Best Sermon Ever: Driving Desires

Hi, Southeast family. How are you? Thanks for joining us. Whether you're in the room or online, we're excited to have you with us on the service today. Before we get into it too far, I just have a couple of things. First of all, Happy Father's Day. We're excited for Father's Day. I was joking with somebody that we're saying, this is the least celebrated holiday of the whole year. Nice. (Congregation laughing) They said it’s because, when we try to tell them what to do or ask them what they want to do, all they want to do is nothing really, or they want to take a nap or something. I want you to consider the reasons why a dad, when given the opportunity to think about himself just wants to take a nap, you just want to say, “Thanks dads for your hard work. Thanks, dads, for your commitment,” (Congregation clapping) and for the dads that are raising kids that aren’t your own. Sometimes they’re raising kids that they've had the opportunity to love, but not given birth to. “Thanks for being men who step in when it gets messy.” That's awesome! (Congregation clapping) The other thing is, right now is our time in our service where we talk about our tithes and offerings, and this is an opportunity for us to give back to the Lord for the ways that He's been faithful to us. So, at our church, we practice the discipline of tithing to support God's work through our church, into the community. So, you can give online, there's lots of ways to do that online. Or you can give, if you're in the room at the back there are black boxes that are mounted on the walls by every exit out of here, and we'll get that. Just to give you a little bit of insight on what your money goes to support. This last week, we got a really cool opportunity to support and love on pastors and staffs from 24 different churches across the country, from Florida to California and everywhere in between. It was cool. We had them in for a Relational Discipleship Conference. Knowing ministry can be a lonely space, especially if you don't have friends, every week, you're on your face before God, asking Him to give you a word for these people. Something that you would have to know,  then you get up and you prepare to step up in front of people and say, “This is what I believe that the Lord has given me to share to you.” Then people email you about stuff like what you wear. It can be a very lonely space. With that being said, we got the opportunity to love on a bunch of guys and gals who were very lonely in their position. It was really cool and awesome, (Congregation clapping) and that came as a part of your support of our church here and our staff also crushed it. Our volunteers were amazing, and they left here encouraged and that's kingdom business. Every opportunity that we take to invest in another church and give them life as an opportunity to move the kingdom forward there, as well as here, is really significant. So that's part of what your money goes to support when you do that.

