Gordon's a really great guy, and he's got an awesome story about overcoming fear. It's funny, if you hang out with Gordon, he's not a guy who seems like he's he would be very fearful. That would be like a thing. But but he's his story is all about overcoming fear in your life. And it could be the fear of failure, it could be the fear of success. And fear is one of those things that holds us back. If that's something that you struggle with, then I really encourage you to watch the rest of his story. It's on our website, it's on our YouTube channel, it's also on the mobile app. So take a look at that. I love it when we get a chance to share each other's stories. Because your story, like you have a story, every one of you has a story that's powerful, that'll speak. And I love it when we get a chance to hear those stories. So definitely give that a look this week. Today we are wrapping up a series we've been in for the last month called Bumping Into God. Every single week we've been looking at a story in Jesus' life where he bumped into someone, where someone woke up one day having no idea that they were going to encounter God. They thought they were just gonna have a normal day, they were gonna go about their business as usual, but that day they bumped into Jesus and everything changed. That tends to happen when you bump into Jesus. Everything changes. These stories are really are really powerful for us because they not only show us what Jesus can do, but they show us who he is. They reveal his personality to us in a unique way. It's very important for us, if we consider ourselves to be Jesus' followers, that we know a lot more than simply what our God can do. We need to know who he is because we can have a relationship with him. We need to know what he values, what he cares about, what he prioritizes. And these stories, they reveal those things to us. Today we get to see Jesus interact with a person who has a complete change of heart, a complete mind shift when it comes to how they think. It's someone who sees Jesus, who hangs out with Jesus one time, and all of a sudden they see life completely differently. They change the way that they think. And they do something that Jesus desires that all of us would do and do continuously. Have you ever had a moment in life where your perspective changed instantly? Where like one experience made you look at something completely different than you'd ever looked at it before? I remember when Megan and I were just like the two of us, we didn't have kids yet. We bought our first home. When we bought our first house, we didn't have kids. And it was so exciting to buy a house because we had watched a lot of shows where people go house shopping and you know house hunting, and we'd watch a lot of shows where people are having their houses renovated. Megan really likes those shows. But actually going and shopping for a house, it just made us feel very adult, very grown up, very sophisticated. You know, we were in our mid-20s, and I remember being like, ooh, look at these countertops. These are nice. I like the, you know what I mean? I don't know anything about countertops. I don't know nothing about that. But we're just like emulating what we see in these shows. It was so funny as we shopped for our first house because we we both had a list of must-haves, and uh, and our must-haves were pretty different, and we had to have some conversations about how to agree on which must-haves were really our must-haves and what things were just things we we'd like. One of my must-haves when it came to our first home, and I got this, was a tiny yard. Like I wanted the smallest yard possible. I'm not a British aristocrat. I don't need to walk the grounds at night, you know. I have no purpose for that. And and growing up, my parents are really into yard work. My parents owned a landscaping company for a while. So I grew up doing a lot of yard work. We had five acres, we maintained it, we mowed it, and mowing the lawn was like my job at home from the time I was in the sixth grade on, and my dad is kind of crazy when it comes to yard work. And I mean, like, I love my dad, and he was here in the first gathering, and I could tell it's a little bit different in this service, so I like that. Um, like he he was kind of like legit nuts. One time I mowed the lawn, and my dad came out after I mowed the lawn. No joke, and he did this. He got down to the ground, and he like he looked at the grass like this. And I don't know what he was doing. I I I my mind thinks he was like looking at how level it was. I don't know if he was encouraging the grass, like whispering to the grass, like, I'm sorry that he hurt you, you'll be okay. You know, we we had this balcony. I mean, it was like a deck, or not really a balcony, but a deck, and it was high, and it overlooked the yard. And so when I would mow the lines and how straight they were were super visible from the deck. Like it, like it was a it was like a blimp view, and you could really see the lines, and sometimes my dad would call me up to the deck after I mowed the lawn, and it's like this, these things actually happened. And he went, What happened over there? Like, I don't know, dad, it really got away from me for a second. You know, there's like that dip in the grass, and I tried to compensate, and I guess I overcome. I'm sorry. He's like, all right, well, you know, that's that's how my dad was growing up. So when I graduated high school, I was like, you know what? I would be okay if I never did again? Yard work. I