Believe

[00:00:00] And happy Sunday. [00:00:03] So glad to be here with everybody. Let me say a prayer to get us started. Dear Father, we love you so much. We are incredibly thankful that you are a God that we can trust in. You are a God that we can build our life in, and you will never fail us. I pray that this morning you would encourage our hearts to a new belief in Jesus Christ. [00:00:22] I pray that through this belief, Father, you would nourish our soul and grow us into the men and women you've created us to be, that we might be champions for good in this world. I pray this all in Jesus name. Amen. [00:00:35] When we were growing up, my dad had this telescope, and when I was a little kid, it's old, and this was, like, the closest thing I could find. It's very close. It's orange, not black, but that's about what it looks like. It's got these weights that balance it. It was bigger than I was, and it just seemed like the coolest thing in the entire world. And he'd set it up in the backyard, and we look at the stars and the constellations. We'd zoom in on the moon and see all these really intricate details, and it was such a cool experience. And now that my parents are moving, he actually gifted the telescope to my family. It just needs a little piece to fix the scope for the mount. So this is the scope that sits on top of it. And because we needed to order the piece, I had it with me. But, guys, we can't have nice things. [00:01:19] We had this for not even a day, not even hours. And this little eyepiece here came off, and there's little lenses that set in the eyepiece. Listen, it's not supposed to do that. [00:01:33] So we're, like, trying to put it back together and move the lenses around. And I finally broke down. I'm like, dad, I need some help. He's trying to help us, but no matter what we do, because the lenses got out of sync, we can't see through it, right? The view is distorted. The lenses don't line up the way they're supposed to. And we've been messing with it. I'm going to have to get it fixed. But until we do, we can't see through the lenses the way they're supposed to be seen because they're not lined up in the way that they're supposed to. [00:02:03] I think for many of us, just like the telescope, we have these lenses that we've been using to help us see the world, to see life, and kind of manage our way and how we're supposed to do things. But somewhere along the way, our lenses got out of sync, they got out of lineman, and we can't see things. The vision's just a little bit distorted and it doesn't line up the way that it's supposed to. It's interesting because Stephen Covey actually calls this lens idea. He calls it a paradigm, and he says, we create these paradigms, these mental maps that help us see the world. There's so much information that's constantly coming at us, and we try to absorb it and process it as quickly as we can. And so we create paradigms, lenses, mental maps to help us see and understand the world. [00:02:55] What we run into, though, is we never question the paradigm, we never question the lens and say, is this actually how I'm supposed to see things, or am I seeing it out of sync? I never go back and reevaluate my mental maps that I've been using my whole life and be like, are they actually right? Or do I just assume somewhere along the way that they are right? See, we are really good. We think we're objective, right? Like, I see things as they are. I'm honest, I have a good head on my shoulders. I see things as they are. I can look at the world objectively, but none of us are objective. We see things not as they are, but as we are. [00:03:36] I see the world as I am, and I can't separate my experience, my vision view of things from how I see everything else. So because I see things as they are, as I am, not as they actually are, I bring my own self into it. So when I'm happy and filled with joy, man, the world's a joyful place, isn't it? But when I'm feeling bitter, the world's a pretty bitter place. [00:04:05] When I'm feeling cynical and discouraged, everything I see is just more cynicism and more discouragement. When I'm hurting, all I see is confirmation that the world is just waiting to hurt me more. [00:04:20] These paradigms, these lenses we use, they're powerful because they create these maps that help us navigate this world. But if we don't ever question them, if we don't ever evaluate them, then we're stuck looking at the world, and we're missing huge pieces of the reality that we live in. Sometimes the good and sometimes the bad. But until we evaluate them, we can't tell what I'm just seeing. That's me and what actually exists. Because we face problems in the world, don't we? No matter what day of the week, it is. There's a new problem to face. [00:04:56] And we think, like, I've got this way to do it, and I've got this head on my shoulders that knows what they're doing. But there's always problems. And the problem isn't the problem. The problem is how I see the problem. The problem is how I feel about the problem. The problem is how I address