Quick question. How many of you would consider yourselves to be control freaks? Go ahead and raise your hand. I know you're not in control right now. I'm making you do this, but I need you just to get over it for a second. Alright. Control freaks. Let me hear one more time. Control freaks, where are you at? You are gonna hate the message today. You're gonna hate it so much, you're gonna be so mad at me, but actually you're mad at God. So I just want to let you know that on the front end. Um, because if there's one thing in this world you cannot control, it is God. Now it's amazing how often we desperately desire control. Even some of you that didn't raise your hand, if you really were honest with yourself, you might be more of a control freak than you think. I've had moments in life, I'm sure you have as well, where you realize how little control you actually have. Like I was thinking about it this morning when I was 19 years old, uh, 18 years old, I was uh in college, and Megan and I were high school sweethearts, but she was a year younger than me. And so when I was a freshman, I flew down to Georgia, because I was in Kansas City, Missouri. She was here. I flew down to Georgia to take Megan to prom. And I wanted to save $50 in parking costs at the at the airport in Kansas City, which in today's economy would be like $1,000. I don't know if that's actually true, but that is how it feels. Um, so I wanted to save $50. And so I told a buddy of mine, I said, Hey man, his name was Caleb. I said, Caleb, can you take me to the airport, drop me off, and then come pick me up when I fly back? I'm only gonna be a few days. And he was like, Yeah, I got nothing going on that day when I was coming back. Great. So all is good. Save 50 bucks. The problem is when he picked me up, our phones are blown up, the sky's going crazy. And turns out a tornado hit my college campus like the moment my plane touched down. And so we're driving back. It was literally like the movie Twister. I mean, we are seeing houses that are toppled over, the storm is crazy, our phones are blown up, the school's telling us like where we should go on campus because it's not safe. We get there, uh, we take cover, and it was a crazy day. And then when the aftermath of the storm was over, uh, we went to where my car was parked. And it was in this huge parking lot. Thankfully, in one of the parts of campus that wasn't hit hard. There were a few parts that were just destroyed. Uh thankfully, no one was hurt. But the parking lot that my car was in was great, except for one tree. One tree that hit one car and totaled it. And it was my car. My car! I'm serious. There were there were cars that had cracked windshields and you know from debris and stuff like that, but overall it was it was fine. There was one car in the parking lot that was totaled, and it was mine. And I was the one person who was not even in the state when the storm hit, right? I tried to control the situation, save myself some money, and turns out mistake. So I've learned over and over again in life that you are not in as much control as you think. I did say $50, though. I will put that out there. Just saying. So that was a good thing. Now, control is something that we are all, to some degree, desperate for. And it's the one thing that God asks us to let go of the most. We're in a series right now called Jesus Not Religion. Jesus Not Religion. And uh, this is from the book of Galatians. If you could come up with a phrase that would sort of sum up the book of Galatians, Jesus not religion would absolutely be appropriate. The situation is pretty simple. Uh, Paul, who's one of the leaders of the early church, if you don't know the history of the church, Jesus, right, he dies, gets back up, and he ascends to heaven and he leaves his disciples in charge, and a short time after that, there's a man named Paul who's actually persecuting the church. His mission in life is to stop the movement of Jesus, but then Jesus stops him, and Paul becomes a follower of Jesus, and he actually becomes one of the greatest champions in the history of the church. And he he travels around and he begins to plant churches. He goes to places that have never heard the message of Jesus, he starts churches, and then he goes somewhere else, but he keeps in contact with these people, and occasionally something is happening in the church that's a big enough deal for Paul to write them a letter. And that's what we have in the New Testament. Much of the New Testament are Paul's letters to the churches that he started. And Galatians is one of the first ones that he wrote. It's one of the first letters he wrote, it's one of the first churches that he started, and they are dealing with a crisis. The church has gotten off track. And we might be tempted to think that off track means they've been corrupted by their culture and it's wild living and all of that. That's not the case. That does happen in other churches. 