Turn in your Bibles to John 1. Turn in your Bibles to John 1. We have been in the Scriptures over the last month working through John 1. And it's all about the start of Jesus ministry.
And John the Baptist has done a great job of introducing us to Jesus. And so he's had a couple interactions with Jesus announcing the arrival of Jesus and he's saying, the whole, the Lamb of God, the whole, the goat that takes away the sins of the world, right? And then his disciples abandoned John and they start following Jesus and and Jesus is interacting with them. And then he's quoting Isaiah 66 and it's all about every tribe, nation, tongue and people that Jesus is worthy of.
Jesus is the Messiah. There's all this great stuff that we've dove into. And now Jesus is in Galilee in verse 43. So we're picking up, it kind of feels like, okay, it's time.
Jesus is starting his ministry. And first thing that he's starting to do is he's starting to recruit a team. So he's got some experienced Bible knowledge guys, right? Because he's told he didn't steal.
I mean, John the Baptist, two of his disciples, start following Jesus. So these guys know their stuff, right? And one of them is Andrew. Andrew's brother is Peter, Peter, the apostle Peter, if you remember him, he wrote a lot of the New Testament, big deal, big deal, Peter.
And they had the interaction. And now Jesus is going for a couple more disciples. He's going to invite more onto the bus. And we're picking up in verse 43.
If you're there, say, I'm here. Verse 43, it says, the next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip, and he said to Philip, follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, which happened to be the same home town of Andrew and Peter.
And then Philip had another friend named Nathaniel. And he found Nathaniel. Yeah, I just love this. You know what?
When you meet Jesus, the news starts to spread. If you really meet him, you want to tell people about him, right? And so Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, hey, we found him. The one of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
Nathaniel looked at him and said, can anything good come from? Come out of Nazareth? And Philip said, come and see, which is quoting what Jesus said just a couple verses earlier. And it's the quoting of Isaiah 66, remember?
Come and see. Verse 47, Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him. So Nathaniel is just kind of dragging his feet, coming to see the Nazarene. And Jesus said, behold, in Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no deceit.
Now deceit is when you intentionally tell the half-truth, right? Or you're dishonest, you don't have character, and you're lying, right? So that's what deceit is. So Jesus is going, die of character.
And Nathaniel responds, yeah, how do you know me? All right, let's keep on reading. Nathaniel said to him, how do you know me? And Jesus answered him before Philip called you.
When you were under the fig tree, I saw you. And Nathaniel answered him, Rabbi, you are the son of God. You are the king of Israel. Jesus answered him, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe?
You will see greater things than these, Nathaniel. Verse 51, and he said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on me or on the son of man, right? So what seems kind of sideways when you look at this passage? I think the first thing that kind of feels sideways is him hating on Nazareth.
Come on, man. Doesn't he know that our daughter is named Nazareth? If you don't know that Katie and I named our fourth born Nazareth. And we named our Nazareth for multiple reasons.
And I won't get into all of the ins and outs of why we named her Nazareth. But one of the reasons is because when we look at Jesus' life, the most memories that he has from his life is in Nazareth. And he has the most history with God in his hometown. And we want the Lord to always be at home with Nazareth and Nazareth to always be at home with the Lord.
So that's why we named our Nazareth. There's other reasons. But hey, but I don't like Nathaniel because of what he said kind of irks me, you know, anytime I read it. I wonder what Jesus thought.
You know, Jesus probably knew that Nathaniel was hating on his hometown, right? But Nazareth, just sidebar, can we just kind of go like this has nothing to do with where we're going, but I just want to talk about it? Are we just let me nerd out? Come on, guys.
All right, Nazareth, it was a town started by a family that actually believed that they worked through their family lineage, that the Messiah was going to come through their family lineage. And their family name Nazareth was, it actually in Hebrew means branch. So like a branch of the Lord. So they're the people of the branch, which is a prophetic statement around like the branch of God is going to come into the Messiah.
So anyways, it actually happened. But Nathaniel, he grows up in Bethsaida, which is more of like a nicer town than Nazareth. Okay? Nazareth is on the backside of Israel.
It's not nice. It's like literally, you know, Nathaniel hears Nazareth and that the Messiah is from Nazareth. And that's like saying, you know, you grew up in Edina. And then your friend is like, yeah, man, the next big thing, like the king of the entire world, he came from East Bethel.
