our e-books and video lessons are for.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: We take one word, one thread, and we follow it
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: all the way down, slow, so you can do this
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: yourself at your own kitchen table with your own Bible.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: It's all in the description. Now stay with me, because
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: this next one is going to land right where you live.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: The last shall be first and the first last. He
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: must have loved this one, because he couldn't put it down.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: He says it in Matthew twice. He says it in Mark.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: He says it in Luke, four times at least, in
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: almost the same words every time. The last will be first,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: and the first will be last. And every time he
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: aims it at the same target, the scoreboard. Because everybody
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: keeps a scoreboard. Every society that has ever existed lines
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: people up. First, second, third, all the way down to last.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Who's up front? Who's in the back? Who matters and
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: who doesn't? In his day, it was rank and religion
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: and money and whose father you were. In our day,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: it's the same thing wearing new clothes. Who's got the followers?
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Who's got the title? Who's got the house, the retirement,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the kids who turned out right? And you know exactly
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: where you fall on that board. Everybody does. You've got
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: a number in your head right now. And Jesus looks
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: at the whole board, the whole thing that every human
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: being spends their life climbing. And he says, it's upside down.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Not climb higher, not try to move up a few spots.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: He says the board itself is backwards. The ones at
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: the top in God's economy are last. And the ones
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the world shoved to the very back are the ones
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: God's been keeping his eye on. the whole time. Now
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I need to be careful here, because this is not
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: a threat and it's not a your turn's coming. Just wait.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: It's deeper than that. He's saying God doesn't even read
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: the board, the whole ranking that runs the world, the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: thing that decides who gets respected and who gets overlooked.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: God doesn't use it. He's got a completely different way
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: of seeing, and by his way of seeing, the woman
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: nobody thanks and the man nobody notices are standing at
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the front of a line the world can't even see.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: And here's who I'm talking to right now. Some of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: you have been last for a long time. You spent
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: your best years being the one who served and never
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: got served. You raised the kids, and now they're busy.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: You worked the job that nobody clapped for. You've sat
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: in the back pew for thirty years, and nobody ever
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: learned your name. And somewhere along the way, you quietly
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: decided that's just what you are. Last. Overlooked. Small. The
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: last shall be first. He said it four times. He
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: said it looking straight at people exactly like you. Not,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: you'll get a small reward too, tucked in at the back. First,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: at the very front, because the God who runs the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: real kingdom never once looked at the world's scoreboard, and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: he's been watching you the whole time the world wasn't. Now,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: when he said things like that, when he turned the
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: whole world upside down in one sentence, how did he
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: say it? Where did he get the nerve? Because there's
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: a phrase he put in front of his biggest statements,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and it's the strangest verbal habit in the whole Bible.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and almost nobody notices it's there. Verily, verily, I say
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: unto you. Your Bible might say truly, truly, or I
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: tell you the truth. In John's Gospel he says it
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: twenty-five times. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Over and over,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: before the biggest things he ever said. And it looks
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: like a throat clear, a little wind-up we read right
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: past it. Here's what it actually is. The word behind
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: verily is amen. You know that word, you say it.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: But do you know when you say it? You say
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: it at the end. Somebody prays and you say amen,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: which means yes, true, so be it. I agree with
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: what was just said. That's what amen is. It's how
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: you put your name under somebody else's words. It's a response.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: It goes at the end and it points backward at
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: what someone else just said. Nobody in the history of
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: that language ever started a sentence with it. because it
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: makes no sense to. You can't say, I agree with
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: what's true before you've said the thing. Amen responds. It
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't lead. And Jesus put it at the front. Amen, amen.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I say to you, do you see what he did?
