Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Well, that's a good way to start church, isn't it?
[00:00:09] More than 500 people in our church this week served in love Week in some way.
[00:00:23] That's 500 people who interrupted their weekly schedule for the purpose of glorifying Jesus Christ by serving other people.
[00:00:35] And that doesn't count the 70 awesome kids we have over here who are going to go on a mission trip.
[00:00:49] I wish I was a teenager. That looks like a fun bunch to hang out with.
[00:00:58] I want to remind you that our Lord Jesus said, as much as you have done it to the least of these my brothers, you have done it unto me.
[00:01:09] So what we did this week in serving people, Christ took personally, and I want you to know he has a grateful heart for you. And I just love the heck out of every one of you. So God bless you.
[00:01:33] Our dear heavenly Father, we want to take seriously the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we are supposed to love our neighbor.
[00:01:44] We want to take it seriously. We want it to be more than a christian cliche.
[00:01:50] We want it to be a way of life.
[00:01:53] And so I pray that you would teach us to fulfill your great desire and learn to love our neighbor as ourself.
[00:02:02] And then, father, I pray that we would not only know to do it, but we would have hearts that are anxious and looking for opportunities to do it. And I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:02:21] When you look at your taxes, I think you're probably like I am. And I say, is it possible they could take any more?
[00:02:35] My whole life, I paid Social Security tax on the money I made. Well, then, now when you draw your Social Security, they tax you on that. I mean, the next thing, they'll be taxing me on my breath.
[00:02:50] All right?
[00:02:52] And so we think we have it the worst it's ever been. But really, when you start looking at other times and other places in the world, taxes were pretty bad.
[00:03:05] In the roman empire, they had to support legions of armies. And so at any given time, there were 40,000 to 80,000 soldiers, legionnaires that had to be supported, and that meant food, that meant weapons, that meant wagons to haul this stuff around in. It meant animals to pull the wagons. Just supporting the legions was ridiculous. But then if you read about roman emperors, those guys spent money like drunken sailors. They did not know what a budget was.
[00:03:46] So the empire was always in desperate need for money.
[00:03:52] And in 63 BC, Pompey Magnus led roman legions into Israel.
[00:04:06] For 300 years, the Greeks had dominated Israel. And now the Romans came in and they drove out the Greeks.
[00:04:14] And when their legions took over. They immediately implemented the roman tax system, which meant they taxed their land, their animals, their trade. They taxed the number of fish you caught. And believe it or not, they had a sales tax.
[00:04:35] In the Gospels, we read about Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem to be registered. The Romans were taking another census, because they used the census to figure out how much money they should expect in taxes from the country.
[00:04:54] As you have heard in the past, the Romans didn't actually collect the taxes themselves.
[00:05:03] They gave contracts to collect the taxes. And these contracts, it was called tax farming.
[00:05:11] Talk about government euphemisms. Tax farming.
[00:05:16] And what they would actually do is they would contract with people in the country and they would let them keep part of the taxes they collected. Well, this quickly became a distorted system where tax collectors gouged as much out of you as they possibly could.
[00:05:39] And they always had the threat if you didn't pay your taxes, they would sell you and your family as slaves, get the money.
[00:05:51] And the gospels tell us that a young man named Levi looked at how much money these tax collectors were getting, and he decided that that would be a good profession for him.
[00:06:08] And so he became a tax collector and collected taxes from his own people. And of course, they hated him for it.
[00:06:19] They despised the tax collectors.
[00:06:22] If you read the King James Bible, they were called publicans. And that comes from the roman word Publicani.
[00:06:34] These tax collectors, the publicani they formed societies, because if you were a tax collector and you didn't make your quota, you were in trouble. So they formed these gills. And in these gills, one year, if you were short, your buddies would make up for it. And then the next year, if they were short, you would make up with them. So they kind of looked out for each other. And these gills, these pack collector gills were called the societas publicanorium.
[00:07:09] And Levi was obviously a member of that group.
[00:07:13] That group became more than a business association. A lot of friendships were created there because the people who used to be your friends hated you because you were a tax collector.
[00:07:27] Jesus knew that tax collectors were hated. He knew they were despised.
[00:07:34] But somehow or another, he didn't feel that way, and he treated Levi, the tax collector, as a neighbor.
[00:07:47] Luke tells us that Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, follow me.