And you're like, really? How many of you are from East Bethel? Let's go. East Bethel.
Come on. It's a nice place. I'm just saying, you can get more bang for your buck out there, right? Amen.
Yeah, okay. But Nathaniel's kind of going, come on. We all know it's like 500,000 people in Nazareth. You know that that's not the spot, where the king is going to come from.
And so Nathaniel, he's got his opinions, but then he sees Jesus and Jesus' first words are, you're a man with no deceit. Now, what I immediately think is Jesus quoting a Bible verse. Like, why is he saying a man of no deceit? And the first, if you search that, you know, like I do on Google, man, I've no deceit.
Psalm 32 will pop up. Okay? So let's turn to Psalm 32. Remember, he's a rabbi, you guys.
He knows the word. So he's quoting Psalm 32. Keep your finger in John 1, though. We're going to go back and forth through the Old Testament and then John 1.
Here it is, Psalm 32, verse 2. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity. In whose spirit there is no deceit. So he's basically saying, hey, Nathaniel, you're blessed because you don't have any deceit.
All right, turn back to John 1. We're going to keep on going. John 1, here we are, verse 48. Remember, we're studying the Bible.
Like as we're going through John 1, what I'm doing is I'm leading us on a journey and we're going to be students of the Bible so we kind of understand it. So it might feel a little thick, but we like, I'm hungry. I want to know God, right? So like the whole purpose of what we're doing is to go, Jesus, if you were saying things, I want to know what you were meaning when you were saying those things because I want to know you and I don't want to know your heart.
Right? That's why we're doing this. We're not just, man, I want to know some Bible not. No, guys, we want to know him.
I want to know his heart. Why is he saying the things that he's saying? All right, John 1, verse 48, Nathaniel said to him, how do you know me? And Jesus answered him before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.
And then it feels so kind of weird to me. It doesn't seem weird to you that then Nathaniel, he's kind of crossing his arms, he's like, how do you know me? I would say that too. If somebody walked up to me and or maybe it was like, well, use Mark as an example, since you're here.
If somebody walks up to Mark and says, Mark, the man with no deceit, what an integrous man. Mark would be like, do I know you? Right? That's what he would say.
And then then Jesus goes on to say something about a fig tree. That feels a little confusing because then Mark responds to Jesus with, you are the king of Israel. Avry talks about seeing him in front of a fig tree. Doesn't that seem a little out of balance?
Like, okay, yeah, you saw me under the fig tree and now you're calling me the Messiah. What did Jesus, there's something hidden here? Right? Well, if you're a Jew, you understand Jewish idioms.
If you've been it every day for a while, you know, I'm the worst with idioms. Sayings, I mess them up all the time. Jesus doesn't mess them up ever, but I mess them up all the time. And so Jesus is quoting a Jewish idiom.
And it's this idea that some rabbis would go and they would teach next to fig trees in the first century. And it was this idea that, I mean, fig trees, if you've ever had a fig, it's like sweet, right? And so fig trees were kind of like candy trees. I want you to turn to your neighbor and tell your neighbor your favorite, even if you didn't come with anybody.
Just tell the people around you your favorite candy. Ready, say go. You got 10 seconds. Favorite candy?
Shame on all of you that have all men joy is your favorite candy. All right. Let's gather back some of you that have baby Ruth as your favorite candy. You got to find different candy.
Is that what it's called? Baby Ruth or baby Ruth? Baby Ruth. All right.
Fig trees were like candy trees in the first century in Israel, okay? And it was this understanding that if you got to sit under a rabbi's teaching, it was like you were sitting under a fig tree and eating the sweetness of the fig tree as you sat under the rabbi's teaching. So now we're starting to see Jesus is saying, hey, Nathaniel, hey, Nathan, he's going, I saw that you were under a rabbi's teaching and I saw that you were thinking about this concept of deceit. Now, how many of you know somebody in the Old Testament that had deceit, that was a deceiver?
Shout them out. Any deceiver. Jacob. Oh, Jacob.
What a guy. All right. Let's turn to Genesis 27. So all of a sudden, Jesus is talking about deceit.
Why is he talking about deceit? Genesis 27, what happens in Genesis 27? We see that Jacob has a grandpa named Abraham. Abraham gets this promise from God that he's going to have children and descendants as many as the stars in the sky, right?
