Come to Me | Rest For Your Soul

All right, I'm gonna invite you to stay standing. I'm gonna invite you to stay standing for the reading of our teaching text. Tonight's teaching text comes from Matthew chapter 11 verses 25 to 30. And I invite you to stay standing as I read this text. It says, at that time Jesus said, I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you are pleased to do. All things have been committed to me by my father. No one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and those to whom the son chooses to reveal him. Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. This is the word of the Lord. Well, you can be seated, good evening. Just before we jump into this passage tonight, I wanted to just refresh your memory of two really amazing things that happened this past week. Did any of you get a chance to go to the Generations Gallery? Anybody? It was way better than that.

It was incredible. About 370 people packed into a room. And there's multiple things I loved about it, but I did wanna say thank you. If you give to our church, you may not know this, but you are a micro patron of the arts in New York City, because our church commissioned these artists to create these works. And that might not sound like a lot, but it's very, very important. In modern days, the church has had an awkward relationship with artists. Artists in many ways have felt that the church just uses their gifts to increase production value in the church or whatever. And they don't feel seen and recognised for the vocational call outside the church. So this was our attempt to fund and commission artists in their area of gifting. And you know, a lot of times, if we can just be really honest, Christian art has, particularly in the early 2000s, was just bad. It was just bad art. But everyone gave it a pass because it was for Jesus or whatever. This was fantastic. And the honesty and the heart and the stories behind some of this, it was really, really beautiful.

I remember Marco Fujimura, who's one of the founders of the International Arts Movement, when visiting our arts ministry said, I dreamed there would be a room like this of artists in New York City. And so to see other generations see what's happening now and affirm it and know that you, through your generosity, are helping make that come true is really something special. So thanks for being a part of that, really important. Also yesterday, this may not be that interesting to you, but it's really good. Our church helped sponsor an event yesterday that was a State of the City Leadership Summit for New York. And that may not seem like, well, why does that matter? What does that mean? Here's why. We wanna, as God's people, serve New York City well. But a lot of times you read the headlines or you watch a reel or a TikTok and you don't have an accurate view of the city. It's a very, very small slice and it's very distorted. But our church paid for and commissioned the gold standard of research about the levels of human flourishing and the state of spirituality in New York City. We used the Harvard Human Flourishing Framework for it.

And here's why this, well, this was led by Guy Wasco, who's the Executive Director of Thought.NYC. But the goal of it was to help Christian leaders know what's actually happening in neighbourhoods across New York City, so they can serve it with an informed, not just a speculative framework. And this will go on to serve hundreds, possibly thousands of leaders. So they can be spirit led, but also data informed about the actual state of things here in New York. And so you've got pastors, you've got leaders, you've got nonprofit leaders who are getting research and information on how to skillfully. and strategically serve New York City. And you helped fund that. So I wanna say thank you for that. So there's gonna be leaders all over New York who are leading better with clear information and research because our church was willing to make that happen for others. So I just wanna say God is doing great things through you. And I don't want you to miss out. You may come on a Sunday and think, wow, you know, Sundays. It's like, mate, Sundays are the tip of the iceberg. What God's doing, amen? I'm gonna need a bit more of an amen from that

before we get into this. Amen? Amen. Well, tonight we are wrapping up our series called Come To Me. And we're trying to answer the question, is what we've been trying to look at. Why Jesus? Why Jesus? Jesus lived 2000 years ago. He appeared for approximately just over three years in public ministry, taught God's Word, raised disciples, claimed to have risen from the dead. And today, Christianity is the largest religion in the world. Why would people still believe in Him? And I wanna just tonight close this series out by telling you why. GK Chesterton said this, a dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it. I think in many ways for the last 30, 40 years, particularly here in the West, the stories and streams of our culture just have been dead. And I believe this because I look around at our world today and you see things like unprecedented levels of suicidal ideation, stress, anxiety, conflict, war, cultural division and hatred. The streams flowing out of the stories, our cultures telling in many ways feel dead.

And any dead thing can just float down the stream. But some people are saying, is there another story I can live in? And every now and then, if you're drifting downstream in stories of death, and you see someone swimming upstream, you're like, where are you going? You're alive, you're not just going with the flow. And I think that what's happening is people are saying, is there anything else other than these cultural narratives? And people are finding Jesus and saying, yes, there is. This is not just, again, speculation. I came across this research report this morning that they're talking about how the nuns have hit a ceiling. What that means is that people who are sort of deconstructing their faith, denying their faith, walking away from faith, have plateaued. Now, in the 2010s, how do you even define that era? The 2010s, is that how you say it? The 2010s. Here in New York, there was a massive movement around the idea of new atheism. And this was Christopher Hitchens, this was Daniel Dennett. There was a bunch of folks who were sort of pushing this movement. And everybody was worried that millennials, which was the generation before Gen Z, some of you don't know any other generation than your own,

