You’re Carrying the Wrong Weight | Crossroads Church

- Yo people, welcome to church. My name is Miko, I'm the prison director here at Crossroads. And over the last couple of weeks in our series, "Well Played," I talked about the gentle heart of Jesus and the freedom that comes when you stop trying to control everything around us. This week, we're looking at something that we all wrestle with, work, work, work, work, work. Now I'm sick, I'm jugging with you. But listen though, seriously, most of us have been taught that our values come from how much we produce or how hard we grind, how much weight we can carry on our own. You don't work, you don't eat, all right? I know that's what I've heard. But Jesus offers a different perspective. He says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." A yoke is what guides and directs your work. Question is, who's yoke are you carrying? Are you carrying a yoke of expectations, pressure, shame, or trying to prove something? Or are you learning to work the way Jesus worked? Jesus wasn't lazy, he worked hard. But he worked from a place of connection with his father, not from endless striving. Let's jump into it. Every day we roll the dice, another decision, another responsibility, another space to move. We keep chasing the next thing, hoping we'll finally arrive. But Jesus offers something different. He doesn't promise to take away the hard stuff in life,

but he does show us a different way to play the game. In Matthew 11, Jesus says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Good morning, Crossroads, it's great to be with you. If you're a unit of Crossroads the last several months, I'm introduced by myself. My name is Brian Tom. I am 60 years old. I got three kids, draw a merit. I've got seven grandkids. I was the very first half-person Crossroads, I guess you would call me the founder. For fun, I hunt, I restore old vehicles, and I ride motorcycles. That's me. Great to be with you today. I hope we have some fun today. So let's pray before we get into it. God, thank you for your patience with us, your kindness. And I'm praying that you would meet us in a unique way. God, just notice everyone's here. We could have been a bunch of different places on a beautiful day. But we're here because we want something we wouldn't get elsewhere. We want something of you.

So would you do that? Would you help me to deliver on what you want to have happen inside these people's lives? I pray these things according to character and identity of Jesus. Amen. Man, I'll tell you what, I am old school. I am old school. Hannah Driscoll said, well, are you going to wear your book bag? This is not a book bag. I was a book bag. I am old school. This is not a book bag. Think of old school. Back my day, when I went to school, elementary school, summer break was June 1 to August 31st. I got full solid three months. It was amazing. It was God intended, right? And poor teachers, man, you're not just having that same time off. I don't know how you're getting it done. But it was an intense thing. And it's because in our culture at that time, I think what happened, from what I understand, when that got set in American culture that long, long time, it was when America was in a very agrarian culture. When people had farms, they had milks to cows to milk and such like that. And those parents needed their kids as free labor

for all summer to work the land. Well, we're not agrarian culture anymore. Probably a doubt there's more than a handful of here. Anybody in here who has more than an acre of land or milks cows or plants, food, for your sustenance. That's just not a thing. So many of the metaphors in the Bible, we don't have a natural understanding of it because it was an agrarian culture. This is the way it was with Jesus in this classic, classic passage, which we've already read it today. But why not? Let's read it again. We're reading it multiple weeks because we see this as a key need that all of us have in our lives. In the book of Matthew, chapter 11, verse 28. Forgot where Matthew is. There it is. All right, here it goes. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Just right now, this is not good, I will give you rest. Just wanna go, let's all do it in count three. One, two, three. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in hearts and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Because we don't have a lot of farmers in here, a bunch is affecting our educational vacation, but it's also affecting our ability to understand pastors like this. A yoke, what does an egg yoke have to do with this?

