Let me move into this morning's talk. As we move forward in these talks on the book of Luke, I hope you're getting the weekly devotions in your email. I hope you're reading them. Please take the time.
Five minutes. Just get in the word. Just let it wash over you. Spend five minutes just in prayer then.
Maybe put on a worship song, Pandora or Spotify. Just put something on and just let your spirit go there. And so we're preaching out of these topics. Every week we're looking at these things.
I'm looking at what you're reading. I'm going, what's striking me? What is the Lord saying to me? So I'm just trying to tell you what I feel like God is speaking to me as I read what you're reading every week.
I'm in you with it. Here's what I want to show you with you this week. It has to do with decisions. Your days are filled.
My days are filled with decisions, filled with them, especially in our communities. A study from the Columbia University found out that we are not only filled with decisions. We're bogged down by decisions. The average person is making 70 decisions a day, which creates over 25,000 decisions a year, which for some of us, depending how long we live, is millions of decisions that we're making.
Now some decisions, no doubt, are minor. What am I going to eat? Which road am I going to take a work today? What order should I handle tasks in?
But there's other decisions which are major decisions. Which of these two job offers should I take? Should I move to a new city to be close to him? Should I get out of this relationship with her?
Major decisions. Here's what researchers are finding on the concept of decision-making. It's absolutely fascinating. Decision-making works like a muscle.
This is what they've discovered. And as you use it over the course of a day, it gets too exhausted to function effectively. Now if you say to yourself, I'm not really interested in any of this, God stuff, John, just give me something that'll help me be successful in life. I'll give you this.
You need to make a big decision? Make it in the morning. Do the stuff that's important first. There's your little thing.
But by the way, that's the way God made you, so I just gave you a God thing anyway. So here's what they've realized, researchers. One of the best strategies that successful people use to work around what they call a decision fatigue is to eliminate smaller decisions. And how do you do that?
You turn those smaller decisions into routines. As you do that, as you don't need to think about those things, you're freeing up mental resources to make more complex decisions. Let me show you what I mean. Steve Jobs.
What does Steve Jobs wear? What? A black turtleneck. Why is a room full of a couple of hundred people in Mendum, New Jersey know what a dead guy from Seattle wore every day?
Steve. Why? Because he wore it every day. Mark Zuckerberg.
What's Mark Zuckerberg wear every day? He wears either a great t-shirt or a hoodie every day. Now here's why. Both of these guys have stated when asked why do you wear the same thing every day?
They said, we have to make so many decisions. I have to make so many decisions. I just want to cut down on decision fatigue. I don't want to think about what I'm going to wear.
I just wear the same thing. They were both aware of a finite ability. You have a finite ability to make a decision. Here's what President Obama said.
Quote, I love this. He goes, I wear only gray or blue suits. That's all I wear. Why?
I'm trying to pair down decisions. I don't want to make any decisions about what I'm eating or what I'm wearing because I've got too many other important decisions I need to make. Decisions are important. The reality is decisions determine the life you're going to live, the person you're going to become, they're huge.
In the Guinness Book of World Records, there's a world record for what you might call a decision fatigue. It's a guy named Octavio Gin and a woman named Adriana Martinez. They have the world's longest record for the world's longest engagement. Check this out.
They were engaged in 1902. But you know, he couldn't make up his mind, kept putting it off the wedding day. Not so sure. Think about this a little bit more.
I want to keep the options open. They finally got married. Engaged in 1902. You want to know what year they got married?
1969. This is a true story. 67 years. Boy, she must have felt so honored, right?
It's an interesting story in the book of Luke. It's actually recorded in the other synopsis. Luke, who's a physician by trade, wrote the most detailed account of the life and ministry of Jesus that we have. Remember, Luke tells you right up front, I'm writing this so that this guy, he says, see, the awfulist.
I'm putting pen to paper for you. We don't know who the awfulist is. But he said, the awfulist, I'm writing this so that you might believe that Jesus is Lord. I think by extension, he's writing it to a guy named John that lives in Long Valley.
