Week 1 | Chasing the Wrong Things

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ All right, welcome to 2026. Great to see you all in the new year. I do want to welcome our Willow locations. Big shout out to Huntley and Crystal Lake, to North Shore, to South Lake, our friends down in Wheaton, and as always, big shout out to our new friends that are joining us from the Jefferson City Correctional Center. Great to have you all here. And happy new year to everybody. Now, I don't know what your experience is like when you step into a new year, but for me, it's kind of a mixed bag. Like on one hand, I have a lot of hope and anticipation about the new year. I'm a pretty optimistic guy. And so I think about a new year and I think, oh, that's a fresh start. It's a new beginning. I get very hope-filled, get very optimistic. I set some crazy goals and I want to go after them in the new year. So there's a part of me that really loves the new year for that reason. On the other hand, I've also done enough new years to know that sometimes I have great hopes and anticipations, and for whatever reason, life throws you a curveball that you can't expect and those get dashed pretty quickly. And sometimes my hopes and dreams about a new year, it's all

gone away by about January 9th, right? Have you ever been there? It's on one hand, like I get very hope-filled at this time of year. On the other hand, I can get a little cynical if I'm not careful. But here's what I believe. I actually believe that the 2026 can be your best year, if it's your best year spiritually. Here's what I mean by that. I can't promise that the new year is going to be circumstantially amazing. I can't promise that everything that happens in your life will be great. I can't promise you that there won't be significant obstacles that you'll face in the next year. Likely all that will be true. But what I can promise you is 2026 can still be your best year if it's your best year spiritually. I'm wrestling with the question that we wrestle with in the video. Like, what would it look like if you really fully gave your life to God in 2026? Not like lip service, not just showing up for one hour on a weekend, but like what does it look like if you really gave your life wholeheartedly, fully to God in 2026, what could that look like? As I was wrestling with that question this week, here's a couple things that came to mind for me. I think it changed your marriage.

I think your marriage would become more resilient. I think we'd stop asking the question like, what am I getting out of this? And start asking the question, how can I better serve you? I think confession, forgiveness, repentance would all become the normal instead of something that's rare. Divorce wouldn't necessarily disappear, but I think the marriages would last longer because people would fight for unity and they would fight for the relationship before walking away. I think it would change your marriage. I think if you really gave yourself to Jesus in 2026, if you're a single person, I think it would slow down your dating and I think it would make you healthier. I think that we could stop using people to fill emotional or sexual voids. I think that we would choose character over chemistry. I think that we would be about boundary, that our boundaries would be about freedom and not fear. I think it would really empower us as single people. I think if we were to give Jesus everything in 2020, I think that money would lose its grip on our heart, that your generosity would increase because fear would decrease. I think you'd live within your means not to impress others. I think contentment would replace comparison. If you really gave everything to Jesus in 2026, I think your workplace would notice because I think your integrity would rise. There'd be less cutting of corners, less ethical gray areas. If you're a leader, I think that you would value people more than profit. I think if you're an employee, you'd bring greater excellence

without ego, that following Jesus would turn your work from a grind into a calling. You know, not every job becomes joyful, but I think that every job can become meaningful. I think it would change how you think about work. I mean, if you really gave everything to God in 2026, I think your physical health would change. I mean, not perfection, but I think greater wholeness. You'd care for your body as a gift, not an idol, like addictions would lose their power as deeper healing takes place. I think rest and Sabbath would become practices, not luxuries. If you really to give everything in 2026 to Jesus, I think your mental and emotional health would shift. I think shame would be replaced by grace. I think anxiety would probably still exist, but it wouldn't dominate us any longer. The confession and community would reduce isolation and we would feel more whole again. It's a kind of sum it up. I think this, like if we fully commit ourselves to Jesus in 2026, the world wouldn't suddenly become perfect, but it would become different. I think there'd be more peace in your home, more honesty in your relationships, more generosity with your money, more integrity at your work, more hope in your suffering, not because you tried harder, but because you lived surrendered to the Jesus way.

