Transformed Not Conformed

And now here's what we're going to do. Does anybody want to see some improvement in your life? Does anybody have certain areas that you would like to improve on? Help us by taking out your phone. We're going to use the app. This is not an exhaustive list. We're just giving you like, is there any of those? Just pick one of them you think, yeah, I'd like to see some growth there and then share that with each other. Talk with each other. You don't have to give too many details, but share with us on the app what you would like to see, where you'd like to see growth. We're going to come back to your responses in just a minute. I'm curious, did anybody else, like, if other had been on there, would you have picked other? Because we can only put five on the app survey. If we just said all of the above, would any of you have said all of the above? Yep, maybe. Yeah. Did any of you just turn to somebody and say, you know, as best I can tell, I really don't need to improve on anything. Because one more time, humility would be yours. The answer is humility. Now those are the positive changes, right? But what about the negative ones, the things that we're saying I want to do less of? Now, I'm not going to ask you to share those, but we all have them. Man, it's just stuff that I wish, I just wish I wouldn't do it that way. Anybody else this past week, like just one thing that you just are like, I can't believe I did that. Anybody else need a do-over, just one do-over this past week? Okay.

A few of us are honest. Yeah. Okay. You see, there are these moments where it happened to me, and I was like, I'm better than, oh God, really? I thought I'd made more progress than that. You see, we sing these songs of freedom and joy, and we should, we should, because they're true. We're free. We are free. Life with Jesus is like walking out of a grave. It's all true. It's all Him. It's all Him. He alone is worthy. It's all true, and we haven't fully arrived yet, and we are a piece of work. You see, the Bible allows us to admit that. It gives us room to say that. Now, the Apostle Paul, no less than the Apostle Paul, you tracking? The Apostle Paul says at the end of the seventh chapter of Romans, he says, for I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I don't want to do, this I keep doing. Does that sound familiar to anyone? Man, I just, God, I can't believe I'm asking forgiveness for this again. I said I wanted to do it this way, and I'm doing it that way. Now, you need to know, Paul goes a little bit further on that and says even more. He says, oh, wretched man that I am, who will rescue me? But he doesn't live in the defeat, because the very next thing he says is, thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord. You see, we can admit the struggle, but then we're going to run to the Savior. We're not going to glory in all of the mistakes that we're making.

We're not going to give up. We're going to run to Him, and right now, we're going to hear the words of Jesus. We're going to hear His voice, and these words are so good. They're so powerful. They're so important, and they are so difficult that we probably ought to pray now. Father, I'm asking for your help. Help me to say this the way you would have me to say it. Help us to open your word and to see things that apply to each of our lives. Holy Spirit, I invite you into this moment and into these rooms. Lord, we're so grateful for what you're doing, but now move among us. There are those of us who know, and those of us who believe, and there are those of us who are on the edge, and God, I pray that you'll speak to all of us. Please, Lord, to all of us. I'm asking this now in the name of Jesus. Amen. The story today is we're going to be caught in between two mounts, like Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives. Just so we can understand what's going on here, Mount Zion, it's a place. If you go to Jerusalem, it's one of the hills that compose the city of Jerusalem, and where we will pick the story up is in the... The upper room, we'll only be there for a minute, but the upper room. Now the upper room historically has been, we think this is where it is. It's in the upper city. Nobody really knows, but there's enough archeological evidence to suggest that this is where the upper room is. It's someplace in the city. And at some point, Jesus takes the disciples

out of the city and they make their way to the Mount of Olives. But there's a lot that's happening in the upper room. You see, this is where the disciples are gathered. This is where Jesus, they get into an argument about who's the greatest of them. They really are, as Pastor Will said last week, a bunch of knuckleheads. I mean, they really are. And Jesus, this is when he washes their feet. There's a whole lot going on. This is where he institutes the Lord's Supper. They're in the middle of the Passover meal. All of this happens in the upper room. At the end of chapter 14, he says to them, they're still there, come now, let's leave. And so this conversation that started around a table spills onto the streets of Jerusalem one more time with these disciples trying to keep up with Jesus. I want you to get the sense of what is going on because Jesus has been telling them, I'm gonna die, I'll be betrayed, my blood will be poured out. Judas has already been dismissed from them. I mean, they're all reeling, trying to figure this out. Now, in the past, Jesus had talked about his death. He had predicted it, but they never quite knew what to do with it. Even as he's coming down the mountain from the transfiguration last week,

