Do Not Judge | Foundations | Josh Leake

My name is Josh. I'm the lead pastor here. Can we also welcome God Behind Bars over in Somerset? We love you guys so much. So we are in our second week of a series we just started that's called Foundations, and it is based out of Matthew chapters five through seven, which is Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. So we're gonna go through this teaching, this famous sermon, which is what Jesus ends with. Anyone who puts these words into practice is like someone who builds their house on a rock rather than on sand. So our goal is to find what are all the things that Jesus was talking about that we should be putting into practice that are like building that kind of foundation for our life. And the things that Jesus is constantly illuminating, we looked a little bit at this last week, is that Jesus is illuminating God's true heart behind the law that he gave to Moses, which is what our heart should look like, how we treat others, our inner life, rather than just outer behaviors. So we wanna talk about how do we be committed disciples of Jesus together that are building on the foundation that Jesus gave us. So this week, we are looking at a command that's one that's been very confused and misused throughout history.

So Matthew chapter seven is what we'll look at here. If you wanna turn there, we're just gonna read the first two verses to start, and then we'll go through the rest of it in a second. Matthew chapter seven, verse one, says this, do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Do not judge. So what does that mean, do not judge? Part of this idea is nobody likes the feeling of being painted in a certain way without somebody that had all the information. Being stereotyped, being labeled, that's not fun. And I remember when I was first dating my wife, Alison, this would have been 14 years ago that we started dating, and she was driving, so I was riding in her car. She had gotten a new car. Some of the registration wasn't all worked out yet or wasn't in the system, so she got pulled over as we were driving. And this was her first time ever being pulled over. So she pulls over on the side of the road, and she's like instantly in a frenzy. Like, what do I do, what do I do? And she's like reaching for the glove box, and I was like, calm down. People get pulled over all the time. This is not that big of a deal, just relax. Put your hands on the wheel and look forward.

So the officer walks up to the window, and she rolls it down, and she looks up at him and instantly bursts into tears. She's just like weeping. For the officer, that looked a little suspicious. So he was like, ma'am, can you step out of the car? So she gets out of the car, and I'm sitting in there just watching, and she is like getting more and more nervous and crying more and more that I was like, maybe she is a drug dealer, I don't know. Sometimes I still wonder when I think back to that moment, she was acting so nervous. So I'm sitting in the passenger seat, and the other officer that was with this guy came up, and he gets in the car. He's like, hey, I'm just gonna search around to see if there's anything in here. So I'm just sitting there in the passenger seat while this officer is searching, and he just strikes up conversation as he's looking around. He's like, so what do you do? I was like, oh, I'm in college. He was like, okay, what are you studying to be? And I was like, oh, I'm studying to be a pastor. He was like, okay, great. He was like, you don't look like a pastor. And then he got out of the car, and that was it. That was the end of the interaction.

But we drove away. We were like, wow, we got judged a couple of times in a short little span of time. So do not judge was Jesus' command. Part of what we're talking about is the feeling of being misunderstood, being stereotyped, being looked down on is frustrating. And this is a very big idea in American culture because we live in a hyper-individualistic culture that says, let me live my life, you live yours, don't worry about me, focus on yourself. So our culture, I don't know if you've noticed this, Christians, non-Christians alike, everybody loves this do not judge verse because they take it to say, love everybody, don't get in anyone else's way, don't tell them how to live their life, don't judge, just love. That's what Jesus taught. Let me live my life and you live yours. And then on top of that, many people, maybe you've heard them say something like, you Christians are so judgmental that if you actually listen to what Jesus said, we would all live way better off. All you have to do is love everyone and don't judge anyone, do what Jesus said. And honestly, I think we could agree that that assessment does have some truth to it, that there are a lot of rude, mean, selfish people

