Last Sunday, we started our year by showing showing everyone this picture, this image. This is a picture of our church. Not literally. It's not our building, because the building is not the church. If we wanted a literal picture of the church, I would just take a picture of you, because you're the church, the church's people. But this is a picture of the vision that we have as a church. In our early days, our founding pastor, Stephen Susan Craig, they got this vision from God. And I don't say vision from God like it was a dream sequence kind of thing. I mean that this thing that God put on their heart. And that was that his hands was meant to be a tree of life church. And so our name is His Hands, but if you walk through our hallways, you see all these trees, and you know, there's the tree house and the garden and the grove, our kids' areas, and so it's like, man, these hands people have a weird fascination with trees. Well, that's because from the beginning we said we are a tree of life church. And I don't want to spend a bunch of time going over that from last week. You can listen to the podcast. We have a video on our YouTube channel that's like six minutes long that really, really explains it succinctly. But suffice it to say that in the Bible, which is a book we really like, in the Bible, God starts off his story with us with these two trees that are really significant: the tree of life, tree of knowledge of good and evil. And they represent two different approaches to God. One approach is the normal approach. It's not just the normal approach to God, it's the approach everyone tends to take to life. That's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It's us doing everything in our own power to decide what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong. We do that on our own, based on our own wisdom, our own knowledge, our own experience, and we try to make life happen by ourselves. Even in religion, like religion is all about the knowledge of good and evil. Religion is about the rules and regulations, what's good, what's bad, what's in, what's out. What can I do to appease this God who's probably mad at me? You look at every religion in the world, slap whatever name you want on it, it's some different set of rules and regulations that are designed to help an angry God be just a little bit more okay with you. That's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That's one way to approach God. When we approach God that way, we do a lot of work and we do it for God. The tree of life is completely different. It's not for God, it's of God. The tree of life is letting God work through us. Ephesians 3.20 in the Bible says, God can do anything, far more than you can ask or imagine. He does it not by pushing us around, not by dropping this giant list of rules on our plate. He does it by working in us, his spirit, deeply and gently within us. God wants to work within you. God wants to make you the person he created you to be, but it's gonna be him doing the work in you, not you having to do it yourself. You think back to every New Year's resolution you've ever set, more than likely, and I know there's gonna be exceptions, but more than likely it was you feeling like you've got to make something happen this year. This is the year that I'm finally gonna budget. This is the year that I'm finally gonna lose this weight. This is the year that I'm gonna make this happen. I'm gonna work hard, I'm gonna do it, and then you end up a few months into you into your year, like exhausted, running on fumes, because you're doing it in your own strength. That's that's the wrong tree. We wanna have a tree of life year. We want to have a tree of life relationship with God where we are letting God work within us, we're letting his spirit make us into the people that we were meant to be. And if you're new and that language seems weird, it kind of is. It kind of is. Jesus once said that God is spirit. God is supernatural. And I want to experience the supernatural. I want to experience what only God can do. And I've experienced what I can do in my own strength, and it's not much. I can mess stuff up. I'm really good at that. I want to experience what it's like for God to work within me and make me the person that he knows I'm supposed to be. It's about submission and freedom, but also love and joy. It's it's beautiful. And so we're his hands, we're a tree of life church, and that image you're gonna see it a lot this year. It's on shirts if you want it, but like we're just saying at the beginning of the year, we are going to have a tree of life 2019. And last week we we ended by describing what that actually looks like practically. What does it actually mean to have a tree of life relationship with God? And I'm so grateful for Scripture. I'm so grateful for the Bible. I know that in a room this size, there are some of us that would say, I believe the Bible is God's word, and when I hear someone start quoting it, I listen, some of us would be like, I'm kind of skeptical of the Bible. It's a book, people have misused it. Yes, that's true. There will always be people who misuse anything that's powerful. But if you don't believe in the supernatural authority of the Bible, let's say, just think about it this way. If I told you that someone was gonna speak today who had written a New York Times bestseller, you might perk up. All you have to do is