Above It All | Raise The Bar | Jeremy DeWeerdt

Hello, City First, it's good to see you here. Thank you for being here and a part of the church family. Wanna welcome everybody at Cape Coral, Janesville, God Behind Bars, City First anywhere in the Pando app, and we just say thank you for being a part of City First. And we're excited because we're in this series called Above It All, where we're talking about the most influential sermon to ever be preached in all the history of the world, which sounds super melodramatic, but it's actually fact, all right? The most influential sermon ever preached was by Jesus himself. It was called the Sermon on the Mount. It took place about 2,000 years ago, and there's not been any speech or sermon that has ever come close to having the impact of the Sermon on the Mount, not just on the American culture, but on cultures around the world over the last 2,000 years. And last week, we launched this thing talking about Jesus saying that we are salt and light. In other words, I explained that before Jesus tells us how to live, he told us basically who we are. In other words, identity before action, all right? And that we're influencers and we're illuminators. We're salt, we're light in our culture.

And then once Jesus established who we were as his followers, he launches into the rest of his sermon. And we're gonna launch into the first like few points of his sermon. He actually had six short but revolutionary statements on how to live that he launches right into, all right? And these six statements are full of truth, but also they're pretty blunt. In fact, some would even say they have some sharp edges to them. But Jesus is saying, if you do these things, you're gonna have a more abundant life. And so before we get into these six, let me real quickly just remind some of us of maybe our high school career or college career. For those of you that were a part of track, all right? How many of you ran track? Part of track, anybody? Yeah, a bunch of you. You know about this competition. It's called the pole vault event or pole vaulting. It's when an athlete runs with a pole and then uses the pole to launch over a horizontal bar that they could get over. And what the competition is, for those of you who don't know, they just keep on taking the bar and putting a little bit higher and a little bit higher. And whoever gets over the bar, the last one to get over it at its height gets the gold. And many people believe this is where

we get the term raising the bar. So raising the bar, someone comes to you and says, hey, listen, we need to raise the bar. Basically means we need to up the standard. We need to increase the expectation of our production or whatever it is. And you might have even had somebody do this. Maybe you had like a boss come to you or a parent and be like, hey, it's time to raise the bar. And when you tried to do it, maybe you looked a little bit like this. Watch this. Jump. Woo! This is the final one. Yes. Winning, winning, right? You're like, I tried to raise the bar. Didn't quite work. Well, today in the Sermon on the Mount, the portion we're gonna talk about, Jesus is raising the bar. And he's raising the bar on some of the rules or commands that are found in the Old Testament. Now, the Bible says this about Jesus. I'm gonna give you a little bit of foundation before I get into kind of my preach today, all right? I need you to understand the context. Jesus comes along and the Bible says about Jesus that he was the fulfillment of the law.

In other words, the law, the commands of God that are found primarily in the Old Testament, that Jesus didn't come to delete them. He didn't come to abolish them, but rather he came to fulfill them. What does that mean? It means that Jesus came not only to fulfill, but basically to raise the bar on the commands that are found in the Old Testament. Some people today think when they look at the Bible, they're like, oh yeah, the Old Testament, that's not as important. We need to focus just on the New Testament. That's the stories of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus, the plan of salvation, the letters to the church. We need to focus on the New Testament. But I would argue this, that the New Testament, yes, it's full of grace and love, but also the Old Testament is full of a lot of grace and love. And I would say that many people would say, well, the Old Testament's so judgy. It's so much like, you know, like rules and all that. Well, I would argue that the New Testament has a lot of commands and a lot of rules. In fact, Jesus takes what's in the Old Testament and he raises the bar. Jesus does not lower the bar of God's commands. He actually raises the bar of God's commands that are found in the Old Testament.

The laws and the commands of God are basically mainly stated at the beginning of the Bible, the first five books of the Bible. Now, Jewish people call the first five books of the Bible, or what we now call the Bible, calls it the Torah, the Torah, okay? Here's your history lesson. The first five books are like Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Jewish people call that the Torah, okay? Now, if you have ever read the first five books of the Bible, or even portions of them, I promise you one thing, you have a lot of questions. Because there are a lot of things in there that you're kind of like, that doesn't make any sense. There are commands in there that seem kind of like, like silly even, they don't even, they don't even seem relevant. Well, let me tell you, in the first five books, these commands can all be put into three categories. The first category is this one, civil commands. God gave civil commands to his people because the Jewish people at the time were going from Egypt into the promised land, but they had a 40-year journey in the wilderness. So it was during this 40 years that the commands of God are given, and basically these civil commands are like, how do you act with each other in the wilderness? All right, then there were the ceremonial commands.