And that through his lineage, every family in heaven and earth is going to be blessed through his lineage. It's great. Then he has Isaac and then Isaac and Rebecca, who do they have? They have twin boys.
What are the names of their boys? Jacob and Esau. Jacob is the guy that was known for being in the tents. So like he's a home body.
He stays at home. What a really, like you nobody wants that to be said of them. It's like, and Jacob was a home body. And then Esau is like the man of hair and the wilderness that was a hunter.
For all of you men in the room, you're like, I want to be Harry Esau. Maybe not. Some of you're, but Esau is a good cook too. So if you like cooking, I don't know why I'm saying this.
Okay, Genesis 27. Let's move on. So what's happening? Isaac, their dad is really old.
Isaac is going to bless Esau his firstborn. He's going to bless him with a double portion inheritance. Rebecca, Jacob and Esau's mom hears this and she likes Jacob more than Esau and Esau's loved by her dad or his dad more. So Rebecca's like, I want Jacob to get the blessing.
We're going to come up with a solution. We're going to deceive my husband, Isaac. And I'm going to have Jacob get like the blessing spoken over him rather than Esau. The way that I'm going to do it is I'm going to cook the meal because I know that Isaac can't even cook very well, but I know what Jacob can't cook the way that I can cook, but I'm going to cook the meal so that it seems like Esau cooked the meal.
Listen, you don't need to know all this other than Jacob deceives his dad to giving him the double portion blessing. Okay? So I want you to think about that. Jacob gets the blessing.
Jacob is blessed even though he's wicked and unrighteous. All right, let's go back to John 1. We're just trying to piece this whole thing together. You got to stay with me.
What we've learned so far, Jesus says in Nathaniel, hey, you're a man without deceit. You're a descendant of a deceiver though. Remember Jacob? Jacob, his new name was going to be Israel.
So in verse, here, where are we? Is it 47? Yeah, 47. Behold, in Israelite, a descendant of Israel, the original deceiver.
Even though you're a descendant of Israel, there is no deceit in you. So he's contrasting then Nathaniel says, how do you know me? He says, you were wrestling under the rabbis teaching. You were wrestling around how the heck are the wicked?
This is what I believe Jesus is answering because we're going to get there. Jesus is seeing Nathaniel wrestling under a rabbi's teaching. And the rabbi is teaching Psalm 32 that those that have no deceit are blessed. And I believe that Nathaniel is wrestling and he's going, okay, that's great.
I don't have any deceit and then I'll be blessed. But what about the people that do have deceit and are blessed? What about the wicked that are blessed? How many of you know?
Some of us, we've been wanting a promotion. Just listen, you're waiting for it to be about you. So this is about you now. Okay?
You're like, when is he going to get to me? And don't worry about it. It's right now. This is your moment.
This is all about you now. All right? How many of you know that feeling? Some of you can't see.
How many of you know that feeling? When you're like, you want the promotion and then the guy that has zero character, but then is like kind of, you know, the boss's favorite. They get the promotion. But you're the one that works harder.
You're the one that's more skilled and you're the one that deserves the promotion, but they got it. And you're going, okay, that's not fair. There's injustice. The one that's your coworker that's always self-promoting and you're like, nobody likes you.
But somehow, you always get promoted and you get the raise or you're going, this guy is not as skilled as I am. This guy doesn't work as hard as I do, but because he's a man, he gets promoted and I'm a woman in the workplace and I get the right end of the deal just because of my gender. Or you're going, okay, I won't fall on you. I'll try not to.
Could you be my spotter? Who knows what the Lord might do? He might. So then, and then some of us are going, how is it that I've been wanting to be pregnant for so many years and then that young girl and that young man, they get married and they get pregnant in like a month.
They don't even want to be pregnant. How is it? There's all of these injustices that are happening. How is it that I'm way more attractive than her?
I've got more integrity than her and I've got a better personality than her and now she's engaged and I'm not. I wouldn't want to engage that guy anyways, but still, how is this even possible? But in the lights up, I love it. It's like, Josh, you're really making this difficult on us.
There's all of these questions that we have of like, this is not fair and Nathaniel is wrestling with the same thing that you wrestle with oftentimes when you just feel like life isn't fair and you're in comparison mode. How is it that the wicked are blessed? This doesn't make sense to me. And all of the things that I would say, many of us don't actually want to talk about it, but we think it.