the problem. But my lens says the problem is the problem, and I get stuck there, and I can't see anything else. So if we want things to change, we have to evaluate our paradigms. We need a new map, a new lens to look through. And what's interesting is we see this in the world, but it shows up in the church, too. In the church, so many of us have received the lens of religion. And that's the way we look at things. We see the rules. We see the do's and the don'ts. And somehow in this view of religion and rules and dos and don'ts and rights and wrongs, we miss Christ. [00:05:51] Somehow in the lens of, here's what I have to do. Here's my job, here's my part. We miss the incredible heart and compassion that Jesus Christ has for humanity. We're easily able to tell the world, like, here's what's expected of us, and here's how I take the moral high ground, and here's how I argue with authority, right? [00:06:13] But we miss, or our lens is distorted on Christ's incredible ability to save all of those who believe in him. So I want to adjust our lenses today because I think when we see Christ clearly, everything else around us becomes more clear as well. I think when our eyes are set on Christ and our paradigm for how the world works through him and who he is, we're better equipped to nothing, just survive the mess, not just kind of get through the day, but to actually thrive as champions for good because of him. So to help us, we're going to actually use a teaching straight from the mouth of Jesus Christ. If you read in the Gospel of John, there's a time in chapter six when he's out and about, he's doing his good work. And large amounts of people would come to be near Jesus. He was just attractive, and they wanted to see what he was doing and hear what he was saying and be part of what the others were experiencing. So this huge group of people crowd around Jesus and they get hungry. And so Jesus, in this incredible, miraculous moment, takes one little boy's small lunge and uses it to feed a multitude, thousands and thousands and thousands of people. And he doesn't just feed them. Everybody walks away full. Everybody walks away satisfied, like it didn't just take the edge of their hunger off. They were content. Their stomachs were full. They didn't need anything else. They were that content with what they ate. And as these things are happening, people are taking notice. Like, man, he's got this incredible teaching. He's out healing people now. He's feeding us. Like, maybe this is the prophet. Maybe this is who we've been waiting for and expecting. And so when the next day comes around, they see Jesus and his disciples are gone. They're not where they expect him to be, so they go looking for him. They eventually find him. And when they come to Jesus, he knows them. He knows what they're looking for. He knows their heart. But he's also going to challenge them a little bit on their lenses and how they see him and what they expect him to do. So he knows when they show up, he says, you're kind of looking for me because you had a good lunch yesterday, right? Like, that was a great lunch. I'm going to go around the guy who feeds us good and get some more good things. Your stomach was full. You knew I could feed you, and now you want to be with me because of that. And here's where he challenges them. He says, I want you to not work for the food that perishes, right? That lunch will be rotten in a couple of days. I want you to work for the food that endures for eternal life. And they're like, yeah, we want to do that. What's the work that we should be doing? Tell us what we should do. And this is what he says in chapter six, verse 29. He says, this is the only work that God wants from you. Believe in the one that he has sent. Now think how interesting this is. They're thinking, like, show us the work that we should do. Like, we want to do the work that you tell us to do. And if we do those right works, then you'll bless us. We'll get more good stuff when we do the right thing. And Jesus flips this lens around and he says, it's not this superstitious series of just doing the right things. You do the right thing, and then God blesses you. You show up and you do the right exact thing in the right exact order, and you say the right exact words, and then, bam, God blesses you. God shows up. That's not what God wants from you. Here's what God wants, a heart of belief in Jesus Christ. [00:09:49] See, Jesus could have said anything right now to this group of people. He could have told them anything about, what does God want? Right? What are the rules? What are the do's? What are the don'ts? What are the values? But here's what he says. What does God want you to do? What's the work that God wants you to focus on? He wants you to believe. [00:10:10] And what's Jesus asking us to believe? He's asking us to believe in himself, that Christ came into this world and through an act of grace larger than anything I can understand or comprehend, he gave his life on the cross for us, for every one of us, for our sins, for all the