SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you wouldn't mind indulging me for just a second, I don't normally do this, but I'd like to start with a repeat after me this morning. And so, is that okay? Can we do this? Alright, it'll be quick, I promise. Not this is not like a theme that's running through the entirety of the message. Just quick. Everyone say I. Well, come on, like you mean it. Everyone say I. There we go. Yeah, there we go. Okay. Everyone say duh. Everyone say boss. Alright, now let's put it all together. Repeat after me one more time. I the boss. We I'm terrible at giving these directions. Some of you did it with me, some afterwards. Let's do it one more time. Just repeat after me. I the boss. I deboss. Someone said Lily. You said my daughter. Actually, Judah, my two-year-old. If you've never met Judah, that's my two-year-old Judah. That is Judah coloring on a dry erase board without dry erase markers, because that's what Judah does. Judah is the reason I now buy extended warranties on everything that we buy. Because he is the most mischievous child we have. He's cute as can be. He's funny. He's legitimately funny. He has comedic timing that I am envious of because he will do horrible things. And then you look at him, and then he just has this way of making a face, and you laugh, and he knows it, and he uses it. I love this kid though. Um Judah's an amazing, amazing child, two years old. He's definitely in that kind of terrible twos stage. But one of the things I hear him say most often, right now, is I the boss. Judah, like most kids, likes to watch movies, and oftentimes young children will watch the same movie over and over again. I remember doing that as a child. We had VHS tapes, and I watched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live action movie like four times a day for a solid two years. It was like the early 90s. That's I'd watch it, rewind it, watch it, rewind it. With Netflix and streaming services, now you can do that to a whole other level. And so every month there's a new movie that Judah watches over and over and over again. Two months ago it was the movie Boss Baby. Has anyone seen Boss Baby? You seen this movie? Anyone here have children that are grown or you don't have kids, and you're glad you don't have to watch these movies? Yeah, I'm so jealous of you. Um, Boss Baby, and close your ears if you don't want it spoiled, like if you've really been meaning to watch this movie. Okay? Here's the basic plot. There's a baby, but he's the boss. Okay? He's not really like a baby. He's voiced by Alec Baldwin, and and and he's actually like an executive in a really secret, completely and totally out of this world advanced company that's the most powerful company in the world, and it's all run by babies who are the bosses. It's the movie Boss Baby. And my son watched this movie approximately 30 times, and he really took it to heart. Like it it penetrated. He watched it and he said, Yeah, I'm the boss. And it just so happened that when he watched it, we didn't have Eli, our newest yet. So in Judah's mind, he was the baby, and he saw the baby in the movie calling the shots. And so Judah just decided I can be that, and all of a sudden I start hearing my son Judah tell me all the time, I'd a boss. And I have to argue with him, you know? When he looks at me and he says, I'd a boss, I have to go, you are clearly not the boss. Obviously, your mother is. We all know how this works, right? Let's be real here. No, but like he'll be at dinner, and we're telling him to eat his food, and he says, No, I'd a boss. And we go, no, you will eat your food, and he says it again. It's time for him to go to bed, and I put him in his bed, and he gets out of his bed, and I'm like, Judah, go back to bed. And he says, No, Ida Boss. And then I physically pick him up and put him in his bed. And look, if someone in your life has the ability to physically pick you up and move you where they want you, they are your boss. Right? By definition, they're the boss. But I hear Judah say that all the time: I the boss. And that is his perspective. That's the way he sees things. The funny thing about perspective is that often perspective is not reality. There's a big difference between perspective and truth. And today we get to have a conversation about the concept of truth. If you're just joining us, you haven't been here in a while, we're in a series right now called Blessed, and we're looking at this specific section of scripture, Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 14, which begins this way. The author, a man named Paul, wrote, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. So, in other words, blessed be God who has blessed us with blessings. It's a lot of blessed. But he's not talking about blessings in the way that we often think of blessings. He's not talking about circumstantial blessings. Something really nice happens to you, you have a good day, you feel blessed. Those are great. Those are nice. Oftentimes I believe those are from God, but when life gets really hard, which it often does, those blessings don't tend to matter a whole lot. He's talking about what he calls spiritual blessings. These are blessings that are so deep, so powerful, so personal, that if we will put our faith in their reality, believe that we actually have them, and live in light of them, it will change the way we live life. It will change the way we see things. We've been blessed by God. And we've been going through these different blessings. We looked at the blessing of holiness, we looked at the blessing of being adopted into God's family, we looked at the blessing of grace. Today we're going to look at the blessing of truth. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 12. God's purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ, and Paul is writing as a Jewish man, we who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. And now you Gentiles, which is a word that just means anyone who's not Jewish, have also heard the truth, the good news that God saves you. He says, Now you have heard the truth. You've been blessed with the truth. And that's what we're talking about today. Now I had a little bit of a panic attack yesterday as I was finishing up the message. I'm not a procrastinator, but it always comes right down to the wire. And I went, man, I feel like I've talked about this really recently. And so I do all my messages in Google Docs and I pulled up my Google Docs and I search truth. And it's just like, oh no. These poor people. Apparently, this is all I talk about. You know? And I actually was like, oh man, I feel like I've talked about this a lot lately, and it's just like a repeat thing, and I'm like, what do I do? And I'm praying about it, and God's like, hey, how many times do I talk about truth in the Bible? And it's a lot. Like if you do a Google search of truth in the Bible, you're gonna get a lot of results. Jesus said the phrase, I tell you the truth, 70 times. Just that one phrase, I tell you the truth, 70 times. And so the reason that we talk about truth a lot here is because God talks about it a lot in his word. It's almost like God knew that we would need constant reminders to pursue the truth. Because we live in a world that is moving rapidly away from a belief in truth. We live in a world in a culture right now that is moving closer and closer to this idea of individualized truth, personal truth. We hear that a lot in our culture. You know, you gotta find your truth. And your truth might be different than my truth, and my truth might be different than your truth, but what matters most is that you just find your truth. We have this idea in our world right now that truth is up to us. We decide what is true. I decide what's true for me, you decide what's true for you. The problem with that is what happens when my truth isn't the truth. I mean, if I get pulled over on the way home today, and I'm going 75 and a 50, and the cop says that, and I go, well, officer, my truth is that the speed limit is whatever I want it to be. So I feel like I was going right where I should. It's not gonna fly. What happens when my truth isn't the truth? See, my truth is just another way for me to say perspective. My perspective. When someone says, my truth is this, what they're saying is the truth the way I see it, the problem is we don't always see it right. If perspective was the same as truth, my two-year-old would be the boss of me because that's what he sees. So we live in this world that's that's programming us to believe that we get to be the ones that define what is true, and and the consequences of that are disastrous if we let that play out. They really are. See, if you search scripture, you find that Satan has some tendencies when it comes to temptation. And oftentimes the tendencies of Satan are to have us aspire to be like God, even though, ironically, God created us to be like God. It's a funny thing. Like, God is not an oppressor, God does not keep us down. You do not read the word and find God saying, Hey, you stay in your place. God always lifts us up. He does. In fact, the Bible says if you give your life to Jesus, that you become a co-heir with Christ. So God actually raises you up in status and in importance to be co-with Jesus. That's pretty awesome. But there's a big difference between someone in authority raising you up and someone trying to raise themselves up. And we've probably all experienced this. Like, like you've probably been at a company, you've worked at a job where someone recognized the hard work of someone else, that they were dedicated, that they were doing the right thing, and they gave them a promotion. They raised them up in status, in authority, and importance. And you're like, right on. That person worked, they they did that, and it was the choice of the person in charge. We've also probably all worked with people who like to weasel their way up the ladder, right? People who like to use other people, people who like to lie, steal, cheat, whatever they have to do to get ahead, and they find a way to get up in an organization, but it's not done the right way. See, Satan doesn't want us to experience the blessing of God looking at us and saying, Let me lift you higher. Satan wants us to believe that God would not lift us higher, that God wants to keep us down, so we have to be the ones that raise ourselves up. And we find ourselves often being tempted to be our own God. We see that from the very beginning of Scripture. In Genesis, Satan essentially tempts Adam and Eve to say, Hey, no, no, don't listen to what God says is good. What God says is evil. You can define what is good, you can define what is evil for yourself. And see, when we begin to believe that we get to be the ones that define what is true, oh my goodness, the consequences. They're dire. Because only God can define truth. We can discern truth, we can perceive truth, but only God is the one who gets to define truth. And this isn't just talk, this isn't just like an idea. This is something that's actually played out in history. For example, Old Testament, in the book of Judges, we see this one phrase repeated twice, word for word, exactly. And keep in mind that 2,500 years ago there was no copy paste. So if you see the same exact words in multiple places, pay