Loving God with Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength

[Music] foreign [Music] well good morning Journey Church it is uh my privilege to be with you this morning uh the first thing I wanted to do is introduce my family my wife's name is Lindsay she just turned another decade older this last week I won't tell you which decade that she turned but she had her birthday this last week which is amazing we had a great time and then we've got my kids

the oldest is Keegan is in Middle School Silas is going into fifth grade and Jonah is going into second grade so those are my my boys and my wife we just have a great time living here in Bend and you know we've been on staff with campus Crusade for Christ or crew for me this will be my 24th year being on staff so our lives have been devoted to reaching college students if you know what crew is our heart is to reach out to the next generation of young people that they would know Jesus not only that but they would impact our world for good and so all our eggs are in that basket that that we want our next Generation to know the heart of God and to spread that heart with other people and one of the things we do here in Bend is we run a Ministry underneath crew called

lifelines it's a really tough job what I do is I take students in the outdoors we go rafting rock climbing backpacking and the idea is that you know creation speaks of God's goodness goodness doesn't it when we're in the outdoors would you let God speak to you when you're in the outdoors would you as you see his glory when you see the three sisters when you float down the Deschutes would you be reminded that that's God's love letter telling you that he loves you and we want to tell that message to students right we want God to speak in one year through creation and then we're going to speak in the other year as we take students on these Outdoor Adventures and and so that's really been our passion for years that's why we live in Bend and uh and we want to invite you guys to join in and be praying for both crew and lifelines here in Bend

but you know it was about eight years ago when we moved to bend and we were looking for a church and we tried a couple different churches and then finally we we heard about this journey church and we heard it was meeting at the the basement of this nightclub and so my wife and I thought well okay let's check it out it sounds uh sounds interesting and actually sounds like maybe a place we could bring students right maybe a place that would be open to students that might be seeking uh something about their spiritual life and so we show up to the basement of I think it's called Boondocks at the time and there's about 70 people in this basement and and uh really neat community and then Keith Pastor Keith gets up to speak he's speaking on prayer again this is about eight years ago and one of the first things he said he said you know what I'm talking about prayer and I'm speaking to myself

because I'm I'm not great at prayer it's one of the things I struggle with and as soon as Keith said that I said okay this is a place for me if the pastor is willing to admit that he struggles in his spiritual life and needs to walk closer with Jesus in some areas that's a place I want to be a place where I can be authentic and true to who I am and my spiritual growth and wherever I'm at and I think that's why you're here today too so that that we were convinced that this was the place that not only we could be and grow and live but also that we could bring students so that's what's brought us to Journey what's kept us at journey is you guys the relationships that have developed and it's been such a great place for our whole family to grow and so if you're new to the family of Journey welcome if you've been here a

long time uh continue to dive in and grow in community and be a part of this community it's been quite a privilege for us that said I know Keith announced a few times that uh what he was doing is on sabbatical right now and I get the this privilege of being part of the Elder team and and we kind of pushed him out the door and we said you know what you need rest he said he needed a rest we say we want to bless you with rest so you guys know he's taking a few months off to to rest and so I thought the first thing I want to do as a member of the Elder team is I just want us to be praying so could we take a moment and just I don't know where Keith is at this point uh he's kept us in the dark and for a good reason he just needs a rest he needs to be off the grid but could we take a moment and just pray for our pastor our lead Pastor Keith so let's

pray dear Jesus thank you this morning that our lead Pastor Our Shepherd is getting some rest and God we pray that you would be meeting him in significant ways in the coming weeks even this morning God would you be speaking to him speak to him about your love speak to him about his identity speak to him about the breadth of who you are and I pray God even for his family God the Kirkpatrick family would you again be giving them Shalom rest peace and fill them up with what they need to continue the work of God that they've been called to we are so grateful uh for the stewardship of the Kingdom that you've put in his hands and

so we we just trust you with him and God we pray that he come back at the end of the summer fully refreshed and God it's in your name we pray amen all right thank you Journey Church for praying would you continue to pray for Keith now have you ever experienced a gap between what you think and what you do okay have you experienced at that Gap you're like okay it's January 1st right and you're like I want to get this diet going I want to get this rhythm in my life going and and you've read the book and you know you know what to do right and then weeks go by and it doesn't play out in your actions right we probably all felt that right you you know what you you think you know what to do but you your your loves and your passions