These are the commands that God gave those people, specifically in the wilderness, how to keep clean. You gotta imagine, there are three million Israelites leaving Egypt and going to the promised land. Three million, all right? This is like a massive woodstock or something. Think about all of the potential for disease and problems and medical issues or whatever else. So these ceremonial commands basically were given by God how to keep clean. And then lastly, there were moral commands given. Moral commands were how to live, the ethics and the value systems that you should live by according to God's plan. Now, I'll just say this. As you read the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, some of the commands that are in there are no longer relevant for today. And the reason is is because God was giving the commands specifically to people that were in a wilderness, people that were traveling from point A to point B, trying to give them like instructions on how to be clean and all those things. But the moral commands, the moral laws that God gives are timeless. So the ones that do carry forward are the moral laws or the moral commands. We say, well, what's a moral command? Like, give me an example. Well, here it is right here, 10 commandments.

Those are moral commands. Like how many of you would agree that, you know, thou shalt not kill still is relevant today in 2025 as much as it was thousands of years ago, right? So again, moral commands, how we should live move forward and Jesus comes along and he's looking at these moral commands and he's actually raising the bar. Because when Jesus comes along, it's a long time after the children of Israel were in the wilderness. Culture has changed, context has changed, civilizations have changed. Jesus comes along a long time later and he's saying, hey, listen, these moral laws, they're still relevant, but let me show you a new way of looking at them. In fact, let me go ahead and raise the bar on them. See the religious leaders of Jesus's day, they were like trying to figure out what laws come forward. Like what laws are still relevant? What laws make you righteous with God? Like give you the category of being faithful to God. What laws should we obey? And the religious leaders of the day, they even invented some laws. In fact, in Jesus's day, do you know this? That the religious leaders taught that the people had to obey over 600 laws. Some of which God made and some of which man made. 600, I guarantee you, we probably can't even like remember 10 laws, let alone 600 laws.

And Jesus comes along and says, hey, listen, let me focus on some commands, the way that God wants us to live, but let me give you a little bit of new vision. Let me give you a little bit of a different look into it. to it. These laws are already stated, they aren't changing, they are good. And they are telling God's people how to live, but Jesus says, now let me actually raise the bar on the standard of these laws. If you've ever refurbished a home before, some of us maybe have, but like literally you gutted the house. There's a saying when you do it, you make sure that the home has good bones. What does that mean? It means it basically has a good foundation, it has good structure, the two by fours aren't rotted out, they haven't had termites or something like that, the load bearing walls are still intact. You look for good bones. You can take off the drywall, you can change the lights and the cabinets and all the other things, but you gotta make sure it has good bones. I say that because this is what Jesus is doing. He's saying, you know what, the laws, those moral laws, they have good bones. We're not changing those. What Jesus is doing is he's building upon

what is already good, what's already solid. And these laws are not meant to hold us back. God is not trying to be a cosmic killjoy, do you hear that? But rather teaching us how to live and have a more abundant life. So Jesus is saying, you wanna be a follower of God? You're salt and light, now let me tell you how to live. And so we pick up in chapter five of Matthew, the six laws that Jesus actually raises the bar on. Now, every single time that he is stating one of these six laws, he starts out the comment with this. He says this, you have heard it said. What he's telling the people is, you've heard these commands before, but then Jesus follows up and says, but I say to you, now he's building on the good bones. Now, we don't have time to go through all six topics today. If I were to do that, I wouldn't do them justice. And quite honestly, we'd be here for like, you know, like days talking about it. I'm only gonna hit on two of them, all right? But here are the six topics that Jesus was talking about. Murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, revenge, and loving those who hurt you. Real light, fluffy stuff. Jesus is saying some wild things in this passage. In fact, I'm just gonna paraphrase. Again, I might come back and teach about this at some point in the year, but you know, he's talking about like, hey,

you've heard it said don't murder, but I tell you, if you have called your brother or sister a fool, you will be in danger of the fires of hell. That's what he said. It's like, okay. He said this, he goes, you've heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you. Don't just love those that love you, love your haters too. Okay. He said this, he goes, you've heard it said don't commit adultery, but Jesus says, I tell you, if you look at a woman lustfully, you've already committed adultery in your heart. If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out, he said. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better that you lose parts of your body than your whole body go to hell. This was a very uplifting sermon that Jesus was giving. I mean, could you imagine, it's kind of what you're feeling right now. Like you're there 2000 years ago, you're listening to this and you're like going, dang. Like, I don't even know what to do with this, right? I mean, Jesus is saying the Torah says don't commit adultery, and yet he said, if you have lusted in your heart after somebody and you're married and you lust after somebody else, or if you lust after someone who is married,