things we've done in the past and all the things we're doing in the future, our guilt, our brokenness. Christ showed up fully God and became fully human for us. He stepped into the pages of history that he helped to create and took on our part. And when he did, in this great exchange, he received what's ours, and he exchanged it with grace and love. He took what's messiest and broken in each of us and replaces it, what's best in him. [00:11:02] Christ showed up to live fully human, to suffer and to die. And he did it willingly, lovingly and graciously. [00:11:15] And when Christ says, I want you to believe in himself, what he wants us to believe is that by grace, we have been saved through faith. See, it's not my work of doing good things that saves me. It's the work of Jesus Christ. It's not me doing enough good things in my column sheet that I land on the good girl side of the week. It's Christ doing all the right things that I never could have done myself. And this is, at our very core, understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Because God treats us better than we deserve. We're saved through faith in Jesus Christ. [00:11:54] He heals us, he restores us, he renews us, redeems us and makes us new. And he does it through faith. It's through faith that we know God. And faith is this confident belief in Jesus Christ. It's an assurance of the things that we hope. [00:12:14] But here's, this is important because the word work here is like, well, what do I have to do? But it's not the gospel. And then it's the gospel, and the gospel is, we don't work for it. We believe it. We don't have all of these lists of things that we have to check off it's not our record that makes us right with God. It's the record of Jesus Christ. And probably one of my favorite lines I've heard spoken by an awesome speaker. She said, christ's love isn't based on me, it's placed on me. And that's what we have to receive. That's what we have to believe. And we're told if you believe with your heart and confess with your tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord, you're saved. [00:13:01] But that's where our lenses get shift. We see the awesomeness of Christ. We see the beauty of what he's done. We struggle with worthiness and, like, can we really accept it? But then when we do, we start to struggle with, now it's not what do I do next? Now that I believe what happens next? And our lenses get shifted and we focus on the do's and the don'ts and we think, this is how religion works. This is what faith is. And we get so focused on all of these rules and rights and wrongs and we miss living in the heart of Jesus Christ. [00:13:37] We miss believing in his capacity to save all of those who believe. So just like this group of people 2000 years ago, we say the same thing to Jesus. Jesus, just tell me the right thing to do and then bless me when I do it. That's how I think it should work, right? Like, I do the right thing, you bless me, life goes on. You do your God part, I'll do my human part, everything will be great. [00:14:01] And we think that's. I can understand that, right? That's a religion I can get behind. If you're a good person, good things happen. If you're a bad person, bad things happen. It makes sense. I can understand it. I can tie a bow on it, place it in my pocket and walk out, right? [00:14:16] But if I have a God that I can tie up in a bow and comprehend just like that and put him in my pocket, that's a false God. That's a God I've created. It's not the true God of the universe. Only if there is a God who can challenge me and confront me and change me and teach me and empower me and enrich me and call out more of me than I could understand. Do I really have the true, mighty God of the universe? [00:14:48] This is where our lenses get disrupted because we aren't in control. [00:14:53] I promise, guys. I keep telling God I get this and he keeps shaking me up and he's like, no, you don't. Not yet. And then I'm like, okay, now, God, I got it. And he's like, oh, no, I got something more. So I'm teaching you not from a heart of perfection, but from an absolute heart of faith that I'm struggling. And I want to trust in the sovereignty and control of God. But life is real, isn't it? And it's messy, and it's hard. And we can do all of the right things, and things can still go wrong. [00:15:23] We can show up and you can check off, I did every good box that exists. And I did everything that you told me to do. And still something messy outside of my control can happen because I'm not in control, and neither are you. [00:15:40] But God didn't say, here, I want you to believe in your control and your power over your life in this world. He said, what I want you to believe is in the one high cent, and his name is Jesus Christ. [00:15:53] And even when I feel like life is out of control. Even when the world around me feels like a crazy, spinning place. Even when it literally feels like the twilight zone, guys, I said that. I'm like, this is the twilight zone. I don't know what happened to the real