A guy named Scott that lives in Mendum. Or a woman named Mary that's from Randolph, or a young lady named Sarah from PPAC. See, Luke is writing this to convince them, you, me, that Jesus is who he said he was. So he's very detailed in what he records.
And so in today's second opinion by Dr. Luke, I want to look at, I want to get a second opinion on the most important decisions that we make in life and where it leads you to and what happens once you make it. So jump into the story with me. Here's what Dr.
Luke said. He goes, once when Jesus was praying in private and he was praying his disciples were with him and he stopped and he asked them, who do the crowds say I am? Jesus asked a question that frankly most of us would be afraid to ask. The staff, we have lunch together most days when we're all in the office, we sit around and we all bring our lunch, some of us buy our lunch.
We all sit down at the kitchen table today. I have never looked around and said, hey, Stephen Tim, tell me what people are saying about me. I'm way too insecure to ever ask a question like that. I don't even want to know what they're saying about me.
But you see, Jesus doesn't have any of these insecurities. And so this is the genius of Jesus, by the way, check out what he does here. He knows how his followers do and in the future how they would think. So he doesn't ask them, hey guys, what do you think about me?
He says first, hey guys, tell me, what do the people out there think about me? Who do the people out there say that I am? And so as he knows, he has a feeling that as human beings, we like to talk about people out there a lot more than we like to look at ourselves. And so the scripture says, they replied, well, Jesus, here's what they're saying.
Some are saying that you're John the Baptist. Others are saying that you're Elijah and still others say that you're one of the prophets of long ago that have come back to life. Now we read that and you might go, what? Well, why would they think that that's who Jesus is?
But in the first century in Israel, there had been for a long period among the people expectations, more or less defined, that certain of the great national heroes were going to reappear and they were going to take up the incomplete work of God because Israel had not come into its glory yet. And they were going to play that part in Israel of heralding, of announcing the coming of the glorious King Messiah. And so the popular belief around town, if you want to know what most people thought of Jesus in that day, most people thought that well, maybe he was the second coming of the prophet Elijah. And they thought that because of predominantly because of the miracle of the fish and the loaves and how it paralleled a very well-known miracle of Elijah, still others started to think, well, you know, John the Baptist, he had recently been ahead and so people Jesus are starting to think that, you know, you're channeling John the Baptist.
So some people are starting to say that you're kind of, you're now the spirit of John the Baptist. The truth is, at first reading you might go, that's kind of silly. I just post first century rubes. How could it be so silly?
But here's what I would tell you. I think if I went to the Green of Morrison and I walked around and I said, tell me who Jesus is, who would you say he is? I'm not sure that at the root of the answer I would get something all that different. Here's what I would challenge you to do.
There's a fascinating study that Barna did. It's the polling people. They did a fascinating study on Americans and Christianity. They went to out to the average American and they said, who do you say he is?
And there's fascinating stuff here about a nation which would self-report in overwhelming numbers, like 90% would say, oh, we're Christian. How the self-reporting Christian really has almost no idea who Jesus is. There's debate over if you really existed. There's debate over if he was sinless.
There's debate. In fact, the predominant amount of folks who actually believe that Jesus lived and would say that they're a Christian would tell you it's more important to be a good person than to be a follower of Jesus, kind of misunderstanding the whole gospel. Look at the other religions of the world. Just take time.
I mean, all of the great religions in the world, they make room for Jesus. Almost none of them just discount them. The Koran speaks of Jesus. Many Hindus believe that Jesus is one of the deities of the Pantheon.
Nearly every major religion. Heck, you could bring me in the most irreligious guy that you know every single one of them almost would sing the same tune about this Jesus. He's a great man. He's a prophet.
He's a healer. He's a teacher. So, not all that much has changed since the first century. And so with that answer reported, I think the same kind of answer we get today.
Jesus turns to his followers. He looks at Peter and James and John and he looks at Scott and Sarah and Jim, Mike and Connie. And he says, then and today, but what about you? Who do you say I am?
