MK040 Sermons
The Rules (Audio)
to the Christmas season in our house. One of the things that takes place is a card table gets set up and a puzzle will emerge from the closet and all the pieces will get dumped all over this table. And as all the pieces of this puzzle get dumped all over the table, the female members of the house and relatives will pour over this table for hours on end. First of all, attempting to take this conglomeration of pieces and make a frame around the edge of the table. And the frame gives you some idea, well, there's something at work here, not quite sure what it is. But over time, the puzzle begins to take shape and you start to see some of these pieces and you start, oh, that's what the piece is supposed to look like. That's what it's supposed to look like. And usually the male members of the family and household will engage when the last 10 pieces are about being put into place so they can celebrate the finished product. But at the end, that's what you have. You have a finished product. There's some time one missing piece that someone knocked on the floor and went under a chair or got stuffed in a couch cushion and everybody's scurrying to find that because you want to see what the finished product looks like. You want to see what it is. And when it's finally finished, the image that you saw or maybe didn't see, if you're a serious puzzle builder on the front of the box emerges and it takes shape. And something that was unfinished is now complete. And there's something about finishing or completing, coming to an end that gives us a sense of completeness, of celebration, of aha when it all comes together. Maybe for you students, it's a geometry or calculus problem that you can't figure out. Or maybe it's a project at school or finishing the last question on their test and you're like, oh, I'm finally done. I finally got that. I finally finished. There'll be that same sense of accomplishment when you experience other significant things in your life, like graduating from high school or college or getting your first job or moving your own home. A sense of accomplishment, even though for you, it's a real sense of just getting started in life. For the adults or the parents here, getting your kids out of diapers into school, past elementary school, surviving middle school and finally graduation seems like an accomplishment, something to be celebrated. And what happens in our lives is when we accomplish something, when we complete something, when we finish something, then we're looked to by others who have not finished that journey to seek input in our lives. And this happens in all arenas in life. It happens if you have raised kids past the preschool season of life and you have some friends that have kids in that area. They might ask you some questions about that. It might happen if you have accomplished some things financially or accomplished some things professionally. You might have some people that are trying to learn and grow and say, can you tell me how did you do that or how did you accomplish those things or how did you get there? We're often looking to someone who's completed the process before us who can guide us along the way. And this morning we're going to continue our series entitled Sitting at the Feet of Jesus. And in this morning's installment, we're going to discover why Jesus is an example, why He is someone that we should consider following and why He is one who we should pattern our lives after. And as we look at this passage of Scripture that's going to talk about this with us, the other amazing thing that's going to happen is I think for some of us it's going to help make some sense out of the Old Testament which for many people is a mystery. If you have a Bible with you this morning, if you would turn to Matthew chapter 5, Matthew chapter 5, if you don't have a Bible our ushers have some and they'll pass them out to you, it's going to be on page 959 in the Bibles that they're passing out. Matthew chapter 5 or page 959. And as they're passing those Bibles, let's just take a moment and talk about a couple images that Jesus gave us last week for us to remember about what the followers of Christ should be all about. He gave us two images that we talked about. Anybody remember what the first image was that Jesus talked about last week? He said you are the what? Salt of the earth. You are the salt of the earth. And we talked about salt and there were two things that salt is useful for. Anybody remember there's two things that salt is useful for? Flavor is one thing, salt against flavor but there's a second thing especially in the Middle East what salt is used for. What? To preserve. I didn't hear that Wisecrack, good thing but you all laughed at it. But to flavor and preserve, to flavor and preserve, those are the two things that salt was used for. And I challenged you last week as we looked at salt. I said look at your own life and ask yourself this question as salt of this earth which Jesus doesn't say you're supposed to become or become better at. He says you are. And so this was an assessment for us. The question was are you useful as salt or useless? Are you useful or useless? And then we talked about a second example that he gives us. He says you are the what? The light of the world. The light of the world. Light was something very important in the ancient Near East because they simply had the only light they had was the sun. And when the sun was down or the days were short, they did not have any light. And we asked, I asked this question, I said, is your light hidden or is your light hidden covered up or is your light visible? Again, you're not supposed to become a light or you're not supposed to become better at becoming a light. There's really one, two questions asked, is my light hidden or is my light visible so that others can see that. And the reason for that is so God gets the credit, he gets the glory, he gets celebrated by