I mean, which I do believe Pastor Will just did a brilliant job walking us through, but even as you're going down the mountain, Jesus says something about being raised from the dead. They don't know what to do with that. But now here we are, and it feels different. He's been saying things. There's a shadow across his face. You can hear something in the tone of his voice. In fact, just put yourself there for a second. You're leaving the safety of the upper room, and you know something's about to happen. You can almost feel darkness creeping through the streets, trying to find them. If you remember, in this series, these mountains that we've been traversing throughout Scripture, they're not just like super high yay moments. They're moments of challenge. They're moments of decision. Each of these mountains, you've got a decision to make. Are you gonna trust, or are you gonna rebel? Are you gonna surrender, or are you gonna do things your way? Are you gonna experience victory, or will it be defeat? I mean, this is what's happening. Next week, it will be Jesus that has some decisions to make. But this week, someplace between the upper room and the Mount of Olives, Jesus is going to speak to his disciples.

Now, I don't know where they are. Like I said, there's someplace on that way. They probably went through one of the gates in the southern end of the old city. Maybe there's some agriculture there as they're crossing the Brook Kidron. I don't know. What I do know is that Jesus is now about to speak, and he's now about to say some things that matter to us. John chapter 15, we'll start with verse one. I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. Because the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. All together now. What?

I mean, you look at this and it's like, ah, I've heard some of these words, but I don't know what exactly does that mean. Remember the context. Jesus has just said to these guys in the previous chapter, I'm leaving, I'm going to a place that you can't go to yet, but I won't leave you as orphans. He's trying to prepare them for what is about to happen now and how they're gonna live the rest of their life. He uses a metaphor that they would understand. People in those days were familiar with vines and fruit and what that was like, and Jesus, just to help us all, clears it up along the way. He tells us in this story, God the Father is the keeper of the vineyard, so he's the one who's carefully tending all of this. Jesus is the vine, he's the connection with God. We're the branches. And then the fruit is basically the outpouring of this relationship with God. It's your character. It's things that change. I'll tell you what, we're right back to those words or whatever word you would like to have been up there. It's growth. That's the fruit of your life. You see, the point here is that This life with God is different. I mean, it's His love, and presence, and power that courses through our lives, through our

thoughts, and our hearts, and our motives, and our reactions, and our words. This is the life that Jesus is talking about. This is what it's like. And the main point of the whole story is you gotta stay connected to the vine. Now, I know that sounds mysterious. It sounds spiritual. It is. It is. Let me tell you one thing, it's not. Let me tell you one thing, it's not. It's not religious. Now, let me explain. Some of us grew up thinking, you know, the whole goal of this, the way to stay connected with God is just get better and better at doing better and better. So we volunteer in the community. We give some money to some organization. We pay our taxes. We try to wave with all of our fingers to other drivers on the road. We try to be nice. And that's good. That's good. Listen, I just want to go on record. Everything I just said, good. Do that, okay? But that's not a connection with God. That's too mechanical. That's like legalism. It's not a life. How do you enjoy this life with God? Let's put it this way. Sites, feel free. Mid Rivers, Fenton, Grant's Trail.