That kind of commitment has always been how renewal begins, and that's still true to this day. And that's why I believe that 2026 can be your best year if it's your best year spiritually. And so it's for that reason that we are starting this new year with this teaching series that we're calling the Jesus way. Because if this is gonna be our best year spiritually, it probably serves us well to understand like what is the Jesus way? How do I walk in that? How do I live that out? Because I think it actually can create the best possible year regardless of what circumstances we face in the coming years. That sound good to you? It's more of really what I want and more of what I desire for us as a church. So for that reason, we're starting this series called the Jesus way. It's based on the sermon that Jesus delivered that we now call the Sermon on the Mount. One of Jesus' more well-known sermons is found in the Bible in the book of Matthew, chapters five, six, and seven. And I would say this about the Sermon on the Mount. I think it is the most clear, the most crystallized perspective of what it really means to follow Jesus. I think if you were to say like Jesus manifesto,

like what Jesus says following him is all about, I think it's really encapsulated in the Sermon on the Mount. So that's why we're gonna launch this year with this teaching series on the Sermon on the Mount. We're gonna be in the Sermon on the Mount, you ready? For the next 13 weeks together. And so we're gonna literally walk verse by verse through the Sermon on the Mount and really lean into what is the Jesus way. Because if 2026 can be my best year because it's my best year spiritually, how do I really align my life with the Jesus way? I think it will make all the difference in the world. So the next 13 weeks, buckle your seatbelt. It's gonna be a great ride as we dive in to the Jesus way together. Now, as we think about this Sermon on the Mount, I think there's a couple of principles I want us to lean into today that sets the foundation for everything else we're gonna talk about in the series. And so I think the first thing that Jesus would tell us as we lean into the whole sermon, I think he'd say this. He said, I think he'd say, I want you to connect your life. I mean, connect your life fully to God. Now, in order to kind of understand this, I'm gonna take us to the end of the Sermon on the Mount

before we circle back and we'll talk about the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. So again, I mentioned that the Sermon on the Mount is in Matthew chapters five, six, and seven. So if you get to the end of the sermon, Matthew chapter seven, you find these words from Jesus. He says, enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through that. For small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life and only a few find it. Now, oftentimes when you read this, we initially think, oh, Jesus is talking about the difference between heaven and hell. And maybe more people are moving the direction of hell than moving to heaven. I don't think that's what Jesus is talking about here. Or maybe we look at it and we say, oh, Jesus is talking about good versus bad. And maybe more people are engaged in activity that would be described as bad and fewer people that are doing what is good. I also don't think that's what Jesus is talking about here. What's interesting, and we're gonna learn this a little bit later, Jesus' target audience for the Sermon on the Mount was actually his 12 disciples. Now, there was a whole crowd that gathered that listened in, but his target audience, who he was really talking to, are those who had already said yes to following him.

So this was not necessarily a message of salvation. People had already received salvation. They had already received the free gift of what it really means to follow Christ and receive his forgiveness and experience a new hope and a new journey. So it's not a salvation issue. It more is an obedience issue. That once I have received salvation from Christ, what next? It's almost like salvation becomes the starting grid. So for example, just a few weeks ago, we got to experience Christmas at Willow, which was super fun to be all together. How many of you were with us for Christmas? And lots of you. Great time together. Now, I don't know if you remember this, but we had a moment that we invited people, if they've never made a commitment to follow Jesus, they can consider making a commitment. We had hundreds of people across all locations that said yes to Jesus for the very first time. So encouraging. So cool. And here's the thing about that. There's nothing that we do to earn our salvation. There's nothing that we do. It is not based on who we are and what we do. It is solely based on who he is and what he has done for us. It is a free gift.