world, but with the one I'm living in, even when that is true, God is still in control. [00:16:13] He hasn't surrendered authority. Not in his plan for history, not in his plan for creation, not in his plan for your life, not in his plan for your future, not in his plan for your eternity. And what we're being challenged with our lens of belief is, do I believe that? [00:16:35] Can I live out my faith trusting that God is in control, that I can believe in him? [00:16:43] Because that's the starting point. [00:16:46] It's not the finish line. Right. It's the starting point. Because if I can believe that God sent Christ into the world for me. And that when I love him and follow him and trust him, he's in control. And I can trust in the goodness of his plan. I can trust in his faithfulness. When things don't line up the way that I want them to, then I start seeing the world differently. It's not just that the world is a terrible place and everybody is against me. It's that, yeah, terrible things happen. But God can still do something good in me and in you. [00:17:26] And in his good plan, he wins. [00:17:31] There's no future that God doesn't win. [00:17:33] There's literally no history that God doesn't stand up, the champion of everything. And if God is the assured victor and winner, why wouldn't I continue to believe in him? Because the race isn't over yet, so that's the first shift Christ wants to give us. Do you believe in him? [00:17:59] Do you believe he is who he said he is? And he came to do exactly what he said he would do. Because once we believe in Christ, once we put our toe on the starting line, once we enter into the race, Jesus has more for us. He says, let's start looking at your heart and your souls and what's filling you up and what's guiding you and leading you. So he's having this conversation, and he says in verse 35, he says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Jesus has these incredible I am statements through the gospel of John. If you haven't read the Gospel of John lately, it's a beautiful book. It's a beautiful book to help us understand who Christ is. And he uses a staple, like bread, right? Everybody's familiar with bread. Pretty much every mom is packing some lunch with bread in it for their kids. We're familiar with it. We've eaten it. It's a staple on the table. So he's using something that we know to help us understand something about him that we don't. He's tying something that we're familiar with into something that's importantly valuable in how we think about him. Every day we eat every day. We organize our lives around the meals that we're making, or we have the conversation, what are we going to eat tonight? Which nobody knows and nobody wants to answer. So somebody's got to do the work to be prepared. [00:19:28] God bless you if you're the one. It's a big job. Big job to feed that family. [00:19:32] We think about it, right? What am I going to eat today? I plan for it in the mornings and going to work. Okay. The physical part is hunger. We know what it's like to be hungry. We know what it's like to satisfy when our bodies are hungry. But Christ wants to take that to push us into the spiritual realm. When you think about your life, your day to day living, what's nourishing your soul, you know, what's required to feed your body and keep it healthy and strong and what you should eat and what you shouldn't eat. But what are we using? What are we doing to nourish the souls that God has given us? So Christ says, I'm the bread of life. I am what is essential to filling up your soul in quality ways, in the same way that your body will hunger for something to eat. Our souls are longing for something to fill us up. Every one of us wants to be seen and heard. We want purpose and validation. We want a place in life that matters and makes a difference. And Christ tells us the only lasting place that we can find these things is in him. He showed up not just to save us, but to fuel our souls that call us to live a life that can't be lived any other way. And some of us have tried. [00:20:55] We live in a world with a multitude of options. Do this and you'll be happy. Do this and you'll live longer. Try this and you'll have a million dollars. I don't know, all these advertisements now that, like, play this game and you'll earn $1,000 a week. Nobody's giving $1,000 a week for free, right? But we have all of these promises and we chase them. If I do this, I'll be happy. If I do this, my life will be better, everything will be great. And we do these things. And here's another lens that gets shifted. Our identities get placed in the wrong thing. We say, my life is important because of what I do. I am what I do. So if I have a good job and make a lot of money, that becomes my identity. Or if I'm a good parent and my kids are doing well, then I'm. My identity is in being a parent. Or our identity becomes in the relationships that we have. I have a significant other and they love me. I have family that loves me, kids who love me, people around me, friends who think I'm amazing, or