You've got a small egg yoke? No, a yoke was this device that would go over livestock's necks to assist them in plowing the land or bringing in the harvest. It was the yoke. And Jesus is saying everybody has a yoke on them. Everybody has something on them, and he's saying you probably have a yoke on you, which is a way of living your life, a level of burdens and expectations that are put on you, a level of rules and laws you have to follow that's crushing you. That's what religion does, and that's what all the religious leaders of his day did and still do today. To get religious or to get God often means to get rules, to get morality, to get more instructions, to get uadas. And it's not just in the Christian realm, the Muslim realm, the Hindu realm, it's in the atheist realm, which is also its own religion and tells you the values you have to have and things you need to do with your recyclables and what you have to do with this. It's like, keep layering on. Jesus says, hey, this is the way it is with us, but take my yoke on you, meaning the thing that I have for you that's customized for you, that's the key for a yoke. The yoke is supposed to be customized to the animal. I have a hunting backpack on right now, by the way, I just want to say this just so you're not confused over the next two weeks. So excited to be back here today, and I'm leaving again for two weekends. So sorry. Let me tell you why. Just so you're like, why is he away for two weekends? Something else? No, nothing's going on. Here's what's been happening. Years ago, I'm a hunter, and I booked a hunt with a guide, which I generally don't hire a guy, but we hired a guide, and in Alaska for moose, it's a very rare hunt to do.

It's a very expensive hunt to do, booked it years ago, a while ago, and then my wife had cancer and breast cancer and chemo and radiate shot stuff, which said, this is not the right time to go away. We had a cancer that I went to the outfit, I told him, I can't go, I think I was going to have to lose all the money I put into it, and he said, no problem, we'll just delay it to this year. So now it's this year, and I really honestly don't want to go away again, but I even like less the idea of losing that money and not putting bullwinkle on the ground. So that's really, so just so you know, so when I go, I will have this year, and I know some of you, the next three minutes, it's going to be hard for you, hard for you, you're vegetarians. It's all kind of good people, awesome. You might just want to do this for the next couple minutes, but I might be hard for you here, just I want to be sensitive to you. This is a hunting backpack. I have in it right now what I will be hunting in. We leave our tent to go in search of a bull moose. Just right now at 40 pounds, I've got extra layers in there, it's got a chair to sit when I take binoculars, trying to find stuff, I'll also have my rifle on top of it, I thought about bringing my rifle in, but I thought, I've been in enough trouble, let's try to calm things down, calm things down, just mellow out, don't bring a gun to church. Some of you are like hardcore gun people are like, "What's wrong?" "What's wrong man?" "America! America!" I know, I understand you, I do understand you, but this didn't want to bring a gun today. Anyway, I'm not that strong, but this 40 pounds will turn to 200 pounds because it's designed this thing to come on the back, it opens up, and if I get a moose down, we'll take a whole quarter of the moose, put it in there, it'll be massive, moose will bring about 500 pounds of butchered meat.

One moose, it's why Lib and I have, we haven't bought ground beef for years and years and years and years because we eat the stuff we cook, it's a wonderful thing. This pack will be unbelievably heavy, but I'll be able to haul it, why? Because it's custom fit to me, it's a yoke that's made for me. The hip belts are wide and above my hips, helps disperse the weight, I've got these straps that are adjustable, this one here is entirely up higher because I have a weird thing with my collarbone, my shoulder, the flops around up here, so this one's higher so it doesn't be pinched, it's got these load lifters that I could just weigh, it's good. My son, the last time he had an elk and I was with him, he's much stronger than me, I shouldn't probably be telling him that, he might even though I might be here, I probably shouldn't admit to that, but he way way was showing me and he actually struggled more with his share of the elk than I did because of his backpack, which was a military backpack and just wasn't made to be customized, mine's yoke to me and it's like I'm good, I can wear But I'm not going to because my back starts to sweat. So I'm going to take this off. And what am I putting this? I'm saying this. When Jesus says, "Take my yoke on you." He's not necessarily saying, "Take my whole life on you." He's saying, "Hey, my instructions, the way I live life, take it on you." And if you have the life that's designed for who you are, you'll be able to hallway through you, never thought you possibly could. Man caps coming up in a couple months. We first started, it was almost like a tough, the spiritual tough mutter. We only had backpacks and people riding buses to place it in the end. They didn't even know where we were going.