See, I love this. If you're a student of the Bible at all, just give me a minute to share this Bible geeky thing maybe. Jesus turns this question here almost in the same way Paul turns the accusations about sin in the book of Romans from chapter one into chapter two. In chapter one, Paul lists all of the sins of the people outside of the church because we love the list of the sins of the people outside of the church.
Paul goes on. The people outside of the church, they are this and they are that. They do this. They do that.
They are God haters. I dollars. They take away the do evil. And you can hear the people going, don't write.
They do Paul. They're horrible. But they're Romans two. Romans chapter two.
As soon as he gets done with recounting all the issues the people outside have, he says, oh, by the way, you have all the same issues and you should know better. That's just what Jesus is doing here. So, who do the people outside say I am? Oh, really?
Well, let me ask you a question, boys. Who do you say I am? It's me. It seems like Jesus is calling for one of those 70 decisions a day.
And for them, and for you and I, this is the biggest decision of a lifetime. Because Jesus asks for a decision, a rendering on his personhood. He calls for a decision. See, we don't like to make decisions.
I mean, I really have decision fatigue. In fact, with the staff, they were laughing just this week because I'm starting to get to the point where like, oh, you guys make the decision, you make the decision, you make the decision. Right? And we don't like decision making.
But here's what the world keeps telling us. The world keeps telling us it's good that you don't like it because in the world we live in today, you don't need to make any decisions. You can have both. You can have everything.
It really is possible to have it all. Now, I know maybe you're new to faith or church and the idea that you must choose this exclusivity concept. It might seem very narrow minded. It might rub you the wrong way.
I know it's counter cultural. It seems un-American. You could argue it. It seems unkind.
Because in America, we like to keep our options open. I don't like the box myself in. I mean, it's not, you don't have to choose between great taste or less filling, right? You just have a middle light?
There's a fast food coming called Rio Raps. Here's their slogan. It's not fast food. It's fresh food fast.
Why choose? It's like IKEA, right? You don't have to choose between good quality furniture or low prices with IKEA. Now, I can't put it together, so I'm not sure how it would be good.
This is the way we try to live most of our lives. I would like both, please, sir. I love both and I hate either or. But when you live your life consistently, especially in the most important areas of your life, refusing to make choices, trying to keep your options open, it will paralyze you.
I'm going to show you. I'm going to prove it to you. The science behind it's fascinating. I'm going to notice it and raise my kids.
The more choices I give them, the more paralyzed they are in trying to choose something. It took a long time for me to figure this out. It was very painful. Here's how I started to figure out it was going to be a problem.
We would go on family trips or vacations and we would always wait until the last day because you're busy to go to the souvenir store. You'd be walking down Main Street at Disney, 11 o'clock at night, everything would hurt. You're going to souvenir. You go into that Main Street, have you been into the Main Street, souvenir store in Disney World?
Do you know how many choices are there? There's like 10,000 Disney Chachis. Two which, you know, four kids, ages four to ten, cannot choose. They would just be parallel.
If I had just come out with four balloons, they would have been happy as could be. But no, no, no. It ended the same way. I would always be out of about $250 and they would be crying.
It was the same answer every time. One of the scholars that studied this stuff, the leading scholar on decision making, is a woman named Sheena Iyengar. She's from Columbia University. She wrote a book called The Art of Choosing.
She became famous for a particular experiment. She noticed in a high-end grocery store, right, in a high-end grocery store near her home, there were so many options when it came to Jam. In a particular store she was shopping in, she started to feel kind of a rush. She just wanted to get some jelly, you know?
And so she went in there and she started, she got overwhelmed by how many choices there were and she was a scientist. So she started counting. There were in the store over 300 different choices of Jam that she could choose from. As she started to think to herself, you know, I wonder if everybody else feels, because she's a decision making person.
I wonder how everybody else relates to something like this? So she set up an experiment. I think she did it through Stanford University. This is what she did.
She worked with one store and the store displayed a display table in the jelly section with 24 jellies on it. And then they went to another store and they set up a jelly section and that table only had six that you could choose from. Now, stores, there's a lot of science that goes into marketing, as you can imagine. Stores up to that point believe the more choices you gave customers, the more likely they were to find what they were looking for and the more likely they would make a purchase.