I have followers who like my content and I'm like, yeah, I'm doing something. [00:22:01] Or we start even further. Not just the good things, but our self identity and approval comes from the wrong things. I'm only worth something if I look a certain way. I'm only doing a good job if I have the right kind of job or the right kind of home or the right kind of things that I own, or I'm a good person. My identity is, I'm a good person. I do the right thing. I check off, I follow the rules, I'm nice to everybody. I don't break the law, I don't do anything bad. My identity gets wrapped up in these things. And even when they're good things, when they become ultimate things, they cannot hold us and be stable for life. Because if anything challenges or threatens those identity, our foundation gets rocked. When something bad happens, we're like, I'm a good person. I don't deserve this. [00:22:54] When we lose something that was meaningful to our identity, then who are we? If I don't have that job, then who am I? If the things go away or they're taken away from me, then who am I going to be? [00:23:08] Or even if I just have all of the things, there's never enough. There's always more. Or there's something in me that's frustrated and lacking, and I think I just got to work harder or do more, or I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not pretty enough, I'm not a good enough parent. I should read more books. And we constantly feel like we're failing, and we do more and we work harder and we take on more, and we never quite get there, or we feel like we just start to tiptoe in it, and then everything changes, and it's exhausting, and it wears our souls down. [00:23:41] Our friend Timothy Keller, I think, addresses this the best. He says if anything threatens your identity, you're not just going to be anxious about it. You're going to be paralyzed with fear. If you lose your identity through the failings of somebody else, you're not just going to be resentful, but locked into bitterness. If you lose it through your own failings, you'll hate or despise yourself as a failure as long as you live. He says, only if your identity is built on God and his love can you have a self that can venture anything, face anything. Look how beautiful this is. He says, if there's a God who created you, which, if we believe that God created us in his image with intention and purpose and value, then the deepest chambers of your soul simply cannot be filled by anything less. That's how great the human soul is. If Jesus is the creator Lord, then by definition, nothing could satisfy you like he can. Even if you're successful, even the most successful careers in family cannot give the significance, the security and the affirmation that the author of glory and love can. [00:24:52] See, here's what Christ is telling us when he says, I'm the bread of life. He says, all of these things that we've been building our life on were never supposed to be what fueled our soul, what gave us worth and identity in this world. [00:25:09] They're parts of you, but they're not all of you. [00:25:13] Our souls were always supposed to be filled up by being connected to Jesus Christ. [00:25:20] And then out of your fullness of soul, you pour into everything else. It's great to have a great job, but when Christ fills you up, you're better at your job. It's lovely and a gift from God to have a family. [00:25:31] But when Christ fuels you up first, you are absolutely better at loving your people because God's giving you the strength of character to be his first and then do everything else. [00:25:45] When Christ says, I'm the bread of life, what he's saying is there's literally nothing in the world that will satisfy our souls like he can. Even the good things. We could fill up our time and our energy and our focus with all of these things, but they will never be enough. We'll always be longing for more. In the same way, I can eat today, I'll be hungry tomorrow. Doesn't matter how much I eat today. It might take me longer to be hungry. I will be hungry tomorrow. [00:26:16] I can spend time with Christ today. I still need him tomorrow. [00:26:20] I can have a great connection with Christ. Last week, I still need him next week. Our souls will continue to long for more, and we find the contentment and satisfaction we need in Jesus Christ. Because every day we face problems. Every day we're just saying, God, show me the right thing to do and fix it. God, if you just tell me what the right magical formula is, I'll follow it. Please make this better. And Jesus is like, you don't want me. You want what I can do. [00:26:49] But what Christ wants for us is a relationship with him. Because when we know him and live in him and he's filling us up, everything about the world and the problems we face feel better because we're more than just bodies. We're souls. [00:27:06] So the question is, how essential is Christ to your everyday life, of all of the things you do? And I know your calendars are full. It's summertime. There's so many things that are lovely