attention. Judges 17, 6 says, In those days, Israel had no king. All the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. In Judges 21, 25, in those days Israel had no king, all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. I feel like I've read this somewhere before. It's the exact same words. And if you read that, you might go, wow, that seems like a good time. Those must have been the glory days, because there was no king, there really wasn't much of a government structure at all. Everyone just did whatever they felt was right for them. But these were horrible times. If you study the book of Judges, you find that Israel had had really some of the worst times they had in their entire history during this period. They're constantly oppressed, they're constantly on the brink of collapse, they're starving. They're literally hanging on by a thread because everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes. And here's the funny thing: when everyone is committed to doing what is right in their own eyes, very few people actually do what is right. In a world where everyone's obsessed with what is right for them, very few people end up valuing what is right at all. And in this world where everyone decides what's true for them, things fall apart very quickly. That's what happened with the people during the time of the judges in the Old Testament. That's what happens when we decide to define what is true. So perception and truth are not the same. And when we start to elevate our perception to the level of truth, we find ourselves in real trouble. Number one, because it's silly for us even to believe we can do that in the first place, because of how easily lied to we are. Like, is anyone here willing to admit that you're gullible? Is anyone here gullible? Come on, any gullible people? I once bought this device that you wrap around your waist, and it's supposed to electrically shock your abs into working. And the idea is that you can sit on the couch and watch a movie and get a six-pack at the same time. I bought that. As an adult man, I went, yeah, that's what I've been waiting for. And if I took my shirt off right now, you would know it did not work like at all. But I fell for it. Like, marketing is really good. I fell for it. We get lied to all the time. We get lied to so often and we fall for so many lies that it's crazy for us to believe that we could actually be the ones that define what is true and what is not. My son is, my oldest son, Liam, he's in school and so he's hanging out with all kinds of kids. And it's really weird when you're a dad of a young child that's also hanging out with other young children and you realize how much more you love your children than other people's children. It's a really interesting scenario because sometimes you feel like a real jerk. It's hard to look at a seven-year-old kid and be like, I don't like him at all. You know? But I have that happen to me sometimes. And so my son has this one friend, and I'm sure he's gonna turn out great, but right now, uh, and so this kid, this kid comes over to our house and he just lies. He lies constantly, everything that comes out of his mouth. And he says it to me like he doesn't know that I'll know that it's it's not true. He'll say things to me like, you know, Mr. McTearr, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, that is, mmm, you are a liar. You know? But what do you say? The kid's seven years old. What do you say to him? You just kind of go, Oh, really? Oh, interesting, hmm. You know, and you walk away. One day my son gets off the bus and he's like, Hey dad, you know, my friend, and he's talking about this kid. He said, Did you know he has a million dollars? And they live in our neighborhood, and our neighborhood is fine, but it would be an interesting choice if you're a millionaire. Um, and I was like, Really? Because I know his parents, I know what they do for a living, and unless they're doing something wrong, uh that seems unlikely. And he and he's like, No, no, no, he has a million dollars. Like, at his house, he has a million dollars. And I was like, Oh, son, I'm so glad you saw it. Let's talk about your friend. He's a liar. Do not listen to a word he says. Ever. If he tells you anything, first come talk to me. Then you can figure out if you're gonna do it or not, right? My son fell for it. Oh, he's got a million dollars. All the kids said was I have a million dollars. My son's like, cool. Because by nature, we are susceptible to being lied to. We are, we're gullible by nature. The only reason we become cynical is because we're lied to so often. But even as adults, we fall for lies left and right, not just lies outside of us, what about lies within us? You ever catch yourself lying to yourself? You ever believe yourself when you lie to yourself? That's possible. See, if you if you say something often enough, even if it's not true, you'll believe it. And if you believe something long enough, it'll crystallize and you'll actually see it as like a self-evident truth. You won't even need evidence anymore. You'll just be like, well, clearly this is the truth. Even if it's not. I've seen so many people do that. It's one of the unique situations I find myself in is oftentimes people come to me in situations of crisis and they want to meet with me and they want to talk with me about what's going on, and I get to walk through that with them, and I enjoy that in a strange way because I love people and I like being with people in hard times and praying for them and talking with them, but I watch people in those situations lie to themselves all the time. A few years ago, I had a gentleman that I had known for