it was them that was sort of advocating for the rise of new atheism. And I just wanna tell you that that movement seems like it has failed. Part of why it's failed is it's not enough for the human heart. You'll remember a couple of weeks ago, I talked about the danger of narrow framing reality. So I talked about what happens. Next slide. I talked about, this is from the book. I can't remember the name of the book because I'm very struggling to preach with my tiredness. So forgive me. I'm still jet lagged from being in Australia. That's a nasty trip. It's a great country, but a nasty trip. Daniel Coyle, who wrote the book, The Culture Code, has a book on finding meaning. And he talks about awakening cues where, for the most part, secularism has narrow framed reality. But in order for us to make sense of the beauty of the human experience, we need to open the aperture of our hearts and perspective to include things like beauty and meaning and wonder. And I think a lot of people are, next slide, I think a lot of people are currently doing this. They're looking for more than just sort of a harsh secularism or a selfish self-definition. And this is being borne out.

But I want you to see this. It is not every kind of Christianity that is growing, that is going upstream. So this is what blows people's minds. It is conservative, traditional Christianity that is thriving in the West. we know this, the story of the church in New York is you've got large progressive liberal churches with huge buildings and tiny congregations. And the conservative churches have massive congregations and they can't get a building to fit in. And it's because there's no, radically progressive liberal Christianity is just secular humanism with a bit of religion sprinkled on top. And for the most part, people are like, I think I'll just do secular humanism. Like it's a lot less of a hassle. And so people want a robust faith. Brendan Manning says this, I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly father, nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no abhorrent behaviour or desire of mine that he will not condone. I want a relationship with the Abba of Jesus who was infinitely compassionate with my brokenness and at the same time, an awesome, incomprehensible and unwieldy mystery.

And that is the faith that is offered in the Christian tradition. More and more people are seeming to find life in what Jesus taught. You may have heard of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She was a conservative Muslim. She grew up as a conservative Muslim who converted to atheism and advocated for women's rights in the Muslim community. And then to everyone's shock and horror, she converted to Christianity. And she was, so just think, why would you be a fundamentalist Muslim who converts to atheism, who then says, actually, Jesus is what I'm looking for. And here's what she said, I've also turned to Christianity because I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable, indeed, very nearly self-destructive. Atheism failed to answer a simple question, what is the meaning and purpose of life? And she was like, I actually think Jesus has the most compelling vision of this. You may feel like, well, I don't know who she is. Do you know who Daddy Yankee is, Gasolina? Everybody's talking, listen, everybody's talking about Bad Bunny's performance at the halftime show, mid at best, but Daddy Yankee, that's not even controversial.

They had to add crowd cheering because no one in the room was cheering. Gosh, perspective. Anyway, Daddy Yankee, Daddy Yankee said this, you were in church, didn't even watch yet. Daddy Yankee said this on his farewell tour, family, this day for me is the most important day of my life. Tonight I recognise and I'm not ashamed to tell the whole world that Christ lives in me and that I live for Him. This is the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. When Daddy Yankee is singing songs about the blood of Jesus for Good Friday, he's swimming upstream in a culture. You probably saw this, this was making its rounds in Christian media. OnlyFans star Nala Ray declares faith in Jesus, gives her life to Jesus. Now, I want you to note this. Many people say the church has a terrible repressive sexual ethic. So she grew up in the church, she runs away, but isn't it fascinating that when she needs mercy and hope, she comes back to the church and not to the world when she needs that mercy? It's an amazing thing that someone says, I think Jesus is the person that will show me the mercy that I need.

And so I think many people are looking at the person of Jesus in the midst of all of the other options and they're saying, when Jesus says, I'm the bread of life, I'm interested in that sort of fulfilment that he's talking about. When Jesus says, I'm the light of the world, I need that kind of illumination into spiritual realities. When Jesus says, I'm the good shepherd, people are like, I need someone I can follow that I trust. When Jesus says, I'm the door of the sheep, people want that access into the inner ring. And Jesus doesn't just invite you into a church or a religious tradition, you're invited into the community of the Trinity. Jesus says, I'm the resurrection and the life, he opens the door beyond the grave. Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth and the life, you can trust him. And Jesus says, I'm the true vine, he offers power from above and the power of love so your life can bear the fruit of what it wants. So I think many people, surprising people are all saying, these dead cultural streams, they're killing me. And they're seeing people start to swim upstream into a different story and they're drawn to it. John wrote this, John 20, 31, that these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.