that call themselves Christians that are. Around and now look I'm judging them. I'm I'm doing the exactly what I'm not supposed to do But what's the point here? Is that is it really what Jesus is saying is love everyone don't judge. What does that mean? Quickly if we look at other scriptures that starts to not make sense So, let me just give you a quick example from Galatians chapter 6 Paul is writing to this church to basically help them understand What do you do if a brother or sister you notice that they're sinning? Here's what he says Galatians 6 1 brothers and sisters if someone is caught in a sin You who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently, but watch yourselves Or you also may be tempted so correct a brother or sister who's sinning that sounds a lot like judging You have to judge to do that Later on in the Sermon on the Mount towards the end of it Jesus actually says to all of the people listening watch out for false prophets Watch out for false teachers Which you have to use judgment to do so this do not judge quote is thrown around a lot today especially in our culture That understanding what it really means is of the highest importance if you're gonna follow Jesus What did Jesus really mean when he said do not judge? What's the real problem that he was addressing? Before we reread that passage and we'll read the rest of it as well. Let's talk about who is Jesus addressing Because when he is giving this whole sermon Sometimes our culture who likes the teaching side of Jesus Takes all of his advice and says love your enemies pray for those who persecute you Do all of these things and then that's how you live a good life That's how you can be a good person, but Jesus in this sermon and specifically in this piece, too Where he's saying do not judge this was not generalized wisdom although it's wise He was not just giving wisdom for anybody to take and to live a good life He also wasn't just giving a philosophy of this is how you can treat others Well, Jesus is specifically teaching how disciples in the kingdom of God should live amongst each other So this was not teaching for the world This was specifically for followers of Jesus to say if you're gonna be a part of the family of God the kingdom of God

There are certain things that you have to watch out for and live differently than everyone else. It's community with each other So this is who he's addressing now. Let's talk about again What what does do not judge mean and let's read the whole thing here Matthew chapter 7 verse 1 We'll read it again says do not judge you too will be judged for in the same way you judge other others you will be judged And with the measure you use it will be measured to you Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? Now the original word plank in Jesus's language It's been translated to English But the original word didn't mean like a two by four because that's I think what we picture when we think of a plank the original word that Jesus used was like Like a load-bearing support beam like think like a power line telephone pole to make the Contrast of this so big so he says how can you say to your brother? Let me take the speck out of your eye when all the time there is a load-bearing support beam in your eye Verse 5 you hypocrite first take the plank out of your own eye And then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye now in the last verse This is gonna seem like a shift it will seem like a completely different topic But it's completely related because here Jesus is about to say, but you should use discernment Here's what he says do not give dogs. What is sacred? Do not throw your pearls to pigs if you do they may trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces so when you're sharing wisdom or Correction with somebody pay attention to who is receptive and who wants nothing to do with it So Jesus is not saying we should never use any sort of judgment or discernment or never offer anyone correction This whole passage what it is about is hypocrisy Which is the tendency to criticize in others what I excuse in myself Culture uses do not judge to say nobody has the right to tell me that I'm wrong That's actually completely different though than what Jesus's point is Jesus's point is your attitude and my attitude is often critical towards others in a way that we would never want used against us So Jesus is warning against a judgmental attitude a critical spirit

One where we're always finding fault in other people, but we're not looking inwards at ourselves. Last week, we talked about anger, which is the idea that we can stay religiously in bounds and not commit murder, and yet we can have the sin that is the roots of murder, which is anger. We can feed that and feed contempt. This week, Jesus is pointing out, we can excuse our own inward stuff by looking at everyone else's problems. We notice other people's sins, things they're wrestling with, things that they need to improve on to excuse things going on within us. It's sort of like a default mode of the human heart. It's a universal human issue to tend to look outward at other people's problems and not notice our own. One of my constant fears that I have all the time, I don't know if, I'm sure that a lot of people in the room have this, is that I'm gonna be talking to somebody, maybe it's an important conversation, and the whole time I just have a giant booger in my nose. Anybody else have that fear? Or are you like checking your phone all the time, gotta like, the self-camera to make sure you don't have anything there? Since it's Father's Day, I have a fond memory of my father. He led this church for 35 years, and I remember, this was probably two or three years ago,