and joy and great. [00:27:23] But how essential is time with Christ in that everyday living that you're doing? [00:27:29] Are you giving him any time to nourish your soul? [00:27:33] Are you giving him any time to connect with your heart and get to know him and spend time with him? [00:27:40] See, life is tricky. We can create a whole rhythm of life. Like I did church on Sunday. I'm good now. And Christ isn't a part of that rhythm at all. [00:27:51] But just like we have little signs that go off when we're hungry, we have signs that go off when our soul is lacking the presence of Jesus Christ. Right? You have things to look for. Like, I'm hungry, my stomach is kind of rumbly. Some people get hangry. We're not judging. Just have a sandwich. We're for you, right? [00:28:12] Some people get a little weak and tired, but these are all signals our body's giving us. Like, hey, you need to nourish me. You need to do something. Put something healthy in. Or sometimes we spend so much time eating the wrong food, our bodies are like, absolutely nothing. Put a piece of fruit in there or vegetable. Drink a glass of water. Right. Okay. [00:28:32] We have symptoms and signals that our souls need Christ. We're just not listening to them. [00:28:39] We think the problem is the problem, but what the problem actually is, we've spent so much time away from Christ, we can't even see the distance that we've created. [00:28:50] So in the same way, we know the signals, I want to give you some signals to look for today, and I'm just going to use myself as an example. Yours might feel a little bit different, but I know for me, when I haven't spent enough time with Christ, I have some red flags that go off in my head. I'm old enough now that I recognize these red flags, and I'm looking for these red flags, but I've created them as like, oh, the world isn't ending. I just haven't spent time with christ, and I need more of him. So here are some of worry. [00:29:18] Everyone worries. I know some people I love, some people have, like, the 6th sense that something's wrong and they know it. I have no 6th sense in my worry. Everybody's dead in a ditch somewhere, and I need to go start driving the roads. Don't judge me. I've actually driven roads and looked in ditches before. My worry, what happens is I think I'm doing something productive by worrying because I can't do something about what I'm not in control of. And so 03:00 in the morning happens, and my mind is racing and my body is sweating. And I'm worried about all of the terrible things that could happen when what I need to be doing is saying, christ, this is out of my control. Could you please help? What I need to be doing is praying for the person that I'm worried for. What I need to do is line up my worries and fears with Christ. But when my worry gets the best of me, I realize I'm not trusting Christ. I'm trusting what I can see. [00:30:10] I'm not having faith in what God can do. I'm letting the fear of every terrible option overwhelm what's possible. So when I get excessively worried, that's a red flag for me. I need Christ. Here's another one. Stress. We all get stressed out, right? Life gets hard. It gets busy. There's expectations. There's just demands. The more stressed I get, the higher my shoulders get, the more intense I get. I'm not singing anymore. I'm just grouchy all of the time. [00:30:39] We get ourselves into places where we have unhealthy amounts of stress, and we can't have. We can't manage it in the right way. All we see is the never ending list of things that needs to get done. And instead of the joy and privilege and honor of doing these things, it's just this never ending list without end. [00:31:00] I need Christ there to give me a. Hey, it's okay. You don't have to do it. All right, now take a breath. Right. [00:31:08] Overwhelmed. My stress leads to feeling overwhelmed, and the whole world is on my shoulders. Guys, have you been here before? You have to make every right decision, and if you don't, the world will come crashing in. Is there a parent in the room? Can I get one? Amen. [00:31:24] You feel like you have to do everything, and I've got myself way out of whack because God never asked me to do everything. Never asked you to do everything, but he asked you to partner with him so he can. And when I feel overwhelmed, like the whole weight of the world is on my shoulders, I've stopped trusting in what God can do. Grouchiness. I get a short fuse. Do you ever find yourself just snapping at everybody? They're not even doing anything wrong, and you're like, shut it down. I can't take anymore. Right? Like, your stress, your overwhelm, leads to grouchiness, and it's a short fuse. Or how about being exhausted? [00:31:59] There's different levels of exhaustion. Sometimes it's good exhaustion. We went on the mission trip two weeks ago. I'm telling you guys, I was exhausted. When I came back, I slept four days, but my heart was filled with joy because I saw what God can do in the life of our kids. There's physical exhaustion, but then there's bone weary