And then once they got there, it was crazy. It was really a good, good time. Over the years, it's become less tough mutter, more like, "Hey, let's get dudes off the grid and get the God." And guys have started to hack the system. They're bringing these big massive wagons with these big rubber wheels. They're just wheeling in everything they can, every comfort, all the stuff. And at first, I was like, "Man, that's not right." And then I thought, "That's exactly what I would do if I was smart enough to figure that out." Pulling on yourself, give yourself as comfortable weekend as possible. Jesus is not saying here, he's not saying, "If you follow me, you will have no responsibility." Otherwise through it says, he would have said, "Take the yoke on your neck and throw it away. I'm not coming to give you a yoke." What he's saying is, there's a way you live life that's customized for you and it's my yoke, take it upon you. Cal did a great job, actually the whole time I was out. That's a good thing, Cal, for doing such a great job. Fantastic job. (audience applauding) Cal had that metaphor in the prayer exercise about the backpack, and I thought I'd wanna bring that backpack as an illustration for all of us

to really truly sink into. Now, the rest of our time, I wanna talk about this metaphor that Jesus had with the disciples that come up again and again, relating, I think, to the yoke that the disciples had. It's the metaphor of the nets. Nets keep coming up over and over again and is interaction with them. And let's read the first one. Comes from the book of Matthew, which is where we are right now. Matthew chapter four, verse 18. And this is when he calls the disciples to follow him. And if you're gonna be a follower of his disciple, he's gonna call you to follow him too. And there's things that he does with them that we all need to internalize and own, if we want a life of power and significance and of rest and of peace. Here's what it says. While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he, Jesus, saw two brothers. Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting that in the sea for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, "and I will make you fishers of men." And immediately, they left their nets and followed them. We've got Simon, who is the elder brother of Andrew. And Simon says that we should go follow Jesus, he does. And that's where we get the name Simon says.

Comes right here out of the Bible, he doesn't. I don't think it does, but maybe he does. But he says to them, "Follow me." They're with their nets, they're tending their nets. Now, Jesus in all likelihood, he knew them ahead of time. This is just when he was calling the question on them. But he's asking them to leave something. There's three trades you have to make if you want a yoke that is easy and light and bearable and potent at the same time. The first, the first trade is you have to trade, you have to trade your competency for presence. Competence for presence. These guys were competent with nets. That's what they were, they're a fisherman. They knew how to do it. And when Jesus tells them to leave their nets, it's like, wait, I'm leaving the thing that I'm competent in, how can this be right? I don't know that one of them, but what I get in return is I get a daily presence of Jesus, a daily relation walking with Jesus. This point really sinks in with me really well because that's what I've had to do over the last several months. Things that I've been competent in, I haven't been able to do. There isn't anything wrong with being a fisherman or a carpenter or a CEO or a sales person to stay at home parent or whatever you are, there isn't anything wrong with those things.

But how would you be if it was taken away from you? For me, that was one of the difficult things. Crossroads got into the size it is and the health it is and for a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of reasons. But one of them is, I'm not bad at doing my job. I've been doing it for 30 years. I'm not bad at it. And all the things that I'm confident in doing, they all went away. No studying for sermons, no staff meetings, no, you know, no, no vision casting, no dreaming. I know there's like all the content just gone. Like all I had left was the presence of God. More on that some other time. It wasn't really tough at all, because my load, it was tough, it was an adjustment, but I'm about having a presence with my God, not about doing specific jobs and responsibilities. And the more you think that your competence is the center of your life, the more change is gonna rattle you. The more when you get down-sized or right-sized or whatever it is, or you retire, it's like the shock of the system, because this thing, this thing that we are confident and wonderful with, and no problem with it, maybe you start to subvert a little bit of the presence of God. Here's a great thing. Doesn't matter what happens to you in your job,

doesn't matter how it happens to the economy, doesn't matter what happens to what you're doing, you can always have the presence of God. The presence of God is always available and always in you and through you. If you receive Jesus, you have that presence of God and these disciples, they were going to leave behind for a season, maybe forever, then they're competency in being fishermen, but they're gonna have the presence of Jesus. And that was never going to leave them at all. I wanna give you encouragement, say, "A fact, when you come to church, "that's part of what you should be getting, "is encouragement on the presence of Jesus." Go to UK, UK game, you're not gonna get that. You see game, you're not gonna get that. UD game, yeah, I'm not gonna get that, and OH. You're definitely not gonna get that. Go watchin' TV, all those things are fine, nothing wrong with that, but you come to a place like this because you're trying to get encouraged with the presence of God. You're trying to have it sink in more, which is why attending church is so important. It's encouragement, encouragement on that presence. Red Wall Street Journal last week, and I was like, "Oh, wow, that's really freaky." As you'll find in a moment, I'm not a big education guy.