don't ever want to mow a lawn again. And so when we were looking for that first house, I wanted the smallest yard possible, and we found a house with a tiny yard. Like it was it was guys were so small. It was so small that I didn't even have to buy a lawnmower. It was amazing. I got to go to Home Depot and buy one of those like really old school, I guess it's still a lawnmower, but not really. Like it's something you'd see in a 1920s movie. It's just a couple wheels with these spinning blades, you know what I'm talking about? And and it was awesome. Like I would mow, I'd be like, hey, honey, I'm gonna mow the lawn. And I get this thing and I go like that's it. Lawn mowed. Look at how straight those lines are, they're perfect, you know. That's how I thought about it. I just didn't want a big yard. Then we had kids, and we shopped for our second house. And one of my must-haves, one of my must-haves was I want a big yard. I told our real estate agent, I want I want a yard, I want some space. You know, I want our kids to be able to play and run around, and all of a sudden, having kids, it changed my perspective. And a yard was no longer something I had to take care of, it was something that my kids could experience. Sometimes we have one experience and it just changes the way that we think. That's what happens in our story today. Let's go ahead and look at it. It's Luke chapter 19. It's a story many of us are familiar with. Jesus entered Jericho and he made his way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd, so he ran ahead and he climbed a sycamore fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and he called him by name. Zacchaeus, he said, Quick, come down. I must be a guest in your home today. Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased. He's gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner. They grumbled, and we'll pause there for a second. So the people don't like Zacchaeus very much. That's simple, it's because he's a tax collector. Tax collectors were the least liked people in any community at that point in time. The reason why was really simple. The way that Rome kind of governed was that Rome would conquer some place, right? And then Rome would tax those people. If you were a Roman citizen, you didn't pay taxes. All the taxes were collected by the provinces. And so the way that Rome would hire tax collectors, so to speak, wasn't really hiring them at all. People in those regions would bid the Roman government for the right to collect taxes. And depending on how wealthy the area was, the bid would obviously be higher because if you got the right to be the tax collector, you had the Roman government behind you. You could go tell people that they owed this much on their taxes, even if they actually owed way less. You could say, hey, you owe Rome this much, this percentage of your income, but you actually owe me this much on top of it, and the people are powerless to stop you. So if you were a tax collector, you extorted people for money, and you had the power of the Roman government behind you. Now, Jericho, where Zacchaeus is, a very wealthy area. There was a historian that lived at this time period named Josephus. We have his writings, a lot of his writings are really, really amazing because he was not a Christian, but many of his writings back up the story of Jesus in really powerful ways, very cool stuff. Josephus described Jericho in his ancient writings as the fattest region in Palestine. It was a very wealthy place, very rich in export. Jericho is a wealthy community, and just for Zacchaeus to have had enough money to win the bid to be the tax collector shows us that Zacchaeus was already a very rich man. He was already one of the wealthiest men in the area, and he won this bid, and he becomes the tax collector, and he uses being a tax collector to extort people for more money, and he becomes richer and richer and richer. So everyone would have seen Zacchaeus as a traitor, someone who would have who would have betrayed his own people to make money, someone who already had enough money, he didn't need to worry about money, but he used people to get rich. And he stabbed them in the back to do it. He extorted them for money. Zacchaeus was hated. There's probably A, not a richer man in Israel, and B, not a more hated man in Israel. That's Zacchaeus. And Jesus says, Hey, I'm going to come to your house tonight. Of all the people I could have dinner with tonight, I'm having dinner with you, and you can understand why the people are frustrated. But then we see something happen. The very next verse. Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I've cheated people on their taxes, I'll give them back four times as much. Jesus responded, Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham, for the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost. Now, on one hand, you can look at this and be like, okay, Zacchaeus, you know, he's with Jesus. We don't know if Jesus said anything to him to elicit this response. We don't know. We don't know if if Jesus looked at him and said, like, Zacchaeus, come on. Tell me what you did. You know, Zacchaeus is like, okay, I'm sorry. We don't see that. To our knowledge, nothing has been said. Just being in the presence of Jesus could have been enough for Zacchaeus to have this change. Or maybe they had a conversation and it came about that way. We don't know, but obviously something big has happened to Zacchaeus. And I want us to understand that this is very, it's way more