But salvation is a starting line. It is something that we receive. And so what happens after salvation is we now try to live it out and we try to walk it out. And the reality of it is as we walk out our lives, so many times people live a way that's disconnected from their faith journey. And they kind of just do the life their own way. And I think what Jesus described me is when you do life your own way, it's a broad path, it's a wide gate, many do it. And I tell you, there's a lot of damage and destruction that is caused when we do life our way. But if you follow the Jesus way, it will feel more narrow, it will feel more limited. But I'm telling you, if you follow the path, it actually leads to life. And so really this is a description of what it really looks like to walk the Jesus way. And so it's the foundation of what I think is the rest of the sermon. And maybe to make this make sense, this was helpful for me to think about. How many of you remember these juice boxes? You've seen a juice box before. We used to have these around our house all the time when our kids were little, when they'd get upset, you just give them a juice box, put a straw in their mouth, everything becomes better, right? Now with my kids being older to this day,

we don't have as many juice boxes around, but if you remember juice boxes, every juice box has what? And it's attached to the box. Now it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the purpose of the straw is, right? That you open up the straw, it only has one purpose in life, what is it? It doesn't take a rocket scientist, right? Like the only purpose of the straw is to put in the juice box so I can get some. That's not bad right there, my friends. I kind of miss juice boxes around my house. Like the one purpose of the straw is to get the goodness of what's inside out of that and into my life, right? And so kind of using this as an illustration, work with me on this, let's picture the juice box as every good thing that God has for you, every good thing that God wants through your life. And so for many of us, we say, I believe in God. I believe that God did what he did for me. I believe that he gave me forgiveness of sin. I believe that he gave me the gift of eternal life. I believe that God wants to give me purpose and meaningful fulfillment right here, right now. And it's all right here in the box. And for the sake of the illustration, let's just say that the straw,

it represents your life and my life. The purpose of why we were created on planet Earth is for our lives to get deeply planted in who God is because then, hmm. Life becomes fulfilling. It becomes satisfying. There's life in it. The challenges for a lot of us, even a lot of Christians, they say, I believe in God. I believe he is who he said he was. I believe he did what he said he would do. I believe that he's joy-filled and purpose-filled and can bring all kinds of great things in my life. But I live in such a way that I'm just gonna do my life the way I wanna do my life. I'm gonna call my own shots. I'm gonna do it my own way. And they live a way that's disconnected. The challenge when you live a disconnected life, not a lot there. And so we sometimes will look to things like, I look to a relationship to provide fulfillment for me. Or I just want more money in the bank account and then I'll be okay. Or I just need a new job and then I'll be satisfied. And we think if we just have these things in life, then life will be fulfilling. It'll be satisfying. It'll be meaningful.

We look to life to provide those things. It doesn't provide the things. So then we think to ourselves, well, maybe it's because I need to upgrade some things in my life. I need a better straw. Maybe I need a different relationship. Maybe I need a different job. Maybe I need more money in the bank account. Now those things in and of themselves are not necessarily bad things. But the reality is I can have the fanciest life imaginable. And if it's still disconnected, it's still the same result. And that's why so many people who have everything that you would imagine, the culture says that you should have, and yet their life still feels empty. I don't care how fancy your life is. I care how connected your life is. Because when your life becomes connected, it changes everything. Jesus says the broad road are people who just want to do life on their own, thinking they can find fulfillment in the way that they desire to fulfill it. But Jesus says it's actually a narrow road, but it leads to life. Nothing like drinking the goodness of God through a fancy straw, right?

But it's the integrated life, it's the integrated life that changes everything. Now I'll tell you about the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, it is counter-cultural, it is counter-intuitive. Oftentimes it's the opposite of logically what you think would be true. And that's why the road is broad for so many people, because if you follow logic, it's going to lead you to the broad road. It's going to lead you to the broad road in many times a lot of destructive things. Jesus' way feels counter-intuitive. It doesn't make sense on the surface at times. It requires a lot of trust to believe that his way. way is actually the right way. But when you do, you find life. It reminds me of this verse from the book of Proverbs. Proverbs says it this way. It says, trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and what? Lean not on your own understanding. I think to really soak up what Jesus is gonna teach us in the Sermon on the Mount, that is such an important statement. We cannot lean on our own understanding. Because what Jesus is gonna give us is this upside-down approach to life that when followed, we lived out. It leads to the life that we've been longing for