So glad that you're with us now. You online. Now, let's just, if you want to talk to somebody and shout out an answer, do. But right here, right here, those of you in this room, somebody tell me how it is you become a Christian. I want you to think about this. This is open mic here. Somebody tell me. Like you're on the first floor and you've got to the fifth floor. You're in the elevator. You don't have long. Somebody says, man, I just want to know how do you become a Christian? What does that mean? Say it again. Okay, you're going to have to say more. So through failure, we're already on the second floor. So give me a little bit more. Okay, so part of what we're doing is admitting we have failed and then we ask for forgiveness. Yeah, that's it. So there's a humility in that, isn't there? It's like, I can't do this. That's great, that's great. Yeah? I got this t-shirt on today that says it's not religion, I've been forgiven.

It's not religion, I've been forgiven. So you're kind of where he is. It is a forgiveness thing. Anybody else want to add on to that? Maybe we're on the third floor now. We had to stop, so the elevator's going slowly. Grace, yeah, okay. This is a very big elevator. You all are just, like, so say it one more time. Yeah? So you can, keep going. That's Romans 10. So you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you invite him into your life. Somebody said grace. This is grace. It's a gift. Let me see if I can put all of your beautiful answers together. We're on the fourth floor now. There is a gap. That's where the failure is. There's a gap between me and God. I can't close that gap. Jesus can. Only Jesus can. Because when Jesus pays a price on the cross, he makes a way for me to be with God. He makes a way for me to be forgiven. And so there is confession and there is repentance, which is your way of saying I admit the failure.

It's all of these things. But it's Jesus and it is all Jesus. It's grace. It's a gift. It's free. But you've got to receive it. I had somebody once, it's not mine. It's not mine. You've heard this. It's not about what you do. It's about what he's already done. Will you turn? Will you trust? Will you surrender? Will you confess? Will you repent? Will you turn to him? All of those things. We can use a bunch of different words. But it's Jesus. It's Jesus. It's always Jesus. It has nothing to do with religion. That's it. Y'all did good. What if you don't believe that yet? Like what if you're struggling? What if you're somebody who is a skeptic and you're saying no. I got questions. I got questions about who Jesus is.

Would I trust him? Why do I trust the Bible? Man, what about this? What about that? I had some real serious church hurt in my past. I don't know that I can trust anybody, including God. What do you do with that? Well, first of all, I can't even begin to tell you how many people have started their spiritual journeys here with those kinds of comments. So first of all, welcome to the crossing. Secondly, I think those questions deserve exploring. You need to get an answer on some of those things. So I'll go right ahead. Right back to what each of our pastors was saying just a minute ago, explorations is a time-tested way for you to get some answers. I really want to encourage you to do that. It's a chance for you to ask things you couldn't, you didn't think you could ask, and see what happens. But what if you're at a place where, maybe you've been at this a while, and you're going, yeah, I don't think I want any of that. Like, honestly, I don't even know why I'm here. I'm here because I'm just trying to keep somebody happy in my family, somebody in my life. I don't think I'm buying any of it. Thanks, but no thanks. What happens if you say, God, I really just want you to stay like at arm's length.

I just, I'm just going to keep pulling away. I'm going to keep pushing you away. Let me tell you what happens. God will honor that request. He's not going to force himself into your life. That's not a relationship. That's a bully. You see, this gets us now to the part of that story where Jesus is talking about, you know, dead branches that are lying on the ground, and they're getting tossed into the fire. Y'all, there's no other way for me to put this, but what Jesus is talking about here is a kind of justice, and a kind of, this is what happens at the end of time. If somebody says, hey, I don't want any part of this, then God's going to honor that request. A holy God says, I can't look away from sin. It matters too much, and it will, I can't look away from it. So it has to be dealt with one way or the other. Now, we just got through talking about one way it can be dealt with. For God so loved the world that he gives his son, and his son makes a way. If you will turn to him, if you will come to him, if you will rely on him. You see, God says, I'm not going to, I'm not grading on a curve. I'm going to be fair.