than Zacchaeus just like making things right. It kind of looks like that. You know, he's like, hey, I'm gonna give half my wealth to the poor, I'm gonna pay back what I stole four times as much. Like Zacchaeus is making things right, but he's actually going way above and beyond when it comes to making things right. Because there were actually laws that the Israelites lived by when it came to this sort of thing, like stealing money and repaying money that you'd stolen. There are very specific laws that would govern how this would happen. And so, for example, Exodus 22, 1 says, if someone steals an ox or a sheep and then kills it or sells it, and by the way, isn't that the worst when someone takes your sheep and kills them? And you're like, come on, I was already having a bad day. So if someone does that, the thief must pay back five oxen for each ox stolen and four sheep for each sheep stolen. And so you might look at that and go, okay, this is what's governing Zacchaeus' response, you know, four sheep, he says, I'm gonna pay back four times as much. But this law would not have applied to Zacchaeus. This law only applied to people who had stolen something and they did not have what they stole to pay back. So in the case of cattle or sheep, whatever, in the case of livestock that has been killed or sold. In the case of money, if you'd stolen money and said, I spent it all, I don't have any of it, it's all gone. You would then be required by law to work and earn and pay that person back times four. But that's not Zacchaeus's situation. He still has plenty of money. So we can look at some other laws that are a little bit closer. Exodus 22, 4 says, if someone steals an ox or a donkey or a sheep and it's found in their possession, then the thief must pay double the value of the stolen animal. Okay, so in this situation, you stole something, you're caught. Someone says, Hey, that's my sheep. Clearly. And you're caught red-handed, you have no way out of it, so you say, okay, and you give the sheep back, but then you got to give another one, you have to pay double. But again, that's not Zacchaeus' situation because he hasn't been caught, really. This is something that technically he's doing legally because of the laws of the Roman government, and he's not, he's not giving everything back because someone has caught him in the act. It's of his own volition that he's making this change. The law that would be the closest to that situation would actually be in Leviticus, everyone's favorite book of the Bible, uh, chapter 6, verses 1 through 5. Then the Lord said to Moses, Suppose one of you sins against your associate and is unfaithful to the Lord. Suppose you cheat in a deal involving a security deposit, or you steal or commit fraud, or you find lost property, you lie about it, or you lie while swearing to tell the truth, or you commit any other such sin. If you've sinned in any of these ways, you're guilty. You must give back whatever you stole or the money you took by extortion, which was Echaeus' situation, or the security deposit, or the lost property you found, or anything obtained by swearing falsely. You must make restitution by paying the full price, plus an additional 20% to the person you've harmed. On the same day you must present a guilt offering. So in this situation, you're a person and you've lied, you've cheated, you've stolen, but you have a change of heart. You realize, oh man, what did I do? This is wrong, and you decide like of your own making, your own decision making, you decide to give it back. Well, in that situation, you've got to pay it all back plus 20%. That's what you are legally required to do. And if you're anyone in Jericho and you're someone who Zacchaeus has taken from and extorted more out of, if Zacchaeus came to you and said, Hey, here's everything I took from you, plus 20%, you would be thrilled. You would be blown away, you would be grateful. That's all Zacchaeus is legally required to do, yet Zacchaeus says, I'm gonna give it all back four times as much. There has been a deep change in the heart of Zacchaeus. The way that Zacchaeus thinks about himself and about the people around him and about money, it's completely changed. Something has happened to Zacchaeus. And it's something that the Bible calls repentance. I said that in these stories we learn about what Jesus values. And guys, repentance is something that Jesus values and prioritizes so highly. Repentance is one of the key components of his ministry. It's one of the key themes in his ministry. In fact, in Matthew chapter 4, very early in Jesus' ministry, it says that Jesus began to preach, repent of your sins and turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is near. Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is near. That's what Zacchaeus does. He repents. But it doesn't look like repentance in the way that we often see repentance. Like when we hear the word repent, it's rarely a positive word to us. When we picture someone repenting, we picture someone like begging for forgiveness on their knees, someone crawling to Jesus, crawling to God, saying, Please forgive me, please forgive me, I'm horrible, I'm so horrible, please, please have it in your heart to forgive me. That's what we see like repentance looking like. When someone says repent, like Jesus did, when someone says, you need to repent, do we view that as good advice? Or do we view that as someone being judgmental and harsh? See, the reality is there's these words in the Bible that are actually beautiful, powerful words. But they've been hijacked by people in history. And they've been used in ways that they were not intended to be used. They've been they've been given meaning that they really don't have originally, and so we see them in a light that they're not meant to be seen in. And sometimes the way you deal with that is you just ignore those words. You see that a lot in church culture where it's like, oh, there's all these words, and people associate these words with all these negative things, so let's just not use those words. And we've actually done that at his hands. In certain seasons, it's like, hey, let's find some new words so that we're not triggering all these thoughts people have when they hear these words. For example, I often call myself a Jesus follower, not a Christian. And the reason I call myself a Jesus follower, not a Christian, I am a Christian, absolutely. There's nothing wrong with the word Christian, but a lot of people hear the word Christian and they don't think of Jesus. They think of a lot of other things, but they don't think of Jesus. And I want people to know I follow Jesus. So sometimes it's okay to use a different word because you don't want to deal with all the mess that people have in their minds when it comes to that word. But at a certain point, it's actually good to just reclaim the word and say, hey, this word has been hijacked, its meaning has been has been convoluted and taken in a direction it shouldn't be. Let's reclaim the word so that we see the beauty in it. And that's what I want to happen today with repentance, because it's actually a beautiful word and it's not intense, and it's actually not even harsh. It's really not. The word repent literally means rethink. We have words in our vocabulary today that are connected still. The word pensive, for example. If you're a pensive person, it means you're thoughtful. And so to repent is to rethink. And in Jesus' day, it was a common word that would not have moved people to like some type of offense, some type of mindset where they're like, how dare you? We actually know that historically. Whenever an emperor would take the place of another emperor, usually that was by like killing or having the other emperor assassinated, they would first write a letter to the army in Rome. Because if you didn't have the power of the army behind you, you were not going to be emperor for long. The emperor had to have the loyalty of the soldiers. And these soldiers would be stationed all over the Roman Empire. And so you'd have an emperor, you know, have a coup, overthrow the old emperor, take over, and then they would immediately send a letter to the army. And we actually have some of those letters. And in many of those letters, the word repent is used. They write to the soldiers and they say, hey, repent. Now, now, if the word repent means like beg for forgiveness, you know, like really like fess up, admit you're wrong, that kind of thing, that would have been incredibly unwise for those new emperors to do. The last thing a new emperor would do would be to risk offending the army. They need those guys behind them. But in their culture, the word repent, it didn't, it didn't mean like fess up or stop it, or how dare you, what's wrong with you? It had none of those connotations. It just meant, hey, reconsider things. I want to show you a new perspective. And what the emperors would do is they would write this and say, hey, rethink your allegiance. I know you've sworn an oath of allegiance to the emperor that you've served before, but but I want you to rethink that. And I'm gonna lay out for you all the reasons while why I will be better for you. They would write to the army and say, Hey, rethink things. I've got a new perspective for you. It wasn't offensive, it wasn't harsh. When Jesus used the word repent, it wasn't this harsh, intense word. It wasn't someone holding a sign saying, Hey, you're going to hell. It wasn't like that at all. He said, rethink. Change the way you think. One of the core teachings of Scripture is that the way we think matters. Our thought life, it matters greatly to God. It matters greatly to us, at least it should. Proverbs 23, 7 says, For as he thinks within himself, so he is. As a man, as a person thinks, so they are. You actually see this in scripture all the time. You see so many instances where God is not just concerned with the behavior, with the outside, he's looking deeper than that. For example, in the Old Testament, there was a prophet named Samuel. Samuel was in charge of choosing the first kings of Israel. So he picked Saul to be the first king of Israel. Saul didn't work out. And so God says, pick a new king. And Samuel goes to a man named Jesse who has several sons, and he says, Hey, Jesse, line up all your sons. And Jesse gets all his oldest boys. He doesn't really worry about his youngest David because he's just the youngest. He's just the shepherd boy. And Samuel looks at all these men, all these sons of Jesse, and he's like, Woo, these guys, they look the part. They're tall, they're strong. Any of these guys could be the one. And God says, Yeah, not really impressed. And Samuel's confused. He's like, God, I don't understand. Like, I mean, come on, clearly, one of these guys would be a great king. And what God says to Samuel is so powerfully, he says, You judge, man judges by the outward appearance. I look at the heart. And so when God was choosing a king for his people, he wasn't looking at stature. He wasn't looking for someone who would