[00:07:59] Leaving everything. He rose and followed him.
[00:08:04] Ah, I like to imagine this in my mind. It was a normal day for Luke. Luke obviously was good at math, and he was sitting there at the tax booth, and he was probably taxing things that were carried in and out of the city, import export taxes. And it was a normal day. He'd probably been cursed out two or three times already.
[00:08:29] But he was calculating his mind. I'm going to make this much money today. I'll make this much this week.
[00:08:35] And to his surprise, Jesus walked up to his tax booth.
[00:08:43] He didn't have anything to be taxed, but he walked up to Luke's task, to Levi's tax booth, and he looked him square in the face and just said two words.
[00:08:55] Follow me.
[00:09:00] Ah.
[00:09:02] It's the last thing Levi expected to happen.
[00:09:07] You see, long ago, Levi had traded acceptance for wealth. He was willing to be unacceptable because it was making him wealthy. And the very last thing he ever expected was the most popular man in Israel to walk up to him and say, follow me.
[00:09:31] Oddly enough, it wasn't just Levi who was surprised. It was the other disciples of Jesus who were surprised. They couldn't believe what they were hearing.
[00:09:44] Why would Jesus do such a thing?
[00:09:49] There's a little sentence that's easy to read over the gospels. Say Jesus saw Levi.
[00:10:03] He saw him.
[00:10:05] He didn't see what people thought of him. He didn't see the insults people threw at him. He didn't see the prejudice that people had for him. He saw Levi.
[00:10:19] He saw the man's soul. He saw the real Levi.
[00:10:26] And because he saw the real Levi, he said what nobody expected him to say. Follow me.
[00:10:34] You know, if we're gonna be good neighbors, we gotta be like Christ, and we gotta stop seeing people by their appearance, and we gotta start seeing them for who they really are. Would you please open your heart to this? We have to be more like Jesus Christ, and we have to stop judging people by their exterior. And we got to start trying to see them for who they really are.
[00:10:58] Remember, the word neighbor means your fellow human being.
[00:11:04] We got to start seeing people not as a gender, class, race, occupation, and all these other nonsensical things. And we got to start seeing people as this person is a member of the human race.
[00:11:24] They have the same kinds of life issues I have.
[00:11:29] They struggle the same way I struggle.
[00:11:33] They've lost in the same way I've lost. They've won in the same way I've wondez. We're never going to be the people God wants us to be until we start looking beyond all these nonsensical things that we use to judge people, and we start seeing people for who they really are.
[00:11:51] Can you hear that?
[00:11:53] Jesus didn't see Levi as a tax collector. He saw Levi as a fellow human being.
[00:12:01] He saw Levi as a man who had potential, even if it didn't look to other people like he did.
[00:12:09] And Jesus broke through the prejudice, and he broke through the stigma.
[00:12:14] And he said to Levi, you are my fellow human being, and I want you to follow me.
[00:12:22] All right?
[00:12:28] Open your heart to me now. Open your heart to me now.
[00:12:33] In the kingdom of God, we have to start thinking bigger than we have.
[00:12:47] I've read several times, I've read in several studies, the most segregated place in the United States of America is the church on Sunday morning.
[00:13:01] Now, that shouldn't be so church.
[00:13:05] We're not living the kingdom, right? If that's so, the church can't be the most segregated place in America on Sunday morning.
[00:13:14] And it's only that way because we're not thinking about people the way Christ wants us to think about them. Can you hear this, church? Will you open your heart to this? Will you reconsider some of the ways you've thought in the past? And could we, as a church, say, what can we do to make church more comfortable for people who aren't exactly like us? Church. How can we be a good neighbor to people who aren't exactly like us?
[00:13:48] I want you to notice also that Jesus initiated this conversation with Levi. Levi didn't come up to Jesus. Jesus came up to Levi.
[00:13:58] Jesus was the initiator.
[00:14:03] If we're going to be good neighbors, we got to be initiators. Do you hear this? Look, anybody can stand back and wait for somebody else to break the ice.
[00:14:14] Anybody can be passive in their relationships. But good people, followers of Jesus Christ, do what he did, and we initiate. We make the first step.
[00:14:28] We do what Gottman calls, we make a bid, we make a friendly gesture toward people to break the ice and for the possibility of creating a new relationship.