aren't aligned well early I think it was in the 1600s there's this guy named Renee Descartes and he was famous for saying I think therefore I am right and so that his thought has become sort of the foundation of the Western World right our our systems of Education are based on that if we can just change our thoughts if we can just know more if we can even believe more than our patterns and our actions are going to follow suit how's that going for us you know in AAA they say it's your best thinking that got you here an Alcoholics Anonymous that's one of their taglines it's your best thinking that got you here and here's the problem with that thought

you are what you think it's not true it's part of the truth but it's not the whole truth in fact I think it's more appropriate to say you are what you love you are what your passions point to you're not what you think you can think a lot of things but what you do is often very different and the problem continues because it's fed into the church right in the American church we just feel like man if you can just listen to more sermons if you can get on the podcast if you can read more books you will change how's that going for us I think there's something else we need to understand biblically about what it means to have heart change and that's what we're going to look at this morning in Mark 12. so if

you would open up to Mark 12 we're going to be in verse 28. and uh if you've been here over the last few weeks and and months we've been studying a chapter of Mark each week and so we're 12 weeks into it uh it's been an exciting journey and I think it was last week we just started this the triumphal entry passage or it might have been the week before but but Jesus is now in the story of of Mark and this biography of Jesus he's now in Jerusalem so it's it's his last week the passion week and he's in Jerusalem and he's engaging with various types of people and and he's on the way to his death on Calvary and that's where we find ourselves in verse 28.

let's jump in it says this one of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating noticing Jesus had given them a good answer he asked him of all the Commandments which is the most important the most important one answer Jesus is this hear o Israel the Lord Our God the Lord is one the Lord love the Lord with all your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength the second is this love your neighbor as yourself there is no commandment greater than these I love this well said teacher the man replied you're right in saying that God is one and there is no one but him to love him with all your heart with all your understanding and with all your strength and love your neighbor as

yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices when Jesus saw that he had answered wisely he said to him you are not far from the kingdom of God and from then on no one dared asked to ask him any more questions no one dared so here's the context we're jumping in in verse 12 and chapter 12 and verse 28 but what's happened in a few passages before if you flip your page backward is Jesus is being challenged by the religious Elite right he's being questioned just before this the Sadducees they were called who didn't believe in an afterlife we're challenging him about the afterlife and Jesus Jesus gets him he answers wisely and now we've got this uh

this teacher of the law which again I'm going to read verse 28 again it says one of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating so this guy was I can imagine him he was in maybe behind all these conversations behind the crowd and he was seeing and hearing what Jesus was saying and he was taking note I believe that's my sense he was taking note and he noticed that Jesus had given them a good answer and he asked him of all the Commandments which is most important important you know what do we notice about this teacher of the law you know he might have been lurking in the crowd and maybe he was initially skeptical maybe he's

now curious we don't really know what was going on in his heart but we do know a little bit because later on Jesus says what you're close you're close to understanding this truth that I'm offering so I want to say his heart is somewhat soft but again he must be a skeptic his whole life was based on this idea that he knew scripture right in his head he knew what to believe but Jesus just beforehand had condemned the religious Elite saying you know what you believe but it's not working itself out to the poor and to the needy you're taking advantage of them he says that to the Pharisees and and so there's a problem right with this with this religious Elite person this teacher of the law that he knew the truth but it

wasn't working itself out well maybe that's you this morning maybe you've come and you're sort of a skeptic and you're like I I Think Jesus has some answers I think he has a good answer in fact I've seen it in my spouse I've seen it in a co-worker it seems like Jesus is doing something and you've come to this place to say maybe he has an answer maybe that's you this morning that's a great place to be to come to Jesus and begin to ask him a question what's the most important thing Jesus would you ask him that question or maybe you're a die-hard skeptic and you're like I don't really believe this stuff but my friend brought me to church and and I wanted to say yes because he kept asking maybe you're that person this morning and that's okay welcome to Journey you're in good company this is a great place to be to be asking those

