Inland Empire: Riverside
I See Trees & The Messiah - Audio
I, uh, it's good, great to be with everybody today and hopefully you're encouraged as you're here and getting to see some familiar faces and somewhat friendly faces here. That's what we try to be anyway and I'm excited to, uh, to be with you guys and to be able to share a little bit, um, from this passage in, uh, Mark 8, I call it, uh, I see trees in the Messiah and you'll see why in just a minute, uh, based on, uh, what this guy that gets healed there of his blindness, but, uh, you know, I don't know exactly what, what your week has been like or what, like Jason mentioned in the beginning, how you are when you're coming in here. If you're skipping, as I can use the word skipping, uh, or if you're just trying to figure out your life and, you know, I feel like this week was a week and this has nothing to do with the passage, so you don't have to really listen if you're, if you're one of those people, but I feel like God teaches us lessons all the time and sometimes we're, we're listening and sometimes we're not really listening and I think that one of the lessons from this week, uh, at least for me is to do the things that only you can do for God in life. You know, we spend so many times doing all kinds of different things, but there's only certain things in your life that only you can do. Like, if you have kids, no one else can be apparent to your kids except you. So when you have that situation, that's kind of like, okay, this is my job from God, right? I'm the only one that can do this job and now God helped me to do it, uh, with all your strength. I know we had a number of people that went, uh, like Jason said, about 18 people went to the marriage retreat here locally. If you have a spouse, you're the only one that can be the spouse to your spouse, right? You're the only one that can love and courage, respect, honor them. And so that's something that just as the people of God, we got to take that seriously. Like, hey, this is my, my role. This week, I got to go to, um, or my, uh, separately here. My son's out hiking right now as we're, as we're here. He's been out on a John Muir trail for about a week, six days by himself, he's out there. He can text us through a satellite phone, but that's the only contact we have with him. And he's alive. He's doing well. He made it six days. But it makes you think about it. Like the first night he was gone. I don't think either of us slept real well because you're just like, okay, I'm in my comfy bed. I'm watching TV. I'm going to sleep and he's out in like 40 degree weather out in the middle of nowhere, setting up a tent just by himself. It makes you appreciate what we have, all the comforts and everything, but it just makes you appreciate, uh, your kids, you know, life and just how, um, how good we have it. You know, I never took my bed so much for granted as for that night. I think in hand, this is pretty nice. I got to, I was invited to the, uh, opening by the city of Palm Springs, uh, and Martha's village of a homeless, uh, community there, they opened up like 80 different units and, and so just to be there and get into, uh, I got to meet one of my friend at Martha's, her boyfriend and we were walking in and just getting to talk to him and met a talk with this woman who's running for office who's won the Chloe's kind of mentor. So it was just, just, I'm not really a big political person, so I, I don't really want to like get a black tie on and go hang out with all the uppity ups, but it was just one of those times and you're like, man, this is really good to be here. You know, this is something that only I can do, you know, because of where I'm at and because of what, you know, being on the board with Martha's and just, you never know. Uh, and then we, we got to spend time with Natea Yester, many of you know, the Yester's here for, for her birthday and just thinking like, wow, it's taken like 10 years and we finally got the birthday invite, you know. So it's kind of like it takes a long time and I know even as a church a long time ago, we used to move ministers around a lot and I was just like, wow, if we weren't here for this long, there's no way we would have gotten, you know, to be here and be around these people and, you know, one of the couples there, you know, because of the relationships that they have with the Yester's, it made it like really easy, right? Because they already like trust us and they already were asking questions and the first thing one of the guys said when we sat down and he's like, man, from being around Darren and Nikki for so long, I see the relationships that they have with your kids and I want that with my kids. I want to be connected with them when they're all grown up and now they're like five and seven but when they're all grown up, I want that. And so he started asking like, where do you go to church and how can we want to come visit and I was just thinking like, wow, this is so good to be here and to have people that know you, that see your lives and that are attracted because of who you are, not because of what you're saying, Darren and Nikki weren't even there, it was just because they've seen it over the years and I know many of you could see that, have had that happen. And it just makes me feel like, man, there's a lot of great things that we do that we don't even realize, our marriages, our lives, just doing the right thing when no one's looking, all those little things. And so if you don't get anything out of today, just to think about and pray about what is something this week that only I can do that God's put in front of me, that no one else can do and do that because it makes you a lot more confident even when you're doing something you're not thinking about, oh, what else do I have to do or maybe I need to do something else but when you feel like, man God has really put this on my mind and my heart, it gives us a lot more confidence as Christians, amen. As we get started here, I want to show you this short clip of a video, I know we've been talking a lot about the Middle East with our missions contribution and with everything going on. We're taking up money to send over there and I just, my feed sent me this video. I just want to watch about 30 seconds of it, it's not very exciting, like graphics-wise and music-wise but just to take it in to see these, to me, is Christians just living their life what God has put them, they're hanging out with displaced