[00:14:47] Levi would not have been a follower of Jesus Christ. If Jesus had not initiated, he would have never dreamed that Christ was open to him. He was a tax collector. How could he possibly be acceptable to Christ? So Christ initiated and he took the first step.
[00:15:06] What would it look like in your life if you initiated and you took the first step?
[00:15:13] Instead of waiting for your neighbor to meet you, you went out of your way to meet your neighbor.
[00:15:19] Instead of waiting for somebody at work to speak to you, you initiate and speak to them.
[00:15:28] What would it mean if you met somebody on Main street you didn't know and said, hi, my name is Dave.
[00:15:35] You don't have to say your name is Dave. But what.
[00:15:41] But it's a pretty good name. It's worked pretty well for me.
[00:15:47] I'm asking you, can you see yourself as an initiator in developing new relationships so that Christ can work through you?
[00:15:58] Can you see yourself as being the initiator?
[00:16:06] This same person who is called Levi is also called Matthew.
[00:16:16] Simon Peter had two names. Well, Levi, Matthew had two names. And this is the very same Matthew that wrote the gospel.
[00:16:26] And if you were to look in Matthew's gospel, chapter nine, verses nine through 13, Matthew recorded this very same story in his gospel.
[00:16:37] Listen to this. When everybody else saw Levi, the tax collector, Jesus saw Matthew the disciple, the author of the Gospel.
[00:16:50] Can you see this? He saw potential in Levi that no one else saw. And because he initiated, because he reached out to him, because he invited him into his life, Levi grew into Matthew. And we have the gospel today because Jesus met Levi at that tax table and treated him like a neighbor.
[00:17:15] It seems that Levi must have been ready for this invitation. I mean, who walks away from one of the highest paying jobs in the country? Who walks away from one of the highest paying jobs just because somebody says, follow me?
[00:17:32] I think what is implied in the gospel is that Luke had heard Christ before. He had probably been somewhere where Jesus taught. He had been thinking about what he heard Jesus say. And so he was ready when Jesus came up to him. And when Jesus said, follow me, it resonated with him because he was ready to hear that call.
[00:17:56] I wish I had a little device that I could hold up and say, this person's ready. This person's not ready. This person's ready. Wouldn't that be fun? We don't have that, so we have to listen. We have to just, we just have to try.
[00:18:14] And some people will be ready, and some people won't be ready, but we're still engaging in the way Christ taught us to engage. Do you hear this? If you don't ever try, you'll never run into anybody who's ready.
[00:18:29] If you're willing to try, from time to time, you're going to run into people who are ready, and God is going to do something miraculous through your life.
[00:18:40] So Jesus said to Levi, follow me. And Levi responded in three ways. Verse 28, look what he did.
[00:18:51] He left all.
[00:18:56] The very first thing he did was say, what Christ is offering me is better than anything I have. I'm willing to let go of what I have to receive, what Christ has to give me.
[00:19:10] Church, do you really believe Christ is better than what you have?
[00:19:16] Or have you deceived yourself? And do you really believe that what you have is probably a little bit better than anything Christ could offer you, and you're just not sure you want to give up what you have to really be a follower of Jesus Christ. That is the biggest lie the unholy one ever told you. Church. There is nothing better than Jesus Christ.
[00:19:42] I want you to know I've lived a long time, and I know that every good thing in my life comes from God.
[00:19:49] Every good thing I have in my life, it was God's kindness and gift to me. Everything ugly about my life, all my regrets, they're about me.
[00:20:01] They're about me not being who God wanted me to be. They're about me not following Jesus Christ. They're about me going off the rails.
[00:20:10] When I see the ugly in my life, I say, you're an idiot. When I see the good in my life, I say, oh, God, thank you. Thank you that you've called me. You really are better than anything else. The second thing he did was he stood up.
[00:20:26] Levi stood up to become the man God created him to be.
[00:20:33] It was a real action, but it's also a metaphor.
[00:20:38] Levi's life had stalled. He was sitting at a tax table.
[00:20:44] Life was incomplete for him. Life hadn't turned out the way he wished it would. But when Jesus said, follow me, that resonated inside him. And he stood up and he said, I'm ready for a new life.
[00:20:58] Church, there are thousands of people out there. You know some of them. I know some of them, and they're ready for something different than what they have.
[00:21:08] They're ready for something better than what they have.