Okay, are you guys ready to go to work? Here we go. We have a mountain of material to get through, and we have a parking lot of time. We are not going to do this passage justice. We're just not, there's going to be six sections that we're going to talk about today, and every single one of them deserves their own sermon, if not their own sermon series. What I want to do is show you the flow of thought that Jesus is using as he's going through this Sermon on the Mount, because this whole section is connected together and it's connected to what comes before and after it, which is important to know too. What we talked about last week was this whole idea that Jesus didn't come to do away with the law, he  came to fulfill it. So, whatever he's inviting us to is about fulfilling the law. We talked about how, if your righteousness doesn't surpass that of the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, that you're not going to have your place in the kingdom of heaven. The problem with that is that it feels like, as we're having this conversation, we can care about truth, but it has to be encompassed in the bubble of loving God and loving people. Remember, we talked about that, the mind of God has to be encapsulated in the heart of God. That's what we were talking about. So, what a lot of people came to me with this weekend, it’s a good question. It's a good wrestling match which was, “Hey, it feels like you’re removing the rules, and that we’re just supposed to get along.” It's a good wrestling match because what we're inviting you into is a tension. It's not a resolution. It's a tension. Relationship is a tension. What Jesus is calling us into is not a checklist of do's and don’ts, it's a relationship with God and a relationship with people, and that's tension. Think about your relationship with your spouse. If you're married, like that's not resolvable. In fact, John Gottman, who wrote the book, “What Makes Marriages Last?” Here's what he says, “Even in the most successful of marriages, they will reach roughly 12 impasses in their relationship where there is no resolution 12 in the course of their marriage. Now, some people are like 30 of them and that's a problem, right? “I will not bend.” Even in the best-case scenario, relationships call us to this tension and the tension is good. Jesus is calling us in our relationship with God, to a tension, not to resolution, and that's what we're talking about here. So, if we're going to read the Law in this way, then what does it mean to follow the rules? That's what we're going to wrestle with today. Is Jesus taking away the rules? Heavens no, that's not what we're doing. What Jesus is doing is saying long before the expression of whether or not I followed the rule. There are all these other things that are really important for us to consider because it's not just about the rules that we follow. It's about the heart with which we follow it. And I said this a hundred times and you'll hear me say it a million times more in my next 50 years of ministry here at Southeast, I hope. Here's the thing, the right thing done the wrong way becomes the wrong thing. We can keep all the rules really well. That’s what the Pharisees and the teachers of the law we're doing. We can keep the rules really well, but if we do it with the wrong heart in the wrong way, then it's the wrong thing, and that's the problem. Jesus is wrestling with that tension in Matthew 5, starting in verse 21. Here we go. “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, you shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother is liable to judgment.” That's different. Anger is not as bad as murder. Here's the thing, what Jesus is driving at here is that the same motivation that would allow you to be angry at somebody and hold anger. It's not about getting angry. Everybody gets angry. Even Jesus gets angry. It's about what we do in our anger. Do we hold it? Do we Fester? Because you know what happens in relationships. You can have somebody that even offhandedly accidentally, they say some random thing that hurts your feelings. Then we don't deal with it as we should, because we don't like confrontation, and then it festers, and it grows, and it gets bigger. Pretty soon that person can't even walk across the street right. It was a simple thing that turns into more because we have to justify why it's okay for us to be angry at them, in order to justify that we have to villainize them and victimize me. That's what we do with anger. It's the same motivation that would allow me to pull the trigger on somebody else, so it's not about don't murder. It's not about that. It's about all the pieces before that, that would lead me to, it's okay to murder. That shows up in a bunch of different places and that shows up with anger. Then he says, “Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. And whoever says, Raca, (It's a fun one to say) you fool, will be in danger of the fire of hell. (Ouch!) Therefore, if you're offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go first, be reconciled to your brother and then come back and offer your gift.” Jesus wants peaceable relationships that badly, he’s willing to interrupt them from bringing their sacrifice to the alters, their act of worship. That's how they worship God, and Jesus is saying, if you come to worship God, and you remember that there's a problem between you and somebody else. Don't worship God, go fix the problem and then come back and worship God. He takes it that seriously. “Settle matters quickly with your accuser so that while you're going with him to court, less, your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you'll be put in prison. Truly I say to you, you'll never get out until you pay off the last penny.” Think about this. We talk about murder, murder is a big deal, it's a bad one. Well, I've never murdered anybody. Have you ever noticed that when people talk about themselves, they’ll say, “Well, I'm a good person”, I say, “Really, tell me about that,” “Well, I haven't killed anyone.” Have you ever noticed that? That's our standard for our own personal moral agency is, I'm not Jeffrey Dahmer. That's it? For your personal standard, it’s Mother Teresa. For me, Jeffrey Dahmer. For you, Mother Teresa. We hold everybody to these high moral standards, but we don't hold ourselves to them. What Jesus is saying is the problem isn't murder. That doesn't mean it's okay to murder. It means that long before that we need to be dealing with the issues that would lead us down that path in the first place. Because when we do, it'll also stop us from getting angry. It'll also stop us from insulting other people. It'll stop us from creating bitterness in the world. It'll stop us from them. Why? Because we're dealing with the same motivations, right? We get to the thing below the thing, below the thing. Jesus is so good at saying, here's the rule. Remember the rules that God gives us are there to reveal his character. So, what do we learn about God's character in this rule? Don't commit murder and what other places in our life do we violate that principle of God's character?