questions or maybe you made the decision to follow him a long time ago and you're now re-asking that question Jesus are you really there do you really have the answer I need in my situation right now well Jesus has good news for us would you listen to this verse you don't have to turn there this is Matthew 11 29. there's good news for all of us Jesus says this earlier in Matthew come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest take my yoke upon me and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light

come to me all you are weary and burdened Jesus moves toward those who labor and have a heavy burden Jesus moves towards those who have a burden in fact it's sort of a prerequisite if you want rest you've got to bring your burden you've got to bring your heavy ladeness to Jesus if you want that rest that he offers if you want that light yoke he's inviting you I wonder if the teacher of the law knew about these words from Jesus I wonder if the rule following that he had built his life upon had not given him rest I wonder if the power that he had gained as being a teacher of the law had not

given him satisfaction those things he was basing his religious life on my guess is they were laying flat in his life there was something missing and that's why he's coming to Jesus well my hope is at least that's why we're coming to Jesus you know this passage I just read this verse in Matthew 11. it's the only passage it's the only words of Jesus where he shares about his own heart in the whole Bible isn't that interesting it's the only passage where he shares about his heart and what does he say about his heart he is gentle and humble he is gentle and humble other translations say he's gentle and he's lowly so Dane ortlin says about this gentle idea that Jesus he says this Jesus is

not Trigger Happy he's not harsh he's not he's the most understanding person in the universe the posture most natural to him is not a pointed finger but it's open arms that's the posture of Jesus that's his natural posture he is gentle with you come to him with your burden come to him with your questions he's lowly the point of Jesus saying that he's lowly is that he is accessible you can come to him you know this religious Elite this uh teacher of the law Jesus could have despised him he could have shunned him he said I'm not answering your questions you're trying to trick me but he instead he invites him in he invites him in and he dialogues with

this question he says Ah you're close you're close to the kingdom just one more step and we'll talk about that in a minute you're very burden is what qualifies you to come to Jesus the thing that you're most struggling with qualifies you to come to Jesus because he has the answer for you now I want to tell you about a change in my life I've experienced in the last year partially because of that one verse you know for years I sit and I I do sort of my devotionals I read scripts in the mornings when I do uh hopefully more mornings than not but I have this certain chair it's this little other chair that sits in the corner of my bedroom and I'll sit there and I'll read and and

hopefully pray and as I think about my previous day I kind of run through my list of Lord what do I need to confess how am I doing how's my parenting how's my marriage kind of go through the list right and as I go through that list my sort of pile of struggles and sins grows because I think ah I failed in this area I could have been a better dad oh I snapped at my kids yesterday and for me I sit in this chair and I want you to picture it and this is just all in my head but I picture this sort of pile of sin that grows or the pile of failures that grows and my view for years even being a Christ follower was that God was was kind of 10 feet behind that and even Jesus I had his face on this and he

would look at that sin and he'd say yeah you really did screw up yeah that was you know you struggled with that yesterday you you ought to work on that and and I knew the truth that God loves me and he's forgiven me and and I was a Believer but I still saw that face of Jesus looking at that pile of sin and sort of not discussed but sort of annoyance like man you could really do better Brent why don't you try harder next time but as I've discovered the true face of Jesus that he is humble and lowly I've begun to change that image and I love my new image my new image is Jesus is not looking at that Sin from afar he's walked this is going to put me into tears each

time I share he's walked around my sin and he's linking arms with me he's looking at that sin he's saying Brent let's get over that together I'm I'm not I'm not afraid of that sin that doesn't scare me away let's partner and let's get let's do this together [Applause] and that's my new picture of how we walk with the Holy Spirit next to us and we get over that sin he is gentle and lowly your sin and your suffering and your your struggling do not repel Jesus your sin and your suffering do not repel Jesus it brings him near you know he was a friend to the sinners you know he wasn't a friend to people that hid their sin so let's begin to expose our sin and be