So John writes his gospel, so you believe that what he says about Jesus is true. But the point of it is not just to persuade your mind, he says this, and that by believing, what does it say next? You may have life in his name. And many, many people are finding out that that life that Jesus is talking about is actually the life my heart has longed for. So three reasons tonight why you should come to Jesus to close this series out, okay? Here's the first one. You should come to Jesus to find the fulfillment of your deepest longings. Now, we are creatures of longing. It is, I think, therefore I am, uh-uh. I want, therefore I am, is a better explanation of how the human heart lives. But you all know this. Have any of you ever longed for the wrong thing? Anybody? Like, wow, I absolutely want that, and that's not good for me, but yay, here I am, I want it. One of the great things we need is to discern and understand why we want what we want. Ralph Martin says this in his book, The Fulfillment of All Desire. In order to make room for more of God in our life, we need to let go of the things that are currently filling our heart and reorder the things

that are not properly ordered in Him. If we are to overcome our love, listen, if we are to overcome our love and attraction for the lesser things, we must replace it with a greater love, a greater attraction, which is love for God. I don't think people understand that's what Christianity is doing. It is not trying to repress your desires and say don't want things. It's saying the things you want are not gonna work. You need to elevate and have greater desires, and the greatest desire is for God. We live in a culture that suffers from the plague and condition of miswanting. This phenomenon of misjudging what will make us happy is called effective forecasting. And as humans, we miswant a lot of things that we've been conditioned to believe will make us happier than they actually do. New York City is a case study in miswanting. Now you might be like, yeah, but listen, man, I'm burning. I'm like, I'm hungry. Well, of course you are. That's why you're so great. That's why I love New Yorkers. You go other places and people are asleep. You come to New York, people want stuff. Now they may want crazy stuff, but at least they're hungry.

On walking to church this morning, coming up past Central Park, and you need to see the little snippets of what people are saying. There used to be a Twitter account, an ex account, that was called Overheard in New York, pure greatness. Also not safe for work, whatever they say. But you're around people who are after something, but you gotta be after the right thing or you'll be disappointed. John Mark Comer, again, your strongest desires are not necessarily your deepest desires. It's when you can crave something, but it not be the deepest thing. And I think people are really surprised to think that Jesus did not come to repress your desires, but to properly fulfil them. Albert Poeb, who's one of the desert fathers, when the Roman Empire was, the church was corrupted and it was rotting, these young zealots in their 20s went out to protest the decline of the Christian Empire. Albert Poeb was one of them and he said this, do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart. And that's so much of what Jesus is simply trying to say to us. We need this. Now, I read this book, it's a great book. I might've referenced it here before.

It's called Free to Thrive. Now, if you're young, you should read this book. And if you're young at heart, you should read this book too, okay. And in it, they basically sort of diagnose why or the cycle of what happens when you chase the wrong desires. So here's their sort of paradigm. You get like an activating event. Next slide, you get an activating event, which is like you get triggered. Anybody get triggered by anything this week? Like in all honesty, just put your hand up, any triggered people. How many of you get triggered right now by being talking about triggering? Okay, great, sorry. You have an activating event and what that event does is it triggers something that you want and need but you don't have. And quite often what that does is when you don't have it is it reinforces a negative core belief. And what that does is it often sort of makes us scramble and we isolate ourselves. And then we sort of get into these mental fantasies about how we can solve these unmet needs that we have. And then we start edging, which is their sort of description of like flirting and dabbling in the thing we can't do. think we'll fix the thing.

And then this leads to unwanted behaviour that leads us to shame. And then we just live in this cycle and this spiral. Let me just revisit this again, okay? So people deal with brokenness. This activating event is any situation that leads to an unmet longing. Could be a rejection from a friend, thinking about an upcoming task or deadline, a spouse or friend being unattentive or angry, you feel misunderstood in a conversation, then something happens and then you've got this legitimate thing inside of you that is not met. This activating event leads to one or more of the seven longings going unmet. This often brings with it the pain of the same longings going unmet in past circumstances. That means often we have come up with patterns and habits and sometimes rituals where we do things to meet these longings in unhealthy ways. These reinforce negative core beliefs, telling yourself no one cares, I'm not good enough, I'll never get things right, I must get revenge, God's not good or loving. We start seeking fulfilment of longings in unhealthy ways. We overwork to get a sense of worth, we over or under eat to regain control, feel safe. We look at porn to feel someone's attention, procrastinate, anxiety, depression,

oversleeping, anger, et cetera. This leads to further brokenness. Shame, unresolved, loss of control, remaining stuck in unwanted behaviours, unhealthy patterns, repeat the cycle. Is there anybody else in the room that reads that and they'll be like, oh, I know that. Oh yeah, I see that was the last one, I see that. This happens to so much of us. Legitimate desires met in unhealthy ways that further our brokenness. But then something else happens. We have a choice to move towards wholeness. This is what Jesus is trying to speak to about. Again, we have that activating event. Next slide. Then we have that same unmet longing, but you make a different choice this time. And this is what Jesus is talking about. We reinforce positive core beliefs about what He teaches about. You tell yourself, I'm not defined by other people's rejection, their opinions or their feelings. I'm loved, I'm worthy, I'm redeemed by Jesus. I am a gifted person. That leads us to seek fulfilment of longings in healthy ways. We reach out to safe people and share unmet longings and feelings.