It's pass, fail, and y'all fail. That's what the Bible says. All of us have fallen short. And he offers us a way out. Jesus is the difference maker. But if you say, I don't think I need a savior. My sins aren't, my stuff's not that big a deal. If you say, I don't even know that there is a God, and if there is a God, I don't want him in my life. I don't want anybody telling me what to do. I don't want a God that's bigger than me. I need you to know that. I need you to know God will honor that request now and forever. And I believe there's a forever. And I believe right here, Jesus is talking about hell. There's no other way to say it. Right here, Jesus is talking about a separation from God now and forever. But if you're reading carefully, right up front, he says something that maybe you have a question about. It says, so God cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. Well, hang on a second. That sounds like somebody's a part of the vine, and now he cuts them off of the vine? So wait, so I'm in, and then I'm out? So I trust in Jesus, and then at some point, I fall short of my fruit quota, and I'm not producing enough good works,

and so now I'm out, and now I gotta be anxious about all of this? Some of you have been taught this. Some of you, people have used stuff like this to scare you and to keep you in line, and I want you to hear me. That is not what Jesus is saying. Look at the whole of what he talks about. There are other places where he says, if you come to me, if you come to me, nothing can snatch you out of my hand. I mean, nothing. So then what's going on? Well, the first thing is, anytime you see a metaphor, there's only so far you can push a metaphor before it just, it falls apart, even here, which, by the way, if you keep reading, the very next thing Jesus says to them is, hey, y'all are in, y'all are with me. You see, I don't think he wants anybody who genuinely turns to him. I don't think he wants anyone to be anxious about this. If you turn to Jesus, that's it, that's enough. From his agonizing words on the cross, Jesus says, the debt's been paid in full, and if you turn to him and you ask for his forgiveness, that's it. But he also talks about how appearances aren't enough. You see, in a bunch of different places that are really very sobering when you read them,

Jesus says, there's gonna be people at the end of all time that go, hey, Lord, Lord, it's me. Like, I did good things. And he's gonna say, I never knew you. That's sobering stuff. What does that mean? Appearances aren't enough. You see, some of us have grown up in religious situations, and they're many different kinds, but some of us, like, you grew up and you kind of learned what to say and what to do, just to kind of hang out at church every now and then. Every now and then, just maybe give a little something, do a little something, but it was never really personal. For some of us, maybe you went to a religiously affiliated high school, and you had to go to church every day. Man, you learned it. You learned what to say and do. Or maybe your parents had you baptized, or maybe you were confirmed when you were older. Or maybe you grew up in a completely different tradition, and so you knew the one thing you did was you brought a Bible to church every week. You never really opened it, but you brought a Bible. Or maybe your church was the one where you learned, okay, this is when you raise your hands in worship. Or maybe you went to an event or a revival or something, and you walked the aisle, but you didn't walk the aisle in response to Jesus, you did it to impress someone else. For all sorts of reasons, we can get sucked into religion,

and it means nothing to us, and there's no fruit that comes from it. What Jesus is saying is, from the outside looking in, that branch looks like it's got life flowing through it, but I know there's nothing flowing through it. What Jesus is saying is, religious impressions and appearances aren't enough. What I'm saying, and I've been thinking and praying about this all week, y'all. I know at the break, some of you are gonna get up and probably walk out, I hope you come back and we can talk, but what I'm saying is, the stakes are too high for you not to consider this. You see, heaven and hell hang in the balance. But so too does this life with God right now. I want you to hear that there is a life with God available right now, it's full, it's free, it's not perfect, not yet, but man, it has the opportunity to flourish, and that's what you were made for, that's what you want, and that's the offer. Now, real quickly, so that we can all be uncomfortable. Jesus also says that for those who are attached to the vine, who are actually producing some fruit, there will be moments where the Father, in love, will trim us back, will prune us to have more fruit come. Now I have no idea what that looks like in your life, I don't fully understand this, here's what I will tell you. We can't blame God for every lousy thing that happens in our life.