a friend to Jesus right let's let's do it with him not with his eyes in scorn which is not the true vision of him you know it's kind of like this doctor that um had researched this tribe in South America it's not a true story but let's say there's this tribe in South America that had this contagious disease and no one could figure out what was wrong with this tribe but this doctor on his own he was independently wealthy he studied this tribe and he did the science to figure out what was the problem with this disease and he came up with a cure right so he hops on a plane puts all his equipment sets up a a medical station flies in and has the Cure for these people and he arrives and he sets up the

station he says okay hires a translator come on over I've got the Cure I've spent my my last few few years of my life preparing this cure but what happened the tribe's people they don't come they're afraid they want to do it on their own they want to fix using the remedies that they've tried for years that haven't worked think about the heart of that doctor how saddened he would be to have this cure and no one be willing to try it out but then one by one the people of this Village come to him and they receive the Cure right and they're transformed their health is recovered think about the joy The Joy would be on the face of that doctor that had spent all those years they're finally

receiving it they're finally receiving this gift of my toil and their lives are being changed when you come to Jesus with your sin your failure and your struggle can you believe this it brings some Joy it brings him joy that he can he can you can use the gift that he sent his son that Jesus died on the cross to provide to you it brings in joy when you come to him that that thought is transforming me your sin and your suffering do not repel Jesus well let's see how Jesus responds so in verse 29 Jesus says this the most important one the most important law is this answered Jesus hear o Israel the Lord Our God the

Lord is one love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength the second is this love your neighbor as yourself there is no commandment greater than these well I think Jesus says love the Lord your God with all your heart mind and strength and the Scribe or the the teacher of the law is like cool I got that one I've been doing that my whole life I've got the Torah memorized I've followed all 633 laws I'm good and then Jesus says and it's interesting he says there's there's one law the most important one but he adds a second he says the second is love than your neighbor as yourself and I think at that point the teacher of the law says oh

hmm yeah that one I've not gotten right Jesus has pointed out for for years really to the Pharisees and religious Elites you're not religious Elite you're not getting that one right so I can imagine his head just dropping saying I think you got me Jesus well the first statement was out of the small so this religious Elite person would have recited that every morning so he knew that real well my question is what was the disconnect what was the disconnect they loved God it's my sense with their mind but it hasn't hadn't trickled down to their heart it hadn't changed their actions it hadn't changed their loves and their desires right the Pharisees loved

power they loved money they love to be in control their loves had not been changed by their thoughts and what they were learning proverbs 4 23 says this Above All Else guard your heart for everything you do flows from it that's the biblical concept concept of growth right our heart is what changes us JK Smith is an author and he says this it's kind of a long quote but follow with me because I love it it says Jesus is a teacher who doesn't just inform our intellect but forms our very loves he isn't content to Simply deposit new ideas into your mind he is after nothing less than our wants our loves and our

longings his teaching doesn't just touch the calm cool collected space of reflection and contemplation which again those are good things but it doesn't stop there he is a teacher who invades the heated passionate regions of our heart so discipleship is more a matter of hungering and thirsting than of knowing and believing Jesus command to follow him is a command to align our lives and our longings with him to want what God wants to desire what God desires and to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all that's true discipleship we've got to see God change not just our our mind and and let me be clear it doesn't mean we

leave our mind to the side we keep pushing into our mind we learn as much as we can but we don't stop there we've got to force that to go from our mind to our heart right and so how do we do that how do we do that there's a lot of ways but you guys remember back in the day or maybe they still do I haven't done this in a long time where you used to put coins in the Coke machine like quarters and it was back when a Coke was like 50 cents and now I don't know is it two or three dollars to get a Coke machine or a Coke uh well let's let's just say we still put quarters in the in the Coke machine well inevitably what would happen right you put your four quarters in or your two back in the day and nothing happens like ah it took my quarters so what do you do you bang on it you bang on the Coke

machine you gotta do it right because you want those quarters to drop so this is Tim Keller says this you've got to have the quarters drop in your Christian Life some of you are like me I've got years and years I grew up in the church the quarters have been deposited every week every month at summer camp reading books hearing sermons the quarters are in there and that's a great place to be but if the quarters don't drop No Coke comes out it's sort of worthless right so what we ought to do what we got to do is start banging on the Coke machine we gotta bang on the Coke machine of our life until the quarters drop and our lives begin to change well how do we do that well first we've got to change our habits we've got to form our loves