So we should give them more choices because they'll buy more. What they ended up discovering though was that the customers who only had six jams to choose from ended up being 10 times more likely to buy jelly than those who saw the 24. Isn't that amazing? There's sometimes it turns out that both and is not the genius move.
Making either or choices is actually critical to success in the big areas of your life. I performed a marriage yesterday morning and the groom did not take a vow saying, I am going to be with you for as long as I like but I promise and commit you I will keep all of my options open. Should I become bored with you or you put on some pounds? That was not, you know, that was not the vow taken.
The vow taken was I am going to put all others aside and choose you. So Jesus says, let me ask you a question. Let me force you to make a decision. Who do you, now then I know we're all concerned about that.
That's good for a moment. Who do you say I am? Now we might not like this. This is why marriage is a value in our culture is diminishing.
But it's consistently what God is calling his people to. There's a verse that's recorded in Elijah, I came across this week. I love it since it's recorded by Elijah, written in first Kings. Here's what Elijah said.
Scripture says, Elijah went before the people and said, how long? How long people? Will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him.
But if Baal is God, follow him. Now a little background, Baal was the name of the Supreme God worshiped in ancient Canaan. The worship of Baal at the time was getting intermingled with the worship of God. You know, because things never change, folks.
Oh, all these gods. They all lead to the same place. You don't need to make a choice. Elijah says, no, no.
How long are you going to do this? You got to make a choice of God's God, then follow him. If Baal is God, then follow him. Any guesses on what the people said?
Things never change. Verse 18. But the people said nothing. It's the human condition.
Wow. I'd like to keep my options open. I'll see who's going to come through for me. See, I have this Jesus saying, look, guys, let me ask you a question.
I know who they say. I'm asking you, who do you say I am? Ben and Hill is he a prophet. Is he a great teacher?
Is he a wonderfully humanitarian? And Peter stands up. Luke records it. And Peter says, Peter says this.
Jesus goes, but what about you? Who do you say I am? And Peter answered, your God's Messiah. Now, Messiah, essentially I'm going to give you a little teaching here, right?
Messiah was a Jewish term. The Greek term is Christ. It turns out that Christ was not Jesus' last name. You know?
Christ is the Greek word for Messiah. What it meant was the anointed one, the one prophesied to come of God. And Peter steps up and says, I know who you are. I know you're not just a teacher or a healer.
I know you're not the Messiah or a ruler or king. I was hoping you would be. You're a little more gentle and milder than I was hoping for. But I know who you are, you're Him.
Like you're the one. You're the anointed. I read Jesus. I think you're Jesus.
I know what they're saying about you. I know they're all saying they're saying, I know all pass, leave the same way. I know there's a lot of confusion about reincarnation and all that stuff going on. But here's Jesus.
I think you're the one. I think you probably are what you said, that you are the way, the truth and the life. I think, like you said, you might be the only way to the Father. I didn't say that.
Jesus said that. And I know that maybe if you're visiting today and you hear something like that, you go, boy, that seems like a horribly exclusive statement. But here's what Peter thought. Here's what Jesus thought.
They didn't see it as horribly exclusive. They just saw it as true. It wasn't meant to be horribly exclusive. All Jesus was saying is, look, I know everything.
There is no other way. There's nobody else that's going to be coming for you. And so now I know it's our preference to worry about what people outside of the church are thinking about Jesus. We like to focus on that.
But can I ask you like Jesus did like Jesus does today? Who do you say he is? Is he for you in very real ways? Is he the anointed one of God, the one that had been prophesied to come from, the only one that's ever coming for me?
Or is he just a really good teacher? Is he a really good blesser? Is he a really good healer? Is he just one of the, look, it's the road I choose to get to God, but there's many roads.
So Jesus is my road, but others have their roads. I mean, is Jesus just your co-pilot in life? Is he just simply your harbor in times of trouble? Or is he the anointed one of God, the one prophesied for centuries to come, the incarnate God himself?