people who know you. And what we talked about is Jesus doesn't call you to carry signs around intersections or even leave tracks on tables that hopefully you tip at the restaurant. But he says this, he says, are you loving and caring for every person you meet and letting them see your light and being salt to them? I had breakfast with someone this week at a restaurant who was here in the service last week. And as we prayed for our meal, he prayed for the server. And I thought that's a start towards being a light, a light. And so last week we had some fun about talking about salt. I fed everybody some snacks last week and we had some fun about lights. You got shine lights out and shine lights in my eyes, all that kind of fun stuff. And if you weren't here last week, I encourage you to go online to our website and listen to the messages. But this week we're going to look at a passage of Scripture that is very different and very challenging. This week Jesus takes a step into an honors level, a graduate class, advanced training. And he talks about some concepts that are going to be a little difficult to understand. And I'm going to do my best to make them something that you can grab hold of and that you can walk away with this morning. But I want to just challenge you that this is going to stretch you this morning. Because what Jesus wants, the people that are listening to understand, is why his arrival on the scene is so significant. Why is the person of Jesus so important? If you have your Bibles there, and again one page 596 and the Bible is the guys handed out, I want to read that to you first. So let's read through Matthew chapter 5 verses 17 through 20. This is Jesus speaking and he says this. He says, "Do not think that I've come to abolish the law or prophets. I've not come to abolish but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, nor the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." Jesus begins there really in verse 17 by speaking about an accusation that has been made of him. If you're there in verse 17 he says, "Do you not think that I've come to abolish the law and the prophets?" And what Jesus is speaking into is he's speaking into accusations that have filtered back his direction about who he is and why he was there. Some of those accusations might go something like this. Can you believe this guy? He's talking about the kingdom of heaven. That is our deal. We're Jews. We get the kingdom. I don't know why he's going to these Syrians and all these people that are non-Jews and talking to them about the kingdom. That is our deal. He's healing them. He's inviting them to repent. Repent. Why do we have to repent? We're good Jews. We do all the things that Moses said. We follow Moses' instructions. Is he just expecting us to throw aside the past two thousand years and drop everything and follow him? We've had plenty of Messiah wannabes. Let's just wait him out and he'll go by the wayside just like everyone else. You say, "What had Jesus done that had gotten the people in such an uproar?" What had he done? Well, we don't know specifically but we can piece it together by looking at some of the passages throughout the book of Matthew that talk about that and some of the suggestions of what Jesus had done are going to come up on the screen. The first thing I think that Jesus did is he tossed aside oral tradition. He tossed aside oral tradition. You say, "What's oral tradition?" Well, in the Old Testament, there's over six hundred walls that the Jewish people had to live by. What the religious leaders did is someone would come to the religious leaders and say, "You know, I don't quite understand this or how does this apply in this situation?" Then they would interpret the law for them. We have a group that do that now. It's called our courts. They interpret the law. Well, these interpretations of the law became oral tradition that people had to live according to. Now, the Jewish people not only had to follow the laws but they had to follow all of the oral tradition. It's kind of like in your house, does this ever happen where one of your kids goes to one parent and they say, "Can I do this?" The parent says, "Well, yes, you can do this," but they don't tell that parent all the details of the situation. Then the other parent finds out the rest of the details of the situation and steps in and says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, time out, time out. No, no, no, no, you can't." Well, wait a minute. They said, "I can do that." So I have to be allowed to do that. It's oral tradition, right? That they have to be allowed and then you can't break that. You can't break that. That's what Jesus showed up and said. He said, "The oral tradition is not what God says important." Here's another one. The spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. The spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. The Pharisees said, "You can't eat anything. You can't make any food on the Sabbath." Jesus is walking through the field with his disciples and they're starving. They hadn't had any food. So they shake the top of some of the heads of the green, the wheat and they get some kernels and they put them in their mouth and kind of crunch on them. He said, "You can't do that." The Pharisees says, "You can't do that. You can't do that." Jesus says, "It's a spirit of the law, not the letter of the law." Another thing he did is he neglected the traditional way of teaching. You see, the Jews were only taught in the temple, in the place of worship. That's where the religious leaders, the rabbis would teach. But Jesus taught all the time, all the time, all the time. And the last thing is he spoke as one with authority. Do you know why the Pharisees had authority? They had authority because it was granted to them. It was given to them. But Jesus spoke as one having authority. Nobody had to give him any authority. These are just a few reasons why I think