[00:21:12] Things haven't turned out the way they thought they would. Things didn't satisfy them the way they thought they would. And now they're ready. And if we'll just be a good neighborhood and introduce them to something beautiful about Christ, they're ready to stand up and say, I'm going to try following Christ myself.
[00:21:34] And then the third thing he did was he followed.
[00:21:40] I find it ironic that Jesus said, follow me, and then Luke says he obeyed and he just followed him.
[00:21:50] I find it ironic because often in my experience with Christianity, we aren't follows. We don't see ourselves as followers of Jesus Christ. We see ourselves as those who tell jesus what to do.
[00:22:05] Hey, Jesus, I'm doing this, and this is your part. Hey, Jesus, I want this.
[00:22:11] How about helping me do this? Hey, consider this. And we're not followers at all.
[00:22:19] We become little napoleons, and we expect Jesus to march around in our army, and it's the opposite of what the gospel says.
[00:22:30] The gospel says, if anyone would be my disciple, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
[00:22:40] The christian life is a following life. It is not a life where we give jesus his to do list.
[00:22:52] And then the story really gets interesting, because Levi has a whole network of friends who don't know Jesus. Remember I told you the societas publicanorium, the publicans who gathered together and had a. He had a whole society of friends who didn't know Jesus.
[00:23:16] And believe it or not, Levi didn't invite them to the synagogue to hear Jesus. He invited them to his house for a great feast.
[00:23:27] Levi made a great feast in his house. And there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
[00:23:52] Levi made a genius move.
[00:23:55] Christ had done something for him, and he wanted Christ to do the same thing for his friends.
[00:24:02] And so he had a supper, and he said, come over to my house for supper. And when they got there, they got to meet Jesus.
[00:24:12] I wonder if you would ever consider inviting a non christian friend to your house for lunch or for supper, or take them out for lunch or supper.
[00:24:26] And while you're having lunch or supper together, tell them one wonderful story from the gospels and say, this is why Jesus Christ is important to me.
[00:24:45] Do you see? You take the opportunity to tell them something beautiful about Jesus Christ. Now, what I don't want you to do is get out the biggest Bible you have, recite 35 verses to them, and grind them down until they say the sinner's prayer. I do not want you to do that.
[00:25:05] That's not what jesus did. That is not what he taught us. What he taught us was develop a relationship with someone by having lunch or supper.
[00:25:18] And as you develop that relationship, tell them something beautiful about Jesus Christ.
[00:25:28] That's being a good neighbor, church.
[00:25:36] I hope you know that they didn't eat at tables and chairs in Christ time the way we do. When you see the last Supper, they're sitting at this big banquet table. They're all in fancy chairs. It didn't happen that way, church. In fact, in Christ's time, you laid by the table, the table was a low table, and you laid on your left arm, and you ate with your right arm. And then there was a person laying in front, over here and behind you. So remember Jesus and the disciples. At the last Supper, Peter said to John, ask him who's going to betray him. And the Bible says that John leaned on Jesus shoulder. Well, you see how easy that would be? If somebody's laying right next to you, you just roll over and now you're laying on their shoulder, all right? So when you eat like this, you're closer and there's. And you're bumping into each other, all right?
[00:26:38] On top of that, they didn't eat with forks, knives and spoons. I. They ate with their fingers and they shared dishes. And it was not uncommon to use bread, kind of like a plate. And you would take food and put it on your bread and then you'd. Okay, so there was not only you're close to each other and bumping into each other, you're touching the same food, all right?
[00:27:12] And for the Pharisees, this was not acceptable. Because to touch a person that they considered unclean made you unclean.
[00:27:26] If you touch someone that they thought was despicable, it made you despicable.
[00:27:32] So now here's Jesus. They already hate him. They're already looking for a reason to blame him for something. And now he's laying at this table and he's surrounded by tax collectors and this vague others, which means they were just as bad as the tax collectors and the Pharisees. Look at that and go, this is disgusting.
[00:27:56] This is unacceptable.
[00:27:59] Because Christ accepted people that the religious people didn't like. He became unacceptable.
[00:28:07] All right? Now there's a lesson here, and we're not going to miss it.
[00:28:13] It is wrong for you to judge people by who they accept and who they don't accept.
[00:28:23] Okay, I know you don't want to hear it, but I'm going to say it again.
[00:28:27] Look, people in the opposite political party of you, they can love Christ as much as you do.