and looking for and pursuing. So the first thing we gotta do, we gotta connect our life. Here's the second piece for us. I think we gotta embrace our need. Like embrace your need. So let me take us back to the front part of the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus starts out of the gates, Matthew chapter five, starting in verse one, there's some kind of introductory comments that kind of help us understand where he's at for the Sermon on the Mount. So it says this, Matthew chapter five. Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and he sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them. So again, I mentioned earlier, a couple of observations about this, who was the target that Jesus was teaching? He was actually teaching his disciples. Now there was a whole crowd of people that heard it, but really it was about those who were followers of Jesus. Let me tell you what the Jesus way looks like. It's different, it's counterintuitive, you're gonna have to hang with me, you're gonna have to trust me, because it looks a little different than what you would think, but it really is for somebody who's said yes to Jesus,

here's what the Jesus way looks like. Couple other kind of fun observations. It's interesting that in scripture, oftentimes a person of God would go up on a mountain to hear from God, to come back, to communicate to people, here's what God's saying. Now Jesus didn't have to go up on the mountain to hear from God, Jesus was God. But it's interesting that he connects himself to really what historically would have been very familiar, that God's word being delivered from a mountain. The other observation that's interesting is that Jesus went up a mountain and then he sat down. Jesus would have been seen as a teacher, as a rabbi, in ancient context, when a rabbi sat down, it was actually a position that he taught from. It was actually the moment that you would lean to the edge of your seat, because he's about to say something you really wanna hear. And so it kind of gives us this perspective of right before the sermon mentioned, it says that God's about to deliver a word to those who are following him and lean in. He's about to say something that will really, it'll make 2026 your best year, if you make it your best year, spiritually. As then he launches into this crazy way to start this message, we now refer to this section as the Beatitudes. Basically what it means to be blessed

when it comes to Jesus' terms. And so here's the first one, next verse, verse three. He says, blessed are the poor in spirit, what? That's not what you would expect him to say. I mean, think about it, in our culture, we think about other things are blessed. We say like blessed are the well-off, like blessed are the wealthy, blessed are the rich. Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit. That doesn't make any sense. How is a spiritually bankrupt person the person that's blessed? Just for the sake of this message, I did a little deep rabbit hole dive into Instagram using the hashtag blessed to see what people call blessed in our culture. And it's everything that you would expect. There were over 700 million posts on Instagram using the hashtag blessed. It really is the thing that you would expect. It'd be like, I got a new car, hashtag blessed, right? Or I got a new house, hashtag blessed. Or I'm slurping on some sort of fruity drink on some sort of tropical beach somewhere, blessed, right? It's what we would expect. And Jesus comes along and goes, the culture's definition of blessed is not my definition of blessed. Jesus comes out of the gates and says,

blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Why is this blessed? I think about it this way. Because when I'm spiritually bankrupt, when I recognize that I have nothing without God, apart from him, I can do nothing, what it actually creates is this. It creates the recognition that apart from me, I can do nothing. And the position I see myself in propels me to connect my life to him. Why is it blessed? It's not because the circumstance is blessed. It's blessed because it leads me to connect my life to him where life becomes good again. That make some sense? And the same rhythm is picked up with the next three of the Beatitudes. Because it's about pushing us toward connection with God. The next one, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Typically, when you think about somebody in a place of deep mourning, you don't think about that person being blessed. You think that person's going through a hard thing, but not blessed. Now, the word here suggests that it's not just mourning because I experienced a loss, although it could include that, it's mourning over my own spiritual condition,

mourning over my own sin, mourning over the brokenness and the sin that exists in our world. Now, what happens in our culture is oftentimes when we face this brokenness, we numb it, we medicate it, we try to kind of push it aside in some way. But Jesus blessed are you when you sit in it, when you grieve it, because God will meet you in that grief and provide comfort for you. And so it's not that the circumstances are blessed, but the circumstances can drive us to connectivity with God, which that's where the blessing's at. I think about it in this way. I was in a next is now group back in the fall time. How many of you were in the next is now group? Like a lot of us, right? And I was in my next is now group and I asked this question, when was a time that you felt closest to God? And I was not expecting the answers that almost to a person people would say. And person to person, they were telling me about the hardest moment in their life. Somebody mentioned the passing of one of their children. Somebody mentioned a medical condition that almost cost them their life. And they weren't saying that it was like this highlight moment for the circumstance, but there's like, there's something about that, that God met me there, that there was something about when God provided the right kind of comfort.