1 Corinthians is a good example of that, but that's not what the church in Galatia is facing. In fact, it's kind of the opposite of that. They've become hyper-religious. They're actually trading the grace of God and the relationship with God that we have, that Jesus initiated. They're trading that for strict adherence to the rules. Trying to define their relationship with God, their standing with God by their ability to perform and to do all the things right, which is what existed before Jesus. Like that's what he came to finish and wrap up and change, but they've gone back to that. Why? Because when you live that way, you feel in control. Religion is a very, very powerful thing because it gives you a sense of control. In a world that's chaotic and crazy, let's be honest, our world is nuts. There's something soothing about rigid rules, regulations. It lets you feel control. But we're not meant to be in control. And so Paul finds out that they're abandoning the grace of Jesus and going back to all the laws that served a purpose. But that's not what defines our standing with God. I hope you know this. Your standing with God is not defined by how yesterday went. And for some of you, you had a great Saturday. So you're like, man, I was doing good, and now that doesn't count. No, not it just doesn't count that much, at least. But if you had a rough day yesterday, if yesterday was not your best day, if this year hasn't been your best year, that is not what defines your standing with God the Father. What defines your standing with God the Father is Jesus. It is what he has done for you. It is in part your response to that, but that response is really just surrender and faith and belief. This church in the early history of our faith, the first crisis wasn't corruption from an evil culture, it was the pull of religion and that desire for control. And Paul has very strong words for that. Now, Galatians chapter 4, verses 8 through 31 is what we're gonna be in. So if you if you have a I'm gonna read it off my iPad, if you have a Bible Bible, you can turn there. Galatians 4, we're gonna read most of the entire chapter. And here's what it says. Paul writes, before you Gentiles knew God, and Gentiles would be the people who aren't Jewish, if you don't know that, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist. So now that you know God, or should I say, now that God knows you, why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world? You're trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years? I fear for you. Perhaps all my hard work was for nothing. Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to live as I do in freedom from these things, for I have become like you Gentiles, free from those laws. What's happening at the church, if you're not familiar with the context, is many of the followers of Jesus in this area are not Jewish. This would be modern-day Turkey. And Paul has gone, he started a church in this area. Most of the people there are not Jewish, but some Jewish believers have come in and they are now pulling all of the Gentile believers into following all the Jewish laws. And Paul's like saying to the Gentiles, No, I don't even do that, and I was born Jewish.

Right?

He's like, Yes, you don't have to, you don't have to follow the laws that Jesus fulfilled in order to know Jesus. You already know him. Like you've got it backwards. He says, You did not mistreat me when I first preached to you. Surely you remember that I was sick when I first brought you the good news. But even through my even though my condition tempted you to reject me, you did not despise me or turn me away. No, you took me in and cared for me as though I were an angel from God or even Christ Jesus Himself. Where is that joyful and grateful spirit you felt then? It's the thing about religion, is it robs us of that generosity and grace and grateful, gentle spirit. Where is that? He says, I'm sure you would have taken out your own eyes and given them to me if it had been possible. Have I now become your enemy because I'm telling you the truth? Those false teachers are so eager to win your favor, but their intentions are not good. They're trying to shut you off from me so that you'll pay attention only to them. If someone is eager to do good things for you, that's all right. But let them do it all the time, not just when I'm with you. Oh, my dear children, I feel as as if I'm going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives. I wish I were with you right now so I could change my tone. But at this distance, I don't know how else to help you. Tell me, you who want to live under the law, do you know what the law actually says? The scriptures say that Abraham had two sons, one from his slave wife and one from his freeborn wife. The son of the slave wife was born in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God's promise. But the son of the freeborn wife was born as God's own fulfillment of his promise. These two women serve as an illustration of God's two covenants. The first woman, Hagar, represents Mount Sinai, where people received the law that enslaved them. Now Jerusalem is like Mount Sinai in Arabia, because she and her children live in slavery to the law. But the other woman, Sarah, represents the heavenly Jerusalem. She is the free woman, and she's our mother. As Isaiah said, Rejoice, O childless woman, you have never given birth. Break into a joyful shout, you who have never been in labor, for the desolate woman now has more children than the woman who lives with her husband. And you, dear brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, just like Isaac. But you are now being persecuted by those who want you to keep the law, just as Ishmael, the child born by human effort, persecuted Isaac, the child born by the power of the Spirit. But what do the scriptures say about that? Get rid of the slave and her son, for the son of the slave woman will not share the inheritance with the free woman's