Let's keep reading. “You've heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery.” Another nice light one. “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Uh, that's way harder, right? That's way harder. “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.” By the way, context matters, exclamation point! Nobody is allowed to leave here and start cutting off body parts. (Congregation laughs) That is not what's happening here. Let me get through the passage and we'll come back in and tackle it, but no, no, no, no. Don't! That's a hard one to recover from. (Pastor being humorous) “For it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away for it is better that you lose one of your members then your whole body go into hell.” Now, to be clear. Jesus knows as well as you and I do that the problem with sin is not my eye or my hand. It's not my eye or my hand that causes me to sin. It's my heart. It's the posture of my heart before God, the problem with sin is way before my eyeballs or my hands. So, don't. (Don’t read this passage as though Jesus is saying to literally cut off body parts) Here's the thing. Jesus is a rabbi, right? And he's the living word. So, everything that he does, everything that he says is in the text. So, where's he getting his stuff from? Well, at least for the eyes, what I would tell you is he's pulling that from Samson. Samson is this great leader of Israel, but he's not useful until he loses his eyes. He gets his eyes gouged out and then he's able to fulfill his purpose. Well, what was the problem with his eyes? What did his eyes do? Well, he had a terrible time with indulgence and lust. Then the question is, why did his eyes lead to lust? Here's why because Samson was always alone. He never had any friends. Anytime you would see Samson he was always by himself, and over and over again, it says, and he saw, and he saw, and he saw, and he saw, and he saw, then he went and did it. 

He saw this and went and did it. Anything that he saw, he just did it. He didn't have anybody saying, “Samson, knock it off! I love you too much to let you ruin your life that way.” So, God had to intervene. By the way, this is third service bonus material, because what are we going to do, go have lunch? (Congregation chuckles) Here's a Jewish principle, “midah keneged midah”, which means measure corresponding to measure. Jesus even uses this principle. He says in the measure that you forgive you will be forgiven. In the measure you judge will be measured to you. This is a Jewish principle. Jesus didn't make it up. Measure corresponding to measure, which means that the measure at which you sin is the measure at which you will be punished for your sin. Samson's problem was his eyes, but he loses his eyes. Are you with me on that? So, God did this, not to make him pay for what he did wrong, but to make him useful for the kingdom, and what Jesus is inviting us to is look, if your eyes aren't the problem, the problem is how you view people. That's at the heart of lust. Lust is the desire to use someone else for my own purposes, that's selfishness. Anytime that I see you from that perspective, and it doesn't just have to be sexual lust, it can be any kind of lust. Like lust for power, lust for money, lust for whatever. Anytime that I use you to get me ahead. I never want what God wants for you. I can't, I can't want what God wants for you and be worried about what you do for me. I can't do that. Those are mutually exclusive. So, lust has the same root as adultery. “Adultery is different because we fall in love, and we want to express our love to each other.” It is not love. I don't care what you think about the rest of your relationship. It is never loving to ask someone to step outside of God's boundaries for their life. That's not loving. You're setting them up to fail, “but I love you, baby.” Then treat her with honor. Treat her with integrity. Honor her body above your own. Now here's the problem with that. The tension is, well then what do we do with the desire? Because it's there, right? The desire is there. Here's the thing that the church doesn't do a good job of. It doesn't do a good job of talking about sex and faith and how those things work together. So, what we try to do is separate them. Like, one doesn't have to do with the other UNTIL you're married. So, I grew up in the front end of purity culture, right? Praise God that the church chose to try to have a better conversation around this. We don't handle this conversation well with kids because we focus so much on behavior modification. It's not really about dealing with the root, the drivers, and the desires. It's not learning how to manage and channel those things into healthy and productive ways. It's about just stopping the behavior. In order to do that, you have to repress it. Then all of a sudden you say, “I do” and there's supposed to be this magic switch that gets turned on in your life. Then it's all better, right? How's that working for us? Nobody wants to talk about it, right? Because there's all this shame attached to it. So let me just say this, coming on the back half of August, we're going to do a six-week, 12-hour class on faith and sexuality. The reason is because the church has got to figure out how to have a better conversation on all this stuff. 
So, what do we do with marriage, and what do we do with singleness, and what do we do with temptation, and how do we talk to our kids and all that? We're going talk about all of it. It's going to be way more information than you want to know, but it's all rooted in this desire to help us live in this indulgent culture. We live in a culture that at every level is about indulgence. If you can do it, why not do it? If you think it’s going to make you happy? Why wouldn't you do that? So, sex becomes one extension of a driver that is rooted in something that's egocentric. It's selfish. “But I really want to, so how can it be wrong when it feels so right?” We'll talk about that. Later. In August. You can get signed up for the class when it comes on the website. (Pastor acknowledging awkwardness, congregation laughing) Thank you for interrupting that. I didn't really know how to let go of that tiger. (More laughing) I grabbed it by the tail, and I didn't know what to do. (Pastor laughing and sighing) Thank you, Jesus! That was a God moment. God's like, oh buddy, (More laughing) I'm just going to bail you out.