he got off stage after preaching, and he came up to me and he was cracking up, and he was like, well, I just preached that whole message with my fly down of my pants, and what are you gonna do? That's like truly nightmare fuel right there. But when you're talking to somebody who doesn't know that they have like a piece of celery in their teeth, that's like all you can see, you know? Like you don't even see a person talking to you, you just see like a talking piece of celery that's talking right at you. That's like a horrible fear. So a parallel comparison to what Jesus is saying is like we're noticing a little piece of celery stuck in somebody's teeth, but it's like we haven't showered for two years, you know? Like our breath is terrible, we got gum stuck in our hair, but we're fixated on somebody's little piece of celery in their teeth. So again, this is sort of a default mode of the human heart is that we tend to criticize others, but we lack awareness of the same things or problems that we're just excusing within us. Often we find security and control and worth and purpose through comparison, pointing out what's wrong. That's why we get into criticism is because it feeds that, this need that all of us have for security, control, worth, purpose. And then when we compare,

self-righteousness is the inflated view of ourselves through that comparison. And then hypocrisy is like the final product when we have the inflated view of ourselves and we ignore what's going on inside. We excuse or justify our own faults. The problem with self-righteousness is that it's self-deception, which means by definition, it's almost impossible to tell when we're doing it. No one ever says they're a hypocrite. You ever noticed that? No one's like, oh yeah, I really struggle with hypocrisy. It's never been something anybody said. Why? Because it's self-deception. We don't notice when we're doing it because we're good at deceiving ourselves. So all of us in the room wouldn't really be able to tell on our own if we're doing that because it's self-deception, that's where self-righteousness and hypocrisy comes from. It's basically impossible to detect on our own. So we have to get good, as we're followers of Jesus, we have to get good at dealing with our tendency to be critical of others while excusing ourselves. So I think one of the questions that arises at this point is, so am I just supposed to not notice things that other people are doing wrong? Like some of you are in a tough spot in your marriage

and it's like, am I just not supposed to notice these things that my spouse is doing or this coworker that's super irresponsible and is always blaming other people, this person I go to school with, this family member I have that's super selfish, I'm just never supposed to notice that? Remember, in Jesus' example, there is a speck in the person's eye. It's not that there isn't a problem, it's that we justify what we keep hidden, our own problems, by looking at the speck in everyone else's eye. It's the rampant problems that we're so busy noticing other people's specks that we miss the load-bearing support beam problems that are in our life. So let's just sum it up here. Jesus doesn't forbid discernment or correction, but he does demand ruthless self-honesty as the condition for both. So discernment of what somebody else is doing wrong and offering them correction or wisdom, none of that is bad, but Jesus is saying if you're gonna do. of those things, you better be practicing ruthless self-honesty first to make sure we're not excusing self-righteousness, hypocrisy, which is so easy for any of us to do. Ruthless self-honesty. So moving forward for the rest of the message, we just have to assume a position of self-evaluation. As we talk about how do we practice ruthless self-honesty, we have to say for the rest of the message, I'm not going to think about anybody else. Because what can start to happen is if we start thinking about other people who could really use some self-honesty,