son. So, dear brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, we are children of the free woman. Now, there's a lot going on here. Okay? We happened to do a series earlier this year, really from February all the way up until the fall, going through the life of Abraham. And if you were here for that, or if you're familiar with that story, you know that it is a big, giant mess. That is a messy story. And that is the messiest situation in the story that Paul is referencing here. Abraham had a wife, and her name was Sarah, and God promised them a child. But that promise took a while. And they lost faith a little bit, and they decided to try to make it happen in their own way, and so they had a servant woman. The Bible says slave there, and look, that's a charged word in our culture. Um, slavery was never a good thing, I'm not defending it, but it's very different in the ancient world than it is in kind of our modern understanding of it. You can do a lot of reading about that, but uh sometimes it will be translated bond servant. Um it is it's a whole system, the Roman Empire. Many people entered into this willingly because that was a way that you could kind of get out of debt, become a citizen. It was all kinds of weird stuff. But but Hagar was a servant to Abraham and to Sarah. And Sarah had this idea, and Abraham went along with it that, hey, let's let's have a child through her, but it'll be ours because she's ours. It's a crazy, messed up way to think. But Abraham went along with that, and he got Hagar pregnant, and they had a child by their own effort, but God said, Listen, I love this child, I will care for this child. In fact, God showed so much love and care for Hagar and for Ishmael. He met them where they were multiple times. It's a beautiful story. But God said, Abraham, that's not the child that this promise that I made to you will be fulfilled through. I promised you and Sarah a child. You will have a child, and eventually they do, and his name is Isaac. And so Paul is using Ishmael and Isaac as an illustration here. He's saying, look, you've got a choice. You can either live in the freedom of Jesus. That's the life of promise that Abraham had, or you can live enslaved. You can live enslaved through the law, which he references to Ishmael, and he says, you have a choice: freedom or slavery. Freedom or control. See, what we have to understand about the law and just religion in general is that it's all about control. It's all about your flesh. Next week we're going to get into this a lot: the spirit versus flesh and what that really means. But the law is all about sort of managing your flesh. And by flesh we mean that part of us that is who we are apart from the work of God, and we all have a lot of flesh. I mean, uh, we don't have to raise our hands for it. There's a lot of flesh in this room in the metaphorical sense, and I guess the physical sense. Like there's this is a very fleshy room right now, all right? We all have a lot of that. And the law is really good at managing the flesh. It's it's how you sort of keep that under control to the best of your ability so that all of that stuff affects the world and the people around you as little as possible in a negative way, but it doesn't transform you. The law can't change your flesh. The law can't make you good, it can't heal you, it just mitigates, it controls. But we're not under the law's control anymore. And Paul is saying, you have a choice. It is freedom or it is slavery, it is the freedom of Jesus or the control of religion, and which will you choose? It's a choice that we have. It's amazing how often life comes down to binary choices. It's this one or it's that one. Some choices aren't like that in life. You know, sometimes we stress out about things that really don't matter. I have to tell my kids sometimes when they're freaking out about those types of choices. I'm like, look, you guys see when I put a destination in my phone, and there's like four or five different ways to get there, and some take a little longer than others, but some might be a more enjoyable drive, and it doesn't really matter, we're all gonna end up at the same destination, just make a decision, right? But there are choices in life that are binary. It is this or it is that, and there is no mixing the two together. I'm sure we've all had situations like that in our lives. I know one that happened early in the history of our church, since we're in our 20th anniversary. I'm just very mindful of that. And you'll hear a little bit more about this story, I hope, at least uh directly from the source on November 8th. But when Stephen Susan first purchased this building to start our church, it had been an abandoned Kmart for many years. And it had zero offers, I think in something like seven years, zero offers to buy this property. And they bought it, and before they had ever invested in the renovations, before they ever began to fund all that changed this from a Kmart to what it is now, someone came along just a few weeks after, after seven years of no offers, someone showed up and offered them multiple millions more. They could have, they could have been two weeks before any none of us would have ever known about this. They could have said, ooh, actually, we're gonna sell it to this person, make a few extra million dollars, and then this wouldn't be what it is. And that was not a choice that could be mixed. They couldn't do one or the other. It wasn't like we