We do that, though, don't we? Man, when you have a good day, it's a good day, you're in a good mood, stuff happened, like you're at a job that you still enjoy, and you're keeping that job, you get to come home to a family that loves you, or to roommates that you love hanging out with, you got friends that breathe life into you, you watch one of your kids run across a soccer field and it just made you smile, you caught the tail end of a sunset, you're falling in love, you're in school, and for the first time ever, it's starting to make sense, and things are moving in the right direction. All of those things happen. Do we stop and go, God, thank you? Not always, but oh baby, when we pull a muscle working out, we pull a muscle working out. When we run across a crabby boss or a cranky teacher, when somebody says something that hurts our feelings, or we can't find our keys, or our phone, or a parking space, or our homework, rawr, God, what are you doing to me? You see, I want you to understand that God isn't doing all of these things to us. There are times that we're doing this to ourselves. There are times that a broken person is doing it to us, and there are times that you and I are gonna be in the mystery that we talk about from time to time of what it is to live in this not yet healed world where stuff happens.

But Jesus says right here, there are also times that a father in love will prune us back for our own good. Now what does that mean, what does that look like? I don't know, it's a lot of different versions of that. Sometimes it's saying no to a prayer. We've talked about this recently, but have you ever just said, God, this is absolutely your will, this is what needs to happen. God, I want that, and he says, mm-mm. Or maybe he says not yet, you're not ready. Or maybe there's something that's getting in the way of something that's really, really good, and you've got this thing that's going on, and your career, you're kind of leaning into it so much that you're ignoring your family, or maybe it's a thing where you've got this habit or this hobby, and it's becoming kind of an obsession now. Or you've got a relationship that you're flirting with fire. You know it, God knows it. There's this way that you talk about a certain person or a certain topic, and God has nudged you and said, we can't do that, that's not the way. And you keep nudging him back and going, no, no, no. No, I got this, I got this. God in love sometimes will get our attention. And when he does, it's for our own good. He's trying to nudge us back to his way, to what he has in store for us. I want you to understand, please understand,

I am not suggesting, Jesus is not suggesting that God is some heartless puppet master who's going, nope, I think it's time to hurt her. It's time to drive him into the dirt and it's for their own good. I just, I wanted to help grow him up. That's not how he does this. His motive is always, always love. Try it on this way. God hasn't given up on you. He hasn't given up on your character, on your impact in this world, on your faith, on your resilience. God sees so much in you. You see, part of what we do in these moments is we forget that God is taking and playing this really long game and we almost give up on us, like we do. So let me ask you, do you ever give up on your own progress? Do you give up on, well, I don't think this will ever happen in my life. Do you give up on your faith, your resilience? You see, I don't think taking a passive approach to your growth works out at all. There is something that people call the principle of decay. You familiar with that? Oh, you are, believe me. In this broken world, you paint your house, give it enough time, the paint will crack and flake off.

Your body wears down, your car falls apart, your Spanish gets rusty. Students, when you've got a final, and if you, and they're coming up, right, yay, but if you don't go back and review some of the things earlier in the semester, your piano playing, you used to play the piano when you were 12. Try it now. Your golf swing if you don't practice, your teeth if you don't brush them. There's a principle of decay. Stuff falls apart. Wait, it gets better. The world is working against you on this. This decaying world is pushing against you. It happens in all sorts of ways. God has called you to this life, but there are values that you see. You see them played out in movies, on TV, on YouTube, and they're against what God is after. You'll hear things, expectations from your friends, from a coach, from somebody in the family, from a coworker. It's not godly, but you hear it, and they're trying to squeeze you into a mold. You see it on Instagram, you see it on TikTok. Believe me, we don't live in a vacuum. We've said this before, but we're changing. It's not if you're changing, it's how you're changing.