you know coming to church on Sundays is awesome I don't know how long is our service last an hour and a half about that's great you need to come in here and you need to get some quarters but the rest of the week your job is to bang on that Coke machine you say okay what I learned on Sunday how am I going to apply this what am I going to do to make this real in my life so that it just doesn't change my mind but it changed my loves my passions how do you do that sometimes it's as simple as spending a few minutes every morning reading studying scripture thinking about your day acknowledging that God is God and you are not you're not in control of your day as much as you think you are you've got your schedule god presides over that you have your your relationships God presides over all that

you've got to start your morning and say God you are God for a year my habit was I'm going to wake up the first thing I'm going to do before I I have to hit my phone to know what time it is but other than that I'm not going to touch my phone until I acknowledge that I need the Holy Spirit to fill my life today for him to empower me for my day whether it's a busy day or if it's a vacation day I need the Holy Spirit to live inside of me maybe that's you this year you need to make that decision before I touch my phone apart from figuring out what time it is because your alarm just went off you need to acknowledge that you need Jesus you need the Holy Spirit to fill you maybe it's something simple like that maybe it's getting into Community that's a big one we've got to be around people that are pointing us to Jesus to form

our loves and even we've got to ask these hard questions how am I doing when you see my life maybe it's your spouse maybe it's a good friend would you speak into my life we are so afraid to get feedback typically right because we're fragile we don't understand that Jesus loves us in our mess right he's not waiting us for us to get better so we need to ask others knowing that Jesus loves us in our mess would you show and point out some things about my mess that I can learn about myself we've got to be in community not just friends we've got to be in community of people that give us healthy feedback that would be another step to take to form our loves maybe it's listening to music that stirs your heart there's a list of things right spiritual disciplines that begin to align our hearts but it's thinking about what are the habits you have that

not only form your intellect but your loves the second thing I want you to do is I want you to evaluate what is already forming your loves okay so again an hour and a half at church a lot of hours outside of church what are you doing with those hours so I looked this up I had to look it up right on the internet how many hours are we spending on social media the average American with internet spends two and a half hours on social media a day okay so what's that 14 15 16 hours a day I mean a week and then how many hours we spend on Netflix I don't know how many hours we're at work Jesus is never going to have a chance to form our loves if he gets an hour and a half on Sunday and a few 10-minute spots during the week and he's competing

against hours and hours and hours of phones social media Internet TV and I don't mean to be the Binger bringer of bad news and add more rules to your life but I want you to ask the question what is forming the loves in your life you know there are two young fish swimming in water one time and uh the old an old fish swims by these two younger fish and the old fish says how's the water this morning and the two younger fish say what the heck is water right what are we they don't know they're swimming in water right they don't know the currents they're living in and I think that's so true in our lives is we've got to ask the question what is the water we're swimming in what is the cultural temperament we're

what are we listening to what are we invested in as those things are forming our loves also so ask that question what is forming my heart and then the third thing I want you to do is I want you to begin to go to God as a doctor and not a pharmacist see if that makes sense when you go to your pharmacist what do you do you say okay I've got the answer I know what I need here it is and would you please give it to me right that's what we do at a pharmacist good thing to do right if you have the medicine you know the answer but we often do that to God don't we we say God I appreciate maybe your input in this area of my life but I'm pretty sure I know what I need so would you just give that to me like this new thing would really make me feel better and and that would fix me so would you just do that but instead God invites us to come to

him as the doctor and say God I don't know what I need I got this problem relationally this is tough or I'm suffering in this area or maybe I'm just bored and I'm struggling to live a life that has purpose and meaning God you're the doctor you tell me what what I need and then I'll ask for it how about we change our view of how we interact with God he is not a pharmacist he's not a golden sin a Heavenly Santa Claus that just wants to give you what you want he wants to give you what's best for you and that requires coming to him as a doctor so would you love God with all your heart would you approach God like this person did like this teacher