So, the question is, what do we do with our desires? Do we try to repress and suppress? One of the ways that the church has tried to deal with that is to say all desire is bad. Well, that's not true. For example, hunger is not a bad desire. It's a physical appetite, right? It's not evil. Same thing with sexual desire. It was part of a human before sin. That was a creation gift that was there in the garden. That was a good thing that was given to us by God. We just don't know how to manage it well. So, it gets distorted and twisted and here's the thing, you do have power over it. You can have power over it. It doesn't have to control you. I know that for some of us in the room that feels like man, that's a really tall order, but you can have power over it. Here's the thing, this is something that distinguishes humans from the rest of creation. We can face our own appetites and say no for the good of the people that are around us, animals can't do that. They can only do what they want to do. That's why the snake could never take Adam's place in the garden. In Genesis 3 it says, “The snake could never step into the role of leader because the snake can only serve itself.”  So, I have two dogs, and when we leave to come to church, or anywhere else for that matter, we kennel them. We put them in the kennel. Here's why. I cannot trust them. (Congregation laughs) They're cute. They're adorable. They're snugly. One of our dogs is a Border Collie and he will jump up on the counter, no matter how tall the counter is, he will just jump up on it and eat everything. (More laughing) It doesn't have to be food per se. He eats everything and knocks dishes over and they shatter. You know, it’s just because he's a dog. It's like, he's not capable of anything other than following his impulses. That's what distinguishes humans from the rest of creation.

So, when people try to make humans animalistic, we're only animals in creation. Then what we're doing is saying that we don't have a choice, but to give into these things. What the Bible clearly teaches is that as human beings, we have the ability to stand above creation and say, we can say no to bring about a better good for everyone involved. I can say no to my personal desires so that everyone involve is improved. I can do that. That's why we're called to steward because that's the kind of leader that you want to follow, right? Like an orange tree can’t  look at the world and go what the world needs is more apples. It can only do what it's made to do. That's the way creation is designed to work with all of creation, with the exception of humans. We have the ability to step in and say no to things that we would normally want for the good of everyone around us. 

Let's take another light one. “It has been said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” Just talk about divorce. “But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, accept on the grounds of sexual immorality,” which is a huge conversation. Come with me to Israel, we'll talk about it. “Makes her a victim of adultery, whoever marries a divorced woman, commits adultery.” Okay, let me explain the context here. Moses in Torah allows for a certificate of divorce because in a patriarchal world, women were considered less than cattle because cattle could be sold for money. So, women would be in loveless marriages, they would be mistreated, they were being mishandled, and some of them being bitten, beaten, some of them were being abused in all different kinds of ways, and there was no out for them. So, Moses allows for a certificate of divorce in order to protect women. In the first century, that certificate of divorce is being weaponized in a whole other way. The rabbis were beginning to teach what sexual immorality meant. It was way bigger than adultery, but rabbi Hillel, who was one of the “two bigs”, Hillel and Shammai are the “two bigs” in the Jewish world. In the first century, Hillel said that if your wife burned the toast, it was grounds for divorce. Some of the rabbis went so far as to say that if you were walking down the road and you saw a woman who was more attractive to you than your wife, that was God telling you to divorce your wife and marry her. So, what they were doing was they were issuing certificates of divorce and pushing these women out. The problem with that is if a woman hasn't measured up, think about the pressure that puts on women in the home. They mess up one time and they're out. That's impossible! You women in here are amazing! You're not perfect, right? That's the thing is they demanded perfection, which was always a moving target because the standard for perfection was the husband's own opinion about wherever he was at in the moment. Well, that's terrible! Then if she doesn't measure up, she's divorced. So, obviously she can't measure up, well, if she can't measure up, then why would anybody else want to marry her? Are you with me on this? So, it was being weaponized to hurt women again.