[00:28:35] Will you hear this? Because they don't agree with you politically doesn't mean that they don't love Christ just as much as you do.
[00:28:43] And we cannot fall into this category in this coming up election where if somebody is in the party that I'm not in, I start judging them and considering them less than christian. Will you hear this?
[00:28:59] We are the church. And Jesus Christ comes before politics. And somebody's politics doesn't make them their political likes and dislikes, doesn't make them any more or any less of a christian than you are. Do you hear this? Now open your heart to me. We have to treat each other the way Christ taught us to treat each other. And he taught us very clearly that we don't judge people by who they accept. And who they don't accept.
[00:29:31] That was exactly what the Pharisees did.
[00:29:36] And please, you don't want to be a Pharisee. Can I have at least one? Amen. This morning, the Pharisees grumbled.
[00:29:52] They muttered, they complained.
[00:29:58] They looked at Jesus Christ, who had just converted a tax collector that they hated.
[00:30:06] They hated tax collectors. And Jesus had just converted him. And he had just given up being a tax collector.
[00:30:15] And they hated Jesus for doing that.
[00:30:18] It's so inconsistent.
[00:30:21] They grumbled, they complained.
[00:30:26] They made innuendos about Jesus Christ.
[00:30:31] It's all ugly.
[00:30:34] Do you agree?
[00:30:37] Okay, what are you grumbling about?
[00:30:40] Church.
[00:30:42] What are you grumbling about?
[00:30:45] How is your grumbling affecting your relationship to Jesus Christ?
[00:30:51] Is it possible that you need to reduce the amount of grumbling and increase the amount of thanksgiving?
[00:31:00] I've never grumbled my way into a better mood. Have you? Just grumble, grumble and grumble, and they go, oh, yeah, I feel 100% better.
[00:31:09] The more I grumble, the more I want to grumble. The more I grumble, the more I see to grumble about.
[00:31:18] But I have.
[00:31:21] I have had gratitude toward a better state of being. I have started saying thank you and looking around at the goodness of God and the blessings of God in my life. And I have felt my spirit lifted.
[00:31:36] What are you grumbling about and how is it affecting your relationship to Christ?
[00:31:42] What are you grumbling about and how does it affect your relationships to other people?
[00:31:48] How do you like to be around a grumbler every day? You know, when you meet them, they've got something to grumble about.
[00:31:58] You know those people every single time. They never run out of things to grumble about.
[00:32:06] Church.
[00:32:09] I have a policy.
[00:32:12] I don't listen to grumblers. I don't want to be infected with it. Church. I try to be polite, but I don't listen to grumblers. I don't want to be infected by it. And grumbling is an infectious disease. It makes Covid look like kids play. We infect each other with grumbling. All right.
[00:32:37] The pharisees were not good neighbors.
[00:32:41] They were critical and they were judgmental. To be a good neighbor, we have to give up the impulse to criticize and judge.
[00:32:55] Verse 31.
[00:32:59] Jesus heard their grumbling, and he answered them. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
[00:33:09] I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
[00:33:15] I wonder if Jesus was explaining himself to the Pharisees. Or I wonder if he was explaining himself to the disciples who might have been affected by the grumbling.
[00:33:26] Do you hear this?
[00:33:28] They heard the grumbling and they were kind of suspicious themselves. Yeah. Why are we eating with tax collectors? Yeah, why are we hanging around with these people? And I think Jesus was saying this more to his followers than he was saying it to the Pharisees. And he said to his followers, one more time, I want you to remember what we're doing.
[00:33:50] One more time, I want you to remember why I'm here. One more time I want to tell you what the mission is. I didn't come to make a bunch of religious people happy and like me, I came to call sinners.
[00:34:07] I didn't come to have day camp for a bunch of spoiled religious people. I came on a mission, and my mission is to heal those who are spiritually ruined. My mission is to call sinners to repentance.
[00:34:31] Church, is it possible we need to hear verse 31 with fresh ears. Verse 31 and 32. What do you think the church is all about?
[00:34:43] Why do we exist as a church? What is it we're supposed to be doing? I like to have fun. Next Sunday, we're going to have the only one service, 11:00 service. It's going to be outside. All three campuses are going to be here. We're going to have a great time.
[00:34:59] We're going to have fun.