did would you approach him even if you're skeptical come to Jesus and then would you love him not with your mind but also with your heart and finally would you enjoy God so let's see how the teacher of the law responds in this case he says this in verse 32. well said teacher the man replied you are right in saying that God is one there is no other but him to love him with all your heart with all your understanding and with all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself then he says this is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices interesting he adds that when Jesus saw that he had answered wisely he said to him you are not far from the kingdom of God

and from then on no one dared ask him any more questions so what's happening in this passage this man is realizing that the kingdom of God is not about earning God's acceptance through actions it's not about the religious law it's not about making these sacrifices and these burnt offerings and Jesus says you're close you're close to understanding the gospel the true nature of why I came you're close and we hope and pray right that this teacher of Allah the end of the story we don't know I hope he was so close that when he saw Jesus on the cross a few days later he would say I get it finally I get it it's about Jesus sacrifice for

my sin not about my sacrifice for my sin it's about what he did the price that he paid on the cross I hope he got it listen to this because of Jesus you can never be loved anymore by God than you are right now because of Jesus you also can never be loved any less than you are right now by God deeply loves you and guess what he's not impressed by by your Deeds he's not impressed by your Deeds but he deeply loves you but he's not impressed by your Deeds your deeds in in Isaiah 64 says your best Deeds are like filthy rags he deeply loves you but he's not impressed with your works with your

attempts to please him he's impressed with his son who has already pleased him and you get to be wrapped up in that if you decide to follow Jesus God deeply loves you the second is you already have every blessing listen to this Ephesians 1 3 says praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us if you're wrapped up in Jesus in The Heavenly Realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ he's already given us every blessing we don't need to keep working for him to work for his Blessing God is not a inner International God where you make a deposit and he gives you a withdrawal because you've done good right he's already blessed you with every spiritual blessing that you need

to walk in a way that honors him the problem is we don't see God that way I don't see the god that way very often I see him as a transactional God lord if I just pray a little more that means things are going to go well in this area of my life Lord I I'm I'm studying your scripture right things should go well for me that's not how he works he already loves you you don't need to please him anymore his son has done that for you you just walk in Jesus place well how does Jesus respond he says you are not far and my question is this maybe maybe Jesus would say that to you this morning you're not far from the truth but I want to invite you into the truth deeper he's saying that to you this

morning right he's saying you're not far from the truth you love me and you're beginning to turn some of your actions towards me but you need to understand deeper my love it's sort of this this idea and I think this is the struggle of this teacher of the law it's this idea between belief and trust or faith belief and trust or faith my sense is this this teacher the law had plenty of belief right but he hadn't trusted it it's we're going to say it's like the stool okay if I put the stool out and I say yes I believe that stool is going to hold me right that's this idea of belief but there's really no action involved I can believe that all day and nothing changes

but the challenge is to say yes this holds me and yes I'm going to sit on this chair and Trust in what I already believe yeah I think the problem with this this teacher the law is he was pointing at the chair saying yeah I believe in the chair but Jesus says you're close you haven't sat in the chair yet and so this morning can I invite you if you are a person who said yeah I think I believe in this sort of Christian idea I believe in Jesus I've been to church you know I do Easter Christmas and maybe Beyond because you're here this morning but God was Jesus might say to you you're close you need to sit in the chair you need to give me my whole life you need to try your whole life you need to trust me with everything you have

so as I was saying one of my roles is to be an outdoor guide for college students and again Point them to Jesus and one of my favorite things to do I'm kind of a river rat so I love getting on the river and rafting so again one of my roles is to to guide a raft and so you can imagine the the rivers we go down I've been down too many times to count uh LED multiple groups of students down them but inevitably what happens every time I take a group of students I give them the whole talk like here's all the safety issues but what you really need to focus on is the guide listen to your guide when he says paddle if it's me in this case when I say paddle you paddle if I don't say paddle what do you do don't paddle so what happens of course the rivers come in the rapid is coming down the river they see this white water and I