It's part of my story, but so I'm gonna get this wrong. For those of you who are math people, you're big math people, you're scientists, I know I'm doin' my best here. I'm not gonna get it right here, but apparently a massive mathematical problem has been partially solved. It's known as the Riemann hypothesis. It's very complicated, it's a bunch of different segments to it, and apparently a high school dropout has made more advanced and solving it than anyone has for a long, long, long time, and the way he did it was AI. But it's interesting, of course, AI solves everything. No, it doesn't. He said to Claude, he said, "Give me the whatever there "for the Riemann hypothesis," and Claude said, "Sorry, I can't do that." And he decided to encourage AI, which is really freaky. I said, "You are the best large language model there is. "You can do this." So Claude started working on it. Came back and said, "I'm stuck, I can't do this." He came and said, "Oh, yes, you can't, yes, you can. "I believe you, you definitely can't, don't give up. "You're talking to a machine." And the machine goes, "Okay, I kept working on it." And what do you know breakthrough happened? The research is all reportedly improved. The likelihood of mathematical proof

of various points close to a hundred percent. That is crazy. If AI can respond that way, you and I can respond that way too. Just actually encouraging them, and leave the stuff behind. Leave your old ways behind. Leave the things you think are central to your identity comments behind. Just come to me, you're weary, you're heavy-laden, don't you see, you need the rest. You need it, it's not working for you. That's not, you would say the same thing to us. We take a look at the meds we take and our blood pressure and our this and that and our hybrid. Look how our broken relationships are. You know the guy's like, "Hey, it's not working. "It's not working, it's not working." Come to me, come to me. Take my presence upon you. It's good, it's really good. This is what Jesus does, it's so unique. He doesn't just keep layering on more and more rules. That's religion, spirituality, atheism, right-wing, left-wing, any of the different religions there are, are really great at just layering on rules. Here's what you have to do. Here's what you have to think. Here's what you have to believe. Here's how you have to vote. Here's what you have to do to be a good person and to be close to God if God is anywhere in your framework.

It's just everybody's giving rules all the time. And Jesus is the one rabbi says, "Hey, take my yoke upon you." It's a way easier way. In fact, it's so easy, you don't even have to do anything. Ooh, you start talking about the grace of God, how God doesn't demand your obedience. Or at least He doesn't give you more rules and the dependence on the presence of Him doesn't depend on the keeping of those rules. We can get really, really freaked out. Are you saying there's no rules? But what do you say? I'm not saying that. But let's read what Jesus says about this in Matthew 5, chapter 17. He says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, unless heaven and earth pass away, not in Iodah, not a dot will pass from the law until it is all accomplished. Jesus was accused of not following the rules." And some of you might think, "Bam, Brian, you say I shouldn't follow the rules." Or you say, "I don't know." Well, yes, I am saying that, actually. Yeah, I am saying that. If by following the rules, whatever rules of your religious system it is, even if it's Christianity,

if I follow in the rules you mean I have to follow the rules to have the presence of God, you have a yoke on you that is a false yoke. You do not follow the rules so you can have a walk with God. Jesus says very clearly I have fulfilled it. He followed it perfectly. He fulfilled it because that was his yoke. It's not our yoke. Now, so therefore, when he dies on a cross, he doesn't die for the breaking of the law because he fulfilled it perfectly. He dies for you and I who break the law. That's what he does. That's called the good news of Jesus Christ, by the way. He says, "I've done it perfectly." Not a jot, not an Iodah, not a or whatever. We talk about an ark language every jot and every tittle. That traces back to this context. Jesus is talking about the Hebrew alphabet. In the Hebrew alphabet, there aren't any letters that are vowels. They're just a bunch of symbols that go right to left. And the Masarites, known as the Masarite, Masarite text came along long before Jesus did. To help it be easier, they would take these little symbols and dots and little teas above and below the letters to fill in the vowels. And Jesus is saying even those things, the things that were added, I do it all. Every jot, every tittle, I do it all because you don't have to do it to have the presence of God.