you have already committed adultery in your heart. Do you think that Jesus is actually lowering the bar of the Old Testament? Or do you think he's actually raising the bar, right? He's scrambling all of our ideas of the value systems that many times we think are in place. Jesus is turning it all upside down. This is what he's really saying, okay? Let me boil this down, make it simple, because I'm a simple person, all right? He's basically saying, it's more than a law, it's about your heart. It's more than just a law, it's about your heart. It's not just obeying an outward rule, but rather it's an inward state of your heart. Why is he saying that? Because let me use adultery as an example. Adultery never begins in the bedroom, it begins in the heart. The bedroom only takes place after already the choices have been made in the heart. So Jesus is going, hey, hey, this is the thing. Yeah, we'll talk about the law, but let's talk about the heart because God looks at the heart. He looks at our motives. It's possible to look clean on the outside and looks like you're obeying all the laws, but to still be kind of dirty on the inside. Matthew chapter 23 says this,

woe to you teachers of the law, Jesus says, who are the Pharisees. He says, you hypocrites, you clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Jesus was pretty forthright at points. And he's looking at these Pharisees, he's like, you've cleaned the outside, but the inside, your heart, still pretty dirty. You ever over-packed your dishwasher before? Like you put it in there, you put your little puck in there or whatever you use, you turn it on, does the wash cycle, does the dry cycle. You go to take out the clean dishes, they look clean. You pick up the bowl, it's clean. And then you look underneath and there's food caked on the inside. All right, that's what he's getting at here. Jesus is going, you look clean on the outside because you are obeying the law, but on the inside, it's the heart that God is looking at. It's the motive, it's the thought life, it's all of those kinds of things. Outward appearance is not enough, inside is what really, really matters. Now we hear that and we immediately, 100% of us feel guilty, right? Because you're like, oh man, I think some things that I hope no one ever knows. Like I was driving to church

and somebody in a minivan cut me off and I thought some things. Do you mean God knows what I thought? Yeah. Here's the thing, in the remaining time together, I wanna talk about two of the six statements that Jesus made, only because I don't have time. Jen even looked at me this week and she's like, you need to preach a whole series on all six of them and maybe we'll do that at some point. But today I'm gonna tackle two of them because quite honestly, it's all we can handle. I mean, I literally, I'm like, this is heavy stuff, man. I mean, come back next week, we'll talk about whatever. You know what I mean? We'll talk about unicorns, okay? We'll talk about whatever, it'll be nice. We'll giggle, we'll have balloons, okay? I don't know. But this week, this week, it's kinda heavy. But yet, I think this is what we want. We wanna know what Jesus is really saying. Matthew chapter five, verse 33 through 37, he says again, you have heard it said, there's that statement. He's saying, you know the law, you know what's in the Old Testament. Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made. But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all,

either by heaven, for it is God's throne, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply yes or no. Anything beyond this comes from the evil one, all right? Now, most of us read that and go, huh? Like, it kinda doesn't make sense. But I'll tell you what Jesus is talking about here. He's talking about the authenticity, and get this, the truthfulness of your word. I felt this one would be appropriate to talk about because of our day and age that we live in. I'm generally speaking here, I'm not trying to be all judgmental on every single human that walks the face of the earth, but just generally speaking, it seems like now, people, especially Americans, are living more by their feelings than by their commitments. They're living more by what they feel in the moment than what they've even stated with their words. I don't know if this resonates with anybody in here, but I'm just being honest and transparent for a moment. I'm finding it increasingly harder and harder to trust people's words. Because, I don't know about you, the older you get, the more you realize people give you lip service. They tell you what you wanna hear or what they want you to hear,