It's the closest I've ever felt to God. That's why it's blessed. Here's the next one. It says, blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. You're like blessed are the meek. I thought meek was weak. Meek is not weak. Meek is this recognition that I don't have to call all the shots. I don't have to be in control. I don't have to dictate every outcome because I trust in a God who can do that. And so a meek posture is a trusting posture that God will do what God will do. God will vindicate things. God will make wrongs right. God will advocate for me. I don't have to do that. I don't have to fight for power because I trust in an all-powerful God. It is this connection with God that is blessed. We get the fourth one. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. It's basically that your life becomes aligned with what matters most to God. It reminds me of the prayer that Bob Pierce prayed, that God break my heart for what breaks your heart.

That those who hunger and thirst for righteousness look out in the world and they long for, they hope for God's work and will to be implemented in the world in which we live and that things will be made right. And they hunger for that. They long for that because in that hunger and longing, it actually connects my life to God. So each one of these first four of the Beatitudes, it's all about posture. When I recognize my spiritual connection, when I recognize the loss that I experience, when I recognize that I'm not in control, when I recognize that I long for the things that God wants to do in the world, that posture connects me to his presence and that's why it's blessed. But do you feel how countercultural it is to what our world calls blessed? Jesus sees it radically differently, so I'm gonna give you what I think the Beatitudes will be from our culture compared to what Jesus says is blessed. I think our culture says blessed are the self-sufficient, moms who can do it all, at least that have blessed for the poor in spirit, those who know that they can't make it without God. Our culture would say blessed are those who want to escape, to numb out, to detach, who just keep it light. But Jesus says blessed are those who mourn,

who dare to grieve what's broken and find God's comfort there. Our culture says blessed are the powerful, the assertive, the ones who dominate the room. Jesus says blessed are the meek, the gentle who trust God to vindicate them. Our culture says blessed are the hustlers, the achievers, the ones who want to be happy. Jesus says blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, that they ache for God's will to be done. And so it's kind of this principle that if we want to really get our lines more in alignment with the Jesus way, it's understanding that blessing is attached to our lives being deeply connected to him. We recognize our need for him. Now, here's the next principle that I'll introduce the next four of the Beatitudes for us. Next principle is this, that it will cause us ultimately to live differently. Now, what's interesting about the Beatitudes, there's eight of them, but usually they're divided into four and four. The first four are about our posture, recognizing what we need to connect to God. The next four are assuming that your life gets connected to God, here's what comes out of your life. It just causes you to. live differently.

And what's interesting is if you take the first four and you lay them over the second four, they actually function together. And so the first beatitude connects to the fifth and the second to the sixth, and it kind of makes some sense. But that's the best way to understand it. The first four are about our posture, the second four about the overflow of that posture into the lives of others. And so here's the fifth beatitude. It says, blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Remember the first beatitude, it says, blessed are the poor in spirit, because if I recognize that I'm poor in spirit and God meets me there, I'll receive God's mercy. When I receive God's mercy, I'm more merciful, because I'll just see other people and I'll recognize the poverty in their spirit, and I will have the same posture with them that God had with me, is the overflow of my life into their life. The next one, verse eight, blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Remember that connects to blessed are those who mourn, because when I mourn, and I don't medicate, I don't numb, I don't push it, I just, I'm willing to sit in the grief. What happens in my life is God purifies some things. And so I can be pure at heart.