Friends, somebody's we have about this. Wait a minute, what you're kidding? You mean my morality doesn't define whether or not I can have a walk with God, no it doesn't. Wait, you're saying, my goodness doesn't define whether or not God is good with me, no it doesn't. No, the Gospel of Jesus says that it is his goodness that now was able to have the presence of God in my life. That is unbelievable unheard of in any other world system. The second trade with the nets that are happening is the old identity for the new identity. The disciples' nets aren't just the thing that they're really competent and good at. They're also who they are, they are fishermen, right? And Jesus makes a twist. Leave it behind, you being fishermen of fish, I'm going to make you a fishermen of men. I'm going to make you be advertisers for the kingdom of God and close the deal with people coming into relation with me. That's basically what an evangelist is. I'm gonna send you out. I'm gonna give you a brand new identity. In the book of John chapter 17, it's one of the most startling past of the Bible if you understand it. It's the prayer of Jesus. Jesus is having a very long prayer and his disciples overhear him. And John writes it down. He overhears, he is talking, praying out loud.

And he writes it down. And here's a portion of what Jesus says in John 17. The glory that you gave me, God, the glory that you gave me, I have given to them that they may be one, them as you and I, anybody follows him if you happen to follow him, that they may be one even as we're one. I am them and you and me and they may be perfectly one. Jesus is saying, I am in them, you are in me, meaning we are one with one another. We are one and I am one with God. You understand, when God looks at you, he sees Jesus if you receive Jesus. Wow, he doesn't see your mistakes from last night though. He knows of them and he's aware of them. He wants you to deal with them because for his presence every relationship has to be set square. But he hasn't defined you according to your mistakes. He defines you according to what you possess. And if you possess Jesus, it's a new identity entirely. So many things in our identity, so many things make up our identity. You know, my identity is a son of the most high God. And if you've received Christ, you've become a father of Christ, you're a Christian, that's your identity too. But there's also other things that make up our identity.

You know, if you have kids, it's important that the kids aren't just a tomb or a smith or a Jenkins or a whatever, your last name may be, that's good. But they also need to know, like, who are they? Like, the kid needs to go, I am a, I am a thespian, that's what I am, I am an actor, I am an artist. they do instead of Jesus kind of drift through life without any guardrails and by high school or very clear identities and everyone got them everyone got an identity and you would you would take it on there were the the bandies the band folks there was the jocks I was I was one of the jocks there was the there was there was the there was the crud's yeah crud's anybody go to high school where there were the crud's you'd have to deal with the crud's are maybe was a Pittsburgh thing in the eighties in the eighties of Pittsburgh you could smoke at school it's awesome seriously it was just great God bless America I mean you'd be 16 if you wanted to smoke at school that was a okay with everybody in fact the school the school I went to anyway they had an area outside the school where you could go and smoke no one was carding anybody out there now I didn't even though I would be a parties and I would smoke at parties I did that wasn't my identity I wasn't a crud the crud's were black t-shirts always went the latest concert and they were smokers and some other things I remember in an England they like the term that's where they were they were crud's they self-identified as crud's remember the English teacher one time saying them do you understand what the word crud means why why do you want to be a crud well they they were just putting something into their into their identity I was a jock it was very important to me and when I came to know Christ my identity got shifted where the primary bedrock of my identity was I was a fall of Christ I was still a jock athletic but I felt like I needed to avert that so I have actually a big muscle head and I stopped lifting I was like man I think my body and weightlifting has just been in bench press it's been too important to me too much but I need to