kind of defeating the whole purpose of what Jesus is saying here. It has to be all, Jesus, what are you asking me to learn at and grow at? I have to start by admitting there is stuff within me that Jesus wants to work with me to fix, and I have been too busy noticing stuff in others. And if we can't accept that, we deceive ourselves and we don't even get off the starting line. So again, before we look at, we'll look at four different habits. How do we practice ruthless self-honesty, so that we can be more like Jesus, we can be the kind of disciples that he's calling us to be. Remember that as we're looking at those, it's not just about how do you be a better person. That's not what we're talking about. We're saying how can we be disciples in the kingdom of God, where we treat each other like Jesus would want us to, and we become a community that looks completely different from the outside world. Because everyone else in the world feeds off of noticing what's wrong with the other side, and excusing what's going on within. We want to look different into each other, and when we represent ourselves to the outside world, we want to be people who are saying, Jesus, show us first what's wrong in us, so that when we go to other people, we look like you. We're loving people genuinely. Okay, four different habits now for ruthless self-honesty. Here's the first habit. First habit is the habit of anchoring my worth in grace, and not performance. We got to start with our identity in Jesus. When I surrender to him, I now am loved and forgiven, and I can trust him, meaning I've got nothing to earn, I've got nothing to prove, I've got nothing to fear. We got to anchor ourselves there to start. Because criticism is our attempt to root in something else. When we confront somebody directly, or we're pointing something out where we say, you've got to change this. You've really got to work on this. Or maybe it's indirectly, where we're talking about somebody. We're saying, man, they've really got to work on this. It's so frustrating that they act this way. Hopefully someday they get better at this. They got to fix this about themselves. Those criticisms, they stem from our need for something. It's almost always control, pride, or insecurity when we're criticizing or gossiping. Our need for control is saying, if I could just change this about them, that would make sure that I would never have to, or I wouldn't have to endure this control. Sometimes it's pride, where I feel so good about how I'm doing, as a parent, as a student, as a follower of Jesus, that I feel like I actually have the right to criticize and talk about what somebody else needs to change. A lot of times what it is though, is it's the feeling of insecurity. Because we all carry this feeling regularly that we're not doing what we should be.

Maybe I'm not good enough. It's easy to do this as a parent too. There's a constant feeling as a parent like, man, I hope I'm not messing it up. So then what can happen is parents can start to criticize other parents, either to their face or behind their back, because it's coming from this place of, it makes me feel good about this fear that maybe I'm not doing it right. So it's stemming from need for control, or pride, or insecurity. We notice what's wrong with others, and it feeds this need for control, or pride, or insecurity, and it becomes sort of like a sedative drug. A critical spirit, when we're pointing out or noticing what's wrong with others, it's like a sedative drug, where it feels good like medicine, makes us feel better, but it actually poisons us. So Jesus is saying, you got to be careful of this, and he offers us a different prescription, which is the first habit. Anchor yourself in the grace of Jesus, in his leadership. Meaning we can start to let go of the need to control everything. I let go of my pride, I let go of my worry that I'm not doing good enough, and I just trust Jesus's leadership. I anchor myself in grace and not performance. So ruthless self-honesty starts with anchoring your self in your identity in Jesus. And everything we talk about next, the rest of the three habits, there's four total, everything we talked about this first one, if we miss this first habit, it just becomes moralism. Meaning it becomes just be a better person, just try harder, and that's not what this is about. This is saying as a disciple of Jesus, your identity is rooted in a place where you don't need to prove yourself or control anything. You can rest in who Jesus has said you are and trust his leadership. So we wanna be a disciple in a different kingdom. Okay, first one, anchor yourself in who Jesus says you are. Here's the second habit of ruthless honesty. The habit of uncovering what fuels my criticism. So this is where we gotta rewire our brains

because when we are criticizing others, we convince ourselves that our criticism of them has nothing to do with us and that we have nothing to gain from it. We're masters at deceiving ourselves in this way. I think it's fascinating during football season, how many people on a weekly basis complain about these referees are corrupt, you notice that? These refs are paid off. I'm not saying there's never problems, but so I'm in a fantasy football league with some of the other pastors here. And during the season when I'm online, that's like every week people are like, these refs are paid. I won't ask for a raise of hands, but some of you yell this at the screen, but it's football season. I think it's interesting too, that no one ever seems to say that when their team's doing well, right? Wouldn't that be, I think that'd be so interesting if somebody did say that, like, I'm just so glad the refs are, it seems like they're paid in our favor. Right, but that's never what they say. I think it'd be refreshing if we saw some self-honesty where somebody said, like we just saw one post where somebody said, I'm upset that my team is losing and I don't really have a way to emotionally cope with this