We ask them to remind us of the truth. We experience acceptance and validation. We talk to God and meditate on who says we are. This, instead of shame spiralling, draws up into holiness and fulfillness, satisfaction, healing, resilience, growing into true identity, overcoming healthy patterns, et cetera. And we repeat that cycle. Here's the whole thing on one page. You're welcome, okay? So the basic point is this. Our whole world is seeking to get its longings fulfilled and it doesn't seem to be working. And Jesus doesn't say, repress your longings. He says, reroute them to me, you will be satisfied. You will be satisfied. Isaiah 55, a lot of times people think that when you bring your heart and your longings to God, he's like, shut up, those are evil. Not at all. Look at the appeal of Yahweh in Isaiah 55. Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me. Eat what is good and you will delight in the richest affair.

Give ear and come to me, listen that you may live. That does not sound like a God who hates you and is setting you up for disappointment. It sounds like a God who is wanting to take you out of what the world has failed to give you and bring you closer into his heart. You'd be amazed at how many people through history, when you read accounts of the saints, people who follow Jesus, maybe even the people sitting next to you, who may say, yeah, I got all kinds of wild desires. I'm a human being in a fallen world. But my deepest desires have been satisfied in the person of Jesus. Come to Jesus for the satisfaction of your deepest longing. Second thing, come to Jesus to find forgiveness for your sins. John 1 29, the next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and he said, look, the teacher of God who teaches the teaching of God. No, look, Jesus, the political Messiah who's gonna fix all the problems and get rid of Rome. No, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I've made the point before, if sin is real, removing the category and language of sin does not get rid of the effects of sin. And we. live in a society that doesn't like to call it sin, but people are riddled

and their souls are full of the shrapnel of sin. I can tell you as a pastor, the amount of people who are walking around with heavy hearts because of things they have done. And it's so disorienting because the world's like, don't worry about it, man. That's just a repressive, fundamentalist childhood narrative. You need to get rid of that script and come up with personal autonomy and freedom. And you're like, I think it's not that. I tried that. I think I've legitimately done wrong things. So many people are walking around with the burden of guilt. They've crossed a line or they violated some standard and they feel like obligated to live up to some sort of internal moral code. And so often life is a frantic attempt to make up to what we've done. I mean, maybe you've experienced this. You've done something that violates your core convictions and you tell God, I'll try way harder next time. I'll make it up to you. I'll serve on a team. I'll bring a friend to Easter. Like I will make this up to you. So much guilt. A lot of times people have the burden of regret. We're tethered to our past decisions. Either things we did that which we could redo

or things we didn't do, which we could go back. We spend our lives wishing we could go back into the past and redo things that we've missed. Sometimes in all honesty, the hardest, the harshest person is not God. It's you. Psychological and spiritual exhaustion come from being our own worst critic and judge. And so many people are walking around. Jesus has forgiven you of things if you just receive it. But you can't believe the gospel could be true and so you'd rather condemn yourself. And there's such a heavy weight. I wanna say this to you. Jesus specialises in forgiving people. And if you need forgiveness, listen, Jesus will forgive you. And it's so important to hear. If you go through the gospel and just pull up some accounts of how Jesus forgave people, it's kind of amazing. So let me just describe some situations in which you may need forgiveness. See if you recognise yourself in any of these. This is the woman caught in adultery. This is like straight up, you got busted in sin. Has anybody ever just got busted? Like when you're a kid, I got busted so much. And I went back to my childhood home a couple weeks ago, where I lived in Perth, Western Australia till I was 10. And I was trying to have a nostalgic time, but all I could remember was all of the terrible things