children, right, so they've gone down into southern Lebanon and they're just hanging out with everybody playing games and just to think about as we're here going through our lives as Christians, that's them over there and what they're going through in their lives, so I have them show you that we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going to be doing our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going to be doing our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going to be doing our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going to be doing our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going to be doing our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going to be a lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives, we're going through our lives anything. He looked up and said, "I see people. They look like trees walking around. Crazy comment. Funny comment. Once more, Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened and his sight was restored. And he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home saying, "Don't even go into the village." Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Cessarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah and still others one of the prophets." "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Messiah." Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. And this is an amazing passage. It's the only one that I could think of where Jesus only halfway heals somebody, right? It's like you come to Jesus. You expect that you're going to be like better than new, but not this guy. He comes to Jesus and he's only halfway healed. And maybe that's encouraging for a lot of us because I feel like I still need healing even though I've been healed once. I need to be healed again. How about you? I'm like, "Man, I met Jesus. How come I'm still not fully healed?" He's kind of a parable living out what most of us live out in our lives. We've had an experience with Jesus, but we still need more. And we've changed some, but we still need a lot more. And really, he's a parable in a way to us, but in a different way, he's a parable to the people reading the book of understanding Jesus the same thing, understanding him a little, but not fully. More specifically, he's a parable of Peter the Apostle. Right after this, Peter gets it. He sees Jesus as the Messiah. You're the one. And then right after that, he's like, "You're the Messiah, but you're not going to the cross." And Jesus has to have a conversation with him. And Jesus is going to be talking about that next week because at this point in the book, this is the second half where Jesus is heading towards Jerusalem and the cross and the resurrection. And so, in so many ways, even if we've seen Jesus before, we still need to see him again. Even if we've been healed halfway, we still need to be healed a bit more, I believe. And some of the other themes here of his sight being restored, that's throughout the whole gospel of just seeing Jesus and understanding and not missing it. And here, he puts the disciples on the spot and says, "Okay, I know what everybody else says about me, but what about you?" And it reminds me of Jesus with Peter after his resurrection. And Peter's like, "Hey, what about John?" And he's like, "Don't worry about John, Peter. You've got to follow me." And I think in so many ways, our personal conviction is what Jesus is looking for. Not what everybody else says he is, but who we say we are. You know, I couldn't help but, you know, because he mentions trees here, you know, where I'm going with this. It was like a gimme, "Oh, where to go?" Here it is. I had to, right? If you're visiting with us, I have, I look for these opportunities throughout the year. This was one of them to talk about my trees. And right now, everything is going really well, but they don't look very great, right? They've been beaten up by the sun and they're not sure what month we're in. They think we're in October, but it still feels like we're in August, right? And I think a lot of ways, that's how I can feel at times, right? I know God is doing all kinds of things, but man, on the, I'm feeling kind of burnt on the outside or tired. Maybe that's kind of where you are. And I still have hope for this little tree I put in the middle. It's my grapefruit tree that Elbury gave me a couple years ago. I planted it. It died. I was depressed. I was lazy. I never take it back out of the ground. And then the next year, it grew again. And so I was like, okay, let me leave it there. This year, it grew a little bit bigger. And now at the end of the year, it's dead again. And so very soon, it's time to kill it. I don't know about that, but I have, you know, I think about that. I have certain friends that are kind of like that spiritually, right? Every once in a while, they give you like a little burst and then they're just like, it's gone, right? It's like, well, where was that? I don't know, but we're still praying for those people in our lives, right? People that maybe they're not going to get it, we hope they're going to get it. You know, we've seen glimpses of it, we believe. So I keep that tree just as a reminder of like, hey, all of my dead friends out there spiritually, they're going to come one day, they're going to surprise me. And maybe that'll be me, too. Maybe I'll surprise people with that. So back to Jesus, it says he restored the man's sight and he saw everything clearly. And you just get that idea of what he's hoping for all of us that we could see clearly, even what I was talking about in the beginning. What does God want from me this week? Where's he putting me? What direction is he leading me? And then he says this kind of weird thing that he says throughout the book. Don't even go into the village, right? Don't go talking about this. Don't tell people about this, which could seem a little bit weird for us. But the idea is that popularity isn't what Jesus wanted, but it's what the disciples wanted. They wanted this movement to grow, they wanted it to be more powerful, they wanted it to take over offices, they wanted to kick out the Romans, they wanted it to go a whole different direction that didn't include the cross, which you'll see that next week. But Jesus is like, no, that's even though you want to go this way, I'm going that way, right? And I think even as a church, we want that, right? We want to grow, we want to get more influence on the