What Jesus says is, “Knock it off. That's not how you treat people. That's selfish. It's rooted in the same problem with everything else, with murder and lust and adultery and all that other stuff and anger and insults and all those other things. It's rooted in a selfishness that says my opinion to me is more important than yours. So, I'm the only one that matters to me.”
Listen, sometimes people's hearts are too hard to be reconciled, but God always would want reconciliation. God always wants reconciliation. That's what he says. He wants the reconciliation of all things, but sometimes our hardness of our own hearts gets in the way and divorce is necessary. Here's the other thing. In today's church, what I would tell you is what I observe is that divorce and the issue of divorce is being weaponized again to hurt women. So, husbands are beating their wives and pastors are telling them to go back home because it's not adultery.  If he's hitting you, leave. (Congregation claps) My email is jeff.percival.(Pastor often uses this fake email reference when he’s addressed a difficult topic)

With that in mind, let's tackle another light one. “Again, you've heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, don't take an oath at all, either by heaven for it's the throne of God, or by earth because it is it’s footstool, or by Jerusalem for it's the city of the great king, and do not take an oath by your head for you cannot make one hair white or black.” Now that's not true anymore. You can make hair whatever color you want. (Congregation chuckles) Some of my sisters in the room are like, yes, sir, right? Here's the deal. I have parents that ask me all the time. “My kid wants green hair. What do I do with that?” I'm like, listen, your hair is the most temporary artistic canvas that there is, there are way bigger mountains to climb in your relationship with your children, give them green hair. If you don't like it, shave it off in the middle of night while they're sleeping. (Congregation laughs harder) Seriously. “Is it okay with God?” I think God goes, “Awe, look at that, look at their creativity. It's just like me.” (More laughter)
That's how he says it.

“Let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil.” Now, listen, they have created hundreds of loopholes in the oath taking system. They had created so many. They would say you could swear by this, and it would count, but this and it wouldn’t. So, they were careful to try to do this, especially when they were working with people who weren't part of the Jewish faith. They would want to take advantage of them by saying, I could swear by the temple. That's not binding. But if I swear by the altar, it is. Or, if I go and make an oath to a Gentile, then I can swear by the temple and that's not binding. So, I can use it to take advantage of them, right? Well, the problem with that is that doesn't represent God at all to these people who don't know who he is, and that's why God has a people is to put him on display to the world. God doesn't have a people just to get them to heaven. God has a people to represent him to the world. That's why he doesn't want any graven images. Every God had statues, except God of the Bible. Why? Because you’re his image. When you were created, he put in you, his image. Go represent him accurately. 
What Jesus is trying to call people to his integrity, which is a sorely lacking quality in our culture. If you say it mean it, if you don't mean it, don't say it. If you don't want to do something, don't say you're going to. If you want to do something, say you're going to do it. Have integrity, have honor. That's what Jesus is telling them to do. You shouldn't have to find a way to make an oath that doesn't bind you. Whatever comes out of your mouth should be consistent with everything that's going on inside. That's integrity. Which is why it's so important for us to move the broken pieces of our life to wholeness. That's one of the four pillars of our church is we want to move the broken pieces of our lives to wholeness. Why? Because it’s about integrity. We can't represent God accurately, any other way. We can't.