I did that I got caught for. You're like, what? I was like, I remember just carving on the back of my parents' couch with a pocketknife, the F word, really big, just like right across the back of it. I got an absolute right on the edge of inappropriate beating for that one, okay? I remember swearing to impress the neighbourhood kids who smoked. I'm seven, seven. My dad comes right round the corner and I'm like, just like swearing fluently like I'm speaking French. Busted. Ever just been busted in college? Get busted at work, just get caught lying. Something dishonest, taking money, cheating on someone. You're just caught, no excuses. And here's a woman who's caught before Jesus. What's he gonna do? One of the most remarkable situations, Jesus says to the woman, where are those that condemn you? And Jesus says this, I don't condemn you. Now go and live your life of sin. I want you to know, if you're in the middle of something and you've been busted, Jesus will forgive you. What about the paralytic on the mat? This one will mess with you. There's, by the way, the reason this is so, I think in many ways extraordinary,

is because in order to get forgiven at the time of Jesus, you had to go to the temple and there was priests and you had to offer a sacrifice and it was quite an elaborate experience and you didn't have like an inner full conviction that you were forgiven. And Jesus is like, I'm gonna fulfil all of that in myself. And then Jesus just starts bypassing the entire religious system as if He's God on earth, telling people their sins could be forgiven. That's why the Pharisees were like, who can forgive sins but God? And He's like, now you're starting to understand who I am. So there's four friends who've got a mate and he's paralysed and they try to get into a house and Jesus is in the house and they can't get in. So you know what they do? They rip a hole in the roof. They imagine being someone just like dropping through the roof like this, what are you doing? They lower this bloke down and Jesus, it says, When he saw their faith, he said to the man, get up off your mat, your sins are forgiven. Their faith somehow resulted in an imputation of their friend's forgiveness. I don't even have a theological category for that. My simple point is maybe other people who are trying to get you here, their faith, even you being in the room is one of the ways that Jesus may reach out to you

and forgive you in your condition. The sinful woman at the Pharisee's house. I talk about this a lot because to me it's just, it's hard to comprehend. You've got a woman who is a sex worker who comes into a Pharisee's house and is washing Jesus' feet and weeping, and she's washing his feet with her tears. And the Pharisee says, look, if you're a prophet, you wouldn't let a woman like that touch you. Jesus says, I'd like to just tell you a story. There's someone that had a speeding ticket that was $99 to be paid off, and then there was someone with $349,000 worth of college debt, and both of them were forgiven. Who do you think's gonna be more grateful? And the Pharisee goes, well, obviously the college debt. And Jesus is like, you don't think you need God's forgiveness. You think you've just got a few little minor violations, and so you don't love very much. But this woman, this woman loves me a lot because she's been forgiven a lot. Let this hit you. Maybe the love you're looking for in a religious experience is not found by trying to get your act together, but by receiving the grace of Jesus. The love comes on the other side of forgiveness, not trying to earn your way or make God love you

so you can be forgiven. And then you've got the executioners in a crowd. This is, to me, is remarkable. Jesus is being crucified, and what is He saying on the cross? Father, forgive them. They don't even know what they're doing. I struggle to forgive people who cut me off when I'm in an Uber. And here is, Jesus is like, Father, they don't even know what they're doing. And then what about this one, this forgiveness? The forgiveness of Jesus is so radical. There is a thief on the cross. You wanna talk about like a deathbed conversion. You have a thief on the cross, and one of them's yelling at Jesus and cursing Jesus, and the other bloke's like, hey, listen, man, chill out, we should be here. This man's innocent. And he says to Jesus, Jesus, remember me when You come into His kingdom. He has a revelation on the cross. Oh my gosh, this man is a king. And this man has a kingdom, and I wanna get in that kingdom. And Jesus says to him, you need to get up. Listen, sorry, it's too late for you. You actually have to go down. You gotta be baptised.

You gotta do a Bible study. You at least need a new Christian course, probably two or three years. And He doesn't say any of that. He's just like, today, my man, by recognising who I am, you'll be with me in paradise. So it doesn't, like you can blow your whole life. You can make a mess of everything, and then you can just go help, and Jesus will be like, got you. Who is this forgiving God? The Bible says, as far as the east is from the west, thus far will He remove our sins from us. Listen, the amount of compromise in the typical New Yorker's heart to make it, how you've treated people, lied a little bit, some of you puffed up your resumes, just doing whatever it takes. You're like, what was that first category? Bastard. Okay, just kidding. But I wanna say this. If you're under a conviction of sin, and you're wrestling with guilt and shame, the relief of having that lifted off you, and knowing that you're loved, and that you're wanted by God, and that you're not judged, and you're forgiven, there's nothing on earth like it. Gosh, I don't follow Jesus

because He makes good worldview sense alone. I follow Jesus because I've done some terrible things that I profoundly regret. Violated my own conscience, violated God's Word and God's commands, hurt people, and there's nothing I can do to make up for it. There's still people in Australia I hoped I didn't bump into when I went back from my pre-Christian days. But to know that Christ has forgiven me, you can have that feeling, that knowledge tonight. I was watching during lingering prayer. You know, at the end of the service, we invite people to come forward to receive prayer. That's a pretty sacred moment. And it's a pretty vulnerable moment, to be honest with you, because in New York, you're like, oh, gosh, I like it here because the lights are down at least a little bit, you know what I'm saying? You can't see from the back. That's a vulnerable moment when you're willing to come forward in front of a church and just say, I need someone to pray for me. And I remember watching someone come forward for prayer. And for whatever reason, I'm trying to like let people have private moments with God. I just felt particularly drawn to this one young man that came forward. And this man comes forward, he's bent over.