that Jesus created such an uproar when he came. And it says there in verse 17 it says, "He did not come to abolish or to wipe out the law, but he came to fulfill the law." This word "fulfill" is probably the most important word in this whole passage. So what does it mean to fulfill? Well, the law and the prophets were like when you draw a picture around something and to fulfill is to complete. In Matthew chapter 2 I think that verse is going to come up on the screen here. Matthew chapter 2 verse 15. This is when Jesus was being taken by his father down to Egypt for a period of time to escape Herod's killing of all the young children. Matthew wrote this, "And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said to the prophet out of Egypt. I called my son," referring to when Jesus would return out of Egypt. "Fulfill" means something is completed. It's finished. And one element of fulfillment is prophecies about the Old Testament. But there's another way to look at fulfillment. It's as if the law and the prophets started to draw a picture and a shape and you knew it was something, but you couldn't quite figure it out. Watch this first half of this video and see if you can figure out what the shape is going to be. [Music] Okay, so you can see the shape, right? Initially when you saw that shape you're like, this is like a ghoul or something, you know, right? I mean it's got all light in just the black shape, you're not quite sure. But now it's starting to add some ice. You're starting to get an idea. There's something there, right? There's something there. That's what the law and the prophets were like. It gave people a shape. It gave them a form and they knew there was something coming. They knew there was someone coming, but they didn't quite know who that someone or something was. You see, the law and the prophets did not save people. It simply gave them a shape of what was to come. So what is coming? Well watch the rest as he finishes the drawing. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Now you can see what it is. It's a picture of Christ. A crown of thorns on his head as he's there on the cross. But initially when he started that out, you really weren't quite sure what it was that he was creating. You see, that's really what the Old Testament, a lot of the Old Testament is like. It's this shape. It's this form that gives us an idea. And when Jesus showed up on the scene, he completed what it was that they said was going to come. Listen to this in Luke 4. Jesus, right when he, after he was tempted in the wilderness, and then he came back and he went into the temple. And he said this. He unrolled his scroll and he found a place that the prophet Isaiah had written. And it said this, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He set me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And then he rolled up the scroll and he gave it back and he sat down and listened to what he said. He said, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." He said, "All those things you've heard about, all those things you've read about, all those things your parents talked to you about, all those things you've heard about in the temple of synagogue, guess what? They're fulfilled in me." You see, sometimes I think it's hard for us to really wrap our minds around who Jesus was. Jesus was a perfect man who was God in human flesh. He was a perfect man who was a God in human flesh. That means he perfectly obeyed his parents. Never did not obey his parents. Never didn't try to shade the truth with his parents. Never didn't try to bend the rules with his parents. He always did exactly what they said every single time. But not only that, he's more powerful than the prophet Elijah with the miracles he did. When he spoke, he spoke words that were from God, not like the prophets of old who had to have God speak words for them. He spoke the words of God. And he could teach and present with more authority than Moses, who all of the Israelites for centuries had looked up to and revered. Not only could do that, he had power over to the wind and storms. He could stop disease in its tracks. He could reverse the result of death. And he always did what God the Father wanted him to do. He always did what the law required him to do. And the amazing thing about Jesus is no accident enabled him to do this. He did not come from another planet. He didn't get bit by an insect. His DNA did not get altered sometime in the course of his life. This was Jesus. And when he showed up on the scene, and they said, "Who is this guy? And how dare he do this?" He said, "Everything that you have heard for centuries is being completed in me." You see, the law could never help you deal with the sin in your life. The law only shows you how badly you messed up. Right? Does the speed limit ever help you drive the speed limit? No. The speed limit only does what when you're over it, especially in your GPS, and that green light turns red. Right? It shows you what you are doing that you should not be doing. That is the purpose of the law. It shows us our inability to do that until Jesus showed up and he did everything perfectly and he completed the picture. So you ask, "Well, if the picture is completed, if Jesus has done everything that was needed to be done, then we don't really need that old testament anymore. We just need something new." Right? Wouldn't that logic lead you to that place? Well, look what Jesus says in verse 18. He says this, "I tell you the truth until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, nor the least stroke of a pen." Well, by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. What is Jesus talking about? Well, he's using phrases that, for us, if you don't know the Hebrew language, don't make a lot of sense, but the smallest letter, as it's going to come up on the screen, is the tenth letter in the Hebrew alphabet. You're actually working from right to left instead of left