a while come to me and he was broken. He was in tears. And he confessed to me that he had done something really wrong, that he had he had broken the law several times, and that he had been caught. So his arrest was imminent. And he's talking with me and he's telling me what he did, and he knew he was wrong, and he knew he was wrong when he did it, and he just said, I just kind of found myself in this pattern where I couldn't stop, and I'm really scared for what's gonna happen because what I did was wrong, and I'm gonna get arrested, I'm gonna go to jail, I don't know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna lose everything, and I'm praying with him, and I'm just going, God, like, tell me what to say. I am not prepared for this. But he was humble, like he was contrite, he he was admitting his fault. He ended up getting arrested. Fast forward two months. I went to visit him in jail, and surprisingly, I found out that he was pleading not guilty. And it was so weird because I was like, that seems different than what you said. And you know, and I watched him as he sort of talked and rationalized, and you know, you talk to enough people, and you start thinking to yourself, well, you know, really this wasn't my fault because I was in this situation, and honestly, if if this hadn't happened, then I wouldn't have had to, and it really, really it's someone else's fault. But I could tell that he he that's what he believed at that moment. And it broke my heart. People lie to themselves often. I I once knew this college kid, this kid was a moron, okay? Just uh, what an idiot. Um this kid was addicted to pornography, okay? And his excuse for looking at pornography, like you guys need to understand, this kid was an idiot, okay? His excuse for looking at pornography was that he was committed to a pure relationship with his girlfriend. So he was, and he was doing that. He was in a relationship with a girl, they were serious, but they were, they were doing it right. They were saving sex for marriage, he was committed to that, and he was actually saying that because he was so committed to purity in his actual relationship, that somehow justified his need to look at pornography. So this moron was saying, I'm so dedicated to sexual purity that I look at pornography. Isn't that crazy? The idiot was me, so that's why I'm saying that. Like, I'm not a jerk, okay? So if you're sitting there like, man, you're being kind of harsh on this kid. No, no, that idiot was me. That was me in college. College Justin was dumb. If I could go back in time and like see college Justin, I wouldn't even have a conversation with him. I would just punch him. That's all I would do. And it would be like a one-two punch for him because first he would like open the door and see older me, and he would go, oh no, I gained significant weight. And then, boom, punch. So it'd be like a whammy, like, oh no, double, double pain. But no, in college, I found myself saying to myself, man, if it wasn't for me being so focused in my relationship and making sure that I'm doing this right, I wouldn't, I wouldn't need this. And I lied to myself and actually convinced myself over time that because I was doing something so good, it made it somehow okay for me to do this other thing that was clearly not. We're all susceptible to lies, even lies in ourselves. And as susceptible as we are to being lied to, you'd think that we would learn that conflating our perception with truth is a really bad idea, but yet we do it. We're warned about this, by the way, in Scripture, Ephesians chapter 4, verse 14. Paul's talking about a time that he hopes we will grow to a place of complete maturity. And he says, if that happens, then we will no longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. There are a lot of those lies out there. And there are a lot of those lies in here. And if we believe them and if we act on them, we find ourselves in serious trouble. There's an author named Jordan Peterson. I read this quote really recently, I uh blew me away. He says, if you betray yourself, if you say untrue things, if you act out a lie, you weaken your character. If you have a weak character, then adversity will mow you down when it appears, as it will inevitably. If we build our lives on something as shaky as our truth, if we build our lives on something as unsubstantial as our perception, we are in trouble. But see, Jesus promised us something better. Jesus said in Matthew 7, 24 that if anyone would listen to what he said and actually do it, he said, anyone who listens to my teachings and does it is like a person who builds their house on solid rock. On solid rock. And then he goes on to say that though the rain comes in torrents and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against that house, in other words, no matter what comes its way, it will not collapse because it's built on bedrock.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Jesus offers us the truth. Something far stronger, something far more dependable than our truth.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

We find Jesus talking about this all the time. Scripture talks about this constantly. Jesus brought it up a lot. In John 14, 6, Jesus had the audacity to say, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He said, I am the truth. In John chapter 8, Jesus said, You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. In John 16, 13, he says, when the Holy Spirit comes and he calls him the Spirit of truth, he says that the Spirit of truth will lead you into all truth. So to know God and to have the Holy Spirit active in our lives means that we will be led to the truth. Philippians 4 8 says, and now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. And pure and lovely and admirable. Think about these things, things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