can either put a church here, this is where God told them to put it. I mean, imagine that. Imagine you're a person and God blesses you financially like you cannot believe, and you believe that God leads you to buy an old Kmart, which it's you're either following God or you're nuts. Those are your only two options with that, right? Let's be honest. Either Steve and Susan heard from the Lord or they were bananas. That's the only option you would have if you're gonna invest all this money into an old abandoned Kmart and make it a church. So you've prayed about it, and God has led you here. And it's this building that they they felt strongly that God wanted them to have, and so you know, you buy it, and then two weeks later someone comes and offers you millions more. I mean, that's that's interesting. And you can see where you'd start doing some mental gymnastics. It'd be very easy to justify that, and they said no. They rejected that because they knew that this was supposed to be our church. That was a binary choice, and here we are 20 years later because of that choice. I've had experiences like that in my life. Uh, one choice would have completely changed everything. When I was 25, uh I was working here as the youth pastor, and some of you know this story. I've told it you know, off and on. I try to tell it at least once a year because it just comes up. But it was a big moment in my life. Um, I was a sports writer, and I was working here as the youth pastor, but I was doing sports writing on the side, and and honestly, guys, the youth pastor stuff was hard. It was it was a struggle. Lots of kids, and I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't even have kids yet. Liam had just been born toward the end of this situation, and and the sports writing was blowing up. I mean, I was writing articles and getting contracted by major companies, and and and it was just an incredible experience. There was this new website called bleachereport.com, and at one point in time I was their most read college basketball writer. No one was was more read than I was, and that felt really good. Um, so this was hard, and and I didn't get a lot of of instant gratification. And when I would write an article and and I would see how many reads it would get, and I'd have all this attention, it just felt really good. And all that culminated to an email that I got from ESPN, and they wanted to interview me, and I said, I think I had three phone interviews, and that finished with them saying we want to fly you up to Bristol, Connecticut to interview you for a position at ESPN. And you would think that's an easy choice, like God or ESPN. I mean, come on. But guys, it was ESPN. I mean, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's just cool. But I had a choice. Because up to that point, I was able to do both. I was doing youth ministry, and then on in my free time, I was covering sports events and writing, and I was able to do both, and I loved both. But that offer was not a a both and, that was an either-or. It was a binary choice. I couldn't choose both. And we prayed about it, and uh, and we ended up saying no to the ESPN uh interview. Never even flew up there to take the interview because I think I knew that if I did and they offered it, I would have a really hard time saying no, and we felt like we were supposed to be here. And so sometimes our lives are defined by a binary choice. We see this in the Bible all the time, by the way. In fact, the first one is a really uh simple story that all of us probably know, even if you haven't grown up in church, there's this tree. Well, actually, there's two trees, like I said, binary choice. And it's the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and Adam and Eve have a choice. They can do things God's way, and they can eat from the tree of life and have a relationship with God, and it's an innocent relationship that is just based on his love for them, or they can choose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and they can choose to be personally accountable and responsible for doing things the right way. They can enter into a world of actions and consequences and death and all of these other things, and they make that choice. But they couldn't have done both. In fact, when they chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were cut off from the tree of life. There's binary choices all throughout the Bible. We see another one come up really early in the story of Genesis, just a short time after that. Genesis chapter 4, verse 7. This is a story of Cain and Abel, and uh and Cain is jealous of his brother Abel because it seems to Cain that the Lord is more pleased with him, and he's thinking about taking matters into his own hands and getting rid of Abel, but God speaks to him and says, You'll be accepted if you do what's right, but if you refuse to do what's right, then watch out. Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master. There was a choice. It was either listen to God or listen to sin, that thing inside of us that compels us to do what is selfish and wrong and often destructive. And that was a binary choice, and Cain chose wrong. We see that happen multiple times in scripture in the book of Deuteronomy. The people of Israel are about to enter into the promised land. This is something they've been working toward for 40 years, plus, really a lot longer than that, if you count their slavery in Egypt. And they've been given all this instruction by God about what to do and how to do it, but there's a final call in Deuteronomy chapter 30. Moses is speaking on behalf of God, and he says, Now listen, today I'm giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. For I command you this day to love the Lord God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in his ways. If you do this, you'll live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you're about to enter and occupy. But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you're drawn away to serve and worship other gods, then I warn you now that you'll certainly be destroyed. You will not live a long, good life in the land you're crossing the Jordan to occupy. Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life so that you and your descendants might live. You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the Lord, you will live long in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They have a choice. Follow God, serve God, or as they go into this land that's occupied by these very powerful nations that have their own false gods, worship those gods. But you can't do both. I mean, Jesus said it this way another time. You cannot serve both God and really anything else. He used money as the illustration. You cannot, you can't serve God and serve money. Your life can't be obsessed with God and doing what he pleases, and also just obsessed with accumulation. It won't work. Because I promise you, God will tell you to give some of it away. Like I promise you. That. I've experienced that. You can't have both. Jesus goes to the disciples that would eventually become, well, fishermen who would eventually become his disciples. And in Matthew chapter 4, it says, one day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, also called Peter and Andrew, throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. And Jesus called out to them, Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people. And they left their nets at once and followed him. They couldn't do both. The call that Jesus put on their life that day, it was not a be a fisherman and one of my disciples. They had to drop their nets, leave everything they had ever known behind to follow Jesus that day, and they did it because it was a binary choice. They couldn't do both. That choice would be tested many times. In John chapter 6, Jesus is teaching, and he's teaching a very difficult teaching for the Jewish people because it's kind of related to what we're talking about now, that it's not the law that they follow or the fact that they're the children of Abraham in their own eyes that makes them right with God. It says Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining, and he said to some of them, Does this offend you? Then what will you think if you see the Son of Man ascend to heaven? The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And that is what religion, by the way, is obsessed with human effort. Trying to control our standing with God by our own effort and our own ability to do it right. Human effort accomplishes what, by the way? Let's just say it out loud. What does it accomplish? Nothing. It's not anything. It means there's nothing we can do to impress God. There's no person that's going to stand in front of God. He's going to be like, wow. I mean, in all of history, you did the most. It's actually, when you think about it, guys, it's kind of a terrifying thought. And I don't mean this in a negative way, but we get impressed by people. Have you ever met someone genuinely impressive? They've done really impressive things. I mean, I mentioned the sports writing world. When I was in that, I mean, I'm telling you, I would bump into guys that in that world were revered. And some of them were jerks. I'm being honest. Like some of these guys that were legendary coaches. I remember I interviewed a legendary coach. Legendary, celebrated. And he was a jerk, like a genuine jerk to me. Now, I also was the press, and they don't like the press, and I get it. We we annoy them a lot, so I'm not, I don't take it personal, but he was a jerk. But man, in the room he was in, everyone was in awe of his accomplishments. And one day that guy is going to stand in front of God, and God is not going to be in awe of the number of games that he won. He's going to have to stand in front of the Lord, and it's going to be his heart and who he is, not what he's done. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I've spoken to you are spirit and life. And some of you do not believe me, for Jesus knew from the beginning which ones didn't believe, and he knew who would betray him. And then he said, That is why I said that people can't come to me unless the Father gives them to me. At this point, many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. And then Jesus turned to the twelve and asked, Are you also going to leave? And Simon Peter replied, Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know that you're the Holy One of God. That day people made a choice. And it was binary. Follow Jesus or go another way, because you can't have it both ways. This is what's tough about the world that we live in. It is not Jesus and. Jesus is not interested in being number three in your life. Or number two. He's not. It won't work. He has to be number one. He has to be. Because he is the king of all kings. He is the Lord of Lords. He is the author of life. He is our redeemer. He is our