We think these thoughts, how the heck? That's usually how it starts when underneath the surface. Yeah, sure, of course, that happens for them and I'm still paycheck to paycheck and all of a sudden they hit the lottery of the spouse, the baby, the money, the house. How do they get a deal?
Oh, sure, they get an inheritance. Are you hearing me? None at no, you guys are like, no, no, no, no. I don't ever think that.
I'm always blessed, pastor. Well, at least Nathan's in the rest of the wrestle, Nate is struggling with it. Jesus knows it and then he's going, he's kind of shocked because Jesus reads his mail, because Jesus is going, I not only am seeing that you're wrestling under the rabbi, but I know I saw you and I had no way of seeing you and I know that you were wrestling under a rabbi's teaching and I know your character and Nathaniel's going, you're the king. Okay, even though you're from Nazareth, I believe you, I believe Philip, you're the king.
And then Jesus is so gracious and he says, you know the thing that you've been wrestling about? I want to speak to it. And I'm going to quote an Old Testament passage about the deceiver himself, Jacob. And what is he?
Quote, do you guys, do you guys see this? What does it say in verse 51? You will see heaven open in the angels of God ascending and descending. Where's that story where there's angels ascending and descending?
Shout it out. Jacob's ladder turned to Genesis 28. Jacob's ladder, Genesis 28. That's a chapter right after where we were earlier.
So Jesus knows there's tension because the wicked oftentimes get blessed and sometimes those without deceit, it doesn't seem like they get the rot into the deal sometimes and it doesn't make sense and it's unjust. Genesis 28, this is what Jesus is quoting. This is after Jacob totally acts like he has hair like Esau. He literally puts goats on the back of his neck because his dad's going to grab the back of his neck.
He puts goats hair on the back of his neck. That's how hairy Esau was. Literally had to put goat hair on his arm and neck. My gosh, just impressive.
Verse 10. Jacob left. So what happens? Jacob then realizes I got a flee from my life because Esau's going to try to kill me.
So he's on the run. He's tired after running. Jacob left Bishiba and went towards and he came to a certain place and stayed there that night because the sun set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and laid down on the sleep number in that place to sleep.
And he dreamed, behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth and the top of the ladder reached to heaven. Behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on, wait a second. Didn't Jesus just quote that? You see that?
There was a ladder set up on the earth and reached heaven and the angels were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood over it and said, I am the Lord, the God of your grandpa and the God of your father. The land on which you lie, I'm going to give to you and your offspring, your seed. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth.
You shall spread abroad to the west to the east. This is like I say 66 to the north and the south and in you and your offspring shall all the families, every tribe, nation, tongue and people, every people group will be blessed because of your family. Verse 15, behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. I will bring you back to this land.
For I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you. If you're at verse 16, say, I'm with you, then Jacob awoke from his sleep and he said, surely the Lord is in this place and I didn't know it. He was afraid and said, how awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.
So early in the morning, Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head as a pillow and he set it up for a pillar and poured oil on top of it. And he called the name, he set up a memorial. He called the name of the place, Bethel, but the name of the city was Luzz at the time. Then Jacob made a vow.
Look at this. Look at what he vows. If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, I and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my Father's house in peace. Then the Lord shall be my God.
And this stone, which I've set up for a pillar shall be God's house and all that you give me, I will give a full tenth to you just like my grandpa did. Okay. I know that was a long passage. As I look at the passage, I see, well, John 1, Jesus quoted it, right?
And I unpacked this story and I go, wait a second, there's something different here. Because Jacob, as he's talking about this moment that he has, and he says, this whole latter moment that I had, this has to be the gate of heaven. This location is like a portal into the heavenlies. This is like the overlap of heaven and earth here in this location.
And if you've caught something different in the passage of John 1, what does John 1 say? Jesus says, there's going to be angels ascending and descending, not on a location, but on a person. Okay. Do you know what I think about?
Jacob's going, this is literally the gate of heaven. This is the connection of heaven and earth. This is the way that heaven and earth come together as one. This is the overlap of heaven and earth.
That's what Jacob is saying. And Jesus is going, I'm the latter to heaven. I am the overlap of heaven and earth. I am literally the house of God.
If you want heaven to descend, you came to the right place because it's me. I am the access into the divine realm. That's what Jesus is saying to Nathan. I want you to look at Jacob's response again because Nate is still struggling with this problem of like, why are the wicked getting prosper though, right?