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: He took the word you use to swear that somebody
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: else's words are true, and he put it in front
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: of his own words. He's saying amen to himself before
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: he even speaks. He is standing there guaranteeing his own
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: words with the word that's only ever used to back
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: up God's. Every other prophet in the Old Testament opened
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: his mouth and said, Thus saith the Lord. This is
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: not me. This is God. I'm just the messenger. Don't
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: look at me. Every one of them. Thus saith the Lord.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Jesus never once said that. Not one time. He said, Amen,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: I say to you, I, me, on my own authority.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: And it's true because I'm the one saying it. There
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: is no one else in the entire Bible who talks
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: like that. It's either the most arrogant speech pattern in
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: human history or he is exactly who he said he was.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: There's no third option. A good teacher doesn't guarantee his
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: own words as the word of God. A prophet points
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: away from himself. Jesus pointed at himself 25 times with
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: a word that only belongs to God. So the next
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: time you read verily, verily, the next time your eyes
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: want to slide right over it, I want you to
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: stop and hear what's underneath it. That's not a throat clear.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: That's a claim. Every time he said it, he was
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: telling you who he is. is. And that matters more
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: than anything else in this video, because it means when
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: this one, the one who swears on himself, tells you
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: to do the hardest thing he ever asked, you can't
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: file it under nice advice from a wise man. And
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: he's about to ask you the hardest thing This is
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the one I promised you, the one he said six times.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: whoever loses his life for my sake will find it
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: as six times. That's more than any other single teaching
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: in all four Gospels. Matthew, twice. Mark, Luke, twice. John,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: six times he came back to it. If repetition is
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the map, and the things he said most are the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: things he wanted you to carry most, then this is
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the center of the map. This is the one he
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: most wanted to make sure survived him, and it's the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: one we most want to avoid, because listen to it,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: whoever tries to save his life will lose it. the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: person who spends everything protecting their own life, guarding it,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: holding it, keeping it safe, making sure they don't lose anything,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: that person, he says, loses the very thing they were
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: trying to keep, and the person who lets go of it,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: who opens their hands and gives their life away for
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: his sake, that person finds it. That's not natural. Every
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: instinct you have is the opposite. Everything in you says,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: hold on, protect it, keep what's yours, don't let go,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and Jesus says that grip is the very thing killing you.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Now here's the part that unlocks it. Right before he
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: says this in John's gospel, he says something else. One
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: verse earlier, he says, unless a grain of wheat falls
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: into the ground and dies, it stays alone. But if
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: it dies, it brings forth much fruit. That's the picture.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: A seed, a seed has two options. It can stay
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: a seed, safe, hard, sealed up, protecting itself, keeping everything
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: it's got locked inside its shell. And if it does that,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it stays exactly what it is forever. One seed. Alone.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: It never becomes anything. It just sits there, safe and useless,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: until it rots. Or it can go into the ground
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and split open and give everything away and become a field.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: That's the choice he's putting in front of you. and
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: he put it in front of you six times because
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: he knew you'd spend your whole life trying to be
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: a safe seed. And I want to talk to you
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: specifically because you're older now, and there's a version of
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the back half of life that is just one long
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: project of protecting the seed. Guarding what you've got, getting comfortable,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: circling the wagons, keeping your money, your time, your heart,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: your energy safe because you've earned it and you don't
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: have as much runway left, so you'd better protect what's yours.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: And Jesus six times says that's how you lose it.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: The people I've known who were the most alive at
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: 80 were never the ones with the tightest grip. They
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: were the ones with open hands. The one still giving
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: it away, still teaching the kids, still showing up, still
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: pouring out, still going into the ground. Because a seed
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: that finally lets go doesn't die into nothing. It dies
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: into a harvest. He said it six times. He said
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: it more than he said anything else. Let go of
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: your life and you'll finally have one. That's the hardest
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: thing he ever asked. And it's the truest. He put
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: his own amen in front of it. but there's an
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: urgency under all of this, a clock, and it's the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: last thing he kept saying, and it's the one that
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: makes all the others matter tonight and not some day. Watch, therefore,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: for you know neither the day nor the hour. He
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: said it again and again toward the end. Watch, stay awake,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: be ready, you don't know when. In Matthew, in Mark,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: in Luke, you do not know the day, you do
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: not know the hour, so watch. Now the word watch
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: there isn't nervous, it's not be scared, look over your shoulder.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: It's the word for a servant, keeping a light burning.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: For someone staying awake at their post because the master's
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: coming home and nobody said what time. It's alertness, not anxiety.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: It's living like today could be the day. And he
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: aimed it right at the thing we all do, which
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: is assume we've got more time. We always assume more time.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: There's always going to be a tomorrow to get right
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: with God, to make the call, to forgive the person,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: to stop drifting and turn around, to finally open our
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: hands and let the seed fall. We put it all
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: on a tomorrow we're sure is coming. And he says,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: you don't know that. You don't know the day. You
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: don't know the hour. No one told you how much
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: runway you've got. And for those of us who are older,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: this one isn't theoretical, is it? We've stood at the
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: gravesides now. We've watched it come for people younger than us,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: healthier than us, people who were sure they had decades.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: We know, in a way the young can't know yet,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: that the hour really is unknown. And it really doesn't