to right. So you're starting here where the finger is pointing. The tenth letter is the Hebrew letter yove. That's as small as you can see. That's obviously the smallest of all the letters. But he says not only until that one disappeared, then if you go to the next slide, you'll see in the Hebrew alphabet, they don't have vowels. They had these little accent marks that kind of help you pronounce them. He said these smallest little things will have to disappear before the Old Testament is able to be done away with. And what Jesus is saying is he's saying there's still some things in the Old Testament. Even though I showed up and I've completed all the laws and I've done them perfectly, there's still some things coming that you need to pay attention to. He's not calling you foul rules about the kind of clothing to wear or not wear, but length or style of your hair. But he's also not saying to ignore everything in the Old Testament because there are some things that are talked about in the Old Testament that will not occur until Jesus sets up his kingdom reigning as king on this earth. And that the Bible says is still to come. What he is saying is that he is the new law. And to understand all those Old Testament rules and regulations, we simply have to look to Jesus. And so what did Jesus focus on? The rules? That's not what Jesus focused on. Jesus focused on relationships. You see the Old Testament, there was over 600 laws and there was thousands of these oral traditions that they had to follow. And when they came to Jesus and they said, what are the most important ones for us to keep? Jesus gave them two relational guidelines. He said, I want you to do this. First, I want you to love God with everything you have. And then second, I want you to love other people. That's what I want you to do. And those are the things that Jesus focused on. Look what he says in Matthew chapter 9, verse 13, he says, but go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Sacrifice was what the people had to do when they sinned to take care of their sin. And it was a guideline. If you sinned this way, you had to do this sacrifice. And this way, you had to do this one. And this one, you had to do this one. Jesus says, that's not what's most important. Mercy is what you, when you don't get what you deserve, that's relational. And he said, before you go and bring me all these sacrifice, you need to figure out how to relate to one another in ways that reflect a love for me and a love for other people. That's where you start. You see the Pharisees, they would keep the rules. And Jesus reamed them out a little bit later because they were so committed to keep in the rules that even if their own parents were suffering, they said, nope, got to keep the rules, got to keep the rules. You're, that's things to be you, but got to keep the rules. You know, Jesus called them out on that because he said, that's not what following me is all about. With that in mind, he gives them some instructions on how they handled the Old Testament. Look in verse 19. He says, anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But over practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. What's Jesus talking about there? Well, the religious leaders, they took all of these commands and they had some really important big commands and really not so important, smaller commands. And I think we can understand that. You know, we kind of viewed life like that, right? I mean, we kind of view, well, you know, if you, you know, if you violate the speed limit a little bit, that's just a little wall. But, you know, if you, you know, wreck somebody's car, that's a big, you know, that's a big deal. So we kind of do that. We know what that's like. And the religious leaders did the same thing. For instance, they thought it was a little thing when Jesus said what they thought it was a little thing that they were supposed to tie, give a percent of whatever their crops were back to God. And they thought that was kind of a little thing. But they saw as a big thing, things like violating the Sabbath or taking God's name in vain or not taking care of the poor. What Jesus did is Jesus flipped things upside down. And he said, you know, the things that you guys pay attention to, they're not the right things. You're missing the important things. Look what he says in Matthew chapter 23 verse 23. He says, whoa, do you teachers of the law and Pharisees? You guys are hypocrites. He says you give a tenth of your spices, men, deal and human, but you've neglected the important matters of the law, justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former. You see what the religious leaders did is when they planted their gardens and they grew some spices, they would measure out their spices. Okay, we got ten leaves here, one leaf, that one's got to go to the temple. Okay, let's take this one leaf and they were really good about that. But the important things, justice, mercy and faithfulness just blow them off. Just disregarded them completely. So what are we supposed to do with God's truth? Well, I think what Jesus is saying here is he's saying, if you only pay attention to the parts you want to pay attention to, there's going to be some consequences for that. If you ignore even the small elements, there are consequences. If you ignore and violate parts of it and teach others to do the same, there are consequences. Can we go back to that verse on the screen here in verse 19, if we can put that back up? It says, "Anyone who breaks the least of these," and look at that next phrase, "teaches others to do the same." Be called the least in the kingdom. But whoever practices and teaches and notice he doesn't say the biggest, he says these commands. The amazing thing about Jesus is he doesn't wait things differently. We do. The Jewish leaders did. He doesn't. Everything's on an even scale. In his mind, if you violate one commandment, you've violated them