The truth will set you free. The truth stands up. The truth holds up.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Set your thoughts, set your minds on the truth. Be relentlessly dedicated to learning the truth. If you want to find the life that God has for you, if you want to find a connection with God and a relationship with God that maybe you've never even experienced before, be relentlessly devoted to the truth. Be a person who refuses to settle for perception when you can know the truth. You do that, you will find God.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

You'll find God in places you never know He was. Because when you seek the truth, you find Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

In fact, it's that very thing that led the Greek people in Jesus' day to Jesus Himself. The message of Jesus began in the Jewish community, but it quickly spread to the Gentiles and in the Greek world, it exploded like wildfire. People were being baptized left and right. People were coming to know Jesus left and right, and it was spreading to such a capacity that the Jewish leaders, the people who were the leaders of the early church, they had to have like a big meeting to say, hey, what do we do? This is growing so fast in the Greek community, we don't even know how to handle it. They hadn't even thought about that happening, and not that rapidly, but the thing that made the Greek people so ready for Jesus was that they were relentlessly dedicated to finding the truth. They'd had philosophers, men like Socrates, who had kind of stoked that in them. And these were men that wanted to know the truth. They had this idea that had formed in the Greek community called the Logos. And the Logos was a Greek word that meant like the eternal truth. And they believed in like a pantheon of gods, Zeus with the lightning bolts and Hercules and all those kind of guys, but but they even understood that, yeah, yeah, yeah, those gods, maybe they're real, maybe they're not, but there's something even bigger than that. They looked at the world and they saw the order in the world and they thought to themselves, there has to be some guiding principle. There has to be some truth that is over everything. And they called that truth the logos. And they talked about it and they sought it out and they tried to figure out what that was. And so John, Jesus' best friend, wrote his account of Jesus' life. We call it the Gospel of John. He wrote that to the Greek people. And he begins in a really interesting way. He doesn't talk about Jesus' birth or anything like that. He begins with this kind of poetic statement where he says, In the beginning, the word already existed. The word was with God, and the word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. He's talking about Jesus. We just sang about that, by the way, in the song right before the message. That the word was there at the beginning. And it's interesting because remember, John's communicating to the Greek people when he writes this, and the word in the Greek that we translate the word is logos. So if you read this in the Greek, John is saying, hey, the Logos was with God. And they would all have been like, Yeah, we know that. We've been seeking this, we've been talking about this, the Logos, the eternal truth. And he's saying, Yeah, you're right, there is an eternal truth. Yes, there is something that is above all things. Yes, there is something that everything was created through. There is that, that Logos, and his name is Jesus. And the Greek people found in Jesus the very thing they had been hungering for. They found the truth. Truth so strong you can build your life on it.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

We all know what it's like to have a shaky foundation.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

It's one of the hardest things as a parent is to watch your children build their lives on shaky foundations and find that balance between telling them that's gonna fail miserably and then letting them actually grow and develop as human beings. I have to do that even with my youngest kids when they build blocks. I'm like, that's gonna, that's that's a terrible, you're you're not a good architect. Like you've got the you've got the small block on the bottom, you've got the big block, you're not even balancing it correctly. Like, what are you, what is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? You're four. Come on, get this. You know? This is basic math. And you watch you, I watch my my daughter build block towers, and she's like, Dad, watch. And I'm like, that's great, honey. That's gonna, that's gonna fall down. It's gonna fall down real soon. But I have to let her, you know? That's the balance that we have to walk. Well, we all know what it's like to build life on a shaky foundation in some way, whether it's our financial lives or our relationships. You know, if you get married because you're really attracted to the person, you know, beauty fades. My wife found that out fast. I didn't have much to begin with, you know. Or if you if you're in a relationship with someone because they make you laugh, like that's awesome. I'm funny. Like Ken Kington's gonna speak soon. He's a professional comedian. I I think I can hold my own with Ken. Just saying. You can tell him. But but me being funny, like that, that's not helpful often in my marriage. Because me making jokes, Megan values my jokes very little.