By the way, I was thinking about this as I would just waving my hand. I don't have my wedding ring on, and I know I'm going to get an email about it. So let me just explain. I forgot to put it on this morning. I took it off to take a shower after I'd worked out and I forgot to put it back on. I actually tried to color my finger with a black Sharpie, wide-tip marker. (Congregation starts laughing) I did. I colored it all the way around. You can still see the remnants of it, but then I get up here and I get really nervous, and my hand started to sweat. Black ink started running all over my hand. (More laughing) So, I had to wash it off. So, please know it’s another reason why I just need to get it tattooed on there, then I don’t have to worry about it. (Continued laughter) Don't worry, my wife and I are so in 
love. She takes my breath away.  (Congregation laughing harder, making wooing noises and clapping) I just forgot. I'm a moron, but it's Father's Day, so I get a pass, okay?(Still laughing)

Let's get back into the, this is one of them days. (Chuckles) “You have heard that it was said, an eye for eye and a tooth for tooth, but I say to you do not resist the one who is evil.” This doesn't feel very, I don't know, American. “But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other cheek also, and if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And it forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles, give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” Now, let me say this. This does not make you a doormat. It doesn't mean you got to get walked over. Let me give you just a little bit of an interesting cultural piece that you could do with this, what you will, but I think it ties into what's going on here. So, in a world, where you don't have toilet paper, (Congregation starts giggling and someone says, “Oh no!”) hang with me, you only use your right hand to interact with people. You never use your left hand, right? Because that's used for other things. So, if you're going to, you know, shake hands or whatever you use your right hand, always. “What if you’re left-handed? It doesn't matter. This is the rules culturally, it's the rules. So, if somebody hits you on the right cheek with their right hand, it's a backhand, right? Are you with me? Okay. That's a sign of disrespect in their culture. That's a sign of disrespect. If they come at you with the forehand and hit you on the other cheek, that's a sign of equality. I'm hitting you. I don't like you, but we're at least equal in society. So, if I meet somebody who is in the Roman Caste System, if I meet somebody who is equal to me, I have to hit them with my forehand, not with my backhand. So, what Jesus is saying is if somebody disrespects you, let them hit you again in a way that restores your respect. We go, I'll show him respect, right? (Pastor makes punching noises and congregation giggles) So, think about this, in Roman law, it was legal for a soldier to demand that you carry their stuff up to one mile. What would happen is the soldiers are coming this way, they waited for opportunities to find you distracted and going the opposite direction to say, “Hey, why don't you carry my things?” And you had to, by Roman law if you didn't, he could kill you, right? So, with the joy of the Lord, as your strength, you are going to do it but not carry it one inch further than you absolutely have to. Why? Because you have to go somewhere else. This allows the soldiers to mock you. Now, if you do this, you carry it one mile, and then decide to go two miles and keep going. Now they're in violation, and it's their penalty of death. If they demand more of somebody than what's allowed by the law, then they're like, “No, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait! I got it. You're good. Thank you. We're good.” Because if you take one step past that one mile-marker. One step. They're liable to death. So, it restores dignity. Now you do with that what you will, but this isn't just Jesus telling people to be a doormat. There's a restoring of the dignity of humanity in this process, and what we want to do is prove dominance. What Jesus is saying is dominance doesn't restore dignity. Equality restores dignity. Not necessarily quality and money, not necessarily quality, even in station in life, but equality and human dignity, equality and value. What this does is it eliminates preemptive attacks in relationships and what we do in relationship way too many times is that we strike first before they can hurt us, and that’s just not godly. What we really believe about God shows up in how we treat the people who've hurt us.

I think we’ve got one more, let's go. “You've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you love your enemies.” Nope. I don't want to. (Congregation lightly laughing) “And pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven for, he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends the rain on the just and the unjust.”  Now, there's a huge rabbinic teaching here that Jesus is drawing from. It's not his idea. Other people came up with it. The question was posed to the rabbis. What's the greater gift, salvation or rain? They said rain is a greater gift than salvation because God gives it to everyone. This whole notion of treating people who are for you or against you like God models this, these things that Jesus has been saying, this turning of the other cheek, this going the second mile. All these things God models. Treating people who are for me and against me the same, the greater blessing is the rain because it's given to everybody. “For, if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Don't even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.” Which, by the way, is not a great translation of the word. The Greek word is “tellias”, and it's word from the root word, “telos”, which means, complete, without anything lacking. So, you can see how they got perfection. Does that make sense? You can see where they got it from, right? But the problem is perfect, perfection is not really a biblical concept. God's not looking for your perfection. He wants your wholeness. Your completeness. The not lacking anything. Because perfection is this space of, there is no flaw, there is nothing bad, there's nothing less. Our perfectionists in the room are like, that drives me crazy, trying to be perfect, right? That will drive you nuts trying to be perfect. Especially when the standard is, as your heavenly father is perfect, right? Like would God hang that picture slightly crooked? “No, I say absolutely no!” Not if I'm a perfectionist, right? It drives us batty, right? Then everyone around you too, is driven equally batty, maybe more. But the idea of this whole word, “tellias” is about wholeness and completeness. It's about the fact that Jesus came to save us, but he didn't come only to save us. He also came to heal us and to set us free. This is why, again, one of our four pillars of our church is to move the broken places of our lives to wholeness, because Jesus is inviting us to wholeness. That is not about how well we keep the rules. It's the attitude with which we keep the rules. That's where wholeness is found, okay? 