savior. He is our God. And he has to be first. Not in some selfish way. It's what's best for us. Because if anything else is your God, it doesn't love you, I promise you. If money is your God, money doesn't love you. It's so unfaithful. Surely we would know that by now. If your career is your God, it's the one thing that really fills you and drives you, then man, I pray that you never have a curveball. I pray the economy doesn't ever go haywire and you lose that. I pray you never have a setback. I pray you never have a boss that's terrible and fails to see your brilliance. Because your career can be taken away from you. If there's another person, even another person that's amazing, it's the love of your life, it's your soulmate. If that person is your number one, that will disappoint you. I promise you it will. Because that person and their life on this earth is not eternal. Everything can change, but Jesus does not. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so this choice, it's never Jesus and, it's always Jesus. Now, when we have Jesus in our life, He fills everything. So even if I feel like I've given things up for Jesus, I mean, I've gotten more back than I could even imagine. Like I don't miss the I never regret the ESPN decision, by the way. Ever. I just want you guys to know that. I mean, if you ever get mad at me, just remember I did say no to ESPN to be here, okay? Like, please give me some credit. But I don't regret that at all because what I would have missed, I would have been at some really cool games, I would have, you know, gotten yelled at by more legendary coaches. That would have been nice. But all the things I would have missed, all of you that I would have, people I would have known, the life that I would have lived alongside other people, the challenges that I would have faced, and the growth I would have had spiritually because of what's required to really be part of a church, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Anything. Jesus calls us to choose him. And it has to be it has to be total. That's why religion is sneaky. Because you can think that you are choosing Jesus, but if you're actually choosing religion instead, they're not the same thing. Because religion is all about your effort and your control, and you cannot control Jesus. You can't do it. That's what makes religion so sneaky. The rules and the regulations and all of those things that again serve a purpose, and they served a big purpose in the story of Scripture, but that's not what defines us anymore. Religion makes you feel in control. And I see it all the time. I see it in churches, I see it in people's lives. I mean, guys, the church world's an interesting world. Because there's always the temptation. I want you to know this. Like, there's always the temptation to try to control. I mean, you're part of our church, so you should know this. But like, we we've had people come in. I had a guy come in as a consultant, great guy, and he had this whole kind of methodology for how to, you know, how to get people to give money. And it was very impressive in terms of, you know, strategic, and basically it would have involved us categorizing all of you into different people. We would have had our generous givers, we would have had our donors, our tippers, and our you know, selfish jerks. Um that's not the title he gave to it, but I mean at some point. And it would have been all about helping you move through these things, but in this very earthly, manipulative way where we're doing this thing and it's really designed to motivate the selfish jerks to be a tipper, you know, and then you get the tippers to be donors, and then you get the donors to be generous givers, and it's all about, it was all just crap. Sorry. It was. Because it's just flesh. It's just flesh, it's just strategy. Do you know what our strategy is for giving? It's maybe a bad one. In some months, it looks like it is. I trust God to speak to you and I trust you to respond. That's it. I trust God to speak to you and to move your heart, and I trust you to respond if he does. And that's it. Yep, there you go. And by your clapping, I know we're gonna have a tremendous Sunday, so thank you very much. Got some big projects we want to fund, and so wow. Thank you all. Thank you so much for that. Oh gosh, no, seriously. But but those types of things don't really move, they don't make sense to the world. Like if I tell those guys that's my strategy, they look at me like I'm an idiot. You know why? Because I can't control that. I can't control what God says to you. And I can't control how you respond. And I forfeit that completely because that is the way of Jesus. The way of religion is to control and manipulate. That's not the way of Jesus. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20, this is the message version. It says, the Lord can do more than anything, more than anything you could possibly imagine. And he doesn't do it by pushing us around, but by working within us, his spirit moving deeply and gently within us. That's the way of God. Does that sound like control? Or does that sound like partnership and relationship and trust? That's why religion is such a sneaky thing. And it's interesting, we sit here, we're going through this book of Galatians, and here we are as a church, and I would hopefully most of us would be like, we're not, we can't be religion. Religious, he's wearing a hat. Like, there's no way. This is not a religious church. Um, but the pope wears a hat, and that's super religious. So you got hats don't tell you everything. No, I'm teasing. I wasn't if you know the Pope, I was just making a joke. It's all good. You will always have the temptation to take control. And I've watched people who have come into a relationship with Jesus and been blown away by what he's done in their lives and they've surrendered that for religion. And they've become hyper-obsessed with who's right, who's wrong, what's right, what's wrong. And it's not about them just genuinely trying to live and honor God. It's about them trying to do it themselves. And hey, worship team, you can make your way up, and I'm gonna try to try to land this plane. It's a little shaky on the landing, I'm not gonna lie right now. Um don't know if this is making sense, but we're gonna wrap this up with some scripture. Hebrews chapter 12. Therefore, since we're surrounded by such a great crowd of witnesses, a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. If there's one practical idea I can give you that helps you understand what it means to live in relationship with God versus religion, because obviously, even in relationship with God, we're still going to try to do things the right way and live the right way and all that. It's just, yes, but that's the result of how we're we're living in response to God, not us trying to live a certain way to get God to respond to us. Does that make any sense? The one practical thought I can give you is it's all about who initiates. Who is the initiator in your life? There's a lot of guys, I'll just tell you this. I don't, there's a lot of stuff I am like super bad at. Like it's um some of you know this, checking my email. Not good. Not good. I got in a little bit of trouble from our accountant because I'm bad at expense reports. And I'm kind of fine with it. You know? Now he put me on my plate. I was like, well, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, if if that's the thing I'm the worst at, I can kind of live with that, you know. They're not really due till the end of the year, if we're being honest. He did not like that answer. Um I'm getting it. I'll be good. It's just hard to keep track of all those receipts, you know? Anyway. What's funny is I actually only have like seven receipts for the last three months because I don't ever buy anything here, but I lost all of them. You know. Every one of them. It's all about who initiates. The life of religion is about you taking the reins, you taking control, and you initiating everything. You're the one making it happen. The life of faith is often just listening to the Lord and waiting for him to tell you what to do, and then when he says it, you do it. And you, I mean, I look at branches who we helped out on on Friday at Canvas. I mean, that that is a God-initiated ministry, but the amount of work that it's created in Fred and Jill and everybody else involved's life, it's been a it's been a ton. It's been a lot. But they didn't start it, they responded. See, religion is all about you doing things to try to get God to respond to you. And by the way, that's every religion in the world. If you pray enough times a day, if you do the right things, if you say the right words, then God will listen to you and respond to you. No, we already have his ear. The life of faith, the life of freedom is about waiting on God and responding to him. So I had a person at a newcomer gathering ask me what my five-year plan was for our church. I don't have one. I don't. I don't know. I don't know. Five years from now? What a come on. What year even is that? What year will that be? 2031? That's not a real year. That's not gonna happen. That's like every movie that we ever grew up watching that was set in the future was before that. You know? No, what people want when they ask those questions is what's the plan? What's the, you know, I don't have a plan. A plan is to just listen to God, and then when he says to do something, we do it. And we and we do it to the fullest of our abilities. And you know, like, honestly, the last time we had a big vision, which is, like I would say, before community, which I do believe is a vision that God has given us to accomplish, but before that it was to be a one-service church, which sounds really simple because it's like just delete one of your services, because we had two. But we had to reorient everything to be a one-gathering church so that all of us could be together and witness everything together and experience life together. And it took us like five years to figure out how to do that well. So that's the plan. That's the five-year plan. God's gonna tell us something that's gonna take us five years to figure out how to do it. And then he's gonna tell us something else, and it's gonna take us five years to figure out how to do that. And so we really have a five-year plan, it's just we don't know the details. But I'll just say this there's a lot of stuff I'm bad at. That was the point I'll man, wow, God, I'm sorry. Um what I meant to, what I was where I was going when I said there's a lot of things I'm bad at, like expense reports, is there's there's a few things I am good at. And I've had to get good at these things out of necessity. And one of the things that I will say, I do feel like God has helped me be good at over the years, is I'm very comfortable with waiting on God. I'm super okay with not knowing what to do and trusting that God does. I've