unknown 27:23

You know.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

We all know what it's like to have something in our lives that's important. We find it built on a shaky foundation. What I'm trying to say is that if you build your life on your truth, be prepared.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

But if you will build your life on the truth, if you'll build your life on Jesus, be expectant.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Be expectant for storms and trials and troubles to come your way, but for you to be standing when it's all said and done. Because when you build that's right, when you build your life on the truth, when you build your life on Jesus, just nothing shuts it down. See, we're blessed with the truth because we know Jesus. And I know that some of us here haven't decided where we stand with Jesus, and some of us here think that the Jesus people are really weird, and some of them are, but but like in reality, I can tell you with confidence that the only reason my wife and I are still married to this day is because of Jesus. Because we did not build our marriage ultimately on us, we built it on him, and he is so much stronger than us. And I can tell you, those of you who have been part of this church for the last 10, 11 years and you've been here through all the ups and the downs, I can say with confidence that the only reason this place is still here is because of Jesus. Because this church was built on him and on nothing else. If this church had been built on the people who started it, if this church had been built on the people in leadership, if this church had been built on anything less than Jesus, we would have fallen apart a long time ago. Because I have been a part of this place through some pretty shaky seasons, but our foundation has always been Him. If you want to experience life as it's meant to be, be relentlessly devoted to the truth. Do not buy into the lie that our culture is selling, that you can define what's true. That you can be like God, you can decide what's true for you and what's not true for you. No, pursue the truth. And practically speaking, like think about your life right now. Worship team, you guys can make your way out. Like, think about your life right now. Think about your greatest frustration. What's the situation that you're the most frustrated about? Who's the person that you're the most frustrated with? What is causing you the most angst? What is causing you the most unrest? And you think about that situation and the way you think about it, could it be that your perception is off? Could it be that the way you feel is based on thoughts that are just a little less than true? And what if you relentlessly pursued the truth in that situation? What if you what if you went there? I use my marriage as an example because tons of material. And uh years ago, Megan and I were in a pretty shaky spot. We weren't getting along, and and I believed that Megan was lazy. I used to think that a lot. It's Mother's Day. I probably should be talking about this on Mother's Day. Um, but I I did, I would think to myself, man, you know, Megan's lazy because when I would get home, there were things that I thought should have gotten done that weren't done, and I had clearly indicated that I would like them done, and I am the boss, so like surely they would get done. And then they wouldn't be done, and I would be like, what's going on here? And I would think that. Megan is, man, Megan's lazy. She didn't do the stuff that she should have done. And I I would let that sit and fester, and that would not go well. But then one day, God did this thing that God loves to do with me. He kind of had to like hit me between the eyes a little bit. And I realized Megan is not lazy. She values different things. See, my truth, my perspective is Megan is lazy. Megan's not lazy at all. Megan works incredibly hard. Anyone who knows Megan knows that, but the reality, the real truth was that Megan values things I don't value. And all of a sudden, I had all these images flash in my mind, all these memories of times that I was like doing dishes or cleaning the garage or something like that. And one of my children would come up to me and be like, Daddy, can we play? And I'm like, not right now. I'm doing this. This is very important. And I watched my wife, and she might be doing the very same thing, but all of a sudden, one of the kids comes and says, Mommy, can we do something together? And she says, Yes. And then I start to