I’ve got implications. I'm sorry. Sorry, not sorry. This is a hard one. Your conversations in life group this week should be lively because what we're doing is offering you a tension. It is not resolvable. So, when you find a “well we've resolved it”, then you really didn't look at it honestly, because relationship is all about tension, but that's what we're called to. Implication number 1: Sermon on the Mount teaches us how to align God's heart with God's rules. It’s not just about following the rules, it's about all the things around how we follow the rules. That's what matters.

Implication number 2: It says as residents of the kingdom of God, we're called to reflect God's heart for all people, his heart, not just his mind, we want to reflect God's mind, we do, but we also want to reflect God's heart. Implication number 3: The right thing done the wrong way becomes the wrong thing. So, you can even be following the rules, but if you're doing it the wrong way, then it's the wrong thing. Implication number 4: When the church keeps the rules, but it doesn't look any different than the world. We create damage in the hearts of people who desperately need to know how much Jesus loves them. And here's the reality. We live in a culture where the church is just as addicted, it's just as in debt, we live the same way, we act the same way, we get upset about the same things, we don't treat people any better than the rest of the world, and we don't. What we do when we say we're a Christian and we treat people that way, is we put one more scale on the heart of someone who doesn't know Jesus, and it makes it that much harder for the gospel to get through. We create religious baggage, when we don't walk it out.

I think that maybe, when we consider communion, maybe a space for us to go would be, to look at these six categories of Matthew chapter 5 and this would be  great discussion for your life groups this week. The six categories in which one of them am I living in the most? Which one do I have the hardest time with? It's easy to pick some of the bigs, you know, I haven't killed anyone, right? Do I have bitterness in my heart? “No!” Right? Maybe there's some space for us to talk with the Lord about where do I need to focus first because I think all six of these need to show up in our life. Somehow, I think we all need to work on all six of them. Jesus wouldn't have taken the time to mention that broad of a spectrum that maybe as we prepare hearts for communion, we can begin that by saying, “Lord, I want you to reveal to me which one I need to focus on first, and I want to do that because I love you, because I want to represent you well to the world.” 

Let's take a minute with him before we move forward with communion.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, and he broke it. He said, “This is my body, which is given for you. So, whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance of me”. After the dinner, he took a cup and he said, “This cup, this is a new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. So, whenever you drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me”. 

Let's pray. Lord, Thank you for your grace. And as we have this crazy, amazing privilege and responsibility of representing you well in the world, God, would you help us to model your heart as well as your mind. That we would find a good spot to rest in the tension of holding the line of holiness and loving people well. Lord, thank you for, how through that tension through all of that, we learn to know you more and in doing so, we love you more and give us wisdom collectively as a church family, as we figure out how to be your hands and feet in the community in Jesus name, amen.

Let’s stand and sing one more song.

I hope that as we leave here today that we can be more committed as followers of Jesus to live out his heart. We don't need to abandon his mind. We want to live out his heart as well. And if you're struggling with that right now, if you don't know how to do that exactly in the situation, you're in, there's some folks up here that would love to pray with you after the service or right outside of this door, to the right, there's our prayer room. You can pray there with someone or by yourself. Whatever the situation may be, may you and I be people who walk out God's heart well in a world that desperately needs to know how much he loves them. Thank you, guys, for coming. Have a great week.