And I want you to see how Jacob, the deceiver responds to an encounter with God. Look at how he responds. After he encounters God, look at verse 20, he makes a vowel saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, if you're going to be with me, and you're going to give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, you're going to bring me back home to be at my dad's house, then you're going to be my God. This is so different than what Jacob was in Genesis 27 because in Genesis 27, he's like, money, money, money.
I want the double portion. I want the blessing. And now he encounters God. And guess what happens if you're just, if I'm just with you and you're with me and just my basic needs are met, you're my God.
Ooh, that feels different. That feels different than I'm going to deceive to get my way so I can get more money so I can get more cheap and cattle and goats, whatever it is. He's going, no, no, no, no. I'm content with just having clothing on my back, food in my mouth, and I get God.
Psalm 73, I want us to turn there. Psalm 73. I promise, you guys, promise we're going to, oh, connect. Psalm 73.
I know it's still fuzzy. I know it's still fuzzy. We're going to bring it home right here. Psalm 73.
This is giving language to our hearts. This is like what Nathaniel is struggling with. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. Psalm 73 verse 1.
But as for me, my feet almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Doesn't it annoy you when horrible people prosper? It's so annoying.
When those people that aren't even good people, they make a bunch of money and they always go on vacations and they have a bunch of kids and they're happily married. Can you believe it? I don't like them either. Yeah, I don't like them.
So I understand why you don't like them because they're the worst. They don't even have good personalities. Like who even likes having a conversation with them? They just can't even stand them.
Did you hear what they did? I know. I honestly don't even understand why God would bless them. They are so horrible and yet somehow they have way more money than I do.
They're way more happy than I am. They have the American dream. They have the better house. They always get the house.
Do you know how expensive houses are? Do you know how high interest rates are? But they have plenty of, they could just buy it in cash. They can just buy the house and it's $30,000 more expensive than the list price.
And all of a sudden they just sweep it out from under us. How am I going to get a house? Guys, right? And we don't say it in between our ears.
These are the types of things that go through our mind. In Asaph, the guy that wrote Psalm 73, he's actually willing to be real about it. He's actually willing to go like, okay, I got to tell you the truth of what I'm really like. He goes, this is what I really think.
Jesus knows. He understands. Are we okay? I know none of you have those thoughts though.
So just that was just me. That wasn't you. I know you're way more righteous. I know that you're, you have no deceit.
Verse four, for all of these wicked people, they have no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. Verse five, they are not in trouble as others are. They are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
Therefore, pride is their necklace. Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness. I was saying at the 230, that's like your half bath.
You know, like what you put on the wall and you frame it, that verse. Their eyes swell out through fatness. Psalm 73, seven, their hearts overflow with follies. Verse 13, all in vain.
This is kind of like what comes to the surface. We see the wicked beginning, bless. And this is what comes to the surface. All in vain, I've had integrity and kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
Is this all waste? Is obedience to God even worth it? Why am I even doing this? Why am I even being pure in my singleness?
Why am I even being faithful to God when everybody else is just going along and then they somehow find love? But then I'm actually a man of character and I'm a one of a character and all of a sudden I don't have anybody that's actually pursuing me. Why is it anybody liking me on the app when all she's doing is posting pictures of herself that are scandalous and all of a sudden she's getting all the action and I don't understand. I don't understand do they not know the character that I'm operating in and all of a sudden they're just so deceived.
She's deceiving them. She's an adulterous woman and of course she would get the action. You know, we just have these thoughts sometimes for 16. And this is what I believe Jesus is drawing Nathaniel to in Jacob's story.
I want you to look at what ASAP says. But when I thought how to make sense of the wicked being blessed, it kind of tired me out to even go there and think about it. It seemed to weary to me until I went into the sanctuary of God and I discerned their end. Truly you set them in slippery places.
You make them fall to ruin how they are destroyed in a moment. Swept away utterly by terrors like a dream when one wakes, oh Lord when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. This is where we go as new covenant believers, we go, Lord have mercy on them. In all of their deception, in all of their wickedness, Lord, I plead your mercy on them that they would come to their senses and be saved.
I don't want them to perish. I want them to meet you and you don't want them to perish either. You have in your heart that none would perish. So Lord have mercy.
Open their eyes to see, right? But this goes back into the heart zone for us when my soul was embittered and when I was pricked in heart. I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast towards you.