and then they do what they're gonna do, right? I mean, like, it's interesting, I think healthy relationships must be, it's not an option, must be based on truth and trust. If you have a dating relationship, a marriage, a business partnership, a community, even co-workers, best friends, there has to be trust and there has to be truth. You can't have a relationship where there isn't trust or there isn't truth. It's not a real relationship. So what Jesus is hitting on here is he's basically saying people are making promises, old-fashioned word, oaths, and they're breaking them. They're making a promise on Tuesday and breaking the promise on Wednesday. And they would use the God in heaven to kind of give weight to their promise. They would swear by God. I swear by God that I'm gonna do this. I swear by some earthly thing or heavenly thing or God. And then what they would do is they would break their oath. And Jesus is simply saying this, just let your yes be yes and your no be what's the word? No. Be a man or woman your word. I love how the Bible Project, which is a great organization, how they explain this passage. And I'm quoting them here. It says this, in essence, the swearing of oaths that Jesus targets here is about invoking something or someone else, especially God, to make your words seem, listen, more significant and more weighty. The aim is to impress others with your seriousness or your piety so that you can get what you want. It's a device of manipulation designed to override the judgment or input of others in order to possess them for our purposes. Instead of loving and honoring others with truthfulness, the intent is to get one's way by verbal manipulation of the thoughts and choices of others. Let me put it in modern-day church, especially Pentecostal charismatic language. Well, God told me. Hear this all the time. Well, God told me this. Yeah, but you committed to this. Yeah, but I prayed about it and God told me. And we add God to our decisions or our choices to make them seem like they're correct. And by the way, the minute that somebody looks at me and says, well, God told me, it ties my hands. What am I gonna say at that point? No, God

didn't. You know, like if I had a dollar for every time that someone has made a commitment and then broke it because God told them, I would be a very rich person. I wouldn't need a 401k. And the same with you, right? I mean, I've had I've had people tell me crazy things. I've had people tell them that God told them it was okay to have an affair on their spouse. I've had people tell me that God told them they didn't have to pay back a loan. I had God, you know, people say that God told me that, that you know what, they committed to something and now they don't have to do it because God told them. Like, like listen, if we keep on putting the label of God on our sporadic decisions, we make him look like he's schizophrenic. Amen? Oh, I know. I know it's a little thick and a little heavy right now, but so many times we change our mind so we say, well, God told us, so somehow it makes us feel better about our lack of commitment. It makes us feel better about living by our feelings. It makes us feel better about entering into an impetuous agreement without thinking it through. We should have taken our time, but instead we impetuously said yes and we should have said no and now we need to get out of it. And so we use God as our scapegoat. Well listen, God never contradicts his word, for one. So God is not gonna give you, sorry sir, he's not gonna give you permission to commit adultery on your wife. He's just not gonna do it, all right? But secondly, God will not have you enter into a promise and then give you permission to break that promise, because here's the reason why. It actually makes him look bad. And God is a God of his word. And so many times we put God into it, or we say that we prayed about it now, and all of a sudden we're doing a 180 from what we said we were gonna do. And listen, city first, if we want to truly be salt and light in our communities, if we really want to, then when we say, I will pay you back, pay them back. When we say I commit, commit. When we say I will show up and I'll be there at a certain time, we are there at that time.

Now, obviously there's times that we're late because of circumstances out of our control. This isn't about perfection, but I'm talking about how many times you've been stood up by somebody. How many times you've been promised by somebody you love, I'll do this for you, and then they don't do it. You know, and then even more egregious, they spiritualize it and they put God into the mix and somehow God told them, you know, we as a church, I just wanna say, we need to make sure that when we say God told us something, which he does speak to us, but when he tells us something, we better be darn sure it was God. Let's not flippantly just throw that around. What this really does, what Jesus is saying, is he's saying it forces us to think before we speak. Don't make some flippant commitment. Don't make a promise. Don't go to a marriage altar. Don't take out that loan from something until you've really thought it through and prayed about it. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. In fact, what God is saying here, what Jesus is saying is you don't even have to bring God into it. Just be a trustworthy person. When you say it, mean it. When you promise it, do it. Because your life is a sermon and that sermon is informing others

about the God that you serve. Give an accurate description of what he looks like. He doesn't change his mind with the blowing of the wind, even though you might. So here's the thing. We should be reliable. We should be dependable. We should be trustworthy individuals. Y'all still with me? Still love me? Because here's the thing. Today, Pastor Cameron looked at me, he was like, you were preaching. I'm like, I know, I know, but it ain't me. I'm just preaching what Jesus said. You know what I mean? Don't shoot the messenger, all right? Here's the thing. Jesus is going, let your yes be yes and your no be no. In our remaining time together, what's another one of the six topics? This one's a doozy, all right? Turn to the person next to you and say, buckle up, buttercup. Matthew 5, verse 38. Jesus says this. Again, pulling back from an Old Testament law. You've heard it said, eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, but I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, punch them out.