So let's take a look at what it is that you, like where you want it to, okay, so you guys are out of control. That's the first thing. Note to self, be careful in here. You know what's interesting? Every service, that was the number one answer. I think we live in a world where we feel that and we sense that, okay? All right, so that. So now what I want you to do in just a second is to talk to each other. Can you guys just get this video started and we'll come back to it? These are metronomes and you can see they're being, they're just being started randomly. We'll come back to that in a second. Would you talk to each other now about the pressures in this world and how they're keeping you from that progress you want about that one thing, that one area? Go ahead, talk to each other about the pressures you're feeling in the world. We'll come back to the video, don't worry. Before we go yourelves, because I'm not hearing all that, where you trying to figure out what are you feeling because we didn't understand? Because we're actually working from home. That's the first thing in order.

All right let's check it out a little bit more. All right, here we go. Nos ro pen, speak. Nintendo game, she speaks. Nintendo game, speak. Nintendo game, speak. Okay, you notice that we started, we didn't, but these metronomes started randomly. Are you seeing how? They've already kind of started to line up together. Now, we could talk about the physics of this and how this works and kind of just, like, you know, it's that transfer of momentum and it just begins to align the movement, but really what's happening here is the table is moving just a little bit and the movement, but do you see that one little guy? Do you guys see him? Come on, buddy, second row, like all the way to the right. Come on! Resist! You can do it, buddy! But already you're seeing that his motion is dampening. Do you see it now? He was doing it for a while, he was doing it for a while, he was gonna be his own man, you can do it, you can do it, but eventually, eventually, just listen to it, you can hear it. Ah! Listen to me now.

The apostle Paul in Romans 12 says, do not conform to this world. The world is gonna squeeze you, the world is gonna push you, do not conform. Resist, draw the line, take a stand, but the only way it works is if you are transformed from the inside out. This isn't you shaking your fist at the world, it's allowing God to do something inside you and remember what Jesus says, apart from me you can do nothing. Now of course you can accomplish things, but not things of eternal significance. And so what you do is you abide. It's the word that comes up, abide, abide, abide. It means so many things. Of course it means to live in, but let me give you a spiritual way to think about it. Abiding means to rely and depend on Jesus. It's a consistent relying and depending on Jesus. But I think you need to understand the work of the Holy Spirit in all of this. Right before this, in chapter 14, Jesus had talked about this gift of the Spirit, this load-bearing, life-giving Holy Spirit. He's gonna talk about him again in chapter 16. This is life with Jesus now, the Spirit coursing through you, his love, his power, his encouragement. But if you wanna kinda get a sense of what this is like,

Jesus says in verse seven, abide in, let my words abide in you. Like my words. Now we've talked about this so many times recently. It's the whole idea of verse five. Let his words, come to his word. Four times a week, watch what happens. Even just a little, a little bit of his word. The Holy Spirit will bring a verse or a phrase to mind. He'll apply it to your heart. Watch how your attitude changes over time. Try it, try it, try it. Second thing he says in verse nine, abide in my love. Now this is interesting, abide in my love. In John one, what we see, verse 12, to all who receive, to all who believe in Jesus, God gives them the right to be called sons and daughters of God. Like you're sons and daughters of the king. You're in the family. What does that mean? It means that's where your identity is. That's where your peace is. It's like you, I belong to him. No matter what you face, I belong to him. I am the beloved. Listen, Romans 8, 16 says that it's the spirit that will remind you of this. The spirit will whisper this to you.

Again, mystery, it's spiritual. But it's so real. You and I want to know that we know that we know that we are loved. Scott Mignot, I wrote this down this morning. It just came to me, but he's a theologian who said nothing is more important for the development of love than being loved. Nothing is more important for the development of love than being loved. If you want to see fruit in your life, if you want to see these things where Jesus is saying let's go out and change the world, it starts with this. What does he say? He says as I have loved you, now go love others. And that's what leads us to maybe the next big point, which is obey his commands. You want his commands to abide in you. You want to rest in that. Not because it's a checklist and you do it with a chip on your shoulder and blah. No, now we're back to legalism. No, it's I trust you and I trust that you know best. Let me give you one more angle on abide here. It can mean remain. Some of your translations say remain. And remain means to persevere. Eugene Peterson has a book called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