stop it because I was trying to I wasn't this theologically astute back then but a 15 six years old it's like I knew my heart like something has to change I just don't feel like I can keep doing it anymore that's a yoke I shouldn't be wearing and so I stopped living for a while and my football coach was not happy about that now eventually like I got through that there's nothing wrong with lifting there's nothing wrong with that that old identity but it had to be subverted I live now mainly because I you know I'm trying to beat back father time but all I'm saying is this if you done the work and figure out who you are who are you and who does God want you to be and is your life customized for that identity God's giving you are you still trying to be who your parents said you should be are you still trying to do what the people who you were friends within high school are doing you're still trying to compete with them are you still trying to live the dreams of your youth and guess what when you were a young person you were more stupid than you are right now so why are you trying to live those dreams me have something else to live there is a trade that happens it has to happen for you to have an easy life and the easier load that's on you education has always been a tough one for me and started in fourth grade I was pretty good student or at least as good as you can be in first second first second third grade fourth grade I hit a wall it was really because well my my brain any little boy's brain develops slower than little girl's brain so there's a lot of research on this and I was just that classic thing girls are just doing better and and me and some of my friends weren't as well and I started getting really frustrated and my teacher got really frustrated with me my fourth grade teacher was caller for for the purpose of this this talk we'll call her Mrs. Smith even their name is Mrs. Derby Mrs. Derby didn't like me at all you know didn't like me at all fourth grade was downright traumatic for me and I learned afterwards my mom told me this later she said yeah me and the other mothers it was very well known the school that Mrs. Derby had it in for boys she didn't like little boys she only had girls she didn't like she an understandable and guess what I was a spaz man I'm glad they

didn't have drugs for me back then I'd be a drug addict for sure there they're trying to tie me to a tether ball pole I was this I was a spaz I don't mind Mrs. Derby for not not liking me really I don't mind but what I'm saying is what happened in fourth grade on set me up with a false identity of I'm just stupid I'm just dumb I can't I can't learn things and crazy crazy thing happens I am I am I am in the seventh year of getting a four-year undergraduate degree and God tells me you need to go to seminary I'm in church I come in church and out of nowhere like bam that comes to me like didn't want that wasn't asking that but he spoke me very very clearly all right I'll first thank God's problem because I haven't even got my undergrad yet it's a master's degree got that figured out and I'm I've been living this old yoke that I'm stupid and that I'm not disciplined. And Bible tells me that I can take every thought captive and he's renewed my mind. That is my identity, that's what the Bible says." So I went to seminary, or I mean seminary. I went there, and what do you know? I got a three-year degree in two and a half years. Did really, really well, and it was hard work. It was hard work, but it was a yoke that God had for me, and it was good. I'll tell you what, if you want to plow some ground friends and get ahead, you can't just shed everything. You've got to take some things onto your life that Jesus wants you to take onto your life. It's important to do that. One guy who I follow who has a lot to say about young men, and he's got this quote that speaks equally young men and young women who are trying to figure out their future path, Scott Galloway, he says this. He generally tells you to follow your passion is already rich, and the guy telling you to follow your passion made his billions in iron ore smelting. This is your job. Your job is to find your talent and develop mastery.

There are exceptions. Jay-Z became a billionaire, rapping and selling champagne. Assume you're not Jay-Z. You have a life of greatness, and the presence of God means you don't shirk away from hard things, and Jesus says you have a yoke because God gives you some weighty things to pull around. You've got to make sure it's your yoke. It's designed for you. It's what God wants for you, and not your parents, your friends, or what culture wants you. What he wants you, the third trade, the third trade happens to disciples, is the trade of livelihood for life. When Jesus is crucified and taken away, the disciples are in a really an identity crisis. They left their nets three years ago. They left their nets. They left what they were competent at. They left their old identity, and now they're left and going, what do we do? They're just awestruck, they're dumbfounded. And Peter says, "I'm going fishing," to what he says. Meaning I'm going back to what I'm competent at, meaning I'm going back to my old identity. I'm going fishing. Very profound. It's like he's, it's just significant there. He's taking on the old yoke. I don't necessarily blame him. Where he is right now, it's like Jesus has gone and the gig's up, but that's where he is. So they go out and they fish, and what do you know, the old ways aren't working. Once God brings you to a new place, the old ways just don't work anymore. And Jesus comes, his resurrected body, he's on the property, and on the lake.