Now I know lots of us in this room would say we believe that he is the Messiah, that he is the anoint when he is the God incarnate come for us. You're in church. You probably believe that at some level. This is where we struggle.
In the Barnus survey, we'll back this up, go home and read it. We profess, yes, we sing, yes. He's the anointed one. He's the one sent by God.
He is the way, the truth in life, but we live in many ways in direct violation as to what we believe, as to what we say we've decided, as to what we claim we profess. We say one thing, we say we believe he's the anointed one, but if I can be very honest, I'm talking about me, okay, there's a non-judgmental zone here, right? There's a church, I preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and grace, but I also have to tell you the truth in what the scripture says. The truth in what the scripture says, and my experience of me and my people I love in my own life is this, in many ways with my lips I honor God, and in many ways with my heart and my actions I can be a functional atheist.
So here's what I want to share with you this morning. If you make this decision, where you say you know what I think he is the anointed one, or maybe you need to make a recommitment to this decision. This is why we do these baptisms every year. This is serious stuff.
If you have decided that he is the anointed one, I'm just going to give you three things that I want you to think of because this is what I have to think of. Three things that will actually make your life line up with the decision that you said you've made. Here's the first thing. The first thing is this.
He is the anointed one. If he is the one upon which all history hangs, then this is true and you need to really believe it at deep levels. He's bigger than you think he is. Oh my gosh, he's so much bigger than you think he is.
Oh my gosh. Our faith teaches us that God exists in three forms. It's a theological concept called the Trinity Father's Son Holy Spirit. Each of them though has different roles in the Godhead.
Jesus for example, Jesus is the creator. This is how the scripture says Jesus Paul said this about his role. For him, in Jesus, all things were created, things in heaven, on earth, visible and invisible. Or powers or rulers or authorities.
All of these things, everything you can possibly think of was created not by some just God that's out there, but created by this Jesus that's walking through. Through his root with Peter, James and John, he's bigger than you think he is. Jesus is the same Jesus. He demands a decision.
This Jesus is the one who made everything. He's really, really big. God, we got this. Let me give you two minutes to watch.
Francis Chen does this great job on trying to get you to understand the off factor of God. Check this out. First of all, this is the earth. You're taking off from the earth from Southern California.
We're going to rise up a little bit here. We're going to pull away from it. We're going to pull higher. This is at about 10 kilometers.
Like if you climb Mount Everest, this is what you'd see. You'd see the curvature of the earth from that distance. Now you're going to climb up even higher. This is at 100 kilometers.
You're a fourth of the way to the space station now. This is what you'd see. If you get to this level, you're considered an astronaut. If you ever get there.
Now we're going 100,000 kilometers. 100,000 kilometers on earth. You have a fourth of the way to the moon. That's what the earth would look like.
Now we're going to pull away to a million kilometers. At a million kilometers, there's the moon. There's the moon. You can barely see the earth.
You're at a million kilometers. Now you're past the moon. And now we're going to go to 100 million kilometers. 100 million kilometers.
You're still not to the sun. The sun's 93 million miles away. But now we're going to go to 10 trillion kilometers. There's the sun.
You just passed the sun. Now you would see all of the planets at 10 trillion kilometers. And now we're at 10 to the 15th power. I mean, it's 10 with 15 zeros.
I don't know what that number is. 15 zeros. And the sun's just like a bright dot amidst other stars. And now we're going to 10 light years away.
At 10 light years away. Come on, let's go. Zoom, there you go. 10 light years away.
Now you just see the sun with 11 other stars that are kind of its neighbors. That's our sun. And now we're going to go 1,000 light years away. At 1,000 light years away, you wouldn't even see our sun anymore.
These are just a bunch of stars close to it. And this cluster inside the Milky Way. Now we're going to zoom out even further. And that's the Milky Way we live in.
See that cluster of stars? Those are about 100,000 stars that are closest to us. We can't see our sun anymore at this point. Now this is our Milky Way galaxy.