so I'm gonna blame it on the corrupt referees. That'd be refreshing to see. Like that kind of post, just that kind of self-honesty. Uncovering the fuel for our criticism starts with recognizing that when we criticize, we have something to gain. We convince ourselves that that's not true, but it is true. And if you start to pay attention to who you criticize, invent frustrations about, and gossip about, there is some sort of need for control or pride or insecurity that's fueling the criticism. So as we practice habits of ruthless self-honesty to allow Jesus to work on our heart, to allow the Holy Spirit to speak, here's some questions that we can ask. First is, who have I been criticizing on a regular basis? Or who do I find myself wishing that they would be fixed? That'll speak to some people in the room. Who do I have in my life that I'm like, I just wish they would change? Who do I talk with other people about behind their back about their need to change, to get their life in order? When I criticize somebody, what emotion is underneath it? Because there's always something underneath it. Anger, fear, insecurity, jealousy, embarrassment, disappointment, exhaustion, pain. Here's the last one, and this is a hard one to answer, but there is an answer to it. What do I gain from criticizing them? Again, it's not that, is there something wrong?

It's, yes, there's something wrong, but we use the fact that there's something wrong to justify ourselves to say, this has nothing to do with me, they just have a problem. But actually, it's there's something that's fueling it that we gain, so does my criticism make me feel more in control, safer, stronger, more spiritual, more responsible? When we're acting out of a critical spirit, there's always a root, there is always something that it's stemming from, and practicing ruthless self-honesty means, first of all, we anchor ourselves in the fact that Jesus calls us his, and we don't have anything to earn or prove, but it also means that we admit that when we criticize, there is something for us to gain. So we have to start to pay attention, what is fueling that? That's the second habit, here's the third one. It's the habit of exposing what I'm excusing in myself. So what are the behaviors, attitudes, or words that the Holy Spirit wants to start to put his finger on and say, you need to work on this? Jesus's desire, again, is for a community of people, for a church who are quick to notice their own need for growth, and slow and patient and gracious when approaching other people's need for growth and change. This is actually really easy for us to do as parents, is, so I'm a dad of three kids, nine, seven, and soon to be five, next month in July. to lie, and what I've noticed is,

parents, you'll probably agree with me on this, it's easy to expose and point out things in your kids that you excuse in yourself. Like if your kid is having a terrible attitude, and you're like, come on, shape up, but then you're like miserable the whole day, like you're super grumpy about something, and it's like, well, there's a reason for this, right? It's so easy to do that as a parent, where there's a reason for my way of acting this way, but we correct it in our kids. This is where we have to start to take Jesus's prescription for our lives, rather than this sedative drug of criticism, is we have to start to accept there are things that I excuse, that I hide, that I ignore, attitudes, words, behaviors, that I've been not paying attention to, justifying, excusing, and maybe even excusing it because someone else is doing something wrong. So again, this is not to heap guilt on us, but it's to stop taking the sedative drug that makes me feel good of criticizing, and to allow the Holy Spirit to help us grow. Ruthless self-honesty. It's about becoming more like Jesus. We honor him better. We become more patient, more full of grace. And actually, the Bible says that God radically blesses people who are ruthlessly self-honest,

and says, Holy Spirit, come and work on me. James 4, 6 says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Yeah. So when we take the posture of saying, Lord, help me to recognize in myself what you want me to grow on. Help me to consider myself as less than, and to serve others around me. This position, God, again, what Jesus said is, the measure you use to judge will be measured against you. So when you are gracious and patient to others, Jesus operates this way with us. So we let the Holy Spirit work on us. We're patient. We're gracious. We let him speak to us and expose what we've been excusing. Okay, fourth habit. Last one here. It's the habit of practicing love with nothing to gain and nothing to prove. So after we practice ruthless self-honesty, this one becomes a lot easier to do. If we miss the previous three, where we, if we miss anchoring ourselves in our identity as Jesus followers, and as accepted, we have nothing to prove. And if we miss uncovering what's fueling our criticism, we miss letting the Holy Spirit expose what's going on underneath.