I can show up with integrity in all environments. I don't have anything to prove. I don't have to manage my image. I can just be pure. It's what flows out of me is this purity of heart. The next one, verse nine, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Again, it connects to the one about meekness. Again, meekness is not weakness. It's recognizing that an all-powerful God will one day vindicate everything. And if that's true, I don't have to play a power for control. I don't have to manipulate outcomes. I don't have to do those types of things. I can, in my meekness, allow the overflow to just be somebody who works for peace in the lives of everybody around me. It's the overflow. And then here's the last one. It says, blessed are those who are persecuted. This next phrase matters. Because of righteousness. Sometimes I'll hear Christians say, I'm so persecuted. I'm like, no, you were being a jerk. And people resist that. And so that's not what this is about. It's like, blessed are those who are persecuted.

Why? Because of righteousness. The truth is, if your life is lived out loud for Jesus, what it will look like is you will love people that other people feel like shouldn't be loved. You will advocate for people who are more marginalized. You will stick up for those, maybe even against the powerful. And it will be resisted. When you activate righteous living in a world that's broken, there will be spiritual resistance. But make sure that the persecution is because of righteousness. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you. Makes it personal. When people insult you, persecute you, falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me, rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. And so again, this connects to the fourth one, this hunger and thirst for righteousness. If I have this posture where I'm hungering and thirsting for God's work to be done in the world, I'm confident in a God who will do that work so much so that I don't care what anybody else thinks about me, that I'm willing to stand up and stand into that

regardless of the resistance that I may experience, because that is blessed. And so here's kind of the picture. The first four of Beatitudes are connect our life to God. The second four Beatitudes is when my life gets connected to God, here's what comes out. It just flows out of your life. And my hands are gonna get really sticky now, I should've thought about that. But that's the picture. It's what flows out of your life. I think about it this way. I think there's a quote from Rich Villedas. Maybe it's gonna come up on the screen. There you go. Rich Villedas wrote this book called The Narrow Path. It's on the Sermon on the Mount, great book, you should totally read it. But he says this, by starting with the word blessed, Jesus clarifies that those in the kingdom don't work for blessing, we actually work from it. The reality of it is for anybody who said yes to Jesus, you already have forgiveness, you already have salvation, you already have peace, you're already a part of the kingdom. And so we don't do these things and we don't live this way in order to earn anything from God. We do these things because we already have that from God. We don't do it because we're looking for blessing. Each beatitude starts with the word blessed.

You're already blessed. And so we function from that blessing. I think the way that I sometimes think about it, it's almost like that the beatitudes become the clothing, the spiritual clothing by which the follower of Jesus wears. And I'm telling you, I call it the clothing because people look at you like that looks different because broad is the gate and wide is the road that leads to the street that most people are walking. So you really walk to Jesus. This is where you're like, man, that looks different. It kind of makes me think of this. When I was in college, I went to college in Joplin, Missouri, small little Bible college there. And I was just cutting my teeth in ministry and somebody asked me to do their wedding. And I think it was my first wedding, if not second wedding. And I was asked to do this wedding and I was pretty excited to do it. It was something new for me, I'd never done it before. And as the officiant of the wedding, I didn't know what I was doing, but I had to look like I knew what I was doing, right? As I put on the full suit and the tie and the coat and the fancy pant shoes, I'm telling you, I look good. It was amazing. Now on my way to this wedding, it was in kind of the sticks of Missouri, like rural Missouri, population of more cows than people type of place.

If you remember the old show, the Beverly Hillbillies, they all lived in this area that I was going to, right? That's kind of the vibe. And so I remember I was on my way to this wedding and I pulled into this gas station because I needed a little gas before I was able to make it there. When I pulled into this gas station, it was a pretty large crowd of people at this gas station. And they all looked like the demographic of people who lived in this area. They're all in flip-flops, cutoff shorts. They were wearing like tank tops that looked like they'd worn it every single day for the last three weeks and hadn't washed it. You're with me. And so here I am like dressed for a wedding with a whole group of people that were dressed to hang out at a gas station. And they're looking at me like I'm from a different planet. But here's the truth. I wasn't dressed for where I was. I was dressed for where I was going. The same is true spiritually. When you walk the Jesus way, it will look different. And people look at you and go, that looks funny. But be reminded, you walk this way, not because you're dressed for where you're at. You're dressed for where you're going and who you've been called to.