And forget about the Earth. OK, there's our Milky Way galaxy that we live in. And we're just buried in there somewhere. And we're going to pull out even further.
And you'll see that our galaxy is actually, it's a big galaxy. And all those other things you're seeing now are galaxies. And we're going to pull away 10 million light years now. This next thing is 10 million light years.
Those are all galaxies you see amidst our Milky Way. Several hundred galaxies. Now we're going to go 100 million light years away. That's the last one.
We're going to zoom out to 100 million light years. Those are all clusters of galaxies. Galaxies and clusters of galaxies. You won't even see our Milky Way galaxy anymore amidst that.
We don't have telescopes that go beyond that little sphere there. He made that. That's really big. And yeah, sometimes I treat him like God in my pocket.
I don't realize how big and mighty and wonderful and powerful and granny OC is. Jesus said, on the alpha and the omega who is and was and who is to come. I was before all things. I'm in all things.
I made all things. I'm at the end of all things. So here's what I do. Sometimes when I go, I made a decision for Christ, but I'm not living.
I'm not living like someone who has the first thing I need to do is stop and go, whoa, whoa, whoa. I got to think about who I'm messing with. I have to understand how powerful he is, how wonderful he is, how huge he is. Second thing, why don't you understand how big he is?
If you ever got a glimpse, like you just did of his power and glory, imagine just a small glimpse. Do you know what your natural reaction would be? Pure terror, right? I'm dying to say something more profound than that.
But you could figure it out. OK, that's actually what the scripture say happens to people who have these glimpses of God. They unwind. They cower.
You would freak out. You would be totally scared to death. You would be. And should be very afraid until you remember number two.
Number two is this. He's bigger than you think he is. But man, he is so much better than you think he is. He's so much better than you think he is.
He's kinder. He's gentler. He's more loving and gracious and forgiving than you could ever understand. Guys, this Jesus that made all that.
This is the Jesus who somehow chooses tax collectors and prostituses as followers. This is the Jesus that not only takes on the lowest household servant by washing the feet of his disciples. This is the Messiah. This is the anointed one creator God who bends down and washes the feet of Jesus.
Do you know how good he is? This is the Jesus who cries and weeps with Mary and Martha over the loss of their brother. He weeps over the city of Jerusalem. Though it is in that city and those people who will wind up crucifying, this is the Jesus who touches and heals lepers.
This is the Jesus who feeds his disciples and all on Sabbath days. This is the Jesus who keeps parties going by making a new wine. This is the Jesus who cries out on the cross. Father forgive them for they know what not what they do.
This is the Jesus who takes words and puts them into action who restores Peter. Though he denied them three times and it says, Peter forget what happened in the past. You're the rock on which I'm going to build his church. He's so much better than you think he is.
If you do have biggie ones, if you got it for just a second, you might be scared out of your socks. But if you understood how much he loved you, if you could get a glimpse of what he left in the heavenly realm to come and get you the pain and the embarrassment that he endured for you to bring justice for you so that you didn't have to bear justice. If you got that, while you should be afraid, you would know that you do not need to fear because there is no fear in love. He's that big but you don't need to be afraid of him anymore.
Bibles is perfect love casts out all fear. You've never felt love like this, folks. You worry about putting on a few pounds and he might leave. You worry about maybe not making as much money and she might leave.
You worry about making mom and dad proud so that they still love you. You've never felt a love like this. Now here's how Jesus described it. He said, if you have kids, you'll understand this a little.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Just remain a my love. See, he's bigger than you think he is. And he's better than you think he is.
Here's the third thing I gotta say, and I'll be done. He knows so much more than you do. So please think. We say with our lips that he's Lord, but we live like functional atheists.
But if he really is big and if he really is good and if he really can be trusted, can I ask you a question? I'm gonna push on you a little bit this morning. I'll push you off when I'll push you a little bit. If he's really big and really good and really trustworthy, should he not be given some access into our lives?
Should he not have some say in our decisions? Should we not afford him some voice in how we live? If we decide he's the anointed one, that decision needs to impact other decisions. Let me give you some examples.