community, we want to have more power to help God, to spread his message, and that might not be a bad thing, but Jesus wants us to go to the cross. So in one sense, we might want to go over here, but he might want us to go a different way. The challenge for us is what does that look like? What does that way look like? Not the way of being popular, but the way of following Jesus, the way of humility, the way of trusting God, the way of the cross is when people don't recognize you, when they don't know you, when they walk right by you like you're not even there, that's kind of what the cross is, because you're not maybe going the way that people are looking for. You know, Jesus mentions where he's going and how he's going to be treated three different times, and every single time his disciples are like, oh no, that's not going to happen. Or, oh, if you're going to go away, then make me great, right? They still didn't quite understand, they were still kind of half seeing, right? And that's what this is all about. Even for us as Christians, we're half seeing too. We want Jesus, we want the cross, but we're not, I'm not so sure we want all of it, I don't want all of it, if I'm being realized, right? But I know that's the way that God's trying to see, show me sometimes. So he takes his disciples away to Caesarea Philippi, this is away from all the Jews, it's basically just off by themselves, where they have no distractions. And he starts asking them about who he is, and they start mentioning that the prophets, because that's what people associated Jesus with. He's bringing God's message. If you read through the gospels, he's challenging a lot of people, right? He's turning their world upside down, he's helping them to understand things, even the disciples, things that they think they understand, but they really don't. And God calls us to be that way in so many ways too. But I love that idea that here Peter, he understands for this moment who Jesus is, right? Him saying you're the Messiah, it's not just the title, but he's understanding like this has been talked about for a long time. Like this has been building through Abraham and David, all these prophecies, and he started to understand like, wow, you are it, Jesus, you're everything. And I think for a lot of us, maybe we've been, maybe you've been at that place before, where you, in our community, what that would sound like is when you say Jesus is Lord, that's what that, that's that moment that he reached, like man, everything, nothing else matters except you Jesus. Whatever I wanted to do, that's nothing compared to what you want from me. You know, I'm giving myself to you, right? Have you been there? Have you had that moment? Are you, you know, I think about Connor as he's out there for these couple of weeks and just seeing creation and just wondering like, what is he thinking about? You know, when he looks up at the stars and just to have no noise for two weeks, you know, is that what he's experiencing this kind of awe and recommitment? And that was Peter, he was having this time, he already seen a lot of miracles, a lot of amazing things, he couldn't understand. And maybe out here, when he went out on their little walkabout, maybe he had time to reflect, had time to think about that. And there's actually people that study this, as we learned a few years ago from David Bruce, there's the science of awe, that they study astronauts mainly after they go into space and they see the world and they come back, it's like they're changed. Because they don't see countries, they don't see differences, they just see, hey, we're all together in this. It says they experience a heightened appreciation for the planet's fragility and a deep connection to humanity as a whole. And it's kind of a self-transcendence or shift, you know, that they come back wanting to do something, they come back wanting to help, they come back thinking of others. And in so many ways, even when we're on this birthday party, a couple of the people started talking to me about the universe and how big it is and how small we are and it was a little bit crazy. But I remember thinking like, wow, I don't think about that at all, I never think about that, right? I'm just thinking about what do I got to do and what's happening over here and how can I fix this and let me do my quiet times and whatever, but just taking time to be an awe of God. It changes you. It changes me. I think in so many ways, that's what I need. That may be what you need to just get some time, maybe don't even read your Bible, just go outside and think about how big God is and count that as your time with God. To be more in awe of who he is, maybe you got to drive out to Joshua Tree and just look at the Milky Way. But to have more of an appreciation so that it can change us. And I think we've had that, but we need that again, just like the disciples. So as we take our communion together, think about this life that Jesus has for us. Think about who you say Jesus is. Think about that conversation. What does everybody else think about Jesus here? What do you think? What are you professing to him today? He boils it down in the next few verses. He says, "Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it." What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? And that was one of those transcendent moments where they were thinking, "Man, what am I living for? What am I putting myself into?" And really trusting Jesus with our whole lives that can change us. Let's think about that as we take our communion today. Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you that we can come before you. Thank you for this chance to see again, to see better, to know you God. I pray that you guide us. Help us not to waste our time on things that you don't want us to have anything to do with. Help us to put ourselves into your hands, to follow your ways. Thank you for Jesus. I pray for everyone here that you make their task clear even this week. God, what are the things that you want from them that only they could do? God, I believe that you have a great plan for us. Help us to see you greater. Help us to be in awe. Help us not just to think about ourselves but to think about you and think about others. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for His body and blood, for His death, His burial, and His resurrection that we take in at this time. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Inland Empire Church of Christ