look nice with a crown on. He looked at the heart. Jesus would often talk to the Pharisees, and he would tell them that you're like whitewashed tombs. Jesus was pretty harsh with the Pharisees. It's because they believed they were righteous. They believed they were perfect, and then they needed to come down a few notches. So Jesus would say, Hey, you guys are like whitewashed tombs on the outside, it's all good. But your hearts are filthy. Once he was talking to the Pharisees, and they believed that they were completely self-righteous, that they could stand before God and be right before God because of how good they were. Because they didn't do things like the common people did. They didn't do things like, you know, commit adultery, for example. And Jesus says this to them. He says, I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So Jesus says, Hey, yeah, you guys say you've never done this, but what do you think about? Because your thoughts matter. Our thoughts matter greatly to God. Once in Matthew chapter 9, Jesus has another run-in with the Pharisees, and it says, Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, Why do you have such evil thoughts in your heart? He was always looking at the heart, always looking at our thoughts, because what we think about matters. Now the phrasing there is really interesting, right? Why do you have such evil thoughts in your heart? That sounds odd to us, because we live in a culture that has very much separated our head from our heart. And so we say things like, hey, I know what your your head is telling you this, but what does your heart say? That's a pretty common line of thinking in our society. Like, hey, I know your head might tell you this, but like, listen to your heart. The separation of our mind from our feelings, because that's how we tend to think about it, we think with our minds, we feel with our heart. The separation between our minds and our feelings is actually a really new invention in culture. It's a very new thing. And it's not a very it's not really a good thing, to be honest with you. Like, the whole separation of your mind from your heart is just a way for us to justify making decisions that don't make any sense. Like, well, you know, I was just following my heart. Well, it was stupid. Yeah. Yeah, it was stupid. It didn't make any sense. But you know, it was my heart. It felt right. You know? We separate the idea of mind and heart so that we can make decisions that don't make sense. But in Jesus' day and to the ancient Israelites, like it would have made no sense for you to tell someone, don't listen to your head, listen to your heart. Would have made no sense. And here's why. The word for head and heart was the same word. It was the same word. In the Hebrew language, for example, Ezekiel 36, 26 says, I will give you a new heart and I'll put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart, and give you a tender, responsive heart. The word for heart in the Hebrew language was lab. The word lab means heart, mind, conscience. It means your inner person, your thoughts, your will, your desires, feelings, all of it the same. So to tell an ancient Hebrew person to tell Jesus, like, hey, don't listen to your head, listen to your heart, that would be you saying literally, don't listen to your lab, listen to your lab. Like, what's your lab telling you? Forget about your lab, just follow your lab. And you would be like, I that that makes no sense. Because it was the same word. Because in reality, the way we think, that is our heart. The way we think about things, that reveals our heart about everything. And we live in a culture right now that really likes to minimize the importance of our thoughts. We live in a culture that likes to say, hey, what you think about doesn't matter. So watch whatever you want, fantasize about whatever you want, because it's just fantasy. But you know what? We're also told that our dreams come true, right? Dream big because your dreams come true. Well, that means think about things because what you think about can happen in reality. But then we're told, oh, it doesn't matter what you think about. Fantasize about whatever you want, ingest whatever you want, watch whatever you want, let your thought life be whatever it is, because that's just what you're thinking. That's not really who you are. That doesn't make any sense. Look, anyone who's ever crossed the line in their behavior, they've done something like seriously wrong. I'm talking about unfaithfulness, it could be, it could be murder, it could be theft. Anyone who's ever done that in life, they've crossed that line in their minds many times before. That's how it works. What we think about matters greatly. Scripture teaches us that our thought life is important. That's why it's important for us to experience repentance, because repentance is us changing the way that we think. It's God transforming the way that we think, and so a man thinks he is. As a woman thinks, she is. I've experienced this in my life several times over. Because here's what happens. When you think something long enough, you believe it. When you think something long enough, you believe it. And if you believe something long enough, you will begin to see it as a self-evident truth. Even if it's not true. And if you see something as a self-evident truth, you will ignore anything contrary to that, you will absorb anything that builds up that idea in your mind so that you go, yeah, see, I knew it. And it all starts with our thoughts. If you think