It changes everything. As I go back and I'd say this about the gospel. The gospel, the good news of the gospel is that you're not trying to earn something you don't have. You're just living out of the something that you've already been given. God has already given it to you. Live from it and you'll experience the blessing through it. I believe 2026 can truly be the best year if it's your best year spiritually. So I'm gonna challenge you. Are you up for a challenge for the new year? All right, I'm gonna challenge you to take three steps. And each one of the steps in of itself is challenging in of itself. But I think if you commit yourself to these steps, I think that God will do something really significant in your life and your journey. Here's the first commitment, very practical, very basic. First one, I want you to attend church every single week of the series, all 13 of them. Like go to church 13 weeks in a row, that's crazy. I wanna challenge you to do that. And so some of you are like, well, I'm out of town. Great, catch that week online. But I want you to be here every single week because here's why. Jesus' teaching through the entire Sermon on the Mount, I'm telling you, it is counter-cultural. It is counter-intuitive, it feels upside down at times.

You can't walk the Jesus way if you don't know the Jesus way. And so I wanna challenge you, don't miss a single week. Every single week, next 13 weeks between now and Easter, we're gonna walk through a different section of the Sermon on the Mount. Do not miss a week between now and Easter. And come back for Easter too, I think it'll be great. Now let me warn you, the Sermon on the Mount is challenging. Jesus talks about some hard topics. He'll address anger, he'll address lust, he'll address sexuality, he'll address divorce, he'll address judging others. The list goes on and on and on. The message, it's hard-hitting. And there'll be moments that you'll feel like, gosh, what Jesus is saying doesn't look like the life that I'm living right now. Those moments will happen for all of us, including myself. I've been studying for this for the last few weeks. I'm telling you, I've been spiritually punched in the throat a few times. It's not a bad thing. But here's what I want you to hear. We're going to teach Jesus words. We're not gonna hold anything back. We're not gonna sugarcoat it. We're going to tell people, this is what it looks like to follow the Jesus way. Now as I say that, I'm not into guilt trips,

I'm not into shaming people, I'm not gonna beat you up over it, but here's my prayer. Is that maybe the Holy Spirit might bring conviction in our lives. In the parts of our lives that aren't yet walking the Jesus way, that our lives get brought more in line with the Jesus way. I think about it this way. How many of you have heard about the statue of David? It's carved by Michelangelo. A lot of us, right? If you didn't know this, it was actually carved out of a single piece of marble. Quite remarkable. Somebody asked Michelangelo one time, how in the world did you carve this amazing statue out of a single piece of marble? His response, it's easy. I just had to cut off everything that wasn't David. And I think, how true is that spiritually? That as I journey through life, and as I journey through even the Sermon on the Mount, there'll be some moments and things that don't look like the person that God's created me to be. Will I, will you humble ourselves before God and allow him to cut off everything that doesn't look like his son Jesus? Will we allow him to shape us, to mold us? I tell you, over the next 13 weeks,

I think your life, I think your marriage, I think your dating relationships, I think your bank account, I think your job will look different when we commit ourselves to the Jesus way and allow God to mold us to the Jesus way. 13 weeks, you in? All right, that's challenge one. Here's challenge two. I want you to engage in a Bible reading plan we created. And the Bible reading plan we created, it really ties into the whole series. And so, there's a couple of ways that you can find the Bible reading plan. I think the easiest way is to do it on our app. You can also find it at willowcreek.org slash nextsteps. But if you go on our app, and if you don't have our app, pull out your phone right now, download it. You won't offend me by bringing out your phone. Download the app. Once you're on the app, you can see my pretty little picture there. This is my version of the app. Now, you'll see a button at the bottom. There's one that's called Home. If you hit the Home button, you can download the reading plan to read your Bible on your own. Or if you hit the Daily,