[00:35:01] Last Sunday, was it last Sunday we had hot dogs two Sundays ago? I can't remember. I stood out in the parking lot with a bunch of people in this church. I ate a hot dog, spilled mustard all over everything.
[00:35:14] All right, we do it. We're supposed to have fun.
[00:35:18] It's a blessing to have fun. Do you hear this? But our mission is more than just hanging around with each other and having fun. Do you get it? The church's mission is exactly what Christ said it is. We are supposed to be figuring out ways to invite sinners back into a healthy relationship with Christ. And one of the best ways we can do that is by being a good neighbor.
[00:35:53] Jesus saw himself as a divine healer.
[00:35:57] Healthy people don't need the attention of a healer.
[00:36:02] When I go to the doctor and have to wait for an hour and a half and waste all that time and the doctor says, you're okay, it makes me grouchy.
[00:36:13] I knew I was okay. Why did I have to come here?
[00:36:18] The healthy ones don't need to wait an hour and a half for a doctor. The unhealthy ones need that amenity. Okay, spiritually. Spiritually, there isn't. There is a there is a soul disease in the world.
[00:36:35] And if you haven't recognized it, I'm so sorry. But at some point, by the grace of God. I hope you come to that moment. Where you say, I'm messed up.
[00:36:47] And I've tried everything I know to fix myself, and I can't.
[00:36:52] That's when the healing grace of Jesus Christ becomes beautiful.
[00:36:58] If you're deceiving yourself and saying, I'm okay. I'm a good guy. I'm not as bad as this guy. I'm not as bad as that woman.
[00:37:05] If you're deceiving yourself, you are in grave danger.
[00:37:10] But if you can come to a moment of honesty. Where you look at yourself and say, I'm messed up. And I've tried a bunch of things to get better and I can't. That's when Jesus Christ is most beautiful. That's when he is most wonderful. That's when he is most compelling.
[00:37:30] Jesus didn't come to argue with people about self righteousness. He came to say, if you're sick, I can heal you.
[00:37:44] You see, the tax collectors knew they were messed up. And they were very open to Jesus Christ. The Pharisees believed they weren't messed up, and they were not open to Jesus Christ.
[00:38:00] The Pharisees despised Jesus. And the tax collectors were absolutely delighted to have supper with them.
[00:38:08] Church. Where are you?
[00:38:12] I want to talk to some of you mature christians.
[00:38:17] Have you lost touch?
[00:38:20] With what?
[00:38:22] With how wonderful Christ was to you at the beginning.
[00:38:26] When you were messed up. And you knew you were messed up. And you were ashamed of your life. And Christ came into your life and he granted you grace. He forgave your sin. He started healing you. You started becoming a better person.
[00:38:40] Have you let the years of God's grace lead you to a point where you take the presence and the goodness of Christ for granted?
[00:38:52] Is it possible that you need to hear Jesus one more time say to you. I didn't come for the righteous. I came for sinners.
[00:39:02] And if you've grown so righteous that you don't appreciate me. You've lost touch with my mission and my person.
[00:39:10] He not only saw himself as a divine healer. He saw himself as a divine reconciler.
[00:39:18] My purpose is not to call the righteous. My purpose is to call sinners. Christ wants to reconcile sinners to goddess.
[00:39:27] If you're here this morning.
[00:39:29] And you've never had that wonderful moment. Where you said to Jesus Christ, I'm sorry I sinned. I'm sorry I've messed up this beautiful life you gave me. I'm asking you to forgive me. I'm trusting Jesus Christ as my lord and savior. Why not do it today?
[00:39:48] Why not hear Jesus say to you the very same thing he said to Levi? Follow me.
[00:39:56] Why not, in your heart of hearts, stand up and say, I want to be a follower of Jesus Christ and Lord Jesus. If you will have me, I will follow you the rest of my life.
[00:40:10] What blocks you from doing that? What blocks you from letting Jesus Christ be a good neighbor to you?
[00:40:18] Christ sees you. He sees you where you are. He sees you as you are. And guess what? He calls you. Anyway, Christ is whispering to your heart today. He's saying to you, I want you to let go of the ruined life you've had. I want you to stand up and follow me.
[00:40:37] Our dear heavenly Father, I ask that we might be more obedient to your instruction of loving our neighbor as ourself. And I pray that we could learn to love our neighbor as ourself by seeing Christ's example. And I ask this all in Jesus name.