sell 10,000 copies of a book to be a New York Times bestseller. It's not that many. And half the people who are New York Times bestsellers hire companies to buy 10,000 of their books to make them New York Times bestsellers. It's a crock, is what I'm trying to say. Okay? So, like, look it up. I'm not, I'm not making this up. What if I told you someone was speaking that had sold a million books? A million. You would be like, wow. Over the course of the last few centuries, five billion copies of the Bible have been sold. And yeah, that's great. So it's a it's on the New York Times bestseller list, um, for sure. And there's whole countries, there's whole governments that work extremely hard to keep the Bible out of their nation because of how influential it is, how much it inspires common people to have value, to see who they really are. And so something that powerful, something that's had that much impact, even if you even if you don't believe that it's supernatural, obviously there's something to it. So just be open. Just be open. For me personally, I don't want to be a pastor, a teacher that teaches with the Bible. I want to teach from the Bible. So anytime we're gonna do something and God's gonna move us somewhere, I want to know that that the Holy Spirit is leading us, but I want to check that by making sure it lines up with Scripture. And so a few months ago, I was praying about all this Tree of Life stuff, and I honestly was kind of mad because our name's his hands, got all these trees everywhere. Why aren't we Tree of Life Church? That would make so much more sense, you know, and and God kind of brought those two together as we see in this picture here. But I was reading the Bible, and I'm in Isaiah, who was a prophet that lived centuries before Jesus, and I'm in Isaiah 37, I get to verses 31 and 32, and Isaiah paints a picture of a tree with his with his words. And and he's likening us, the followers of God, to trees. He says that we will plant deep roots. He says our roots will go down, that we will grow up and flourish, and we will spread out, or we might say reach out like the branches of a tree. And so when it comes to having a tree of life relationship with God or a tree of life year, however you want to phrase it, we want to be able to answer these questions. Where are my roots? Where are my roots? Am I growing? Am I maturing in the way that I should? And am I reaching out and impacting the world beyond myself? So for the next few weeks, we're gonna go through that. Because if you're rooted down in your faith and you're growing up and you're reaching out, you are at the tree of life. That's how we're gonna put this all in context and make it practical. And I'm so glad God has helped us to do that. So we're gonna start today with roots. Where are your roots? Last week we looked at Jeremiah chapter 17. This prophet Jeremiah said, Cursed is anyone whose hope is in human strength. Cursed is anyone who has placed their faith in mere humans. That's like the normal way to live. Putting your faith in the resources of this world, the institutions of this world, your own strength, your own intellect. But then he says, Blessed, blessed is the person whose roots are deep in God. Blessed is the person whose hope is in the Lord. They'll be like a tree planted by a stream, and their roots will go down deep. And even when the sun beats down on that tree, and when all kinds of things happen, when there's drought, that tree will produce fruit, its leaves will stay green, because those roots are where they're supposed to be. So where are your roots? To those of you who would say, I'm a Jesus follower, I would I would add to that. Are you deeply rooted in your faith? Another way to ask that question, I'm just coming up with new ways to ask the same question, sorry. Um, are you radical in your faith? Would you say that you have radical faith in Jesus? Now, I'm gonna just go ahead and say this. I don't know what your experience with the word radical is. Usually when we hear the word radical alongside anything faith-based, it's bad, right? So, like a radical, whatever religious person is a crazy nut job who's an extremist, uh, who's likely to do violence, blow something up. That's a that's a radical. I don't want to be radical. But uh, I love you, Nate. But uh Nate's one of my favorite people. So, but but it's funny how words work, because that's actually not what the word radical originally meant at all. Words change their meaning over time. You probably know that. I like words, I use them often. And so I enjoy, it's like a weird, useless knowledge kind of thing. I enjoy learning like the origin of words. And it's really interesting, like some of my favorites, the word trivia, for example. Who here likes trivia? Like you enjoy trivia games, okay. The original meaning of the word trivia is a road with three forks. That's the original meaning of the word trivia. And you actually see it in the word try is three via via its road. So three roads, that's what trivia means. And it's funny because when you think of doing trivia, you get a question and it's always multiple choice, right? You have multiple answers that you can choose between. That is trivia, but it used to mean literally, you get to a road and there's three forks, there's three different ways you can go. Ah, trivia. Which one? I choose C. I hope I don't die. You know, that's how people used