when you hit the Daily, you're actually gonna hit the Start button, and you will just see the text for that day show up, and you can just read it right there. And so, here's how the Bible plan works. It's a five-day reading plan. Monday's reading is based on what we learned on Sunday. And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we'll look at other places in the Bible that speak to the same topic. Just allow us to kind of get a little bit deeper into it. My heart in this is that I don't think that we'll learn the Jesus way one hour on a Sunday. I think we walk the Jesus way when we really engage in it, even throughout the week. And so, I wanna invite you. It's a five-day week plan. We intentionally didn't put a reading day on Saturday and Sunday, because if you missed a day, you can use the weekend to catch back up and get ready to go for the next week. Here's my challenge to myself. Here's a commitment that I'm personally making. My current habit right now, before 2026, is the first thing that I do in the morning is I pick up my phone. And I look at email,

sometimes I'll scroll, I'll check out the news, whatever. Here's my commitment that I want to invite you to make as well. Scripture before screens. That the first thing that we do in the morning is we go to God's Word. The first thing that we do is we lean in. Scripture before screens. Allow God's, don't just like get in God's Word, allow God's Word to get into us. I think it'll shape everything. 2026 can be your best year if it's your best year spiritually. All right, here's the last one. You ready for it? Somebody's with me. I want us to memorize the sermon on the mouth. You're like, are you out of your mind, Sean? I can't memorize three chapters of the Bible. There's no way. The same person who would say that to me is the person who's memorized every lyric of every Taylor Swift song ever. The reality is we can memorize. The reason why we can memorize it in songs is because we listen to the song over and over and over and over and over again and it becomes a part of us. Like we just know it.

We don't have to think about it. We can recall it from memory very quickly. The reason why we have a hard time memorizing Scripture is that we don't have that same repetition. I want to build that repetition in us. I want you to read the passage every single week and then I want you to think about the section that we talked about on the previous Sunday and I want you to spend 10 to 15 minutes every single day and commit that to memory. I promise you, if you commit 12 verses, we're talking about today, if you can commit to it every day for 10 to 15 minutes, I promise you by the end of the week you'll have it memorized and then you'll do the next week and out of the repetition you can do it. Here's why that matters. It's because God's Word is best not on the pages of a book. God's Word is best when it's written on the scroll of your heart. Don't just get in God's Word. Allow God's Word to get in you. It will change everything, I believe it. So in order to help you, on your way out, we're gonna give you this nice printout of the Sermon on the Mount.

You're like, hey, thanks for that. You're welcome. Now, put this anywhere where you can see it. If you want an insider tip, here's how I used to memorize stuff. You can laminate this. Is laminating still a thing? Alright, if it's not, find a teacher. They can laminate anything, right? Well, one thing I used to do, I used to laminate stuff and then I would tape it in the shower because I'm there every day. I hope that you're there every day too. You're there every day, probably for 10 minutes or so. That's the best place. It's already built into your schedule that you can kind of go over it every single day. I promise you, if you do it, you can memorize it. You can do it. And I think that what God will do in and through your life, it'll change everything. I believe with everything, church, that 2026 can be your best year if it's your best year spiritually. So walk with us the next few weeks as we go through the Sermon on the Mount together and learn what it means to walk the Jesus way. God, we love you. I say thanks for the Sermon on the Mount. God, as upside down as it feels,

as countertubed as it feels, as hard hitting as it is at times, God, you've used it to shape and to mold my life to look a little bit more like your son Jesus. God, I got a long way to go. So I just ask over the next 13 weeks together that you continue to cut off everything in my life that doesn't look like Jesus. But God, would you not just do that for me? Would you do that for us as a church? May we not take the broad path that leads to so much damage and destruction, but God, may we walk the narrow path. It feels limited at times, but oh God, when we lean into it, we believe it's the path to life. So God, we love you. We look to you as we walk the Jesus way. It's in his name we pray. Amen.