exhaustion. You've worn yourself down, and no amount of naps is gonna make you feel better. There's the kind of exhaustion where you can take as many days off in a row, but you just aren't going to feel better. Because the only thing that can fill up your soul and give you the rest that you need is the presence of Jesus Christ. [00:32:40] Here's another one. Do you ever feel withdrawn? Like you just want to check out? [00:32:46] I've done everything I know how to do. I'm hiding under the covers. I can't adult anymore this week. I don't know what else to do. And you just want to check out, and you want to check out maybe, like, I'm just gonna watch a show all day. I'm not gonna answer my phone all day. And I don't mean, like, a healthy day off. Please take a day off. It is a blessing. It is a good thing to do. I mean, you're so overwhelmed with life that you don't even want to engage with people, that you don't want to do the things that you normally love doing that bring you joy. You've just worn yourself down, and you've checked out on life. [00:33:21] Maybe your list carries something else. Maybe you've got yourself to a dark place that you can't see any light. Maybe you've got yourself so angry and bitter that you can't find any hope. Maybe you're so discouraged and hurt that it seems all of these flags, all of these symptoms show us. I've got my eye on the wrong thing, and my paradigm needs shift, and Christ can show up in every one of these places and fuel my soul in a better way. [00:33:49] And rather than looking at these things, these emotions that we don't feel, nobody likes feeling this way. Don't numb the emotion. Figure out why you feel that way. Spend some time there. Stop numbing yourself out of life and engage, because, yeah, it's uncomfortable. Yeah. Nobody likes to look in the mirror when they feel this way or they've treated their people that way or they're exhausted or grouchy or worn down. But if you don't do the work, nobody can do it for you. [00:34:17] God's given you an incredible amount of tools to have a healthy life and a healthy soul. But if you don't do the work and you just keep numbing yourself away from them, you'll never see what he could do and what he could grow in you. [00:34:33] Stop picking. The shadow comforts, the busy and the booze and the shows and whatever it is that you pick, stop picking those things. They cast a shadow, and they do not make you whole. [00:34:47] Some of us have been living on a steady diet of numbing and stress and worry and exhaustion and grouchiness. We checked out a long time ago, and it's time to put our foot back in the game. That empty feeling, that lacking feeling, that tired, overwhelmed, grouchy feeling. [00:35:06] Christ can show up there. [00:35:08] He can fuel you in a way that nothing else can. Those gaps that exist, everything you've been trying to cram in those holes to feel better. Just stop for a minute and let Christ, the bread of life, nourish and feed your soul. [00:35:29] Where you are most empty, he most wants to fill you up. Where you feel most lacking, he most wants to show up and do his good work in you. Time in the presence of Jesus Christ is always going to remind you of who he is and what he can do. That, yeah, you're not in control. Yeah, there's problems that you don't know how to fix. Yeah, there's a lot that you're not capable of, but God always is. God is in control. He does have a plan. He has eternally held all of time and existence together. And guys, he's not going to stop on your watch. [00:36:07] He's not going to put things down while you wear yourself into the ground. He will keep holding things together while you take a minute and rest in his goodness and in his presence. [00:36:18] We don't max God out by needing more of him. It is exactly what he wants us to do. [00:36:26] But when I stop spending time in Christ's presence, I can't see that I forget that and get myself in a lot of messy problems I never needed to face. [00:36:35] But when Christ is a regular part of our life and we believe in him and he's fueling us up and nourishing our soul, we're not overwhelmed, we're empowered, we're not discouraged. We're filled with hope. Our faith starts shouting our fear in the face and saying, not today, not here. You aren't going to win. My eyes are fixed on Jesus Christ who guides us and shows us a better way. So the question is, what time are you making to spend time with Jesus Christ? Let me give you a few suggestions. Read the Bible. The Bible is a great place to spend time with Christ. If you're not sure where to start, start in the gospels. The gospel of John is a beautiful place to hear Christ and his words and see what he said and see what he did and think through life and who he is and who you are and read your Bible and then spend some time in prayer. Talk to God. We pray not to change the heart of God, but because in prayer, God changes our hearts. He changes our faith and our direction and our understanding and trust in what he could do. [00:37:43] Spend time of quiet and reflection. Life