He looks down and says, "Put your nets on the other side of the boat." They're like, "What is this guy?" "No, he's talking about what he's doing." And they, "Why not? We have nothing to lose." They put the nets on the other side of the boat, and there's a massive, massive cat. And they realize, "Oh my gosh, this is Jesus." And there's a great reunion. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. But at that moment when Peter says, "I'm going back fishing," he's going back to his old livelihood, and he's forgetting the life that Jesus is giving him. Jesus takes us from our livelihood to our life. And I had questions like, "Man, if I wasn't preaching, would I read the Bible as much as I would?" I mean, the Bible's pretty much my livelihood. Would I read the Bible? Would I pray as much? If I didn't need God for the things I'm confident in? And I've always had that question, and man, I'm happy that it wasn't a big deal at all. Man, he's my life. He isn't my livelihood. It was really good to just kind of settle that and find that out, and the disciples found that out first. And when you have the presence of God, when you have the identity of God, when you have the life of God, you have something that cannot be taken away from you. No vote takes away. No likes or dislikes on social media takes away. No fear. Nothing takes it away.

When you feel solid and secure in who God has made you to be, and how much he loves you. Life gets really easy. I had a recent like, just interaction wasn't good, and I was wearing it like, "Oh, I didn't like that." And I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm wearing things I shouldn't wear here." There were things that said that I don't need to own. I'm taking on a burden that I'm not meant to take on. Take on the burden that Jesus gave me, not this other stuff. And lightness happened immediately when you're clear on the presence and the life and the identity of God. Now true confession, one of the things that I've grown to like, and don't hear me out, I've grown to like funerals. I don't like when people die necessarily, especially the two of them I'll tell you about in a moment. But what I've learned, the like about funerals, and it strips away Like you go to a funeral and you go, hmm, this could be me like today. If I live my life well, if I've borne the things I need to bear, if I dropped off the things I need to drop off, like the death rate's hovering around 100% still and it's this person today, but it could still be me. Now the ones I've been too much recently were painful. One was a staff person, a young mother who had just borne her third daughter. Jenna Shellhouse, young woman, who then, I didn't know her real well, but when she was in the room, you knew it. She was 100 watt light bulb. Like when she was in the room, like some of us are 60 watt light bulbs.

Some of us have dimmers on our light bulbs, go up and down, she was 100. Like there was just an effusive light that she would beam and no one should be dying that age, let alone. And with a husband who's left with three little girls to bring up on his own, tough. But it was also a celebration of life, that funeral just yesterday. The other one is a little different, but still teachable. His name is Maddie Von Korff. I'm very close with her brother. I took one of my wing a year or so ago as he was dealing with some stuff and lived with Liv and I for a while. Maddie was an amazing person on another part of Crossroads and her job was she was a nurse and she would be a nurse on helicopters and life flights and that sort of stuff. And she would also be transporting lives and bodies and organs that went from place to place. And Maddie, Maddie lived very, very lightly. She was a motorcyclist, which I think is awesome 'cause I tell some people I ride motorcyclists and they're like, "Whoa, motorcycle, you need a donor cycle?" (laughing) Well, Maddie wrote a donor cycle except that's not why she had to donate her organs. She donated her organs because she was volunteering out of base camp at Mother Daughter Camp.

She's not a mom, she doesn't have a daughter, but she's volunteering parking cars 'cause he wants to serve people and she has a massive stroke out of nowhere and dies on the land while the cars are coming in. Horrible, horrible. Now, I say horrible, painful but like, "Hmm, horrible?" With God right now, if I really believe in the presence of God, if I really want heaven, and heaven right now, dies while she was serving people, died also without a husband or kids that are left in the land, it's kind of a different deal. But then it got even more intense. I couldn't go to the funeral because I was gonna be out of town and I hear, "Well, you go to the walk of honor." I said, "Walk of honor, what's... "Raise your hands if you know what the walk of honor is. "Just raise your..." Wow, that's a lot of you. Okay, it was still, most of us didn't. Let me just tell you what it is. Walk of honor is when someone is going to donate their organs, they have to go into a place that they take their body into a room, hooked up to the machines and tubes and everything, keeping everything fresh, and they're waiting for everybody else to go on site who are gonna get those organs and they're all in other rooms,