What happens is we can say that we love people, and we can confront people that we love, but actually, deep down, there's some selfish parts of us that want something out of it. Here's what we can want out of it. When we do this, sometimes when we're having a conversation, if we don't ask ourselves, what could I selfishly desire from this conversation? We can secretly want control. So when we confront them, we want them to act different. We wanna make sure they know, you can't ever act this way again. Or maybe we're trying to, without even realizing, we're bolstering our own self-esteem. They made us feel bad, so we wanna make sure to let them know, your actions are unacceptable. This is embarrassing. And a little bit what that does is it starts to feed me and starts to make me feel better. Or maybe somebody has hurt us, and so in our confrontation with somebody we love, there's a little bit of knife twisting, where we want them to feel the same sort of pain. And we are helping them with a problem, but secretly, there's a little part of us that wants something selfish. Or a really hard one is a lot of us want the feeling of being understood, being validated. So in our conversation, we're like, I need to make sure that they validate how I'm feeling.

But what we're really after is the heart of Jesus, servant-hearted love. And what servant-hearted love does is it asks, what does Jesus want me to do to love this person best? Not what do I want, what does Jesus want me to do with servant-hearted love? And a lot of times, showing servant-hearted love to somebody means we just keep our mouth shut. That's a hard one. When we do notice a speck, and we're like, somebody's gotta tell him. Sometimes what the Holy Spirit will tell you is, stay silent and pray for them. Don't talk with other people about it. Don't talk to them about it, pray for them. Sometimes servant-hearted love means we speak honestly when we don't want to. We've been talking to everybody else, but not to them. So we speak honestly, and we release the outcome of them changing to Jesus. We don't try to change them. We put that in God's hands. Maybe it's the willingness to bear an insult. This one is really tough when somebody has wounded you, when you're trying to show somebody love, and they insult you. Servant-hearted love sometimes means you just, you absorb that and you let it go. It's the patience to be misunderstood. So servant-hearted love is wanting the best for them.

We don't fear losing control. We don't fear pain or the insults. We can be patient. We can pray for them. We can see the good in them, see the image of God in them. So our prayer, especially as a church, is Jesus, make us this kind of community. One that is incredibly quick to say, Lord, if there's anything in me that is not anchored in you, and that I'm just, you know, that's fueling my words or fueling my gossip, fueling my criticism, Lord, show me what that is. Because I wanna be more like you. Lord, and if there's things I'm excusing myself, I don't wanna just stay stuck in my stand. Lord, make me more like you. We wanna be a community of people that's doing that so that when we do come to each other to lift each other up, it's done from a place of servant-hearted love. We look like Jesus. And also, this is how, man, this is such a beautiful way to represent ourselves to the outside world. Where when anyone interacts with people from Allison Park Church, they're like, wow, man, they're so kind and patient and generous, so slow to gossip, so slow to criticize, and they're growing, and they seem lighter, they seem joyful.

This is the kind of community that Jesus wants to transform us into. Not that there's not problems around us, but that the Holy Spirit transforms us into people that become full of peace and joy regardless of what's going on around us. So that starts with ruthless self-honesty. And really, it has to start with that first habit of anchoring yourself in Jesus, in grace. Some of you in the room have either never known, or maybe you've forgotten what unconditional love feels like. And if you had healthy parents as a kid, you remember what it was like to be loved with absolutely nothing to prove. And you didn't need to have control. You trusted your parents. And then as we get older, we start to realize that we have to secure our own happiness. We gotta protect our own interests and we start to realize, I'm loved based on what I provide and what I can offer. And so we start to build our worth, our security, our value on our looks, and on our earnings, our finances, our academics, our accomplishments, our parenting, how we raise our kids. So I have to grow my business. I gotta get accepted to this university. I have to make this much money.