see scripture because if you know the word, that starts to happen. It all kind of happens in a second. And if you're a person who doesn't like being convicted, don't read the Bible. But I I have, and so I can't go back. And all of a sudden, I'm having these memories of Mary and Martha. And if you know that story, Mary and Martha, they're these two sisters and they're friends with Jesus, and Jesus comes over one day, and Martha's cooking dinner for Jesus, and I mean he's God, so you gotta cook something good. And so she's like in the kitchen and she's trying her best and she's trying to whip something up, and Mary is just hanging out in the living room with Jesus, just talking, and Martha is incensed, and she finally gets up the nerve to go up to Jesus and say, Hey, Jesus, can you set Mary straight? Can you tell Mary to come in here and help me? And Jesus looks at Martha and he says, No, I deboss. And then no, he didn't say that. Um Jesus. I mean, he could have. Jesus said, No, Martha, Mary has chosen the better thing. And so here I've been in this relationship with Megan, and we're married, and I'm frustrated and I'm angry because all this stuff's not getting done, and I feel like it all falls to me. And I'm thinking to myself, she's lazy, she's lazy, she's lazy. And in about five minutes, I go from that to she values different things, and oh no, she values the better things, and oh no, I'm Martha. Like this all happens in a flash. And my frustration melted because my frustration was based on my truth, and my truth was a lie. So where's your frustration right now? Examine it. There's a wise old saying that says, an unexamined life is not a life worth living. Examine your heart, examine your life, and be willing to entertain the idea that maybe your truth isn't the truth. And if you can identify those thoughts and if you can replace them with the truth, the actual truth, the truth as Jesus defines it, you will find freedom. You will be set free. Those promises will ring true. We're gonna worship and we're gonna wrap up. I love you guys. God loves you all so much. I hope that we walk out of here as a church, as people, as a family, devoted to what's true. Even if what's true is inconvenient, even if what's true is hard. I want to go ahead and read the end of Ephesians 1 13 again. It's actually the first part of 13, but it's the end of what we're covering today. He said that now as Gentiles have heard the truth, the good news that God saves us. So I would be remiss if we didn't finish with a reminder that the truth, the ultimate truth, is that Jesus has done for us what we can't do for ourselves. And so if you are here today, and you're like a lot of people in life, you're kind of stumbling around trying to figure life out, just one thing at a time, just surviving, just hanging on, Jesus would look at you and he would say, Look, you don't have to do that. Because when you try to be the boss of your life, when you try to be the one who's defining what's true and what's not true, and you try to be the one that's that's making all the decisions and figuring everything out, that's exhausting. That is so exhausting. And Jesus has more for you than that. And he would look at you and he would say, Hey, let me do for you what you can't do for yourself. Stop being the one that's that's owning it and give it to me, and I will save you. I will rescue you, I will redeem you, I will give you rest, I will be your foundation, and Jesus does not break. Set your heart to what is true, and the truth will set you free. Pray with me. Jesus, thank you so much for this day. Lord, you are you are the foundation. You are so good. You are a rock that we can build our lives on. And Lord, we do live in a world that tries to confuse us. We live in a world that tries to have us believe that we are capable of defining what is true and what is not. But Lord, that's that's your territory. And I pray, God, that you give us as a church, that you give us a passionate devotion to discovering what is actually true. That we would be people who base our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions and decisions on the actual truth, not just our perception of it. Help us examine ourselves, help us see ourselves as we need to be seen. Help us accept the love that you have for us, God. Help us accept the grace that you've given us, God. Help us be people who don't try to advance our own cause, but allow you, Lord, to lift us up. We love you, Jesus, we worship you, and we pray all this in your name. Amen.