I can just tell from his body language, he's carrying something. It comes forward and you can just sort of like, dear God, he's been telling me from this sermon that Jesus is merciful. He's been saying that there's grace. You can almost say, please tell me the mercy is true. And I watch him come forward and someone pray for them. And it goes for probably 20 minutes. And I watch this person just, what starts with a hug and just tears. And then there's a pool of tears on the floor. And I couldn't hear anything, I wasn't even listening. But I just remember thinking, where can a man in New York City with a guilty heart and a bow head weep without shame like this? And here's this man. And I watch slowly his body posture change. I just like almost see the relief that's true. And walk back to the seat visibly lighter. And I remember thinking, God do that for everybody in this room tonight. Because I remember coming forward in a church service. And I remember carrying the weight of guilt and sin. And I remember it coming off me because Jesus paid for my sins. And being free, really forgiven, really free. My conscience cleansed. And my body washed with pure water

because of what Christ has done for me. And then walking out when the enemy wants to accuse me, can't accuse me anymore, I'm forgiven. Wants to leverage my sins again. I'm not listening to you, I'm listening to the lamb who says, I do not condemn you. The freedom. Gosh, you can have that tonight. There is no sin that you have committed that Jesus will not forgive you of. Maybe tonight you're not to walk out free from the weight of sin. Lastly, you should come to Jesus, not just for forgiveness and fulfilled desires, but to find rest. Rest. There's a great book by Sandra Dalton Smith, MD, on rest. And some of you are like, I wanna get better at rest. That's so New York, isn't it? I wanna get better at rest. I wanna optimize rest. So she has these seven categories of rest. Literally, my sleep tracking device this afternoon said to me, you only got 5 hours and 20 minutes of sleep, but your body prioritized deep sleep. Way to optimize the sleep you had. I was like, that's right. I'm up here deep sleeping. Physical rest, you get it.

Mental rest, sensory rest, emotional rest, social rest, creative rest. This last, we're good at all these ones, but this last one, we're not too good at it. Spiritual rest. How rested is your soul? Can you just be still before God and know that you are dearly loved with nothing to prove? Can you just exhale in your spirit and know it's gonna be okay? I am His and He is mine and everything is gonna work together for my good. Do you have that of spirit? Listen, most people are walking around physically rested, but spiritually weary and burdened. Listen, I'm a Christian pastor, so part of my job is to advocate for the Christian religion. So I believe the Bible and preach the Bible. Other religions have other holy books and preach their tradition. And I can tell you this, I'm not, listen, I'm not saying Christians get it right, I'm saying Jesus gets it right. But those Jehovah's Witnesses out there, they're tired. They are tired. Did you know in order to be in good standing in the Jehovah's Witness Church, every person in the congregation has to witness on the street. Have you seen them on the street

with like the Bible study things? And then they, every congregation averages up how much time people spent doing it. And if your average congregation scores low, like the leaders come in and scold you and tell you your people have got to do more street witnessing. Mormons, gosh, with all due respect, I do not think Joseph Restorter upgraded the Christian gospel. I think he created a system of rules and laws that make it harder. Getting in the temple to get a temple recommend, you're drinking caffeine, you're not gonna get a great temple recommend. You don't tithe, like require tithing. You're not gonna get a temple recommend. You didn't get a temple recommend, you can't get married in the temple. You don't get married in the temple, you can't get to the highest level of heaven. That door to the temple is not a door of mercy, it's a door of works. The amount of people who are out there hoping, striving, one day to become a God, if they do enough, underneath, and by the way, Mormons are normally wonderful, wonderful people, but the tiredness of soul. Listen, I've never met a Muslim who has said to me, I know that Allah loves me unconditionally. I know that I've done enough on the scales