haven't said to pass say to paddle yet right but what they do is they start getting and I run the raft sideways because you can't steer a raft unless you're going one way or the other I can't steer it if we're going straight down so they freak out because we're going sideways and the Rapids are down that way okay so what do they do they put a paddle in and start paddling say no I didn't say paddle okay so then they stop paddling and then the rapid comes I say okay now it's time to paddle there's a bunch of white water we're getting splashed dig in hard what happens paddles out of the water and they're holding on to that handle for dear life the very opposite thing I had just taught him the half hour before in my safety talk well I think that's so true of us in life right God has designed sort of our River of Life he knows the Rapids he's

the guide in our life the holy spirit is telling us when to paddle and when not to but so often in our life Jesus says you're close but you don't fully have it and instead of of not paddling when Jesus says Hey be calm relax know that I am God right be still Psalm 46 10 and and just wait for it I'm going to do the work you don't have to strive and work and do your thing just relax that's when we tend to put in our Palace oh no Lord I need it I need to do my thing here this is a tough spot to be in or the Opposites too right God says go here go do this thing go talk to this person make this hard decision and we say no Lord I'm taking my paddle out that looks too scary

but Jesus says I'm the guide and not only do I know these Rapids I've created the river for you I know the best way to get down this River isn't that ridiculous that the students that have been down this River zero times don't trust the guy that's been down a hundred times and knows how to get down the river safely well it's not ridiculous when we look at our own lives because we do the exact same thing with Jesus don't we so the invitation is to let God be God you know you can keep testing him he's going to be faithful to his promises he invites you in no matter what your stance is whether you're whether you're a teacher of the law you're a skeptic whether you're you're challenging Jesus the invitation is there to come to Jesus so would you do three things would you approach God he's gentle and lowly

would you love God with your whole heart and would you just enjoy God would you stop trying to earn his acceptance and his approval because he already approves of you because of his son he's not impressed with your Deeds just enjoy him just enjoy him so my final thought there's this guy named Copernicus some of you might know who he was in the 1500s what he was known for is before that time the idea was that the solar system revolved essentially around the earth right so the Earth is Earth Centric so we're here and you know it's so selfish of us to think this way right but it was for years we thought oh the sun just revolves around us right we're the

center of the universe but then Copernicus who is actually just a mathematician he wasn't an astronomer but he came up with this idea and here's the problem is the math never made sense the math never made sense with this idea that it was earth-centric that everything revolved around the Earth and so Copernicus said actually I think it might revolve around the Sun in fact all the planets and Earth included might revolve around the sun and so he wrote this paper but in the meantime he actually had a stroke he finished his paper and he woke up from a stroke just so for a few minutes to see that his paper was published but it didn't get any notoriety so it wasn't for years later that people re-picked up his theory that oh yeah maybe it actually is true maybe the math works

out better that the Earth revolves around the Sun and I want to propose to you this morning that our lives are not going to make sense until we change the dynamic of how where our lives revolve around right our lives have to revolve around the sun the sun Jesus for the math to make sense for for relationships to work for perspective for Hope to apply we've got to revolve around the Sun and I think that's Jesus's challenges he says love God with all your heart and your mind and your strength all that you are you point that towards Jesus the center of your universe and then things start to make sense that doesn't mean your life's going to be perfect

in fact Jesus says it's actually going to be harder that there could be more suffering that there could be more pain but in the midst of that pain and suffering it's going to make sense there's going to be hope there's going to be Joy so would you change your perspective that that God doesn't revolve around you you revolve around him and as you do that life will begin to change your passions your loves your perspective your relationships they begin to change that's the invitation this morning I think that's the invitation of Mark 12 and that continues to be the invitation as we see Jesus moving towards the cross let's pray this morning [Music]

father God would you align our hearts with your heart you're so good you love us so much you are not repelled by our sin our suffering or struggling you invite us in and you keep inviting us in and God we're going to struggle this week would we see you link with us arm and arm to look at that struggle that sin that suffering and would we go towards it together to grow in you there is no condemnation for those that know Jesus and walk in him there's no condemnation you invite us to be close to you God thank you for the price you paid that we have that privilege to be known and accepted by you God it costs you everything far be it from us to shun that gift and

not accept it God would we be willing acceptance of your love God change our hearts don't just change our mind would you change our heart that we would know you better and better each day thank you this morning for your love in your name we pray amen