is busy and some of you are using busy to numb out the heart. I get you. It's easier to stay busy than to face it. But stop for a second, quiet down, look through life and reflect on who you are and what's going on. How healthy is your soul? What are you doing that's working? What are you doing that's not. What can you do different? And as you reflect on your life, think about Christ and who he's called you to be. [00:38:13] Read your Bible, pray. Spend some time in quiet thought, reflecting on God and who you are, and then finally get around some other people who love Jesus, too. [00:38:25] One of the greatest gifts God gives us is each other in this church. And the gaps that we have, we fill in for each other, and we get to encourage one another and strengthen one another and love one another. We get to lift one another up. We get to say, man, I was there, too. Look at what God did. We get to stand in the hard places together. Not because we can fix it, but we can hold the space for you while you're in it. We can pray with you. We can weep with you when you're weeping and rejoice with you when you're rejoicing. [00:38:53] If you don't have a spot, we have a hundred bajillion spots. We have awesome life groups. We have awesome ministry teams. We have awesome people who will stand and do life with you, but it doesn't happen on their own. You got to organize it, and you got to plan for it, and you got to work for it. And you got to look at your schedule and say, am I giving Christ's time to nourish my soul today? Am I connecting to Christ so that I see through his lens and not my own? Am I living in faith and belief of what Christ can do, or only my worry and stress of what I can do? [00:39:27] Do I see Jesus Christ as essential to my soul? [00:39:32] Am I looking at Christ and saying, he's absolutely necessary, that I can have a healthy and thriving soul in life? [00:39:42] Here's what God wants from you. Believe in Jesus Christ and then let him help you. Let him grow you. Let him nourish you. Let him deepen your faith and understanding in the man and woman he's called you to be. Center your life on him. And when you do, I promise you'll never feel disappointed. He'll never let you down. [00:40:04] I love at the end of this chapter of John, some of the disciples who were there, they heard Jesus Christ talking about it, and they were really confused, and they didn't understand it. They're like, wait, bread of life. You want us to actually eat your body? That's weird. I don't get it. And they left. [00:40:23] John tells us that they turned away and deserted Jesus Christ. [00:40:28] It was too hard to understand. So they walked the other way. And Jesus looked out at his twelve and he said, are you going to leave? [00:40:35] And I love Peter's response. Listen to what he says, Lord. To whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe and we know you are the holy one of God. [00:40:47] See, Peter didn't understand everything about Jesus, but he knew the heart of his friend. [00:40:54] He didn't know everything that God was going to do, and he didn't know everything that Jesus meant when he said it. But he knew his friend. He spent time with him and he wanted to go where Christ was going. [00:41:09] I'm not asking you today to understand every single thing, because some of it is hard to understand. Some of it we don't know until the other side of eternity. I'm not saying you can't believe in Christ and not still have doubts, and not still have worries and questions and fears. But please hear me. It's not the strength of your faith. It's the strength of the faith that you put the person that you put your faith in. Let me say it again. It's not the strength of your faith, it's the strength of the person you're putting your faith in. You can depend on Jesus Christ, and when you put your faith in him, you will not fall. [00:41:48] There's so many options for how to do life and think about life and look at life and what we believe and what we follow. But I'm promising you this today. There is nothing in this world that will fill up your heart and your soul in the way that Jesus Christ can. There is nothing that you could give your life away to that's ever gonna love you more or risk more for you than Jesus Christ already has. He's always gonna be our greatest option. Dear Father, I pray that you would help us. I pray that you would give us the faith to believe in Jesus Christ. I pray that we would look at what he did for us on the cross, and the grace and the love and the compassion and the forgiveness that you've shown us in him. And we would have courage and hope that we would have strength for doing this life. And then, Father, I pray that you would whisper to our souls and every day we would connect to you. I pray that you would fill us up, encourage us, strengthen us, give us what our souls are most lacking, that we might be the men and women you've created us to be. Give us a new lens to see, a new heart to understand who you are and what you do? I pray this all in Jesus name. Amen. [00:42:59] I.