to live. That's pre-GPS, you know? That's pre-maps. There was a time when people are like, no one's made a map. I hope I don't die. Like, literally, that's what they thought when they chose a road. Or made one. I don't know. I didn't live back then. Here's another word for you: the word clue. That's like my favorite board game, by the way. And weirdly, we play that board game at home, uh, because you know, it's about murder, it's really good to play with your kids. And uh teaches your kids that anything's a murder weapon, really. That's what clue, that's the moral of clue. Uh but we play clue at home. My I've never beaten my eight-year-old son in clue. And it's just luck. There's no other explanation. He he wins every time, it's annoying. Um the original meaning of clue is a ball of string. That's the original meaning of the word clue. And there's a Greek myth where this guy is in a labyrinth and he's got to escape the labyrinth. And so when he goes in, he takes a ball of string and he unravels it so that when he when he's coming out, he has that string to follow. And so at the time, the word clue literally meant a ball of string. Like if Sherlock Holmes had said, I found a clue, at that time it would have meant I found a ball of string. And Watson would have said, Okay. You know? But because of the way words work, eventually, oh, a clue is is following something that leads you to your ultimate destination. This one's probably one of it's easily one of my top three favorite etymologies. That's the study of words, nerd stuff, okay. Um, Nimrod. Who here has has heard the term Nimrod? If I were to call you a Nimrod, who here would say thank you? You know? This guy says yes. You're a you're a total Nimrod, dude. That's awesome. That's Nate. I love him. Okay, so Nimrod. You may you may not know this. If you if if you hear someone call you a Nimrod, they're calling you, give me like a word. An idiot. Okay. That was quick. I'm gonna assume that wasn't personal experience. You haven't been called that before. Well, what's funny is that that's a really new meaning for the word Nimrod. That's a really new meaning. It's it's literally like in our lifetime or some of our lifetimes in this room, has that become the meaning of Nimrod? Because for centuries, I mean centuries, Nimrod was a compliment. It was a compliment. Nimrod is a character in the Old Testament. He's only in there for like a couple lines, and he's not this horrible person. Nimrod was a skilled hunter. A skilled hunter. And so a hundred years ago, literally a hundred years ago, if you would have called someone a Nimrod, they would have said, Well, thank you very much. I'm pretty good with the bow. But then one person, one person forever changed the meaning of Nimrod. And his name is Elmer Fudd. Because in the 1940s, Bugs Bunny, there was a cartoon of Bugs and Elmer, right? You know Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd. What does Elmer Fudd do? What is he? He's a hunter, right? He's a hunter, and he's not good at it because he's an idiot. He's Elmer Fudd, right? His name is Elmer Fudd. Like, you if you ever meet someone named Elmer Fudd or something like that, just assume, probably not smart. I I know it sounds horrible and judgmental, but I'm just gonna assume that until I'm proven wrong. So, Elmer Fudd, he's not smart, he's not intelligent, and and Bugs sarcastically calls him Nimrod to make fun of the fact that he's a bad hunter. So he's saying Nimrod sarcastically, because to say Nimrod genuinely would be a compliment. Well, a whole generation was raised watching Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny and watching Bugs Bunny call Elmer Fudd a Nimrod, not knowing the origin of the word Nimrod, but picking up on the tone that it's sarcastic and it means you're dumb. And so a cartoon bunny and a cartoon hunter forever changed the meaning of a centuries-old word. And we hear Nimrod and we go, oh, I don't want to be a Nimrod. But a hundred years ago it was a compliment. Words. It's crazy, right? So go back to the word radical. Okay? We hear radical, we think extremist, we think crazy person. The original meaning of radical is root. If you've ever eaten a radish, that's where we get the word. It's like it's a root. Radical means rooted. Are you deeply rooted in your faith? My first exposure to the word radical was when I was a kid watching Teenage Meat Ninja Turtles. You know? Because they said words like that was awesome, like it's intense. But it actually means deeply rooted. Are you deeply rooted in your faith? If you think about the roots on a tree, it's it's interesting because you don't see the roots most of the time. You don't see the roots, but there's not a part of the tree that could be more vital than the root system. Because the roots provide a tree with two things sustenance and stability. Sustenance and stability. And so again, if we look into ourselves and ask some hard questions, which we've always we've got to be willing to do that. Jesus makes us do that all the time. You read Jesus' teachings, he's always asking hard questions. It makes you deal with stuff. Where am I going for sustenance? What am I depending on? That's where your roots are. What is providing my life with a sense of stability? That's where your roots are. What's giving me sustenance? What's giving me stability? So let's talk, let's talk about those two things for a minute. As far as sustenance goes, let's read from Ephesians chapter 3, verses 16 through 19. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources, he will empower you with his inner strength through the Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will go down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to fully understand. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. So, Paul, the author here, he says, I pray that your roots grow down deep into God's love. That you would experience the fullness of his love, even though you can't even understand it. Are you rooted in the love of God? You know, we talk a lot about the love of God, we sing a lot about the love of God. But are we deeply rooted in the love of God? Like, do you believe that God loves you? And I mean really loves you. So far in my calendar day, it didn't begin when I wanted it to, it began at 2.30 this morning when my two-year-old came into my bed and vomited on me. That was awesome. It was great. Great start to the day. Um, and so I spent the the first few hours of this day in my basement. I was trying to let Megan sleep. I'm not the Judah whisperer. Judah's my two-year-old. Uh, Megan's that person, so I'm I'm just trying to get him to throw up in a bucket. And he will not do it. So I finally took him to a room that just has a linoleum floor, and I'm like, just throw up there. Just throw up right there, and I'll wipe it up because at least it's not on carpet. And my first few hours of the day was spent with my two-year-old throwing up on me, and I'll tell you this, I love that kid. I love him. And like I want to wrap my arms around him, I want to hug him, I want to kiss him, you know. Like, I just I love him. And he's thrown up on me. Like all my children have done that. All of them. They've all, bodily fluids have been on me in a lot of different ways, and yet I love them. And the love of God is so much more intense than that. Like you've all thrown up on God. Every one of you has vomited on God at some point in your life. You didn't realize it maybe, but every single one of us, every single one of us, has done something that was the equivalent of us walking up to God and being like right on his shoes, his giant, beautiful shoes, right? And yet he still loves you so much more intensely than any love you've ever experienced. But it's so hard for us to actually come to terms with that. And I know that because we settle for far less than God's love. Make no mistake, your heart is designed by God to need his love. Your heart is designed by God to search for his love, just like a tree is designed by God to search for water. That's what the roots of a tree do. Have you ever seen roots destroy the foundation of a house or break apart like a driveway? It's because they are desperately searching for water and they will they will crash through anything in their way to find it. Your heart is designed by God to search for the love of God, but but the temptation is to settle for far less. Like you could settle for the approval of people. Instead of having the love of God, you could have the approval of your fellow man, your fellow woman. I don't know if you're someone that watches the news or some version of the news. There's a lot of different versions of the news. Um I really like to get into politics and I like to watch what's going on in Hollywood because it's just hysterical sometimes, you know? I actually have to be careful not to get cynical, so I have to like watch, but not for too long. But it's so interesting to watch what certain people do and how they live, especially when it comes to like Hollywood, for example. People can be the most celebrated person in the world. This person's amazing, they're awesome. We all want our picture taken with this person, we want to pay this person lots of money to endorse our products. This person's just phenomenal, talented, beautiful, awesome. Someone dug up a tweet from 10 years ago. This person's the worst person that's ever lived. We banish them, we don't want to have anything to do with them, we hate them, they're gone, they're evil. And it happens like that. You know, like that, because the approval of people is fickle. It is so fickle. And yet, in our search for the love of God, we will sometimes stop short and settle for the approval of people. But the approval of people, it's nothing compared to the love of God. So are you deeply rooted in the love of God? Okay, yeah. Are you deeply rooted in the love of God? Is that what you're depending on? Or are you depending on the approval of people? What about like romantic love? Romance is awesome until it's not, right? Like romance is like technology. It's amazing until it doesn't work, and then it's like horrible. And that's how romance is. Because a lot of people in the room have had this happen in our lives in some in some way, shape, or form. You've had a person that you didn't even know, and then you met them, and you looked in their eyes, and they looked in your eyes, and they smoldered and you smoldered or whatever, and like they went from being a person you didn't even know to the greatest person that's ever existed in the world. They're perfect, they're amazing. I want to spend the rest of my life with them. And then, like, two months later, you're like, they're nuts, they're crazy, they're the worst person I've ever met. Like, I gotta run away, I'll