Oh my goodness. Are you hearing what ASAP is saying about himself? That's how he feels. Some of the things that I'm actually giving language to the room for that some of us are feeling.
Do you know what ASAP is saying to the example for us to be like, I'm going to be a mess and I'm going to come before God like a brute beast before God. I'm actually going to be real with how I feel about this. And look what happens. Because what happens is the tendency is for us to stay in our victim mentality, our mindset of like how dare they get blessed and I have to go through this and we stay there and we kind of mull over it.
None of you do this. None of you just stay in that for months or years, decades. And then you're wondering why you're miserable. You're wondering why you have such a bad attitude.
You're wondering why you wake up and you're like, should I wake up? I kind of don't feel like waking up. And why are all of these people around me such a nuisance? And inconvenience.
Everybody around me is actually leaching my life. And you're going like, man, why am I so miserable? And it's because you're alone in feeling sorry for yourself and you're alone in your meditation on the injustice that you are suffering in. And the Lord is going, you don't have to dare by yourself.
Bring your brute, ignorant beast of a self and an attitude. Bring that over here. Come on over. It's okay.
I'm not afraid of you. When you're at your worst, I'm not afraid of you when you're a mess. I'm not afraid of you when you're literally in this prickly, it's this prickly porcupine space. And the Lord's like, I'm not afraid of that.
Bring it to me. And look at what ASF says. I was like a beast. The Lord can handle you at your worst.
I was like a beast towards you. Nevertheless, I'm continually with you. And you hold my right hand. The Lord is like, you're like a beast before God.
And then the Lord's just like, hey, come here. Grab your hand. Hey, it's okay. We're going to be together.
You guide me with your counsel afterward. You're going to receive me to glory. Who am I in heaven but you? There's nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
Oh my goodness. All of a sudden you're like Jacob. You're going to be like Jacob. Where Jacob is desiring all these things and all of a sudden he encounters God and God starts holding his hand and then you start going, there's nothing on earth that I desire.
All this stuff doesn't really matter. All I desire is you. Because you're with me. And all of a sudden you're not alone in all of the stuff, all of the feeling sorry for yourself.
And look at what it says in verse 26. My flesh and my heart, my goodness may fail. But God is the strength of my heart. He's my chosen portion.
I get God. I get God. Man, I might not get the spouse. I might not get the baby.
I might not get the love story. I might not be loved the way that I want to be loved. I might not feel the play. I might not get the promotion.
I might not get the job. I might not get the famous. I might not get as many followers as the next person. Whatever it is.
All of a sudden you're kind of like, but I get God. And then all of a sudden you're like, everything comes into focus. Oh, wait. Now I start feeling like this is good.
Then you're like, I feel bad for that person that I used to be jealous of. Now all of a sudden you're like, I'm filled with compassion. I'm filled with compassion for that person that has eyes that swell out through fatness. I had to go back to it.
Just full circle. All of a sudden you're going, now I'm filled with empathy for them not knowing him and not having such connection that I have with the Lord because he's continually with me. Look at this. Verse 27, for behold, those who are far from you shall perish.
You put it into everyone who's unfaithful to you. And then verse 28, but for me, it is good to be near God. I've made the Lord my refuge. And I'm going to tell of all of his works.
Maybe you're like Nathaniel and you're in this tension of why are the wicked prospering? Why do those that have deceit get blessed? And I want you to know that there's a redefinition of what being blessed is in the kingdom. Being blessed is when you get God.
Jacob started, he immediately shifted into this mindset. He immediately went into, man, I get some clothes and I get some food, but if I get to be with him, that's what I was born for. And I just want to call us into this place, and Thomas, you can come to piano. I want to call us into the place of what Psalm 73 says in verse 22, I was brutish, ignorant, and I was like a beast towards you.
I want to invite you to be like a brute beast before God. I want you to bring all of the ick that you've been sitting in by yourself, mowling over. All of that stuff that you're going, why this and why that? And this isn't fair, and they have this, but I have that.
And all of the comparison, all of the self pity, all of the way, and so many of you, so many of us, you're going, man, I've got an addiction to pornography. I've got an addiction to drugs. I've got an addiction to alcohol. I've got an addiction to what, fill in the blank.
I've got to sin issue in this area. And if you boiled all of those things down, it's not even about that. You don't have a pornography issue. You have a self pity issue.