Here it is. You want to abide, then remain. Stay the course. You know that word up there that you were saying I want to see some progress in that. Stay the course. Let me help you with that. It's going to take longer than you want, but maybe not as long as you fear. But stay the course. You abide, you rely on the Spirit, His Word, you trust His commandments, you live in His love, you stay the course. If you're going through a rough patch in your marriage right now, you're not the only one. There are people here who will walk with you, they will take you back to the Word, will pray bold prayers. If you need counseling, we'll get you in touch with somebody, but stay the course. Don't give up. If your parents are driving you crazy, if you don't recognize that kid in your house, if debt is crushing you right now, you come to Him, you admit you need help, and then take the next step. If you've got that one friend, that one coworker, that one family member that always brings up that one topic, and they always bring it up the same way, and it triggers you, and even though you swore

you weren't gonna react that way, you always come back and blow them up, and you walk away going, how does that happen? If you've got childhood tapes that are playing, that keep defining your life in a dark way, if you've got a rut that you keep falling into, what do you do? You abide in Him, and you stay the course. You stay the course, because Jesus, Jesus has not given up on you. I'm telling you, don't give up on yourself. Now, this isn't some self-help pep talk. What did we just say? Apart from Jesus, we can do what? Nothing but with Him, oh, with Him. There are things that He has in store for us. I think that's why prayer comes up, because when you begin to abide in Him, the very next thing He says, we won't go into it, but it's like, pray. Here's something to pray for. God, that one thing, that one struggle, that one person, God, please, I wanna see some progress. Just show me the next step. I'll trust you, and I'll take the next step. Just the next one. It's also, I think it's Keller. I keep giving him credit, I'm pretty sure. It was Keller that said, if all of this is true, and it is, that's why you don't give up on others.

Ooh, even if you have a healthy boundary, because it's not time, you can pray for them. You can pray for them. God, do your thing, not, God, put the whammy on them, but God, do your thing. Amen. But for you, for me, in this life, if you know Jesus, abide, listen to Him, get His word into you. Pray real prayers as you walk through this life. Know that you are loved. Trust that His way is best. Follow Him. Those commandments are real. What do I do when I've made such a mistake, or I've made a pile of mistakes, Greg, that I don't even know that there's a way back? What do I do if I've got a stack of failures, and sins, and mistakes, and the shame, and the regret piles even higher? What do I do then? I need you to know Jesus hasn't given up on you. I need you to know that this is not the end of the story. Now, sometimes we will go back to these stories, these children's books about a magical land called Narnia. It's written by C.S. Lewis, and I try really hard not to go back there too often, but it's this place of, you just see giants, and elves, and talking animals, and it's pretty cool for kids. But Lewis writes this as a way to tell us

about a spiritual adventure. I was just talking with someone who said, I don't read those for my kids anymore, my grandkids. I read those for me, because there's a level of depth there where he's talking about this life with God. One of the books is called The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader involves this little boy named Eustace Clarence Scrub. He is a problem child, and how could he not be with that kind of name, right? But he's ornery, he's self-centered. I think the technical term is he's a snot. He won't work, he gets out, he blames everybody else for everything. They go on this adventure on this ship, and they land at Dragon Island. He's doing everything he can to avoid the work. So he sneaks away, he finds this cave that has all of this loot in it, like gold, and bracelets, and goblets, and he's fascinated with it. He's fascinated with this bracelet. It also looks like it's a place where a dragon would live, but he doesn't care. He finally found what was going to make him happy, and even though there is the danger of this being a dragon lair, he falls asleep on this pile of loot because he finally found what was gonna make him happy,

except he wakes up, and he's terrified because he can sense, he can tell. There's now a dragon in the cave. You can just smell him. You can hear him. You can just tell. Uh-oh. But over the course of the next few paragraphs, he begins to realize that he's the dragon. You see, in this story, Eustace, because of his greed and his self-centeredness, has turned into the dragon. At one point, he looks in this reflection of a pool and just wants to get in. He's so desperately. He thinks, maybe I could bathe. Maybe I could get some relief, but he can't. And there's that moment in the story when it says that Eustace lifts up his voice and wept. Now, not long after that, by the way, that'd be a great little morality tale at that point, wouldn't it? Just be careful chasing after the things that won't ultimately settle your life because those aren't the things that will satisfy your soul.