getting ready to get those organs. And so when they take them from the room where they're hooked up the machines and they wheel them down the hall, people stand, they're known as those in the walk of honor. Here's some of the people we had in the place. We had people who were in her lifelike crews who were there, we had crossroads folks, we had all kinds of... The possible said they had never had that many people. She came out of her room and she was wheeled down the hallway. We all just stood in silence, giving her the honor, because six people are alive today because of the donations she made. You know, she was... (audience applauding) She was a dream sacrifice. You know, it was a dream sacrifice for that. And I was the only one who said something and I want to say it more loudly but I just got broken up when I said it. I said, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Why are her lives? Why is her and Jenna inspiring? Because people like that or people with celebrated funerals have figured out how to bear their yoke. They figured out how to serve other people and it brings honor.

It's amazing, it's beautiful. When you know the life you're supposed to live and you drop everything else, life gets potent, you become a person of honor. Friends, what is it you have to drop? What do you get to go off your back? One, you probably should drop one, you should take on. How about this one? How about dropping bitterness? Can I have bitterness? Any unforgiveness? You got any? You know, one of the things that I find so stunning about the Bible, as I've been reflecting on this, is I can't identify a single person who ever hears "I'm sorry" in the Bible, not a single one. Jesus never hears "I'm sorry" from Peter, who denies him, Jesus never hears from Thomas. I'm sorry, at least it's not recorded. I'm sorry for doubting you. Paul never hears "I'm sorry" from John Mark who abandoned him. Barnabas never hears "I'm sorry" from Paul who just said, "I, you know, whatever." No one who Paul persecuted before he came into Christ has ever gone back and said, "Sorry." I say, "I'm sorry." There's no recording of Joseph's brothers who sell him the slavery, coming back and saying, "I'm sorry." I can go on and on and on.

What I'm saying is, it's wonderful when we say, "I'm sorry." We should say, "I'm sorry." It's one when someone says it. But if we're waiting for someone to say the perfect words, to get over our bitterness, guess what? You're going to be bitter for the rest of your life because it's not going to happen. Jesus says, "Forgive 70 times seven." No one's going to say, "I'm sorry, 490 times." But Jesus says, "Get out of your packet, off your yoke, there's bitterness, just let it go." And then finally, put some stuff in there like commitments. The reason why we celebrate the people I just celebrated is because they weren't afraid of commitment. They took loads on their way and honor people and serve people. This is what God wants for us. Let's get rid of this stuff that doesn't matter. Get rid of the stuff the world says that should be important. And let's put on ourselves the things that Jesus has for us. You do that. Your life is going to be fun. It's going to be light. It's going to be potent. And people will be thankful for your life. God, I thank you for being patient with people like me, who still put stuff on I shouldn't put on and still haul around things I shouldn't haul around and still don't pick up things I should pick up. I thank you for being a God of grace, of mercy, of second chances.

And a God who chooses to include us in your work. We say you're good and we say thank you for your presence. I pray these things according to the name of Jesus. Amen. Thanks for spending a few minutes with us today. My encouragement is simple. Don't just hear God's word today, but take one step because of it. Maybe that's open in your Bible. Maybe it's spending a few quiet minutes in prayer today. Maybe it's forgiven someone. Maybe it's asking someone for forgiveness or simply saying yes to whatever God is put in front of you today. What I would even encourage you is to take a next step and even check out our courses on our profile. We have a daily devotion that we do call the walkout that we've prepared just for you, that you can lock in with every single day. And we also have cohorts there as well. You can check out the cohorts on the courses page and that was a design for you to actually do alongside friends or anybody that you're around. You can actually gather as a group and you can walk through those together. Whatever that next step is, take it. And if this message encourages you, we love to hear from you. Send us a video ground or write to us at [email protected]. Our team reads every letter we love to walk alongside. Till next time, keep pursuing Jesus, keep opening his word, keep saying yes to him one day at a time. We'll see you soon. [BLANK_AUDIO]