No, no. Turn to them, the other cheek also. What? And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Okay, there's a lot of loaded stuff in here that is super complex. And I'm gonna tell you right away, before I explain this one, Jesus does not put a bow on this thing and make it all make sense. In fact, after I get done preaching this point, you're gonna have maybe more questions. And there's another part of the Bible that says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. In other words, take what Jesus said and you're gonna have to apply it to your specific circumstance because I can't give a blanket that works for every circumstance. But what really Jesus is saying here is don't take revenge and don't try to get even. Sometimes don't even try to win. He uses three analogies. Someone slaps you, someone sues you, and someone makes you walk a mile.

So let me explain those. But before I explain it, what really Jesus is trying to tell us to do, and I want you to remember this term, he wants us to have subversive generosity. Subversive generosity means that you aren't being overtly generous in the sense where you're giving to the poor, you're doing food distribution, you're whatever. No, but instead it's subversive. In other words, what you're doing is when someone is trying to do a power play with you, you give generosity back. Now, this is the exact opposite of what you want to do. And there are obviously limitations and certain circumstances that need to come into play. But what really is going on here is that Jesus is saying someone doesn't take anything from you if you give it. So if you give it, they didn't take it. Who has the power then? In ancient civilizations, especially when Jesus was walking the face of the earth, middle-class people. people and even those with resource did not have large wardrobes, okay? This wasn't like how we in America now, you go to Walmart, Target, Nordstrom, wherever it is that you shop, and you buy your T-shirts and your shirts or whatever else,

and you have multiple pairs of jeans or whatever. It wasn't like that. They basically, even your middle class only had about five articles of clothing, and they would just wear them over and over again. And much like this outfit here, not exactly obviously, but I have a shirt, and then I have an outer shirt or whatever. Well, people back then had clothes, and then they had a tunic that went over it. And Jesus is saying, if someone asks for your shirt, don't just give them your shirt, give them your tunic also. This would have been maybe a third of their wardrobe. Give it. And you know what? Once you did that and you took off your shirt and your tunic, you're kind of in your underwear at that point. And Jesus is going, yeah, it looks like that person took advantage of you, but they really didn't. Put a pin in that, I'll come back to it. Another thing too, back in that day, Roman soldiers by law could look at any person and say, you can carry my pack and my equipment for one mile. It was a law, you had to do it. So you might be on your way to a birthday party with your family,

you see a Roman soldier, he points at you and says, carry my stuff. You had to by law, you had to pick it up and carry it a mile. The law said though, the soldier couldn't make you carry it a second mile. He could only make you carry it one mile and then you'd put it down and he'd have to find somebody else to carry it. Jesus is saying, hey, listen, if somebody tells you to go a mile, go two. Who is in control when we choose to have subversive generosity? Let me give you the example. In that scenario of a soldier and you're carrying the equipment and all of that, his backpack and all that for a mile and you decide to go two mile, who has the power? See, hey, he had the power for the first mile. Now you have the power in the second mile. It's a power dynamic thing that we do as humans. And Jesus has given us a solution here. Now listen, I debate using the story I'm about ready to tell you because it's so complex and also there's a lot of people that have experienced this at City First. But I was talking many, many moons ago. This was a long time ago.

I was talking to a guy who's going through a divorce and the divorce is starting to get ugly as divorces get. And he said that he felt like he was being fair by splitting what they own, but his soon to be ex-wife wanted more. And he just started explaining it to me. And he was like, man, I can't believe she wants this and da, da, da, da, da. Something dropped in my heart based upon this story that Jesus is giving us here. And I said something to him. I looked at him, I go, give her what she wants. And he's like, what? Give her what she wants. He's like, why would I ever do that? I said, well, two reasons. Number one, you'll make the money back. Because this is one thing I know about money. The older I get, the more I realize it comes and goes. Right? I told him, you'll make the money back eventually. I go, but the second reason is more important. If you fight over pennies, you're gonna lose your soul. If you fight over pennies, you're not gonna sleep at night because you're gonna be so angry. You're gonna have a bitter root growing inside. You're gonna be driving down the road in your car, having an argument with your ex-wife, and she's not even in the car.