to be able to rest in his eternal love. Nah, it's all about whether or not you're living the pillars of your convictions. Here's the point I'm trying to make. All other religions honor Jesus. The Mormons honor Jesus, Jehovah's Witnesses honor Jesus, Buddhists honor Jesus as a teacher, Hare Krishna's honor Jesus, Hinduism believes that Jesus was a God in human flesh. Every other religion's like, Jesus is it, and then Jesus is like, you guys are right, I am. And the reason you all point to me and recognize me is because I offer what you need, and here's what it is. Rest. I love how Tim Keller says this. The gospel is the only thing that provides a verdict before the performance, allowing us to work out of joy rather than out of a desperate need for spiritual validation. That is so revelatory. It's a connection to God's love. It is being able to relax and surrender. You know this. John the Beloved, the whole world's falling apart, and where is he at the Lord's Supper? Resting in the heart of Jesus in the chaos of the world. And that's what Jesus invites you to do. Jesus said on the cross, it is finished, not work really hard and earn it for the rest of your life. There is a freedom in saying the cross has paid it all,

it is paid in full, the debt and charges against me are gone, and I am a chosen, holy, beloved child who is wanted by God. Now, we're out of time here, so I wanna just remind you of one thing, and here's what it is. As I said, this all sounds so good, come on. Fulfilled longings, forgiveness, soul-level rest, but I wanna be honest with you, it's complicated. It's complicated. And here's why it's complicated, because Jesus is a person, not a system, not a philosophy, not an ideology, and not just a worldview, he's a person. And you know what people are? Complicated. You know what love is? Love is gloriously complicated. And love is complicated, man. I've been in a relationship in one way, shape, or form with my wife since 1997. Yeah, wow. My wife is watching tonight's livestream because her back's really sore. So honey, I just wanna say as you're watching this, I love you, and my wife is a very complicated woman. You're a very complicated woman, but we both know this. My wife said to me this week, I kid you not, my wife said to me voluntarily, with no nothing, I didn't even take her to a jazz club. I took her to the jazz club after,

because she said this. We love a jazz club, okay? She just looked at me and she said, I hope you know that I absolutely adore you. She's like, you're a great man. You're a great man, you work so hard. I trust your heart. You're a phenomenal father. You love that church. Like you're a great man. When I think of great man, I think of you. I'm like, wow. But that's not the only thing she says about me. Love is complicated. I choose to remember these things, okay? Choose to remember these things. I set before me these things. I wanna say this too, because Jesus is a wholehearted lover. He's not interested in dabbling. Jesus is not like, ah, you know, sort of. He's all in. Nick Cave. Have you guys heard of Nick Cave? Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds? Well for the four of you who have, I saw the movie Train Dreams. I don't know if you've seen Train Dreams. Really beautiful film and the last song on Train the Train Dream soundtrack is by Nick Cave. It's a beautiful song, really haunting song and I was just thinking whatever happened to Nick Cave? Last time I heard him he was singing I Don't Believe in an Interventionist God and he was like, Nick Cave is Australian and he's like one of the pioneers of like violent punk, okay? Think Australian Sex Pistols sort of a thing, okay? He's like he was like in a war with the God of the Old Testament, super violent and both of

his sons died and against all odds, he was raised Anglican, against all odds he in the crisis of pain of the death of his sons, he looks for how to make sense of tragedy and he realizes the only architecture of belief big enough to contain and explain his suffering is Christ and the cross. He ends up going back to church and becoming a deeply religious person, refuses the title spiritual, says too weak, religious and and everyone's like bewildered like dude you led us into punk and he's like nothing's more punk in a culture of death than to choose a man who cares about life. Nothing is more punk than a swim upstream from these nihilistic philosophies and anyway so he has this thing called the Red Hand Files where every week someone writes and reads out a question about faith and so this girl Xena from Kia Greece writes this to him, I lack faith in something greater, be it God or the universe. At the same time I lack faith in myself. I just like faith and I would really like the comfort that faith brings. How can I bring it into my life? I love that question. That is such an honest question. Like I don't know how to believe but I see that I want to believe because I see what I see what faith has done for you and maybe you're here tonight you could have written that like if you were like if we were doing an open Q&A maybe this is the question you would bring up the front, how can I have faith? I love what he writes back, look at what he says, faith is not something just magically materializes rather at first calls to us with its demands and sometimes these demands are significant. Love is complicated, life with a loving God is complicated. To have faith in God if this is what you want requires an active involvement in the mechanics of belief. We set out on a journey and that journey can be long and very hard for the light is often buried deep emerging from the darkness. We labor to improve our relationship with God whoever whatever that may be and I listen a lot of times I don't want to just like put out the benefits of Jesus and not talk about the complexities of faith in Jesus but I want to say this to you and I think you know this at this point in your life, anything that matters is complicated and hard and life with Jesus is complicated and hard and there's many times in my faith where you