change my name, I'll move to a different country, whatever I have to do to escape this person, because they're the worst. Like, that was the arc of that relationship. Because romance, it's incredible until it's not. And yet, how often do we do we settle for romantic love instead of the love of God? Are you rooted in the love that God has for you, or are you rooted in the way someone looks in your eyes? You know, I do weddings, and uh, I'm not putting that out as an advertisement. I'd actually like to do fewer. Um Megan and I we always have a fight the day I'm going to do a wedding. It's the weirdest thing. Like we'll get in an argument, and then I'm like, I gotta go do a wedding, you know? And then I'm at the wedding and it's like, I gotta go apologize to my wife. You know, though, it's horrible, it's a mess. Um almost every wedding I've ever done, someone will ask me to read 1 Corinthians 13. And I do, because I'm not a jerk. I'll read this, it's the Bible. And here's 1 Corinthians 13. You've heard this. Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude, it does not demand its own way, it is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. So you could just go ahead and add to that, it is nothing like human marriage at that point. We're reading it at this at this wedding to describe what you'll never experience. Right? You know. And like, in marriage, you'd say it is not irritable past 9 a.m. after coffee. Like, no, it just says it is not irritable. Let's love that. It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices when the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Well, people always want that read at their weddings, but it's not talking about romance. You may have heard this before. There's a lot of words in the Greek language for love. One of those words is the word eros, and that means, you know, romance. We get words like erotic from that, romantic love. It's not talking about eros. The Greek word is agape, and it's a very different kind of love. It's describing the way God loves us, the way we should love each other. But this is this is God's love. God's love never fails. God's love never gives up hope. God's love never gives up on you. God's love always always perseveres, always trusts. God's love is patient, God's love is all those things. Yet, how often do we settle for romance? We put our roots there and not in the love of God. I love my wife. And she's not even here today. She's with Judah. So I could say whatever I wanted. But I'm serious. I love her. But I but my life is not rooted in her love. If anything, we're like two trees that just happen to be planted next to each other. But the same goes for her. Her life is not rooted in my love for her. If my love for her were to go away and it's not going to, but one day I'll die. And she's going to be okay. Because her roots are in the love of the Lord and it endures. It lasts forever. And so if you're here this morning and your roots are in anything less than the love of God, you gotta move your roots. You gotta move them. Are you rooted in the love of God? He loves you so much. He loves you so much. 1 John chapter 3, verse 1. See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children? That is what we are. Just like Irene spoke a few minutes ago. You are the children of God. That's who you are. He loves you. Romans 8, 35 through 39. Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity or are persecuted or hungry or destitute or endangered or threatened with death? As the scriptures say, for your sake we're killed every day, we're being slaughtered like sheep. That was the reality for early Christians. No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us. I'm convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today, nor our worries about tomorrow. Not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's the love of God. Put your roots there. Put your roots there. Be rooted in His love for you. Trees not only use their roots for sustenance, they also use their roots for stability. And I thought a lot about that this last week. What is it in my life that I cling to for stability? Because we live in a world that it's constantly shaking and changing. And when that happens, when things are shifting, what is it that's giving me my stability? Think about a tree. When a storm comes, it's those roots that keep the tree in the ground. Because trees aren't like aerodynamic. Some of them are shaped poorly. But but their roots, if their roots are deep and strong, they're grounded and they withstand whatever those winds might be. Colossians chapter 2, verses 3 through 8. Paul wrote, In him, Jesus, lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Do you realize that Jesus just knows everything? He knows everything. How often do you ask him for advice? He knows everything. I'm telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments. For though I am far away from you, my heart is with you. And I rejoice that you are living as you should, and that your faith in Christ is strong. And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow Him. Let your roots grow down into Him and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the Lord. I had to turn my phone to silent because someone text me. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that comes from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world. That means demons. So he's saying that comes from humans or demons, you know? Don't let anyone fool you with the nonsense of humans or demons. I just love how nonchalant that is. Rather than from Christ. Okay, let's talk about this. Paul's using a lot of metaphors here. He uses the metaphors of roots. He also uses the metaphors of like a foundation, a building. There's actually military language that's in this. The word that we translate strong, okay, it's a word that meant in that language like the front line of a military defense, the first line of defense. He's putting all these things together to say that if you're not rooted or founded upon the truth, you're gonna blow over. He's echoing a promise and a statement that Jesus made that anyone who hears what Jesus has to say and does it, puts it into practice, is like a person who builds his house on solid rock, on a foundation. And when the storms come, when the storms come, that that house is still standing. And so we we talk a lot about how if we really know God, that even when life gets hard, we'll we'll stay the course. But that's actually not the context of what he's saying here. He's saying that we need to be rooted in the truth, in the truth. And Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Everything that God has ever spoken is truth. He says, You need to be rooted in the truth so that when well-crafted arguments, when empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from demonic places, that's what he's saying. When that comes your way, you're not led astray. It's interesting in Ephesians, a little bit later, he writes, we will no longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We'll not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. So he equates false teaching, the well-crafted arguments, lies so clever they sound like the truth, philosophical nonsense, all this stuff. He equates it with wind, right? What is it that keeps a tree grounded in strong winds? Its roots. Are you rooted in the truth of God? And you know, that's less exciting to think about than the love of God, right? But you need stability in your life, and his truth provides that. You know, it's it's it's so interesting right now, the time that we live in, because I thought so much about this this last week. I've prayed about it, it's been very challenging for me personally. We live in a time when the world is teaching us all kinds of things, because what the world does, it has all these philosophies, all these ideas that are completely and totally the opposite of what Jesus says. But what's really crazy is that if you go to a church, and I haven't been to all churches, I don't know, I don't, I don't really even spend a lot of time listening to what other, I'm very busy here. So I have a few pastors that I listen to like crazy, and I'm grateful because in my life there are people who just I'm like, thank you. There's someone that God is showing things to that I need to learn from, but it's not like I have time to go like look at whatever pastor is saying. I don't care. But it's not uncommon in church today to hear a teaching that doesn't sound anything like anything Jesus has ever said. It sounds a lot like Disney songs, um, you know, like I'll sit across from people, and this breaks my heart. It really does. It breaks my heart. I've been a pastor now for five years, and I love it. It's great. I kind of had to do this, um, but I really do love it. But then there's there's certain things over the last five years that have broken my heart. One of the things that breaks my heart the most is I sit across the table from people explaining to me the terrible decisions that they're making as if they they think God is telling them to do it. Like they'll say things like, you know, I know God just wants me to be me. No, he doesn't. He doesn't. Jesus never said that. There's no scripture where Jesus says, you know, follow me and I'll just make you yourself. You can be yourself with me. We live in a culture that's humanistic, meaning that we have raised humanity to the place of God. That's what humanism is. Okay, it's a really basic idea of it. So in humanism, what what's the greatest thing you can be? Yourself. Jesus says you must be born again. You must become a totally new creation, you must deny yourself. Paul said, die to yourself, be crucified with Christ. So Jesus would not come to you and say, I just want you to be you. Let's I want you to do you. Jesus would say, You need to do me. You need to be more like me, less like you, right? But that doesn't play well with culture. Jesus is counter-cultural. He is counter-cultural. That's that's why, by the way, that's why our culture refuses to talk about Jesus. And unfortunately, we we live in a time right now where in the church there's this growing movement of fear-based and I think popularity-driven desire of Christian leaders having a need to make the message of Jesus more palatable to the world because they're afraid that they're afraid that the world is gonna reject the real Jesus. And let me be honest, because Jesus is honest. Many in the world will reject the real Jesus. Our job as Christians is not to be Jesus' PR team. Our job as Christians is not to be like, hey, Jesus, you know, this one thing you said, it doesn't really read well today. Like, it people don't like that. It's not trending well on Twitter. So um, Jesus, like we wanna, like we