I have to have an attractive body. And what Jesus is saying is, this is how most people build their life. They build their life on all of these things that could instantly crumble. It's like building your house on sand. You build all of your life and meaning on those things. And every human has this fear of, man, I gotta make my life count. So we try to secure it on our own. It's a constant fear that we're not doing enough or our life is gonna count. But the cross of Jesus Christ offers you a different prescription than that sedative drug, where the cross of Christ says, come back to what it was like to be a child who was loved unconditionally. Some of you, you've never experienced this before. You didn't have parents who loved you in this way or this kind of community growing up. But Jesus offers love, not based on performance. It's just grace. You are just a child of God who doesn't need to be loved unconditionally. You don't need to prove yourself. You don't need to control how others act. You don't need to control your own future or how others view you. You don't need to try to ensure

that things go a certain way. You are loved, you are forgiven, and you have worth separate from achievement or performance or controlling your future because we have a different king who's in control. This is what the cross of Jesus Christ reminds us. When you and I were dead in our sin, we were lost, hopeless. Jesus saw us lost and hopeless and he gave us life on the cross. He lived a perfect life. God himself in human flesh lived a perfect life and died on the cross so that you and I can be forgiven and loved and experience unconditional grace anchored in who Jesus says we are. So some of you, this is just the starting place for you today. You've never started to build your life on Jesus. You're building it on something else. And for those of you that I'm talking to in the room, you've had this sinking feeling. Maybe it's even been battling with depression or anxiety because there's this. Constant feeling that what you are building your life on is not gonna last. This is how the Holy Spirit starts to work on you when he starts to call you to himself, to say you gotta live for something more, you gotta build on a firm foundation. Because everything else, your looks, your finances,

your job, your schooling, it all burns up. We don't get to take any of it with us. There's only one thing that lasts, it's a relationship with your creator. You were created with purpose, you were created with intentionality, not to just live for yourself, but to live for the one who made you. So here's what I wanna do is we get ready to close. If you're in the room and you have been away from God, you have not been living for him, or you've never surrendered to him and started to build your life on this foundation, I wanna give you that opportunity. So let's take a minute, close your eyes, bow your heads. If you're in the room and you really feel that in your heart, you're like, man, I know this is me. I know I need to give my life to Jesus. I know I need to stop just trying to build life all around these things that are temporary. If that's you in the room, I'm gonna count to three, and when I do, I want you to say, today I wanna give my life to Jesus, okay? Why do I have you raise your hand when I count to three? Because when you're making an eternal decision, it shouldn't just be something you think, it's something you're boldly saying, today, Jesus, thank you. I choose you, thank you for your forgiveness. Now I'm boldly saying, I'm gonna build my life on Jesus.

Okay, listen, before I count to three, I just wanna say, if that's you, I want you to be bold, okay? Don't worry about anybody else in the room. What they think doesn't matter, right? This is about what you're building your life on. So when I say three, I want you to be bold and say, yeah, today I'm choosing either to come back to Jesus or for the very first time to say, Lord, I surrender to you, I need forgiveness. Ready, so get your hand ready. One, two, three, say, yeah, that's me. Jesus, I need your forgiveness, I need your love, I wanna build my life on you, that's awesome. Yeah, you can put your hands down and together, let's pray a prayer of commitment now, of repentance, saying, Jesus, I need forgiveness, I need you to cleanse me, I wanna follow you. So repeat after me all together. Everybody say, dear Jesus, thank you for dying for me. Thank you for shedding your blood on that cross so that I can be forgiven. Lord, I need you to forgive me, I need you to cleanse me so that I can know you, so that I can follow you. So this morning, Jesus, I surrender my life, I hand it over to you, I wanna build on your foundation. Be my king, in Jesus' name. Everybody said together this morning, amen, amen. Come on, give it up for those that made that decision. And if you made that decision, we would love to meet you. So let's stand up to our feet all together across this room.