And you're thinking, man, this is a sexual perversion problem that I've got, but there's a whole root system underneath that. And that root system that's feeding that thing is actually what needs to get uprooted. And that thing that needs to get uprooted has nothing to do with your sexuality, or it may be what maybe does. But I want to call us into, man, we just got to be honest, with all of the frustration underneath the surface of I thought it was going to be different.
I thought my story was going to be faster. I thought things were going to look different by this time. I thought my story was going to be this, and it's that. And it's not fair what's happened.
It's not okay that they have this and they get invited to the parties and I don't even understand why I'm not on the invite list. Those types of things. And it feels all of the, see the Lord, I didn't prepare any of the things. So if you're wondering if I brainstormed like all of the examples that I gave, it was just all in the moment.
It was all spur of the moment. Okay. So if any of those resonated with you, it's probably the Holy Spirit just whoa, he's just like a sniper. I don't know what that is.
That's a phone arrow. What you were really designed for is to know the one that's the overlap of heaven and earth that can bring you up that ladder to see your whole story from a different perspective. You need someone like Jesus that doesn't dismiss Nathaniel's question, doesn't dismiss his wrestling. I want you to know Jesus is not dismissing your wrestle.
Jesus isn't dismissing going stop thinking that way. How could you think that? He's not saying that. He's going, it's okay.
It's a lot here. Come on. Come. I know.
It's ugly. Come on. You see how he is? And I want you to know that the end of you feeling safe with the Lord, he realigns you, he brings you up from a different perspective and then you go, I was really heavy.
I don't want to live that way. That mindset was actually hurting me, stealing from me. That mindset was actually destroying me from the inside. I'm so glad I don't have to live that way anymore.
It's good for me to be near God. That's what you're going to say. You're going to get brought up. It's been so foggy.
It's so discouraging. So heavy. And the Lord's going, whoo. Come on.
Brupees. Yeah. You. I just put, I just pointed you down, but I don't know.
I don't know if that's, I just, we're going to make a space where you can just be real, honest, vulnerable. You get to be your messy self on that topic. You know which topic I'm talking about. You know which one.
He knows which one that we're actually talking about. That thing that just is irking you all the time. How could this be? This feels so unfair.
I didn't think it was going to be like this. Not that, that thing. That's all stand. What I want us to do is I'm not going to have a guided ministry time tonight.
We're just going to host a space for anybody where this is a message that's resonating with you and you're going, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to bring him, me and all the mess in this area. I'm going to bring it to him. Maybe you're going, I've already brought it to him, but it's still, there's still ick there. There's still this like tinge that I can't shake.
The Lord's like, yeah, the whole thing. You can bring it. And so what we're going to do is we're just going to have a space. There's going to be people up front that are on ministry.
You guys can come right now if you're on altar ministry and they're going to be up here at the front. We'd love to pray with you after the service if you want to kind of be, have somebody with you and praying through that. But the altar is going to be open. I want you to know, altar is going to be open if you want to respond at the altar and just come before the Lord and just be real and honest with your tension of injustice.
And then I want you to finish though. So remember, you're not just, you don't want to stay there. So we like bring all of this to the Lord. But I want you to finish with Psalm 73.
Like I'm continually with you. I just, even when I don't feel it, I know that it's good to be near you. Okay, that's where you're going to finish this time. So it's not feel sorry for yourself the whole time.
That'd be miserable. You responded at the altar and then left more miserable than you came through. Oh my gosh. Remember, the Lord wants to encounter you in this space.
Okay. And so this whole room, we're going to exit quietly and we're not going to have any conversations in the prayer room after I commission you. And it's just going to be a space where we can spread out, get some elbow room, and just process with the Lord. Okay.
All right, Lord, we thank you, Lord. Lord, we thank you that you are the high priest that is the empathetic high priest. You are the bridge between heaven and earth. You're the overlap.
You're the ladder. And Lord, I thank you that you're not afraid of our strong emotions. You're not afraid of our disappointment. You're not afraid of the injustice that we've been grappling with.
You're not afraid of comparison. You're not afraid of self-pity. You're not threatened by questions. And so Lord, we come before you and we thank you that you promise your nearness.
We thank you that we get to be near God and that you're the one that holds our right hand. We love you and Lord, we go into this week for all those that are leaving. Lord, we go into this week holding your hand. Thank you that you're continually with us in Jesus name.
Help us to become aware of your presence in our everyday. In Jesus name, amen.