wanna do away with that. A little bit more of this. That one thing you said, people really like that thing. So let's like play that up and you know, less of that stuff. No, guys, we're we're to be proud of Jesus, stand with Jesus. And if the world rejects the real Jesus, so be it. But but you take him or leave him, he is who he is, and it's not our job as Christians to change his image or to try to make him more popular or more sellable. You don't buy Jesus, he buys you with his blood on the cross. Like that's how it works. And so here's where it gets personal. Paul says if we don't know the truth, if our roots are not deep in the truth of God, we will not see those lies coming when they come. And I don't want to be one of those pastors standing in front of Jesus one day trying to explain why I felt the need to either do a slalom through your teachings because I didn't like that one and that one wouldn't read well, or I just flat out changed some of your teachings to be more popular because I thought you needed- I don't want to be that guy. At the same time, I don't want to be a person who just didn't take the time to know what Jesus actually taught so that I could see that stuff coming when it came. Because here's the truth: a lot of Christians, and this might apply to a lot of us, we are far too familiar, well, not too familiar, we're more familiar with what Jesus did than we are with what he said. So we know that we know the things Jesus did. We know that he died on the cross and that he was raised to life, and we they're playing music, so I gotta hurry up, I guess. So we know that he did that. We know that we know that he he walked on water, we know that he fed people, he did miracles, we know he we know the things he did, and we like the things he did. He did awesome things. Like, if you just look at the things Jesus did, they're all like amazing. But do you know what he said? Are you familiar with what he taught? And if you're not, how do you expect to see the lies coming when they come? Because it says it clearly. Well-crafted arguments, well-crafted, high-sounding. 2 Timothy 4, 3 through 4. And by the way, this is not describing uh the world, as we might call it, this is describing the church. Paul said, of the church, for a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. Now, sometimes we're led astray by the winds of false teaching, because we just don't know what Jesus said. We just don't know. But we've been culturally programmed to like certain messages, so when we hear a certain message mixed with Jesus, we just don't know that Jesus didn't say that, and we we take it. Like hook, line, and sinker, we take it because we're like, that sounds like something Jesus would say. Sometimes we're led astray because we have we have itchy ears. And I'll just be honest with you guys, there are certain things I really wish Jesus had said. There are certain things I wish Jesus agreed with that he does not. There are certain things I wish that he would have just said, you know what, that's not a big deal to me. And he didn't. But I would really like it if he did. I I would like a Jesus who, you know, is like 20% less challenging. I would like a Jesus who uh agrees with these three or four things that, man, if he just agreed with those things, I wouldn't have to worry about offending people nearly as much. But he didn't say those things. But you can find a pastor who'll act like he did, you can find a podcast who'll say that Jesus is all about this. You can find a teaching in the name of Jesus that will tell you that Jesus is giving a thumbs up to whatever you want him to give a thumbs up to. That's out there. Well-crafted nonsense. It's from human thinking or demonic places. That's what it says. And if you're hearing you're like, that's weird. It is, it's weird. It might be true, though. And so are we gonna be people who have itching ears? Are we gonna be people who hunger and thirst for the real Jesus? Or are we gonna settle for some idol with a fake beard? There's people who have who've made idols and called it Jesus, and it's not Jesus. Are our roots gonna go deep into the truth of God? Will we be will we be the type of Jesus followers that actually follow Jesus? Because he's got a way for you to live life, and it's good. It is not easy, it is hard. It is hard to be a Jesus. Do you know how often I have to shut my mouth because of Jesus? There's so many things I want to say to so many people, some of them in here. But like, I don't. Because Jesus says, I've got a log in my own eye, and you've got a splinter in yours, so I gotta deal with a log in my eye. I wish he hadn't said that. Are we gonna be people who commit to knowing the truth of Jesus? In other words, are you a believer or are you a disciple? The demons believe. The demons have great faith. There's a story, and we are about done. I am, I do see the clock. We've never, we've said what time the services start. We have never advertised when they end. Just want to say. Um, you know, there's a story, a really cool story in the Bible, and it's of Jesus showing up on this shore, and a demon-possessed man, or a couple of demon-possessed people, depending on the version, show up, and they are like possessed. Right? And it's cool because Jesus asks the demons what their name is, and they say legion, for we're many. You may have heard this story. So there's a lot of demons in this