something long enough, it becomes a belief. You believe it long enough, it's like truth to you. And that has great effect on our lives. This is so practical. Several years ago, uh, Megan and I were not in the best place we had been in marriage-wise. We've married over 12 years. Obviously, being married to me is like a dream come true. I mean, obviously, you know. What's so cool about me being married to me is that like I've had I've had the body of a 40-year-old man since I was like 16, and I've just been maintaining it. So when I hit 40, totally where I should be. You know, I've just been I've been ahead of the game. Um, no, I being married to me is really hard in a lot of different ways. And uh not saying that being married to Megan is hard at all. It's great. But we have seasons where we're just not clicking. We've had some really tough seasons. It's one of the reasons we're so excited to help co-lead the marriage group right now with Kathy and Craig because it's a blast. And it's actually fun for us to talk about where we've been, because we've been through some things, like all of us have. A few years ago, we were not, we were not in a good place. We were not getting along, we fought all the time. I was super stressed out. I was so I just started leading the church, and this all kind of happened suddenly, and I wasn't really prepared for it. Um, and so I was just stressed. And when I get stressed out, I engage in something called victim thinking. I don't know if anyone else here does. Um, victim thinking is where you believe that you carry the weight of the world, and no one, no one understands. Like no one has to deal with what you deal with. You what you do is you magnify everything you do, you minimize everything everyone else does, and you're just like, ah, you carry the weight of the world. I I thought that way. And Megan and I were fighting a lot. I was actually seeing a counselor at the time. I'm so glad that I was, and and I was at my counselor's office and I was complaining, you know, about my wife, as you do. And uh and my counselor challenged me. By the way, anyone that's in counseling, if a counselor challenges you, that's their job. And their job is not to say, you're great and everyone else is wrong, you know? But sometimes we'll sometimes we'll have people in counseling here at his hands, and they'll come to us and be like, I'm the counselor told me something I really didn't like to hear. I was like, Yeah, that's what they do. That's literally why you like if they don't get a new counselor, but whatever. So this counselor, I'm sitting here going, you know, and Megan this and Megan that, and the guy stopped me and said, Justin, how do you think about your wife? Like, finish this sentence. Megan is blank. And really finish that sentence. Like, what do you believe about your wife? What do you think about your wife? And what's funny, because if you know Megan, you'll laugh because this is so far from the truth. The word that I used was lazy. Hey, hold on. I'm admitting this, right? I'm admitting this right now. Takes guts. Any other men want to admit that you thought your wife is lazy? Any other men willing to raise your hand? Bunch of cowards. I have the same thing happen in the first gathering. I said that, and everyone was like, oh my god, I'm like, I'm admitting this. I haven't been caught. It's not like I got wiretapped and you heard me say, Megan's lazy, and everyone's like, dun, dun, dun. I'm admitting it. But that's the word that I used, and here's why. And it's so silly. My wife works so hard. And she she works part-time here at the church. She does have more days off than I do when it comes to like having to go into work, but her days off are being at home with three children, and the days that I'm home with are three kids are harder than the days I'm at work. Like, honestly, I'll be like, Can I please go to work right now? My job is so much easier than this. But at that time, you know, I was thinking like a victim. Our thoughts matter. And I was very overwhelmed by the stress that I had, and I and I believed a lie. It's easy to believe lies. Satan lies all the time, that's really all he does. I believed a lie that a lot of us believe about marriage, which or any relationship, that this person exists to make my life easier. I believe that. And so I would I would come home, and let's say I'd walk in the door and the dishes weren't done and the house was was kind of in disorder, I would go, huh, okay. Megan was lazy today. That's what I would think. And if you think something long enough, you believe it to be true. So eventually Megan was lazy today just became Megan is lazy. And then I would think that for so long and believe that for so long that it was just true. Yeah, Megan's lazy. And anything that would happen that would that would be evidence for that, I would grab a hold of that and hold tightly to it and be like, see, clearly, she's lazy. She doesn't work nearly as hard as me. I work so hard, I have the hardest job in the world, you know. And my counselor began to help me see the error of my thinking. And it's so funny because sometimes I would come home and then like the house is not in perfect order, and I'd talk to Megan and go, hey, what'd you do today? And she would describe to me what she did with her day. And to be honest, I'm glad that's what she did. It was more important than what maybe I would have done. Because maybe one of our kids was having a rough day, and Megan would actually go invest in our children and spend