all. And so the question is, do you pay attention to the ones that you know about? And you encourage others to do so. And he says, if you do, you're going to be free. You say, "John, isn't that just a scare tactic to try to get people to do what he wants them to do?" Not really. You know, it's like if you're wearing the right clothes, if you're here's at the right length, if you're listening to the right music, if you're attending enough religious events, then you're okay. It doesn't matter. If you act like a racist, you mistreat others verbally, you eat abusively and you ignore people far from God who you can't convince to get saved. And he's shifting the focus. See, in that culture, the focus was on who breaks the rules? Who breaks the rules? And the way I thought about it, it's kind of a gotcha culture is what it is. There's always someone watching and they're always there, "Oh gotcha, you broke death." You know, that, you know, it's kind of a gotcha culture to see who they could catch breaking the rules. And Jesus is shifting the culture from a gotcha culture to great job. You knew this is what God wanted you to do and you did it. I mean, you heard that from the testimonies of Gail and Chauncey up here, didn't you? They kind of felt that this moment in time, God kind of gave him this nudge, even though Chauncey said, "I had other people kind of telling me I should do it." When God gave him that nudge, he said, "When God gave Gail that nudge, in spite of their fears, I said, "You know what? I need to do this. I need to go public with my faith." And that's what Jesus is talking about. He's not talking about someone who keeps the laws perfectly but someone who encourages others to do what they know to do. And what happened is Jesus' arrival, His showing up on the scene, it changed the cultural and religious landscape drastically, the way they had been living for several thousand years. And over time, they began to believe that keeping the law was going to get them to God. Instead of keeping the law was going to frustrate them and show them their inability to get to God, that they needed a Savior. And that person was Jesus. Well, he closes with somewhat of an odd statement in verse 20. That's really a direct confrontation of the religious leaders. Look at verse 20. "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you're not going to get in to the kingdom of heaven." It's kind of confusing because he kind of scratching your head and you think, "Wait a minute, Jesus, you just kind of told us that you fulfilled the law and that we're supposed to pay attention to all of this. But in order to get in, I have to be better than the guys that live, eat and breathe this stuff. How does that work? I'll never get in. I'll never get in. Really what Jesus is saying, He's saying that these religious leaders, they think they're in but they're not. You see, they had nullified the whole testament with their commitment to oral tradition. Look at Matthew 15 verses 6-8, he says, "You nullified the word of God for the sake of your tradition, you hypocrites." Isaiah was right when he prophesied, "These people honor me with their lips, with their hearts or where? Far, far from me." Jesus said, "These people that appear to be have it all together, appear to do all the right stuff, appear to look the part, appear to not mess up in their lives. Their hearts are nowhere near God, nowhere near God." And this was shocking to them because these people that are described as the teachers of the law, I mean they were the ones that took careful care of the Old Testament writings. They were the teachers, they were the instructors, they were the educated group and they had disciples who were like, "Can we learn from you? Can we learn from you?" In our culture today, they would be like Bible college professors. Now I'm not suggesting Bible college professors are religious hypocrites. I'm not suggesting that but that would be a comparison to their role in the current culture of our day. But Jesus says, "They're not getting in, their hearts aren't anywhere near me and you have to be better than them to get in." And what was Jesus saying? He's saying no one if they follow the teachers of the law are going to get into his kingdom. You don't follow Jesus, you don't get into God's kingdom by keeping all the rules. You get into God's kingdom by admitting you can't keep all the rules. You see the kingdom of heaven is not available to those, is only available to those who discover they need grace and discover that they can't follow the rules. And God, the answer to the dilemma of mankind was not just to make more rules or to find out to help us to find a way to meet the rules but to introduce us to a Savior. Because at the moment when we realized that we could not meet those rules, that we found ourselves helpless before God saying, "I can't do this on my own. I can't be good enough. I need a Savior." Then we would discover that we met Jesus. You see in our culture today when something's not working, what do we do? We go try to find a manual YouTube video, right? We try to find a better way to make it work. Jesus said, "I'm not going to give you a better way to make it work. I'm going to give you a different way." And that different way is me. Psalm 51, David understood this when he was confronted with his own sin. Says this, speaking to God, "You don't delight in sacrifice or I would bring it. You don't take pleasure and burnt offerings. But the sacrifices that God really wants are broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise it." You see David had to recognize that the only way for God to deal with the sin in his life was not to follow more rules, not to get more counsel, not to get more advice, but to come to a place of brokenness and humility because of his faithfulness. So what's that mean for you and I? You know, if you pick up a Bible and you open it up in the beginning and you start reading