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: ask permission. But hear how he meant it. He didn't say,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: watch to terrify you. He said it so you wouldn't
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: waste the time you've got assuming you've got more. He
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: said it so that everything else in this video would
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: matter today. The fear not today, the turning around today,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the open hands today, the little faith that's just enough today.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Because the servant who's watching isn't the frightened one. He's
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the one who's ready. He's the one who, whenever that
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: door opens, looks up and smiles, because he was never
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: trying to squeeze in one more day of holding on.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: He was already living with the lamp lit. So watch,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: not because the end is scary— because the king is
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: coming home, and you don't want to be caught asleep
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: with your hands still clenched shut. Now let me answer
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the question I promised you at the start, the real one.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Why did he repeat himself at all? Here's the answer,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: and it's the whole thing, because that's what love does.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: You don't say a thing once to someone you love
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: and figure that's their problem now. You say the important
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: things again and again. You tell your kids you love
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: them a thousand times, not because you forgot you already
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: said it, but because you want it so deep in
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: them that it's there when you're not. My grandmother said
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: the same handful of things to me my whole life,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: and I rolled my eyes at some of them, and
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: now she's gone, and I would give anything to hear
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: them one more time, and the reason I still have them,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the reason they're carved in me, is that she said
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: them over and over and over. That's what he was doing.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: There's no paper, remember? He wasn't going to be walking
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: that country forever. The day was coming when the crowd
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: would go home, and the hillside would be empty, and
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it would be just them, just you, in the dark.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: And he knew it, so he took the things that
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: would matter most on that dark night, and he said
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: them enough times that they'd survive him, enough times that
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: they'd make it all the way here, to this chair,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: to tonight. Fear not, he said it most to the
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: ones he loved most. He that hath ears, let him hear,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: because it can all wash over you and change nothing. Repent,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the kingdom is at hand. Turn around, it's right behind you.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: O you of little faith, he only ever said it
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: while he was holding you. The last shall be first.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: He never once read the world's scoreboard. Verily, verily, I
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: say unto you, he swore on himself because he is
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: who he said. Whoever loses his life will find it
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: six times. Open your hands and watch. You don't know
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the hour, so live it today. Eight things said over
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: and over on purpose by a dying man who wanted
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: you to have them. You have them now. Don't just
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: hear them. Father, we've read past your son's words our
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: whole lives and never once stopped to notice what he
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: said the most. Thank you that he repeated himself. Thank
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: you that he loved us enough to say the same
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: things over and over, so they'd survive him, so they'd
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: reach all the way down to us tonight, sitting here,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: so long after the hillside went quiet. Lord Jesus, you
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: said fear not more than anything else, and you said
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: it to the ones you were holding. So say it now,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: over the fears we don't say out loud, the scan,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: the empty side of the bed. The clock, we can
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: hear ticking. Say it again, and let us finally believe
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: you're in the boat. You told us to turn around
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: because the kingdom was close the whole time. We've been drifting.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: We didn't even mean to. Turn us back around. You
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: called us little faith, not no faith, and you said
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: it with your hand already on us. Lord, we've spent
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: years thinking our faith was too small to matter. Thank
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: you that small was always enough to stand on the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: water— Because you were always the one holding us up.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: You said the last would be first. For everyone listening
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: who has been last for a long time, who served
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and was never served, who was never thanked, never noticed,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: never named, let them hear it. You never read the
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: world's scoreboard. You've been watching them the whole time the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: world wasn't. And you said six times to let go
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: of our lives to find them. Our hands are so tight, Lord.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: We've spent so long protecting the Seed. Teach us to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: fall into the ground. Teach us even now, especially now,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: to open our hands and give it all away, and
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: to trust that a seed that finally lets go doesn't
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: die into nothing. It dies into a harvest. You told
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: us to watch because we don't know the hour, so
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: we won't waste it, not on assuming there's a tomorrow.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Let us live today with the lamp lit, ready, unafraid,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: already smiling for when the door opens. You put your
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: own amen in front of every one of these, so
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: we know they're true. Not the advice of a wise man,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: the word of God, out of the mouth of God.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: spoken to us because he loved us enough to say
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: it more than once. We hear you. Give us the
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: ears to keep them. In the name of Jesus, amen.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Eight things he said over and over, and every one
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: of them was sitting in verses you've read your whole life.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: That's what we do here, and it's exactly what the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Founders' membership was built for. Inside, we go through the
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: whole Bible book by book, the words underneath the English— the
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the century it happened in, the culture, the things nobody
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: has time for on a Sunday morning, the way we
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: did tonight but without a clock running, the video lessons,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the e-books, the study guides, all of it in one
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: place for people who are finished with the surface and
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: want to know what God is actually saying to them.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Join us here, deepbiblestories.com slash founding. And on your screen
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: right now, you'll see two teachings that go straight into
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: what we open tonight. One on the parables and what
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Jesus was really doing with those stories. And one on
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the I am sayings, where he tells you exactly who
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: he is. Click either one. They belong with this. Until
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: next time, stay rooted in the word. Stay blessed.