time with them and pour into them and teach them. And she's like, Yeah, I could have done the dishes, but then this happened and I had to take care of this. And I'm like, Yeah, good, good call. And that lie that had crystallized in my mind, those thoughts that had taken hold began to get chipped away at Megan's not lazy. She's not she she prioritizes different things than you do. And honestly, Justin, your priorities are dumb most of the time. Like, honestly, they're dumb, you know? And what happened was through the through counseling and help and prayer, I changed the way that I thought about my wife. And our marriage changed. It began in here. It began with the way I thought. And I had to replace the lie that Megan is lazy with the truth. Megan is hot. That's true. Sorry. She's not in here right now. I wouldn't have said that if she was, because she is, but she'd hate that. Um no, I had to replace it with the truth. That Megan is wise. My wife is wise. She's super wise. And I'll be honest, my wife prioritizes the right things. And sometimes that means that you know, laundry is not the priority. Big deal. In college, I wore the same pair of jeans for like 20 days in a row. I don't really care that much when it's when it's all said and done. I had to change the way I thought about my wife. And when I changed the way I thought, when God transformed my thinking, it transformed my marriage. And we have our marriage is the best it's ever been. It's awesome. The reality is, if you want to see change happen in your life, change the way you think. If there's one part of your life where you experience constant frustration, like constant frustration, instead of being so fixated on the situation and the circumstances, stop for a second and ask yourself, examine your heart, how do I think about this part of life? Like, how do I think about finances? What truths do I believe about money? If money is where you're frustrated? Do you believe what our world tells us about money, or do you believe what God says about money? The beautiful thing about the world we live in, it's really easy to find out what God says about things. If you want to just Google what the Bible says about this and whatever part of your life that you're frustrated with, fill in that blank and see what the word teaches about that. I use money because it's a constant frustration for people. But what I find in a lot of my conversations is that very rarely do people see money the way God sees it, primarily because they believe a very core lie that money is ours. Like it's your money. It's not. Because it can be taken from you. It's not yours. Like you'll die one day and it'll be someone else's real fast. Like right away. Because it's not yours. And the people I know who think about money the right way, they see it as God's. Everything they have is God's. All of it. When they see it as God's, it changes. That's actually what happens to Zacchaeus. He stopped seeing money as his, he saw it as God's. And he did with it what God would do with it. He rethought money. Maybe it's it's your marriage, maybe it's another relationship, maybe it's your dating life. It's the kind of people that you if you're really frustrated in your dating life, if you're single and you're like, I just can't find a good person to date. Well, what do you prioritize in a person? Like, what do you think about? Change your thinking, you'll see change happen in your life. Maybe it's a relationship with your children. Kids, maybe it's your relationship with your parents. Adults, maybe it's your relationship with your parents, because those don't always get easier. You want to see change happen in a relationship, change the way that you think about a person. Ask God to show you how he thinks about that person. That'll change things fast. When you realize that that person is a treasure to him. When you realize that that person is here on purpose, that God has a plan for them, that God loves them. That'll change the way you think about them. You change the way you think, you change everything. Change everything. What we think about matters. It matters as much as anything. That's why it says in 2 Corinthians 10 5, we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedience to make it obedient to Christ. We take captive every thought. What we think about matters, and when we want to see change happen, we start with our thinking. So what we need to do in our lives today and every day is repent. It's not this harsh word. When God says repent, when Jesus says repent, he's not saying stop it, what's wrong with you? He's saying rethink your allegiance. I'm not saying that repentance does not carry weight, that it's just some light and fluffy thing. That's what I'm saying. It is serious, but what I'm saying is ultimately it doesn't mean what we often think it means. I read a quote years ago in a book about repentance. And worship team, you guys can come on out. It says repentance still has the sense of coming out of rebellion, but the focus is not on stopping what we're doing, it's on resetting our priorities as to who ultimately has dominion over us, who ultimately is calling the shots in our lives. And so I'll ask as we wrap up today like who calls the shots in your life? Whose opinion counts the most? If you've never had a moment where you've given control over to God, you've never had that first moment of repentance where you rethink your allegiance to life and you make sure that God is where he belongs, I like I just want to implore you to do that