through, the story of Genesis or a little shocking but interesting, get kind of into Exodus and then you start to hit the rules and then Leviticus and all those crazy sacrifices and the numbers, that's a little interesting, dude around, I mean more rules, more rules. And it kind of gets confusing by looking at all of those things. What in the world is going on? But what Jesus wanted us to understand is that when he arrived, everything changed. And he turned this religious system full of rules upside down. Now those of you that don't like rules, you're like, "Yes, no more rules. Life is easy." Those of you that like rules, you're like, "Man, I wish there were more rules," you know? But he created and completed a totally different picture and he invited people into a relationship, not a set of rules. If you're trying to understand how to have a relationship with God, where you need to look is Jesus. You're trying to find out how to handle a difficult situation, you need to look to Jesus. If you know what it isn't like to be a student and follow God, you need to look to Jesus. If you want to know how to treat people, you need to look to Jesus. If you want to know what really matters in life, you need to look to Jesus. You say, "So all Jesus cared about was those two rules of God and love others." Well, those are the two most important. You say, "Well, what about all these other things in life?" Well, I hope you come back to next few weeks because we're going to take a deeper dive into looking at some areas that Jesus thought were very important. And we're going to look at the teaching of the Old Testament and we're going to look at the oral tradition of that day and we're going to look at what Jesus had to say about it. Now, I want to give you a warning. And the warning is, if you think that following Jesus and not having to follow all the rules means it's going to be easier. I have some bad news for you. It's tougher than you imagined. But the good news is, if you're following Jesus, you're not in it alone and he's there with you. And if you've never chosen to follow Jesus, the question for you today is, "Will I be willing to give my life to Jesus?" Well, I'd be willing to say, "You know, I'm not going to try to come up with rules. I'm not going to try to earn my way to please God. I recognize I can't." And the only way I can have a relationship with the God of the heavens, with the Creator of the universe, is to give my life to him. If you have, I want to challenge you to make Jesus the focus of your life. I heard someone say recently it really resonated with me. Instead of what would Jesus do, the WWJD thing that was around for a while, the question is, because I know what Jesus would do, I just read here. The question is, what would Jesus do us if he was in my shoes? That's the question. What would Jesus do if he was faced with my situation in dilemma with my kids or my challenges with my spouse or my confusion with my job or my struggles in school? Or the pain from my past that I can't find any relief from? What would Jesus do in my shoes? I say, "God, help me to live in a little way that reflects Jesus in the classroom, in the hallways, in the sports field, on the plant floor, in the office at home, and you're tracking a deer in the woods when you're caring for a crying baby when you're navigating an empty nest or your retirement years. What's it look like for you to follow Jesus?" You see, when he showed up, he completed the picture and then he invited us into this relationship with him to follow him. And if you want to follow Jesus, it can't be about a bunch of rules that you pride yourself in keeping. If you want to follow Jesus, it can't be about, "Well, I know I should, and maybe I will." And one day I might, "Jesus invites you to do that today." You say, "John, I'm just not sure. I'm just not sure." It seems like a big decision, and it is. And if you're just not sure, I invite you to come back the next few weeks as we continue to explore, what does this mean to follow Jesus in every aspect of my life? I want to invite you to bow your head with me and just take a moment and talk to God. Tell him what's on your heart and on your mind this morning as it relates to trying to follow him. Maybe you haven't followed Jesus, and you know he's knocking at the door and saying, "You going to let me in? I'm right here." You've been holding tightly onto that door and heard Gail say in her story, "Maybe today's the day you open that door." You say, "Jesus, I invite you into my life. I'm not perfect. I can't do this on my own, and I need you." Maybe you invited Jesus in, but you still kind of live life on your own. You kind of feel and be saying, "This is going to all be all about me." Jesus said, "If you invited me in, why won't you let me run the show?" That means looking to me for everything in your life. Not just the convenience Sunday morning things or the big things, but everything. Things that nobody sees in your heart. You're going to let me into those areas. God, I thank you for sending Jesus to this earth. I can't imagine living under all those laws that people did for several thousand years. I'm so thankful for not only the freedom that Christ's appearance created for me, but for all of us and the relationship that that makes possible. God, this morning as we listen and wrestle with these things, I just pray that you would help each of us to recognize how significant it was that Jesus arrived and the kind of relationship He offers to each of us. In your name we pray. Amen. I want you to take a moment and think about what would it be like if I chose to do that in my life? What would it be like if I turned my life over to Jesus? And what would it be like if I invited Him in to every single aspect of my life? I want to challenge you to do that this week. I challenge you to say, "God, I want you in the morning when I wake up and invite Him in and all throughout the day." All right?