know Peter's Jesus turns around like hey do you guys want to leave too? And everyone's bailing on and Peter's like where can I go? You got me I'm like pinned up in here. You've got the words of eternal life. Where else can I go? So it's complicated but I want to tell you I would not trade the complicated wrestling with brokenness and doubt and all of the stuff of life for the simplicity of life without God. We never trade it. It's complicated but it's worth it. So what you can't do after hearing Jesus say these things about himself I'll forgive your sins, I'll fulfill your desires, I'll give you rest is dismiss it. You got to choose. You got to choose. You've got to live in the way of Jesus. You've got to live in the way of the world. There's no middle ground. Jesus didn't come to say you do you. Jesus came to say I'm the way, the truth and the life. And so tonight I want to recruit you and invite you to come and join the way of Jesus. Come and find life. Don't burn two years rebelling against God accumulating regret that he'll have to forgive you of in two years anyway. He'll forgive you but you'll have to deal with the pain in your heart. Shortcut to grace. Open right now. Yesterday, they did the No Kings Parade. Okay, don't make any noises in the room. Don't be like, ooh, like, no, just let's observe it. No kings. I don't know how many thousands of people showed up. I don't know if you showed up. My wife texted me. She was like, there's thousands of, we live in Midtown, there's thousands of people amassing. Outside of our apartment with picket signs. I was like, I'd probably stay inside. I was like, what is it? I was like, oh, it's the No Kings Parade.

Regardless of your views of politics, I wanna say this. A, isn't it beautiful to live in a country where the right to free assemble and protest still exists? That's wonderful. But the main thing I wanna say is this. There's a dissatisfaction, regardless of who is president, that this system is not a good enough system for the human heart. All of us are like, is there anything better than this? There's a longing for a better leader. And that brings us to where we are today, which is Palm Sunday. This is the entrance of Holy Week. And you know the story of Holy Week. Passover, where Jesus is the Passover lamb, was a dangerous cultural story for Jewish people to believe in the Roman Empire. Do you remember the story of Passover? Do you remember what it's about? Passover is the story of Pharaoh being judged because he was oppressing God's people. And the lamb that was put over the doorpost meant the angel of death would not touch your house and you could go free. And after God judged the oppressors, he liberated his people out of Egypt. Now, can you imagine being in Jerusalem when the Romans are oppressing you and being the Jewish people and going,

we got a story for this. And so what Pilate would do is he would get a legion of soldiers from Caesarea, which was a town over on the coast, and he would march in a full legion during Passover into the city of Jerusalem, Roman eagle, full military might to say to them, don't get any ideas that your old culture story is gonna work in this context. And Jesus, knowing that this parade would come in from Rome sets up a counter protest on a donkey. And Jesus comes in with his friends. And someone's like, put him on a horse. He's like, nah, I'm doing a donkey, fulfilling prophecy here. And they're all yelling out Hosanna. Now, listen, listen. If you, imagine you're sitting there, okay? Imagine you're sitting on a hill and you're like, oh, oh gosh, here comes a Roman legion, dang. You're like, oh, hang on, who's this? Got a little counter procession. Oh, dang, it's Jesus and his fisherman teenage mate. Wow, I hope they don't bump into each other. This will not go well. And if you were a betting person sitting on that hill, who do you think the empire would win? Like all of almost would be like, I think I'm just gonna take a few steps towards Rome. You're like, Caesar is Lord.

But we can know now that the Roman Empire has ruins that Christians visit to talk about how Christians conquered it in love. And the church has billions of people flourishing because they chose the way of Jesus, not the way of the world. And ultimately Jesus doesn't just invite you to have your longings fulfilled. Jesus doesn't just invite you to be forgiven. He doesn't just invite you to find a rest for your soul. Jesus invites you to be in a movement of discipleship, to subvert the systems of oppression and judgment of the world, and to bring about another kingdom, a kingdom of love. So you don't just get forgiven and reconnected, you get a cause to live for, which is the most beautiful, compelling cause on earth, the healing of all of creation through the body of Christ. So friends, tonight you have a chance. You can try and fulfill your own desires your own way. You can try and manage your uneasy conscience. You can try and optimise your life for rest and you can live in the way of the world. But I wanna warn you, there is no peace and there is no life there. Or you can join the way of Jesus, experience the fulfilment of all desire, rest for your soul, and the forgiveness of sins that lasts not only for this life, but for the age to come.

The door is open. The path is clear. The invitation is yours. Come to Jesus. Amen. Father, thank you that you sent your son into the middle of human history to give us life. Thank You, Lord. And Father, I just wanna pray for any of, anyone who's in our church tonight, who just feels that they need the fulfilment of deep longings. They need forgiveness for their sins. They need rest for their soul. Father, I just pray that Your Spirit would come upon them right now with the power of Your love and draw them to Yourself. So I just pray that You would clear a path for their heart. May the way emerge that they can see Your life. And may they encounter the experience that man had of finding freedom and joy as they leave tonight. And it's in Christ's name we pray, amen.