today. For the first time to repent, to change the way you think about life and about God and about yourself. Because here's what's going to happen if you do. You will experience a freedom unlike anything you can imagine. It is exhausting living life trying to be God. Because you're not God. But many people live as if they are. As they're living life based on their own knowledge, their own wisdom, their own understanding, their own power. And that's exhausting. It's exhausting trying to live the life that you dream of based on your own power. You're not God. Don't try to be. You can't be. But if you let God be God, if you rethink things, you reset your priorities and you realign and you put God where He belongs, and you say, Hey, God, I'm gonna let you be who you are. I'm gonna be your child. That's freeing. That's peace. That's joy. That's life. That's what repentance is. It's changing the way you think and it's it's flipping things. That first moment of repentance, it's just letting God be God. And by the way, if you're ready to make that decision, you just make it in your heart. Like all it takes is one moment of you saying, I'm yours. I'm rethinking my life. I'm repenting, I'm rethinking, I'm changing the way I think about myself and about you. And God, I'm gonna let you be God. And I'm just gonna follow you because I'm tired of doing it on my own. If you make that decision, by the way, if you're ready for that decision or any decision in your life, in your journey, in your faith, let us know. We would love for you to let us know that. There's actually a number you can text us to let us know you're ready for that. And all we want to do is pray for you. We'd love to talk to you, we'd love to help you process that and walk through that. That's it. And so if you want to let us know that you're ready for that, just let us know. So that we can we can be on that journey with you. But look, those of you here who have already repented one point in your life, sometimes we have this moment, you're like, I'm good. I repented years ago, 20 years ago, I repented, I gave my life to Jesus, I'm good. Look, repentance is not a one-time thing, it's a daily thing. Because we're we're lied to daily. Like we are lied to by our culture all the time, and we are susceptible to those lies. So we have to repent continuously. That's why it says in Romans chapter 12, verse 2, don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by what? By changing the way you think through repentance. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Like if you want to know God's will for your life, his good, pleasing, and perfect will for your life, it says, let God change the way you think. Have a daily mindset of repentance. Just like let God know your mind is open to Him changing the way you think at any point in time. Pray. Pray every day and say, Hey, God, show me what lies I've believed. Show me the lies that I'm letting in, Lord, and replace those with your truth. Repentance is a way of life, it just means recognizing lies and replacing lies with truth. Ask God for that. Live that way every day. And again, start with where you're frustrated. If you're frustrated right now in one part of your life, spend some time going, what do I believe about that? How do I think about this part of my life? How do I think about this person? How do I think about myself? And ask God to help you understand what's true. Because when you live that way, when you repent constantly, you rethink life constantly. That means every day you're letting God show you his will. That means every day you're letting God give you his truth, and his truth lasts, his truth works. You can build your life on his truth. Jesus said this, and then we'll pray and worship with one more song. Jesus said, anyone who listens to my teaching and does it is like a person who builds their house on solid rock. He said, Anyone who listens to my teaching and does not do it, does not apply it, is like a person who builds their house on sand. Rethink what your house is built on every day. And let God show you what's true. Let God show you and teach you how to think in a way that works. That's what happened for Zacchaeus. It changed everything. And that can happen for every single one of us every day. All right, so pray with me. Lord, thank you so much for showing us what's right and what's true. We live in a world that is just full of so many lies. So many lies, Lord, that are completely and totally from our enemy, that are not innocent, that are actually designed to ruin our lives. There are people that tell us things right now in our culture as if they're true. And if we were to follow their advice, Lord, we would see every part of our lives implode. Our world does not have a solution for the problems that we see every single day. There are no solutions in our world for depression, for stress, for fear, for worry, for death. But you have every solution that we need, Lord. You are the solution that we need. So, Jesus, I'm asking you would help us repent today. That you would help all of us rethink life and rethink how we think about life. God, that you would transform the way that we think so that we can see your will, so that we can see who you are, so that we can see clearly. Give us the humility, Lord, to repent every single day. As your church, we're just going to let you know that our minds are open to you. We believe that you're our God, and we will let you shape the way that we think, Lord. We love you. We ask all this in your name. Amen.