I'm telling you, it's not worth it. Your peace is more precious than your pennies. So therefore, give her what she wants. And move on. Now, let me say this. This comes with an asterisk. I'm not saying that advice works in every divorce. So don't hear that. Don't hear me saying that. It was for that person in that situation. But I think the key is this, is that when you are more generous, subversively generous, when someone's trying to do a power dynamic on you, you're the one that actually gets the power then. Like, you're the one that actually is the bigger person. You're the one that actually is, and it's not about control, but you at that point are in control. Someone can't steal something from you if you don't. give it. And Jesus is saying, in life, you're gonna have all kinds of power dynamics. In your business, at school, on your sports team, in your relationships, in your marriage, your dating, your neighborhood. You're gonna have all kinds of things. And he's saying, be subversively generous so that you actually don't fall into the trap of fighting for power. But rather instead, be generous. Go ahead and take it. Oh, you want my coat too? You want me to go the extra mile, soldier? I'll do it. See, at that point, who has the power? Who has control? Paul says this, and I close. Romans chapter 12, 14 through 21. Bless those who persecute you. Bless those, and bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do

not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you. It may not be dependent on the other person. The other person might not play right or fair, but it depends on you. Live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written, it is mine, capital M, that means God. It is God's to avenge. I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Oh, this is upside-down living, and I'll be honest with you, I don't even like it, but it's right. Two things. Be a person of your word, and don't get caught in the fight of power dynamics. Like that old adage, we say it here in the Midwest a lot, but you know what? If you wrestle with a pig, you're gonna get mud on you. And when you go wrestling, getting your way, getting revenge, all those kind of things, guess what? You leave dirty. Instead, be subversively generous. How does this apply to your life? Well, you're like, I guarantee you, right now you are thinking of a circumstance, and you're thinking of what Jesus said, and I just talked about, and you're going, that doesn't make sense, right? It's a fight. There's a tension there. You're like, yeah, but you don't know what she did. You don't know what they said, or I needed to get out of that commitment, or what? I mean, there's all those things, and I would just say, just live in that wrestling moment and allow the Holy Spirit to speak and tell you how to move forward. Be a person of your word, and be a person who says, I'm gonna be subversively generous. That way, I'm not fighting for the power. I have it. I'll be the bigger person. Let's go ahead and pray. Lord, I just thank you. I thank you, Lord, that even the tough passages are the ones that we can learn from, and today, just these two, man, they're so heavy. They have so much weight, and Lord, I just pray that we would lean into them, and we think about them, and we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, that there would truly be a sense of wrestling with what you said, and then applying it to where we live. And God, I do pray, help us to be people of

our word, and help us to be people who don't take revenge or try to get even. This will be one of the multiple ways that we'll be salt and light. We love you in Jesus' name, and everybody said, amen. Come on, let's give God a huge round of applause, can you? What an amazing message today. So much really good truth to think about as we go into this week. I would like to say that every time that we gather, we really like to make sure that we give the opportunity for life change, and the opportunity for hope. opportunity for you, if you have not yet, to make Jesus the leader and forgiver of your life. And so I'm just gonna pray a prayer real quick, and if that's you and you're like, I'm looking to make that change in my life right now, just repeat this after me. Dear Lord, I know that I've made mistakes and need your forgiveness. I believe that you died for my sins. I now invite you to be the leader and forgiver of my life. Thank you for the purpose I know this is going to bring. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. I know that's simple, but if you just prayed that prayer, we wanna celebrate with you. What an amazing, one of the biggest decisions you'll make in your life. So life-changing. There's a couple things that I wanna bring to your attention though, and the first is, if you made that decision, tell somebody. Drop it in the chat, tell somebody else that you know. You're not meant to do this journey by yourself,

and we really wanna go with you along the whole way. The second thing is, scan that QR code on the screen or on our app or website, download our New Beginning resource. That is gonna help answer the question, now what? So I just prayed this prayer, I gave my life to God, now what do I do? What's the practical side of that? So that's gonna be a huge, huge resource for you. I'm gonna invite Calum in here, who's gonna help us with some more next possible steps. Right after you walk through the next, or the New Beginnings book as your next step, a great follow-up to that is to go through GrowthTrack. And all GrowthTrack is, it's a pathway to discover what your divine design is and what God has for you and where he has your heart really on fire for. And so for me, that was youth ministry. I found out that I have a really big heart for the youth of Rockford, and so I got to pour in there. And we just think that GrowthTrack is for everyone, no matter where you're at in your journey, whether you're at the very beginning, or you're years down the line, we think there's something really beneficial that everyone can get. Yeah, it's so good. And again, if you have a prayer request, drop it in the chat or go to our app and place it in there.

We wanna join with you in prayer and just agreeing for whatever it is that you have going on in your life right now. We also have additional resources available on that app, so check that out. Yes, and we say it every week, but it's because we mean it. The best thing you can do is keep coming back to church. Keep coming back. We love you City First Anywhere, and we are praying that you guys have an amazing week, and we will see you next time. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.