had to become like that. Being a pastor has forced me to become like that. Because I've had my times where I've tried to make it happen and I've tried to do this and make it all work and launch the thing and hype up the thing and put the logo on the screen and make the thing awesome. It doesn't work. It's never worked. I've had amazing ideas that have never worked, guys. They were amazing ideas, they had to have been. Right? They just failed miserably. Which means they weren't amazing, but they were mine. And then there's been moments where I've just been walking down a hallway and it's like God just goes, and I go, Oh. Yeah. I mean, you know, community is like our version of Sunday school. It took us 20 years to figure out Sunday school, which is what I went to every day of my childhood in church. No, it's not gonna be Sunday, it's our version of that. It's a little different. It's a little different, trust me. Point is God is the initiator. In religion, he's the responder. In faith and freedom, we're the responder. Religion says you do these things and God might respond to you. Our faith is God has already loved you and chosen you and forgiven you, and he's speaking to you. So listen and hear from him, and when he speaks, you respond. But he's the one who initiates, he's the one who starts it, he's the one who's in control. We just get to listen to him. And if you're sitting there going, I am listening to him, I've tried, I don't know what to do. I'm I'm trying to listen to him in my marriage, it's not working. I'm trying to listen to him at work, it's not working. Well, I hate to give you some advice that might make you mad, but but here's what Jesus would say: keep on asking, and you'll receive what you ask for, keep on seeking and you'll find, keep on knocking, and the door will be open for everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks finds, and to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. He's just saying if you're seeking and asking and you're waiting on him to initiate and you're waiting and waiting and waiting, keep waiting. Keep asking, keep seeking, keep listening, keep searching, and God will respond. I promise you that. God will respond. He will tell you what you need. Because he's faithful. So, we have a binary choice. And we'll take Lord's Supper with this. In fact, we'll go ahead and do this now. We have a binary choice. And in many ways, that's what this represents. Like the choice Jesus made. It couldn't be either or. It wasn't the cross. Or no, it was, he chose us. It wasn't both and. He couldn't be like, can I, can I not die on the cross and still save them from all of their sin? Nope. It was either or, is what I was trying to say. Binary choice, and we're all blessed by it. We have a choice. We can choose the way of freedom and life and faith, where we listen to God and we do our best to discern from him. In the meantime, when we're not hearing from him, we we do what seems best to us based on what he teaches us in his word, but then we're always waiting and listening, and when he speaks, we move. And that that life is a free life, it is an adventure, it is stressful at times. Or we choose control, we choose religion, we choose to just settle for the rules and do it in our own way and trust that we're doing it the right way, and we're being by our own human effort, it will blah, blah, blah, it won't work. Because if that was good enough, this would not have been necessary. If that worked, Jesus would have had no reason to come. To change it, to start something new. So this meal represents a binary choice that Jesus made. It couldn't be the law and mercy, the law and grace, religion and relationship. When we take this, we are we are saying it is not about religion anymore, it is not about the rules, it's not about our performance, it's about what he did, what he accomplished changes us. So with that in mind, let's take the bread. Lord, we thank you for this bread. We thank you for what it represents. A choice that you made. You chose us. And you chose once and for all to put an end to the old way, to the law, to this way of relating to our God by how well we perform. By finding the right balance of right and wrong and sacrifice and fear. This is a different choice. The choice you made on the cross to put yourself on the cross, and this this represents your body on the cross, this piece of bread, this choice that you made freed us from that, and now we live in freedom. Or we don't have to be in control. We can let go, we can surrender, we can trust you, we can wait for you to move, and then we move with you. Give us the faith to do that, give us the trust to do that. As we take this in, Lord, we let go of control and we surrender to you. Let's take the bread. Now the Jews. Lord, we thank you for this cup. This is your blood. Spilled for us, shed for us. This is a choice that you made willingly. You changed us, Jesus. You changed everything. You ended religion and you restored relationship. Help us live in that, Lord. Help us live in that every day, waking up, knowing that we have your ear, that you love us, that you listen to us, that you're for us, that you're there to guide us and speak to us, Lord. Help us listen to you and let you be the initiator of everything, just like you initiated this whole thing. We didn't ask for this, Lord. You gave it to us. Help us live in light of that every day. We pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.