It's just really quickly. If he's that huge and powerful and important and weighty and trustworthy and good and he loves us more than we can imagine, then why don't we listen to him when it comes to things that are really important, like money? Why do we hoard it so much? Why do we trust it so much?
I mean, compared to what you saw in that video, how powerful do you think your money is? What could it buy you in comparison to the riches of Christ? Jesus talked more about money than any other thing. Why?
Because you have to make a choice, a decision about your money. It was Jesus who said you can't serve two masters. Either you're going to hate one or love the other or you'll be devoted to the one and despise the other. But you can't serve, got a money.
You have to make a choice. I'm sorry. It's not both and. It's either or.
You have to decide. Imagine the ministry. Imagine what happens in Pine Ridge. If the Christians of this world stop professing Jesus merely with their lips, but started believing that he was really big and good and powerful and started saying, you know what, he might know what he's doing when he tells me to do certain things.
Okay, I'm gonna give you one more and I'll be done. You won't like this one. How about our sexuality? Why do we confess with our mouths that he is, oh, he's the anointed one.
But then we treat our bodies, we use our bodies like functional atheists. Because what Jesus would say is, look, you have to decide. In fact, the truth is we often do decide when we just choose to live in regards to our sexuality as if he doesn't know what he's talking about. If he's as big and powerful in mighty as he is.
And if he is as for us and loves us and knows what's best for us as much as he says or we say he does, then why is it that when it comes to what is permissible sexually, we act like he is small, has no power and has no idea what he's talking about. Why is that? Why do, I mean, look, I'm not thinking about anybody here, okay, you know, I got issues, right? I got all the same stuff you're struggling with, so I'm talking about myself, so, you know, you know, what?
But here's what we do, I mean, I know this is what we do. We keep sleeping together outside of marriage. We keep moving in with each other. We do this at the same rate the culture does.
We keep moving in with each other. We keep trying to redefine the sexual ethics of God. I mean, does God get, does he get, given how big he is and how good is, does he get a chance to determine right and wrong? I mean, why do we keep cheating on each other and divorcing each other?
When did we marry the term sexual and experimentation together? Why do we keep marrying, again, this is not a judgmental thing. I'm just trying to process it in my mind about how we live, how I live sometimes. Why do we keep marrying people who don't love honor, cherish and follow Jesus?
Why do we do that? Because he would say, you know, you shouldn't do that. Not because he doesn't love you, because he loves you. I think we do it because we don't think he's all that big or all that right or all that good.
We kind of think when it comes to our money or our bodies, well, take it from here. Just keep the blessing coming on. So here's the deal. I'm gonna close with this.
If you're wondering sometimes why following Jesus has not given you the peace or the hope or the joy that you were promised, can I ask you a question? Here's the question. Who do you say he is? Have you lived as if he was merely a great teacher or a prophet or a good man?
That he's just one way, he's my way. He's my choice, but there's others. Have you lived that way? And as the band comes up, let me just tell you, when we live this way, and I've seen this in people, I do a lot of counseling, when we live this way, when we say we believe one thing, when we make a decision about one thing, but when we live a different way, it causes within us great instability.
It will keep you up at night. You will drive within you great anxiety, and frustration, and sadness, and depression, and loneliness. I think what Jesus would say to you is the reason that you are not experiencing, what I've promised you, the reason that you have not found what you're looking for is that a house divided against itself, it can't stand, it's unstable. Right after he got done saying, listen, I want you to understand, I love you.
Just the way my father loves me, this is what he said, this is what you've been looking for. He said this, if you would keep my commands, you'll remain in my love. Just as I've kept my father's commands, and I remain in his love, what keeps the flow, the connection between us and God, is that we live as he told us to live. I've told you this, why?
So that my joy may be in you. Everybody wants to be happy, just to say I want you to be happy too. I'm telling you how you were created, I'm telling you what will work for you, if you would just listen. I'm telling you this, so that my joy might be in you, and that your joy might be complete.
Who do the crowds say I am? They replied, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life. And what about you? What about you?
Who do you say I am?