In the back is one of our pastors, Pastor Sean. He's right by those double doors and we have an area called the Salvation Center. If you're in the back, if you're in the front, we have a Salvation Center. If you gave your life to Jesus in the past couple of weeks, or maybe for the first time today, I would love to meet you. So Pastor Sean and I, as the team worships, I'm gonna head back there. We would love to give you some resources to help you take some next steps to get it set up with a Bible reading plan. We've got a Bible, we've got a journal. Love to shake your hand and meet you. So even as we're worshiping, you can make your way back there. But here's what I want us to do now before we go out and party and celebrate Dad's Day. Let's put into practice what Jesus taught. Because the whole part of building our life on the foundation that Jesus is talking about is we have to put into practice what he taught. Which means we have to practice radical self-honesty, ruthless self-honesty. Where first of all, we just re-anchor ourselves in the identity we have as sons and daughters of the King. But then we start to say, Jesus, help me to see where I've been criticizing others. Help me to see what's been fueling that.

Control, pride, insecurity. And then Lord, help me to see what am I excusing in myself? Okay, so the team's gonna sing. Let's just kind of adopt that posture together. And if you gave your life to Jesus, I'd love to meet you back in that corner at the Salvation Center. ♪ Oh, we praise you, Jesus ♪ ♪ Here is where I lay it down ♪ ♪ Every burden, every crown ♪ ♪ This is my surrender, this is my surrender ♪ ♪ Here is where I lay it down ♪ ♪ Where I lay it down, every lie and every doubt ♪ ♪ This is my surrender ♪ ♪ Oh, I will make room for you ♪ ♪ To do whatever you want to do, do whatever you want to do ♪ ♪ I will do whatever you want to do, do whatever you want to do ♪ ♪ Oh, I will make room for you ♪ ♪ To do whatever you want to do, do whatever you want to do ♪ ♪ Oh, I will do whatever you want to do, do whatever you want to do ♪ Here is where. ♪ Here is where I lay it down, you are all I'm chasing now ♪ ♪ This is my surrender, this is my surrender, here is where I lay it down ♪ ♪ Here is where I lay it down, every lie and every doubt, this is my surrender ♪ ♪ So I will make room for you, to do whatever you want to do, do whatever you want to do ♪ ♪ Oh, I will make room for you, to do whatever you want to do, do whatever you want to do ♪ ♪ Oh, I will make room for you, to do whatever you want to do, do whatever you want to do ♪ Can we just lift our hands to Him now? ♪ I will make room for you, to have your way in me ♪ ♪ To do whatever you want to, to do whatever you want to do ♪

♪ I will make room for you, to do whatever you want to, to do whatever you want to do ♪ ♪ To do whatever you want to, to do whatever you want to, to do whatever you want to do ♪ Would you join me now, put your hands out in front of you. This is just a way to physically express, now surrender. So Jesus, we just take a minute before we move on, with the busyness of the rest of the week. Just to say, we are yours. Our lives are not our own, we put our hands out in front of us to say, we remember that we've been bought and paid for and purchased by the blood of Jesus. We're loved, we're accepted, and so we just turn over everything about us. Our thoughts, our words, our actions, our families, our jobs. We put them in your hands and we say, we want the way we handle everything to be worshipped to you. So Lord, help us, as we go throughout this week, to act and to speak and to live in a way that's pleasing to you. Where you help us to grow, where you correct us and convict us, and we become more like you, in your name. Now just stretch forth your hand forward like this, and let me pray over you, before we go this weekend. I pray that it is this week, as you trust in Jesus, and as you anchor yourself as a disciple and as a follower, as a child of God, that you will feel a lightness in your step as he directs you. That even as he begins to point out things in you that he wants to grow or to change, that it would feel light, because you'll feel the loving touch of the Father. The loving heart of the Father. I pray that he would direct every step, especially as you interact with other people around you, interacting with difficult people or situations, that he would give you patience, that he would give you clarity and wisdom. And I pray that God would bless your family, that his grace would rest upon you as you leave this place. In Jesus' name, everybody said, Amen, Amen. Awesome. Guys, thank you for being here this weekend. Having an amazing Father's Day weekend. We'll see you next week.