That alone would be an interesting thing. But I think the most beautiful part of the story is what happens next because the king, the Christ figure in these stories, it's Aslan, the great lion, shows up. And he and Eustace begin to talk. And Eustace says, you know, I really want to get into this pool. I think it will help me. I think, and he says, well, you can't get in until all the dragon scales are gone. Eustace now starts clawing himself and trying to pull off off of these scales. And as soon as he gets some scales off, others appear and he knows that he can't do this on his own. It's at this point of the story that Aslan says, you'll have to let me help with that. Now, he's absolutely terrified that this mighty lion with these claws is going to kill him with those claws. But he has no other option. And so Aslan begins to tear apart the scales. And yes, it is more than he thought it would be. And yes, it is scary. And yes, he thinks he's going to die. But of course he doesn't. And eventually the dark and the knobby scales, the ones that could never be pulled off, are now being ripped off. And eventually Aslan, the great lion, tosses him in this pool

of water and it stings terribly for a few seconds. And then he starts to swim, but not with scaly wings, with arms and legs. You see, Aslan had the ability to pull off all of the dragon. And reveal the boy that was still there. And if you read the rest of the story, you will see that Eustace has changed. Now it takes some time for him to fully change. Undragonning takes time. You'll remember that. Why would I tell you a story like that at the end? For anybody here, who's ever fallen asleep on a pile of what you thought was going to do it for you, only to find it wasn't enough. For anybody here who woke up the next morning and said, I think I've turned into somebody I don't even recognize. For anybody here who's made enough mistakes that you're not even sure there's a way back. For anybody here who has shame and regret that's piled up even higher. For anybody here who's ever lifted their voice to heaven and wept. I need you to know, Jesus hasn't given up on you. Now hear me, your way out of this and your way through this isn't going to be on your own.

For apart from him, you can do nothing. But with him, that's the life you want. That's the life you want. That's where we are. That's what Jesus is doing. That's what he's offering each of us. There'll be times that you're like, oh, I think it's too much. I'm telling you in my own life, there have been times where it's like, oh, I feel like this is too much. But Jesus knows what he's doing. And on the other side of it, I have found a kind of life and a kind of relief that I never would have found in the middle of my struggle. What am I saying to you? I'm saying Jesus is enough and Jesus is worth it. And get this, Jesus says, and for reasons I can't even imagine, that I'm worth it. That I'm the beloved. I want you to know that abiding means that you know that you know that you know that you are the beloved. We're close to Gethsemane now. Jesus is trying to prepare them for this chaos that is coming. Jesus is telling them it's all going to fall apart. It's all going to happen. And some of this is not going to make sense to you. But trust in me. Abide in me tonight, tomorrow, 10 years from now.

I've got you. And when you fail, and you will, I'm not giving up on you. So don't give up on me. Jesus says abide in me. Trust in me. This is the life you want. Don't live your life with. Oh, wretched person that I am, who could rescue me? Go to the next verse. Thanks be to God, who redeems us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Father, I pray now as these people get up and walk out into a world that is unsettled and unsettling, that you will remind them that you are still up to something, not only in this world, but in their lives. God, as we begin to enter into Holy Week, as we begin to prepare our hearts for these next moments here together, God, would you show us that you still have something for each of us. And if there's anybody here who is saying, I need to talk about what it means to come to Jesus for the first time, Lord, give them the courage. Meet them in that first step, Lord. Show us now what you are still doing in our midst, and we will give you all the glory, because apart from you, we can do nothing. Amen. Thanks, guys.