guy, and that's bad. Okay. Um, and so Jesus, when he shows up, the demons know who he is. They very much believe in Jesus because they fall down in fear and they're begging Jesus to rescue them, to like spare them. And Jesus commands them to leave the man and go into a whole herd of pigs, or whatever a bunch of pigs are called. Um, and the demons obey. And then they they die. They they go off a cliff and they drown, they die. And it hit me as I was thinking about that, like, okay, so in this story, you have demons who believe in the power of Jesus. They're believers. And they obey Jesus when he tells them to do something, even to the point of death. Right? I really, I really don't want those demons to be more obedient to Jesus than I am. You know? Like, how silly would that be? And so are we believers or are we disciples? If you don't know what Jesus said, how can you how can you be a disciple? The beautiful thing is, this isn't guilt. This isn't like how guys, we live in a time when the words of Jesus are more accessible than they've ever been before. Do a Google search for red letters in the Bible, and that's what Jesus said. Read it. You you can read all the teachings of Jesus. All of Scripture is powerful, by the way, every bit of it. But like you can just read the teachings of Jesus in a day. If you, if, if this month you spent 20 minutes a day reading just the teachings of Jesus, you would read the teachings of Jesus over and over again. And then you would know the truth. And you'd be deeply rooted and you wouldn't be led astray when someone comes along and says, you know, God's really been telling me this. You're like, that does not sound like anything God has said. You know? Maybe that's not God. If someone comes along and they tell you something that you really want to hear, and it sounds really good because it just makes everything easier and you know, you feel better about yourself, and you don't actually have to change or or do any shifting in your life to line up with Jesus. That's just not how any person that ever encountered Jesus experienced life, ever. You'll see it for what it is, it's a lie. Are you rooted in your faith? Are you radical? Let your roots grow down deep into his love. Plant your roots deep into his truth. We gotta know the truth. Because the truth sets you free. We're gonna wrap up. You guys are awesome. I love this church. I love being part of this place, but but I do want to say this: if you're here today and you don't know Jesus, he knows you. He loves you. He is real, he is God, he is powerful. There's nothing he cannot do. He's not a historical figure that lived a long time ago, that that did some cool things that we can follow after and live a better life. No, he is the God of the universe. He holds all things together. He is the Alpha, He is the Omega, and when you have Jesus in your corner, there is nothing in life that can stop you. Not even death, by the way, because death didn't stop Jesus. Nothing. He is God. And I know that that's strong and it doesn't leave any wiggle room, but Jesus never left wiggle room. You need him, and he loves you. He loves you, he's crazy about you, and he knows all your stuff. There's no one on earth that knows all your stuff and still loves you. That's impossible. He knows all of it and he loves you, so give your life to him today. And that just means saying, I believe in you, but I'm gonna follow you. I don't even know what that means, God. I don't know where to begin. I'll tell you if you want, decide in your heart to follow Jesus right now. Go to the desk in our lobby and sign up to get baptized. And if you're like, what's that? We're gonna dunk you in water, but it's very, very important. You'll we'll tell you why later. Like, but once you, it's a step of obedience. It's something that when people in the early church decided to follow Jesus, they got baptized like right away. If there was a river five feet away, they're like, You're safe, let's get baptized now. And we've got baptisms coming up in a little while, couple weeks. And once you sign up to get baptized, what we do as a church, that's kind of our first practical way of connecting with you and helping you walk out your faith and helping you know what God's. We want to help you. But let's be rooted this year, let's be radical. How about I stop talking and we go? Sound good? Amen? All right, let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for this group of incredible, awesome people. Thank you, God, for everything that you're doing. You are so good. You are so real. And Lord, we don't want to be people with itching ears. We don't want to be people who are ignorant. And let's be honest, Lord, because of the world we live in and the fact that we're we're educated and we have apps on our phones with your word and we have Bibles, the galore. We have access to all of that. We don't want to be people who are willfully ignorant of what you said. Lord, give us, Lord, give us a commitment this year to put our roots deep into you. Deep into your truth. Deep into your love. You love us, Lord. Let us settle for nothing less than your love. Let us settle not for the approval of people, for romance, for good. All that stuff's great, but it's bonus. God, help us be people that refuse to settle for anything less than your truth and your love. Give us deep roots, make us radical. It's in your name we pray. Amen.